Black Gate

Red Right Hand is the debut novel from Atlanta writer Levi Black. Jonathan Maberry calls it “A perfect blend of old-school horror and modern storytelling sorcery… absolutely riveting!”

Charlie Tristan Moore isn’t a hero. She’s a survivor. Already wrestling with the demons of her past, she finds herself tested as never before when she arrives home one night to find herself under attack by three monstrous skinhounds straight out of a nightmare. Just as hope seems lost, she is saved by a sinister Man in Black, dressed in a long, dark coat that seems to possess a life of its own and wielding a black-bladed sword in his grisly red right hand.

But her rescue comes at a cost. The Man in Black, a diabolical Elder God, demands she become his Acolyte and embrace a dark magick she never knew she possessed. To ensure her obedience, he takes her friend and possible love, Daniel, in thrall as a hostage. Now she must join The Man in Black in his crusade to track down and destroy his fellow Elder Gods, supposedly to save humanity from being devoured for all eternity.

But is The Man in Black truly the lesser of two evils – or a menace far more treacherous than the eldritch horrors she’s battling in his name?

I first heard of it at the B&N blog, in Jeff Somers’s post “The Long Arm of Lovecraft: 8 Books That Probe the Mythos,” which also examines Ruthanna Emrys’ The Litany of Earth, Jacqueline Baker’s The Broken Hours, and Nick Mamatas’ I Am Providence. On Red Right Hand, Jeff says:

Charlie… survives an attack by a trio of monstrous skinhounds thanks to the intervention of the Man in Black, whose long coats swirls with a mind of its own and whose grisly red right hand clutches a black blade. The Man in Black is in fact an Elder God, and he enlists Charlie’s help in destroying his peers, claiming to be trying to save mankind. Charlie dives into the fray, unsure if there’s such a thing as the “lesser of two evils” when it comes to Lovecraftian creatures. Readers will be sucked in by the bravado writing.

Red Right Hand will be published by Tor Books on July 26, 2016. It is 304 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital edition. Read an excerpt here.

I quite enjoy Nina Allen’s regular column in Interzone magazine. Which I guess is kind of an odd way to introduce her, but it’s true. She’s also a fine short story writer who’s earned a lot of accolades in a short period of time — including the British Science Fiction BSFA Award, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, and the Aeon Award. She’s been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award four times, and was a finalist for the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award.

The Race is her first novel. It was first published in the UK by NewCon, a small press. Tor.com described it as “a progressive sci-fi novel set in a future Great Britain scarred by fracking and ecological collapse,” and Kirkus Reviews praised it as “a brilliantly weird world that’s utterly riveting.” Titan Books is re-issuing it in trade paperback in the UK and the US this month, with a knockout new cover designed by Julia Lloyd. Here’s the description.

A child is kidnapped with consequences that extend across worlds… A writer reaches into the past to discover the truth about a possible murder… Far away a young woman prepares for her mysterious future…

In a future scarred by fracking and ecological collapse, Jenna Hoolman’s world is dominated by illegal smartdog racing: greyhounds genetically modified with human DNA. When her young niece goes missing that world implodes… Christy’s life is dominated by fear of her brother, a man she knows capable of monstrous acts and suspects of hiding even darker ones. Desperate to learn the truth she contacts Alex, who has his own demons to fight… And Maree, a young woman undertaking a journey that will change her world forever.

The Race will be published by Titan Books on July 19, 2016. It is 400 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd. Read a brief excerpt from Chapter One at Tor.com.

Jonathan Strahan has edited some extremely impressive anthologies. In fact, we assessed his recent Meeting Infinity as the most successful anthology of 2016 (using our own highly subjective yardstick, of course.) His latest, Drowned Worlds, contains all-original fiction by some of the biggest names in SF, including Kim Stanley Robinson, Ken Liu, Paul McAuley, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Rachel Swirsky, Charlie Jane Anders, Lavie Tidhar, Jeffrey Ford, and James Morrow, and it promises to be just as interesting. On his Coode Street blog, Jonathan summarizes it thusly:

I think it’s sharp, pointed, timely and sometimes satirical. I think it’s about who we are when faced with disaster, and not about disaster. I think it makes for good reading.

Here’s the publisher’s take:

Last call for the Gone World…

We live in a time of change. The Anthropocene Age – the time when human-induced climate change radically reshapes the world – is upon us. Sea water is flooding the streets of Florida, island nations are rapidly disappearing beneath the waves, the polar icecaps are a fraction of what they once were, and distant, exotic places like Australia are slowly baking in the sun.

Drowned Worlds asks fifteen of the top science fiction and fantasy writers working today to look to the future, to ask how will we survive? Do we face a period of dramatic transition and then a new technology-influenced golden age, or a long, slow decline? Swim the drowned streets of Boston, see Venice disappear beneath the waves, meet a woman who’s turned herself into a reef, traverse the floating garbage cities of the Pacific, search for the elf stones of Antarctica, or spend time in the new, dark Dust Bowl of the American mid-west. See the future for what it is: challenging, exciting, filled with adventure, and more than a little disturbing.

