Browsed by
Category: New Treasures

Across Time: Claude Moreau and His Translator Scott Oden in Conversation

Across Time: Claude Moreau and His Translator Scott Oden in Conversation

A Clockwork’s Dreaming: And Other Tales by Claude Moreau [Claude Moreau and Scott Oden, Jan 24, 2025, 134pages, Kindle and Paperback]. Cover art by Richard Doyle. Detail from “Under the Dock Leaves: An Autumnal Evening Dream” (1878).

This post packs two punches:

  1. A showcase of the New Treasure A Clockworks Dreaming: And Other Tales by Claude Moreau and Scott Oden (January 2025, 134 pages, Kindle and Paperback).
  2. An exclusive interview with the deceased author Claude Moreau, the living translator Scott Oden, and special appearances of Laurent Dupont, editor of the literary magazine Les Petites Merveilles. Yes, this article is historic and magical. Read on to learn how this came to be.

Read More Read More

We Are Missing Important Science Fiction Books

We Are Missing Important Science Fiction Books


Bewilderment by Richard Powers (W. W. Norton, November 1, 2022); Orbital by Samantha Harvey
(Grove Press, October 29, 2024), and Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber, April 4, 2024)

I just finished Richard Powers’ Bewilderment, from 2021. It’s a really intriguing and powerful novel, that I argued with at times, but still loved. It’s got a great ending, tremendously moving.

And it is absolutely science fiction. Way more so than most SF books these days, even hard SF. But, somehow, it didn’t even get a sniff at either the Nebula or Hugo shortlist.

Mind you, I didn’t read it until now, so I’m part of the problem. And, to be fair, both Ian Mond and Paul di Filippo reviewed it for Locus, so it wasn’t ignored.

Read More Read More

We No Longer Need Aliens to Feel Alienated: State of Paradise by Laura Van Den Berg

We No Longer Need Aliens to Feel Alienated: State of Paradise by Laura Van Den Berg


State of Paradise (Picador paperback reprint, July 8, 2025). Cover art:

detail from Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau, 1891

When I was a kid there was a public service announcement on TV that went something like “Attention: Aliens. You are required by law to report by January 31st.” This was because of the Alien Act of 1940, otherwise known as the Smith Act. Basically, the legislation made it illegal to advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and provided for a tracking system of non-citizens who, in the context of Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe and its then alliance with the Soviet Union, were potential suspects of espionage and sabotage. (Fun fact: prosecutions for advocating overthrow of the government have been ruled as unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment, in case you were wondering how any nitwit on social media can mouth off about doing just that.)

But as I didn’t know anything about this, the announcement always conjured an image of big headed, bug-eyed tentacled Martians registering at the local post office. Which I thought pretty funny. One thing I’ve learned over the years, and particularly these days,  is that much of what adults say in all seriousness is often funny, but not in a “ha ha” way. More in a Jean Paul Sartre absurdist kind of way.

Read More Read More

New Treasures and Interview: C.S.E. Cooney’s Saint Death’s Herald

New Treasures and Interview: C.S.E. Cooney’s Saint Death’s Herald

Black Gate’s interview series on “Beauty in Weird Fiction” queries authors/artists about their muses and methods to make ‘repulsive things’ become ‘attractive.’  We’ve hosted C.S. Friedman, Carol Berg, Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, and Janet E Morris (full list of 29 interviews, with Black Gate hosting since 2018).

This round features C. S. E. Cooney (CSEC), who is no stranger to Black Gate [link to listings]. She is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: first, for Bone Swans: Stories, and most recently for Saint Death’s Daughter. Previously on Black Gate, an all-star crew heralded its release with a video cast including readings of Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney.

Forthcoming in April 2025 is Saint Death’s Herald, the second in the Saint Death series. In this post, we reveal exclusive details, CSEC’s creative process, and hint of Book #3’s contents! Read this and her contagious energy will infect you! Cripes, simply by doing this interview, I was infected with a buttery aura! Read more and learn C.S.E. Cooney’s real identity and code name too (Tiger of the gods? Or is it Lainey!)

Read More Read More

Spies, Cowboys, Anarchists, O My: Polostan by Neal Stephenson

Spies, Cowboys, Anarchists, O My: Polostan by Neal Stephenson

 

  Polostan (William Morrow, October 15, 2024). Cover art uncredited

If, like me, you are a Neal Stephenson fan, you know he has a tendency to get deep into the descriptive weeds. I sometimes imagine his editor suggesting, “Neal, do we really need all this detail?” And then Neal grouchily responds, “If I didn’t think the story needed it, I wouldn’t have written it.”

Case in point from his latest novel, Polostan, a depiction of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair Century of Progress exhibition where the protagonist, Dawn Rae Bjornberg, also known as Aurora Maximovna Artemyeva, works shilling for a shoe salesman:

She went to the fair early and stayed late, for the work was easy and there were plenty of diversions — that being the point of a fair.  Her perambulations soon made her as conversant with the place as if it were an old city…As they were meant to, [the exhibits] drew visitors: 600 Norge salesmen on the B&O from Philly; 176 newsboys on the New York Central from Buffalo; 60 Episcopal bishops; 180 Civilian Conservation Corps workers en route to turpentine camps in the southeast; 100 Minnesota National Guard troops. Paramount Studios executives from Hollywood, Lions from St. Louis, Shriners from Fort Smith…

It goes on like this for quite a while.  Do we really need to know that “Five hundred employees of the National Carbon Coated Paper Company of Sturgis, Michigan, arrived on the same train as 270 members of the Jewish Socialist Verband from New York City.” Probably not; it doesn’t further the plot, though it does provide a sort of Proustian vibe.

