Black Gate

The Last Smile in Sunder City and Dead Man in a Ditch by Luke Arnold (Orbit, 2020). Covers by Emily Courdelle

Luke Arnold is an Australian actor and star of the pirate saga Black Sails. He played Silver John, a younger version of Long John Silver, the antagonist of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and one of the greatest characters in English literature.

Arnold is also an author, and earlier this year his fantasy debut The Last Smile in Sunder City (Orbit, February 2020) was selected by io9 as one of the SF & fantasy titles You Need to Know About. Kirkus gave it a warm review, saying:

The debut novel from Australian actor Arnold is a fusion of paranormal fantasy and mystery set in a world where magic has been effectively destroyed by humans, forcing the supernatural population to live a radically diminished existence. Fetch Phillips is a “Man for Hire,” which is another way of saying the down-on-his-luck, hard-drinking former Soldier–turned-detective will do just about anything to pay the bills. When a principal from a cross-species school enlists him to find a missing professor — a 300-year-old Vampire named Edmund Rye — Phillips quickly agrees. Without magic, the Vampires — and all other supernatural beings — are slowly dying. So how difficult could it be to find a withered bloodsucker who is so weak he can hardly move around?… The first installment of an effortlessly readable series that could be the illegitimate love child of Terry Pratchett and Dashiell Hammett.

Orbit promised the second volume would arrive in the Fall, and low and behold Dead Man in a Ditch arrived right on time last month. Here’s an excerpt from Annie Deo’s enthusiastic review at Nerd Daily.

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Winds of Marque 2019 first edition (left, cover by Damonza) and 2020 re-release (middle, artist uncredited),
and the sequel Dark Star Rising (2020, uncredited). Published by Harper Voyager

Winds of Marque, the first volume in Bennett R. Coles’ Blackwood & Virtue space fantasy series, got my attention last year. Maybe it was the dynamite cover by Damonza, with the gorgeous orbital imagery — the four-masted deep space schooner and crossed swords — but I don’t know. I think I just have a soft spot for space pirate tales.

The book got fine notices. Publishers Weekly called it a “mix of retro and future naval adventures… Science fiction fans of the Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin sailing sagas will likely thrill,” and Kirkus raved:

With solar sails hoisted and war with the Sectoids imminent, Imperial Navy Subcmdr. Liam Blackwood, enigmatic quartermaster Amelia Virtue, and the crew of the HMSS Daring must stop space pirates from disrupting human supply lines in the outer sectors in the first book in a new series…. the jaunty pace is unwavering and enjoyable… Traditional science fiction lovers may get distracted looking for more space tech, but lovers of classic high-seas adventures and those who enjoy genre-bending SF will find this swashbuckling space adventure a worthy read.

But a funny thing happened before the arrival of the second volume. Harper Voyager jettisoned the original cover for the June mass market reissue of Winds of Marque, replacing it with a much more staid portrait of second-in-command Liam Blackwood, looking pensive and square-jawed on deck. Dark Star Rising, when it arrived in September, featured a matching rendition of plucky quartermaster Amelia Virtue (the second half of “Blackwood & Virtue”) in an action pose. Now the books look a lot more like seafaring romances, and not space opera adventures.

Well, perhaps that’s the intention. I’m still deciding if I’ll pick up the second volume. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Covers by Sam Weber (Empire of Silence) and Kieran Yanner (Howling Dark and Demon in White)

Christopher Ruocchio’s debut novel Empire of Silence (DAW 2018) was the opening volume in the epic Sun Eater space opera. Library Journal called it a “wow book… stretched across a vast array of planets,” and my buddy Eric Flint labeled it “epic-scale space opera in the tradition of Iain M. Banks and Frank Herbert’s Dune.” Howling Dark, the second in the series, was published last July, and won Ruocchio an even wider audience.

The third novel, Demon in White, was easily one of the most anticipated novels of the summer. It was published in July and, with some 300 reviews at Goodreads, boasts an amazing 4.70 ranking — a rare accomplishment. Here’s an excerpt from my favorite Amazon review, from Dave Wilde.

The third novel in this science fiction series begins with palace intrigue so deadly and dangerous that even Hadrian the Half-Mortal thinks he might just be safer in the heat of battle.

