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See the Table of Contents for The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One, edited by Neil Clarke

See the Table of Contents for The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One, edited by Neil Clarke

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year Neil Clarke-smallI’m always pleased to see a new Best of the Year volume join the ranks — especially when it comes from Neil Clarke, one of the most gifted editors in the field. As regular readers of Black Gate are aware, Neil is the Editor-in-Chief and publisher of Clarkesworld and Forever magazines, and he’s been awarded three Hugo Awards, a World Fantasy Award, and a British Fantasy Award. He has a keen and very discerning eye for the best in modern short fiction.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One kicks off a handsome new annual series from Night Shade. It’s a thick (512 page) volume, to be released in trade paperback and digital editions this June. It contains 31 short stories, novelettes, and novellas from Aliette de Bodard, Ann Leckie, Carrie Vaughn, David Brin, Geoff Ryman, Ian McDonald, Ken Liu, Nancy Kress, Paul McAuley, Robert Reed, Seanan McGuire, and many others. Here’s the book description.

To keep up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more — a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the inaugural volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a new yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy award–winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor in chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year’s writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome “sensawunda” that the genre has to offer.

And here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Future Treasures: The Pagan Night by Tim Akers

Future Treasures: The Pagan Night by Tim Akers

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The Pagan Night-small

Tim Akers has written some acclaimed fantasy — including The Horns of Ruin and The Burn Cycle (Heart of Veridon, Dead of Veridon, and the collection Bones of Veridon) — but epic fantasy is something new. He’s jumped in in a major way, with the impending release of The Pagan Night, the 605-page opening volume of The Hallowed War, which Booklist sums up as “high adventure, great characters, suspense, and dramatic plot shifts… an engaging, fast-paced entry in a popular subgenre.” You can read the brief book summary by clicking on the image above… by why do that when you can get the full, five-paragraph version at Tim’s website?

The second volume in the series, The Iron Hound, is scheduled to be released in January of next year, and The Winter Vow in January 2018. In the meantime, you can find the opening volume at your favorite bookstores on January 19, courtesy of Titan Books. It is 605 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Alejandro Colucci, and the interior maps (yay, maps!) are by David Pope.

Future Treasures: This Census-Taker by China Miéville

Future Treasures: This Census-Taker by China Miéville

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This Census-Taker-smallChina Miéville is one of the most acclaimed modern fantasy writers on the market. His novel The City & the City won the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards in 2010, and his novels Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council were all nominated for both the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. That’s a damned impressive record.

His latest book is a long novella that’s been called “A thought-provoking fairy tale for adults” (Booklist). It will be released in hardcover by Del Rey next week.

In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a profoundly traumatic event. He tries — and fails — to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape.

When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over.

But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether?

Filled with beauty, terror, and strangeness, This Census-Taker is a poignant and riveting exploration of memory and identity.

This Census-Taker will be published by Del Rey on January 12, 2016. It is 224 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital edition.

See all our coverage of the best in upcoming fantasy here.

The Winds of Winter Won’t Arrive Before Season Six

The Winds of Winter Won’t Arrive Before Season Six

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Martin The Winds of Winter-smallLate yesterday, George R.R. Martin confirmed that the sixth volume of his epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire will not be published before the new season of Game of Thrones debuts on HBO. The Winds of Winter was scheduled to arrive in March, before GoT debuts in mid-April, and Martin’s publisher Bantam reportedly had ramped up to fast-track the book for publication, as long as Martin delivered the manuscript by December 31. On his blog yesterday, Martin confirmed he’d blown the deadline, and that the official publication date is now up in the air.

Here it is, the first of January. The book is not done, not delivered. No words can change that. I tried, I promise you. I failed… I worked on the book a couple of days ago, revising a Theon chapter and adding some new material, and I will writing on it again tomorrow. But no, I can’t tell you when it will be done, or when it will be published. Best guess, based on our previous conversations, is that Bantam (and presumably my British publisher as well) can have the hardcover out within three months of delivery, if their schedules permit. But when delivery will be, I can’t say. I am not going to set another deadline for myself to trip over. The deadlines just stress me out…

I never thought the series could possibly catch up with the books, but it has. The show moved faster than I anticipated and I moved more slowly. There were other factors too, but that was the main one. Given where we are, inevitably, there will be certain plot twists and reveals in season six of Game of Thrones that have not yet happened in the books. For years my readers have been ahead of the viewers. This year, for some things, the reverse will be true. How you want to handle that… hey, that’s up to you.

