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Category: New Treasures

New Treasures: Generation Ship by Michael Mammay

New Treasures: Generation Ship by Michael Mammay

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Generation Ship (Harper Voyager, October 17, 2023). Cover by Jeff Brown

Even with all the resources at our fingertips, it’s impossible to keep up with the steady drumbeat of new arrivals. That’s one of the reasons I’m always on the lookout for good reviewers, and new review sites.

One of my new favorites is WinterIsComing.net, which has pointed me toward some of the fall’s best new SF and fantasy. It’s how I discovered Michael Mammay’s new SF thriller Generation Ship, which they hail as “a sprawling standalone sci-fi epic with a large cast and intricate sociopolitical intrigue.” Now that’s what I’m talking about.

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Family Secrets, Ancient Curses, and Haunted Rooms: Fantasmagoriana Deluxe, edited by EJ Guignard & LS Klinger

Family Secrets, Ancient Curses, and Haunted Rooms: Fantasmagoriana Deluxe, edited by EJ Guignard & LS Klinger

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Fantasmagoriana Deluxe (Dark Moon Books, November 28, 2023). Cover art by Hellduriel

The history of Fantasmagoriana is rather complicated.

Originally the book was published in German as a ghost story collection, then translated into French in 1812. The first English translation under the title Tales of the Dead by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson appeared in 1813, but Utterson omitted three stories and added one written by herself, “The Storm,” which frankly is an unremarkable, weak imitation of some of the original tales included in the anthology.

The current volume, Fantasmagoriana Deluxe, includes all the stories featured in the two books Fantasmagoriana and Tales of the Dead, some of which were read aloud by Mary Shelley and her friends during the famous party at Villa Diodati (Switzerland) where Lord Byron suggested that the guests try their hand creating some new ghostly fiction. The more famous results of that challenge were Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Vampyre by JW Polidori.

But so much for history. Let’s move to the stories, which are all outstanding.

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The Art and Act of Story-telling: Evenmere Tales and Other Stories by James Stoddard

The Art and Act of Story-telling: Evenmere Tales and Other Stories by James Stoddard

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Evenmere Tales and Other Stories (Ransom House, October 23, 2023)

James Stoddard, author of six novels including the delightful Evenmere trilogy (The High House, The False House, and Evenmere), has finally released a complete collection of his short stories. These stories at their best are first rate American fantasy. Even when they are not at their best, they are worth reading. Stoddard’s ambitions are extraordinary, and achieved often enough that he should be read, and read again.

Stoddard’s complete collection is slim — Evenmere Tales contains eleven tales, ranging from short story to novella. The oldest is “The Perfect Day,” a Bradburyesque tale published in 1985; the newest is the Evenmere novella “The Leechmont,” published here for the first time. Six appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction between 2002 and 2011 — “The Star Watch” (Evenmere), “The Battle of York,” “The Star to Every Wandering Barque,” “The First Editions,” “Christmas at Hostage Canyon,” and “The Ifs of Time” (Evenmere). Three were published in various outlets between 2011 and 2020, although some were written earlier: “The Last Roadmaker,” “Day of the Shark,” and “Cage of Honor.” “The Coasts of Hope,” published in 2017 in a Hungarian magazine, is not included.

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New Treasures: The Black Spaniel and Other Strange Stories by Robert Hichens

New Treasures: The Black Spaniel and Other Strange Stories by Robert Hichens

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The Black Spaniel and Other Strange Stories (Stark House, November 1, 2023)

Stark House has performed an extraordinary service for lovers of classic weird fiction with their excellent line of Stark House Supernatural Classics, which has returned forgotten tales by Algernon Blackwood, Robert W. Chambers, and many others into print in handsome and inexpensive paperback editions. They’ve produced more than a dozen titles over the last seventeen years, with no sign of slowing.

Stark House doesn’t specialize in supernatural fiction. Their bread and butter is their Black Gat Book line, which includes dozens of classic crime novels. They also have a terrific Film Noir Classic imprint, Stark House Crime Classics, and an extensive Stark House Science Fiction catalog, which includes titles by Mike Ashley, Storm Constantine, Barry Malzberg, Bill Pronzini, and many others.

These days I tend to be interested in overlooked writers, and recently that includes the prolific Robert Hichens, who wrote primarily in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and who produced a great deal of celebrated weird fiction. Stark House has produced three collections of his short work, including The Black Spaniel and Other Strange Stories, published just last week.

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The Complete Version of John C. Hocking’s Conan: Black Starlight is Now Available

The Complete Version of John C. Hocking’s Conan: Black Starlight is Now Available

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Conan: Black Starlight (Titan Books, October 17, 2023)

The name John C. Hocking is well known to long-time Black Gate readers. He published several terrific stories in the print version of the magazine, including two tales in his Brand the Viking series, and the opening stories in his popular Archivist series, “A River Through Darkness and Light” and “Vestments of Pestilence,” which was continued in Skelos and Weirdbook. He’s also launched a brand new series, the King’s Blade tales, in Tales From the Magician’s Skull, edited by Howard Andrew Jones.

I was delighted to see that John had been commissioned to write a serialized novella for Marvel’s high-profile relaunch of Conan The Barbarian in 2019. Conan: Black Starlight was published in installments in the first twelve issues of the comic, and now the entire story has been collected by Titan in a single handsome volume.