Whether here on Earth or elsewhere in our universe, Drowned Worlds give us a glimpse of a new future, one filled with romance and adventure, all while the oceans rise…

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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I really enjoy dark fantasy and horror, but my hands are full just keeping up with the latest fantasy magazines and anthologies. It’s almost impossible to simultaneously stay on top of the excellent work being done in horror, in magazines like Sirenia Digest, Lackington’s, The Dark, and Nightmare, and anthologies like Aickman’s Heirs, Innsmouth Nightmares, Horrorology, Sing Me Your Scars, and many others.

That’s why I’m so grateful to editor Paula Guran, whose excellent Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror volumes — published every year since 2010 — have guided me towards the writers and editors doing really exemplary work. I look forward to new editions every year, and this year’s installment arrives in trade paperback from Prime Books next week.

Macabre meetings, sinister excursions, and deadly relationships; uncanny encounters; a classic ghost story featuring an American god; a historical murderer revived in a frightening new iteration; innovative Lovecraftian turns; shadowy fairy tales and weird myths; strange children, the unexpected, the supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real… tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, these stories are as eclectic and varied as shadows. This volume of 2015’s best dark fantasy and horror offers more than 500 pages of tales from some of today’s finest writers of the fantastique — sure to delight as well as disturb.

This year’s volume contains 30 short stories by Kelley Armstrong, Dale Bailey, Gemma File, Neil Gaiman, John Langan, Ken Liu, Seanan McGuire, Kelly Robson, Sofia Samatar, John Shirley, Angela Slatter, Catherynne M. Valente, Damien Angelica Walters, Kai Ashante Wilson, and many others.

Here’s the complete table of contents.

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I pretty much rode out the zombie horror wave without too much trauma. Zombies don’t scare me. Ditto for the paranormal romance boom a decade ago. Vampire, werewolves, and ghouls never really scared me much, either.

You know what does scare me? Spiders. Big, hairy, creepy spiders. Gahhh, I get the creeps just typing that. And now comes the debut horror novel by Ezekiel Boone, the terrifying tale of the emergence of an ancient species, dormant for over a thousand years, on the march once more. Andrew Pyper (The Damned and The Demonologist) calls it “old school global plague horror of the freakiest sort. A deft and nasty thriller,” and that’s good enough for me. The Hatching will be available in hardcover next week.

Deep in the jungle of Peru, where so much remains unknown, a black, skittering mass devours an American tourist whole. Thousands of miles away, an FBI agent investigates a fatal plane crash in Minneapolis and makes a gruesome discovery. Unusual seismic patterns register in a Kanpur, India earthquake lab, confounding the scientists there. During the same week, the Chinese government “accidentally” drops a nuclear bomb in an isolated region of its own country. As these incidents begin to sweep the globe, a mysterious package from South America arrives at a Washington, D.C. laboratory. Something wants out.

The world is on the brink of an apocalyptic disaster. An ancient species, long dormant, is now very much awake.

The Hatching will be published by Emily Bestler Books on July 5, 2016. It is $26 in hardcover, and $9.99 for the digital edition.

Robert Kroese is the author of Mercury Falls, Starship Grifters, and Disenchanted. His latest novel is a science fiction noir that reads like it takes place in the same L.A. as Blade Runner (except it’s a lot funnier). It follows two very different private investigators as they track an extremely valuable genetically engineered sheep through a dystopian future L.A. Worth checking out.

Los Angeles of 2039 is a baffling and bifurcated place. After the Collapse of 2028, a vast section of LA, the Disincorporated Zone, was disowned by the civil authorities, and became essentially a third world country within the borders of the city. Navigating the boundaries between DZ and LA proper is a tricky task, and there’s no one better suited than eccentric private investigator Erasmus Keane. When a valuable genetically altered sheep mysteriously goes missing from Esper Corporation’s labs, Keane is the one they call.

But while the erratic Keane and his more grounded partner, Blake Fowler, are on the trail of the lost sheep, they land an even bigger case. Beautiful television star Priya Mistry suspects that someone is trying to kill her — and she wants Keane to find out who. When Priya vanishes and then reappears with no memory of having hired them, Keane and Fowler realize something very strange is going on. As they unravel the threads of the mystery, it soon becomes clear that the two cases are connected — and both point to a sinister conspiracy involving the most powerful people in the city. Saving Priya and the sheep will take all of Keane’s wits and Fowler’s skills, but in the end, they may discover that some secrets are better left hidden.

The Big Sheep will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on June 28, 2016. It is 308 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by David Curtis. Click the images above for bigger versions.