While Martin has been notoriously slow with the last books in the series (it’s now been almost five years since the release of the fifth volume, A Dance With Dragons; that book appeared six years after A Feast for Crows), he’s worked hard to keep fans updated. And earlier this year, he released excerpts from Winds as a gift to fans. Just two books remain in the series, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring; Martin has indicated that both will be massive (1,500 manuscript pages each).

Future Treasures: The Drowning Eyes by Emily Foster

Future Treasures: The Drowning Eyes by Emily Foster

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The Drowning Eyes-smallTor.com‘s new lines of novellas was one of the biggest publishing stories of last year. Launched in September 2015 with Kai Ashante Wilson’s highly-regarded The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, Tor.com released a novella every week for ten weeks, including titles by Paul Cornell, Nnedi Okorafor, and K. J. Parker.

With the arrival of the new year, Tor.com kicks off another ambitious publishing round with The Drowning Eyes, the debut release from Emily Foster, a “magic- and wind-filled adventure, peopled with excellent and strong characters” (Fran Wilde) in which apprentice Windspeaker Shina must return her people’s power to them before the Dragon Ships destroy everything.

When the Dragon Ships began to tear through the trade lanes and ravage coastal towns, the hopes of the arichipelago turned to the Windspeakers on Tash. The solemn weather-shapers with their eyes of stone can steal the breeze from raiders’ sails and save the islands from their wrath. But the Windspeakers’ magic has been stolen, and only their young apprentice Shina can bring their power back and save her people.

Tazir has seen more than her share of storms and pirates in her many years as captain, and she’s not much interested in getting involved in the affairs of Windspeakers and Dragon Ships. Shina’s caught her eye, but that might not be enough to convince the grizzled sailor to risk her ship, her crew, and her neck.

See the complete list of Tor.com novellas we’ve covered so far below.

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Cover Reveal: The Forgetting Moon by Brian Lee Durfee

Cover Reveal: The Forgetting Moon by Brian Lee Durfee

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The Forgetting Moon-small

Saga Press’ 2016 line up promises to be stellar, with titles from Kat Howard, A. Lee Martinez, Genevieve Valentine, and many others. In the past few weeks we’ve given you peeks at upcoming books such as Mike Brooks’ “Firefly-like” space opera Dark Run, Joe Zieja’s military SF novel Mechanical Failure, and Black Gate author Frederic S. Durbin’s A Green and Ancient Light.

This week we take a look at Brian Lee Durfee’s debut fantasy novel The Forgetting Moon, the opening book in The Five Warrior Angels series, on sale from Saga Press July 5, 2016.

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Future Treasures: First and Last Sorcerer by Barb and J.C. Hendee

Future Treasures: First and Last Sorcerer by Barb and J.C. Hendee

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First and Last Sorcerer-smallBarb and J.C. Hendee began The Noble Dead series with Dhampir way back in January 2003. Since then they’ve released a dozen additional books in the series, and the fourteenth and final volume, The Night Voice, is scheduled to arrive in hardcover on January 6th.

The same day, Roc will release the penultimate book, First and Last Sorcerer, in paperback for the first time. For those pragmatists who wait until an entire series is in print before they pick up the first volume, your day has finally come. Check out one of the most popular series on the market, which Publishers Weekly calls “A crowd-pleasing mix of intrigue, epic fantasy, and horror.”

Waylaid in their quest for the orb of the Air, Magiere, Leesil, Chap, and Wayfarer have all been wrongly imprisoned. But it is Magiere, the dhampir, who suffers the most at the hands of a cloaked interrogator employing telepathic torture.

Arriving at the Suman port city in search of Magiere, Wynn Hygeorht and her companions — including vampire Chane Andraso — seek out the Domin Ghassan il’Sänke for assistance, which proves no easy task. The domin is embroiled in a secret hunt for a spectral undead with the power to invade anyone living and take the body as its host.