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New Treasures: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

New Treasures: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

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Our Share of Night (Hogarth, February 7, 2023)

I first heard of Mariana Enriquez in Adam Nevill’s 2022 Black Gate article, Five Great International Horror Collections, in which he celebrates “a sense of encountering original, innately weird creative visions for the first time” in the work of Luigi Musolino, Anders Fager, Attila Veres, and two collections from Enriquez, Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. Here’s the paragraph that grabbed my attention.

Argentinian Mariana Enriquez has been celebrated the world over, and I can see why from the quality of her writing. But I am surprised because her work is weird, not at all mainstream. How often does that kind of success come to a writer of quality weird? Almost never (because how many traditional publishers ever get excited about it?). I am heartened that it is possible. “Adela’s House” from Things We Lost in the Fire became an immediate favourite. Disturbing, sensory, unpredictable stories.

Enriquez’s fourth novel, her first to be translated into English, Our Share of Night, was published in hardcover by Hogarth this year, and I think the time is finally right for me to jump on board this train.

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Feminine Horror Works Better: A Darker Shade of Noir edited by Joyce Carol Oates

Feminine Horror Works Better: A Darker Shade of Noir edited by Joyce Carol Oates

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A Darker Shade of Noir (Akashic Books, August 22, 2023)

Among the plethora of new anthologies of horror stories continuously produced by little-known editors, minor authors and obscure publishers, where very few tales are worth reading, here’s finally an above average anthology. Devoted to so called “body horror” and including only women authors, the volume is edited by Joyce Carol Oates, a well respected, famous writer herself, who certainly demonstrates her good taste in her selection of the stories.

Her insightful and detailed Introduction is a sort of commentary on the material, but for the purposes of this review I’ll focus on the tales that especially impressed me.

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A Fantasy City That Feels Alive: The Burnished City by Davinia Evans

A Fantasy City That Feels Alive: The Burnished City by Davinia Evans

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Notorious Sorcerer and Shadow Baron (Orbit, September 13, 2022,
and November 14, 2023). Cover Design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a groundswell of interest like I’ve witnessed for Notorious Sorcerer, Davinia Evans’ debut novel and the opening book in her Burnished City series. It didn’t get a lot of attention when it was released in trade paperback last year, but over the last twelve months I’ve seen a lot of discussion. Everyone is talking about this book.

The Book Nook says it’s “compelling… a remarkable and ambitious debut,” and Every Book a Doorway calls it “Dazzling… badass and honestly wondrous… the story never has a dull page.” Publishers Weekly labels it an “energetic epic… This is a charmer,” and Book Page doesn’t rein in their enthusiasm, saying it “deploys genre tropes with delirious glee and builds a rich and fascinating world.”

All this recent buzz is good timing, since the sequel, Shadow Baron, arrives next month, and that gives me just enough time to finish the first volume and get some hot cocoa ready in time for Book Two.

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Future Treasures: The Queen of Days by Greta Kelly

Future Treasures: The Queen of Days by Greta Kelly

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The Queen of Days (Harper Voyager, October 24, 2023). Cover design by Richard L. Aquan

Greta Kelly is the author of the Warrior Witch duology (The Frozen Crown and The Seventh Queen, both from Harper Voyager). I’m hearing a lot of pre-release buzz about her latest, The Queen of Days, a fantasy heist tale released in hardcover in two weeks.

The Queen of Days is the tale of a lovable band of thieves hired to steal a statue during a religious celebration. Like all tales of great heists, this one goes very wrong — in this case, accidentally ripping open a portal that allows warring gods into the world, threatening the entire city.

Publishers Weekly calls it “A high-stakes heist in a secondary world populated by gods, demigods, and plenty of wily rogues,” and Library Journal says it’s packed full of “”Incredible worldbuilding [and] fast-paced action… a fantasy heist novel filled with interesting characters, a vivid world, and protagonists trying to find their way through.”

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New Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven edited by Neil Clarke

New Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven edited by Neil Clarke

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven (Night Shade,
September 5, 2023). Cover by Thomas Chamberlain-Keen

It’s been distressing to watch the havoc the pandemic played with many Year’s Best Science Fiction volumes. The 13th volume of Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, published by Prime Books, was delayed a year and produced in a digital only edition last year, and now that series seems to be dead. Jonathan Strahan’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction (Saga Press) published its final volume in 2021.

And Neil Clarke’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7 (Night Shade Books), covering fiction from 2021, was delayed a year, and finally arrived last month. Volume 8 is still (supposedly) scheduled for release next month, but there’s no word on it from either the publisher or the editor, and I’m very concerned this series may be dead as well.

What does that leave us? The ninth volume of John Joseph Adams’ Best American Science Fiction And Fantasy (Mariner Books, co-edited with R. F Kuang) arrives next month, and seems to be going strong. Allan Kaster produced The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories Volume 7 (Infinivox) in June. And Paula Guran edited two: The Year’s Best Fantasy: Volume Two (Pyr, August 15), and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: Volume 4 (Pyr, coming October 24). So the situation isn’t totally dire. But to lose so many top-notch anthologies in rapid succession is a blow.

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