Read More Read More

Dark Fiction at its Best: This Haunted Heaven by Reggie Oliver

Dark Fiction at its Best: This Haunted Heaven by Reggie Oliver


This Haunted Heaven (Tartarus Press, October 24, 2024). Cover artist unknown

Reggie Oliver is a British actor, playwright, illustrator and dark fiction author. He has published several short story collections and a few novels. As a matter of fact he’s also my favorite writer.

His latest collection, published once again by the excellent imprint Tartarus Press, includes ten stories, some of which are previously unpublished. As my favorite author it’s a bit difficult for me to produce an unbiased review but I’ll try my best, by choosing the more outstanding among the stories featured in the book.

“South Riding” an atmospheric, subtly disturbing piece depicting the unusual experience of an old actor temporarily moved into a secluded small town, while “ Grey Glass” is a superb supernatural tale revolving around a famous actor’s hand mirror.

Read More Read More

Folk Horror edited by Paul Kane & Marie O’Reagan

Folk Horror edited by Paul Kane & Marie O’Reagan

Folk Horror (Flame Tree Publishing, August 27, 2024)

Folk Horror is one of those terms that’s never quite fashionable or unfashionable.

To me there’s only either good or bad horror fiction, and that’s what really matters to the readers.

This anthology — part of the Beyond & Within series from Flame Tree Publishing — fortunately is very good, regardless of labels. So kudos to the editors (excellent horror writers themselves) for assembling such an amount of creepy and entertaining material.

To be precise the book includes two little poems and fifteen stories.

Read More Read More

Romancing the Planet: The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Anne Nguyen

Romancing the Planet: The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Anne Nguyen


The 23rd Hero (Castle Bridge Media, August 13, 2024)

Hybrids are hardly unknown in the long history of fantasy and science fiction literature. It could easily be argued that the genre itself is a hybrid. In the case of Rebecca Anne Nguyen’s The 23rd Hero, this mixing of literary media is an essential element, baked in from the ground up.

The story begins by wearing its dystopian stripes firmly on its sleeve. The characters we meet in near-future Vancouver, including our hero, Sloane Burrows, live in a world of ecological collapse. Outdoors, everyone wears a filtration mask, and the last working farm in Canada closed just months before when the last of its livestock died from drinking tainted water. The handbaskets of hell, if I may mix a metaphor, have most definitely come home to roost.

Read More Read More

Besting the Beast and Other Fantasy Tales: Scott Forbes Crawford’s Weirdly Accessible Adventure

Besting the Beast and Other Fantasy Tales: Scott Forbes Crawford’s Weirdly Accessible Adventure

Besting the Beast by Scott Forbes Crawford
(2024, Kindle); Cover art by Ben Greaves

Besting the Beast is Grimm-like tales for Grimdark readers

Fantasy readers often seek escapism and encounters with the unknown, but those adventures can become too weird to be accessible. Shorter forms help. Incorporating some grounding in history or reality helps too. One of the most accessible styles is the fairy tale, and Scott Forbes Crawford delivers five remarkable fun, and easy-to-read, adventures bridging the short story and fairy tale form in Besting the Beast (Aug 2024). All are rooted in Asian history/myth and feature relatable human protagonists to lead the way.

The cover art by Ben Greaves is appropriately derived from “Recovering the Stolen Jewel from the Palace of the Dragon King” (1853) by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861). Don’t let the friendly style fool you. The beasts herein are pleasantly weird and gory. Excerpts from all the stories are below so you can get a flavor of the horrific creatures and antagonists you’ll experience. Sword & Sorcery and Grimdark fiction fans will enjoy these (indeed, Besting the Beast is Grimm-like fairy tales for Grimdark readers).

Read More Read More

Everyone Knows This is Nowhere: The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville

Everyone Knows This is Nowhere: The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville


The Book of Elsewhere (Del Rey, July 23, 2024). Jacket design by Drusilla Adeline

Can someone who has been alive for 80,000 years find wonder and meaning in every day life? Would such an immortal still be capable of surprise, still uncertain about his own motivations, still unable to come to grips with the meaning of it all? After experiencing centuries upon centuries of the death of others, and frequently inflicting those deaths, do you become oblivious to the fate of mortal souls as just so many anthill denizens?

Is there anyone else out there like you? And why are you the way you are? Would the wish for mortality indicate a Freudian death wish, or instead a yearning to experience the existential perils and the perplexities of being that paradoxically imbue significance?

These are the intertwined questions posed by The Book of Elsewhere, a tie-in novel by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville based on BRZRKR, a 12-issue comic book (graphic novel?) co-written by Reeves. The title refers to when the protagonist suffers episodes of uncontrollable violence and goes “berserk” (get it?), although “suffer” is perhaps better applied to those in the line of fire of his rage.

Read More Read More