Even if Wynn manages to free her friends from prison, battling this entirely new kind of hidden undead may be a challenge none of them can survive…

First and Last Sorcerer was published in hardcover by ROC on January 6, 2015, and will be reprinted in mass market paperback on January 5, 2016. It is 395 pages, priced at $7.99, or $12.99 for the digital version. The cover artist is uncredited.

Future Treasures: Midnight Taxi Tango by Daniel José Older

Future Treasures: Midnight Taxi Tango by Daniel José Older

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Midnight Taxi Tango-smallDaniel José Older’s first Bone Street Rumba novel, Half-Resurrection Blues, was one of the most acclaimed novels of the year, selected as one of the Best Fantasy Books of 2015 by BuzzFeed, Barnes & Noble, and other fine establishments.

The second in the series, Midnight Taxi Tango, will be released in paperback next month. If you’re a regular reader at Tor.com, you’ve probably already sampled it, as portions were originally published there as three original short stories: “Anyway: Angie,” “Kia and Gio,” and “Ginga.”

The streets of New York are hungry tonight…

Carlos Delacruz straddles the line between the living and the not-so alive. As an agent for the Council of the Dead, he eliminates New York’s ghostlier problems. This time it’s a string of gruesome paranormal accidents in Brooklyn’s Von King Park that has already taken the lives of several locals — and is bound to take more.

The incidents in the park have put Kia on edge. When she first met Carlos, he was the weird guy who came to Baba Eddie’s botánica, where she worked. But the closer they’ve gotten, the more she’s seeing the world from Carlos’s point of view. In fact, she’s starting to see ghosts. And the situation is far more sinister than that — because whatever is bringing out the dead, it’s only just getting started.

Midnight Taxi Tango will be published by Roc on January 5, 2016. It is 322 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital versions. Sadly, the gorgeous cover art is uncredited.

Read the first chapter at Tor.com.

The Cover and TOC for Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016

The Cover and TOC for Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016

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The Years Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016Ten years ago Rich Horton, who’d already published several highly detailed survey articles in the print edition of Black Gate (including “Building the Fantasy Canon: the Classic Anthologies of Genre Fantasy” and “The Big Little SF Magazines of the 1970s”) wrote the first installment of what was to become a highly ambitious series: Rich Horton’s Virtual Best of the Year.

Rich surveyed virtually every piece of short fiction published in the genre in 2005 (an astounding 9.5+ million words), and compiled a list of the best, and we published it here at Black Gate. He repeated that feat in 2006 and 2007, and his reports on the field became more in-depth and insightful each year.

In 2006, Rich also began publishing two anthologies with Prime Books: Fantasy: The Best of the Year and Science Fiction: The Best of the Year. In 2009 those books merged into one massive volume, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, which quickly became one of the most respected and acclaimed anthology series in our industry. It has been published every year since.

Last week Prime Books released the cover of the 2016 edition (at right, click for bigger version), the eighth volume in the series, alongside the Table of Contents. This one contains fiction from C.S.E. Cooney, Kelly Link, Vonda M. McIntyre, Catherynne M. Valente, Naomi Kritzer, Seanan McGuire, Chaz Brenchley, Elizabeth Bear, Ian McDonald, Geoff Ryman, Genevieve Valentine, and many others.

Here’s the complete TOC.

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Future Treasures: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

Future Treasures: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

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The Ballad of Black Tom-smallTor.com‘s first book in their new premium novella line, Kai Ashante Wilson’s The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, made several Best of the Year lists for 2015. The publishing experiment has proven successful enough that Tor.com is continuing with more novellas in 2016, including Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, a tale in the Cthulhu mythos set in Brooklyn and Harlem in the early 20th century.

Victor LaValle is the author of Big Machine (2010) and The Devil in Silver (2013). About Black Tom, Laird Barron says “LaValle’s novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York is a magnificent example of what weird fiction can and should do.”

People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn’t there.

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.

A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?

See the complete list of Tor.com novellas we’ve covered so far below.

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