Much of the story has Hadrian and Valka and the rest of Red Company digging through ruins or ensconced in study in an ancient library. Nevertheless, for those looking for breathtaking ferocious battle, it’s all here, nastier, dirtier, bloodier, and more terrifying. On the way, the legend of Hadrian grows as the royals fear he is on his way to becoming so powerful that even the throne will fall to him.

Balanced against fierce battles against mankind’s greatest enemies — the kind that views humans as cattle to be slaughtered for dinner — are mystical questions about fate and coincidence and free will and what forces are out there beyond history. Whose tool is Hadrian and who does he serve? And whose tools are the enemies? The fate of the universe just may hang in balance.

Demon in White was published by DAW Books on July 28, 2020. It is 784 pages, priced at $27 in hardcover and $14.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Kieran Yanner. See all our recent coverage of the best in new SF & Fantasy series here.

Covers by Sam Weber

Whenever a fantasy trilogy wraps up, we bake at cake at the Black Gate rooftop headquarters. But what if it’s not clear if the series is complete?? In that case, a crack team of literary forensic analysts assesses whether the series is likely to continue, before we fire up the cake mixer. (I’m joking, of course. Like we’d let a tiny detail like that get in the way of cake!)

So we’re here today to celebrate the arrival of the third book in the Baru Cormorant series… pardon me, The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson. The Tyrant Baru Cormorant arrived from Tor last month, and it wraps up the trilogy (maybe? who knows!) with a bang. At NPR Amal El-Mohtar called the first book “literally breathtaking,” and at Locus Online Paul Di Filippo labeled it “a tasty blend of C.J. Cherryh’s early planetary romances and Samuel Delany’s revisionist Nevèrÿon fantasies.” Tor.com provides a handy refresher on the first two volumes if you’re the kind of person who likes to dive right into the third book in a series (i.e. a weirdo). But my favorite coverage of this series is Publishers Weekly‘s starred review of the third volume; here’s an excerpt.

The dense but brilliant third volume of Dickinson’s The Masquerade series… sees Baru Cormorant, haunted by memories of the woman she loved and lost, pushed even further into her self-destructive, all-consuming quest to save her family. In Baru’s effort to destroy the Imperial Republic of Falcrest from within, she has risen to the position of cryptarch, part of the invisible cabal that controls the Throne from the shadows. But as Baru pretends to serve her master, Cairdine Farrier, in his attempts to conquer the empire of Oriati Mbo, she privately plots against him. Baru has discovered the secrets of the Cancrioth — a cult of cancer worshippers secretly ruling Oriati Mbo — and the plague they’ve weaponized to wipe out their enemies… This staggering installment pushes the series to new heights and expands the fascinating fantasy world.

We covered the first book here, and Unbound Worlds selected The Monster Baru Cormorant as one of the Best Releases of October 2018. The Tyrant Baru Cormorant was published by Tor Books on August 11, 2020. It is 656 pages, priced at $25.95 in hardcover, and $16.99 in digital formats. See all our recent coverage of the best new fantasy series here.

Covers by Charlie Bowater

Aurora Rising, the first volume of The Aurora Cycle by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, had Black Gate reviewer Elizabeth Galewski drawing comparisons to Firefly, Anne McCaffrey’s The Rowan, The Fifth Element and Star Wars.

Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff [are] the New York Times bestselling authors of The Illuminae Files… While this novel features all new characters and a different universe from their previous books, it offers the same nonstop action, messy romantic relationships, sarcastic voice, and space operatics that will please longtime fans and win new ones… The perspective shifts between many different characters, and fun schematics interrupt the flow of text at intervals. The Hadfield’s survivor, Aurora, has a similar plot function to the weird psychic girl in the Firefly movie Serenity and looks like Anne McCaffrey’s famous female telepaths in The Rowan and Damia. There appears to be a cameo by the opera diva from The Fifth Element, as well as a scene set in the famous Star Wars bar.

Kaufman and Kristoff both live in Melbourne, Australia. The second volume in The Aurora Cycle, Aurora Burning, features “an ancient evil — you know, your standard consume-all-life-in-the-galaxy deal… [but] Squad 312 is standing by to save the day.” It was published by Knopf Books on May 5, 2020. It is 512 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $10.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Charlie Bowater (who also produced the stellar cover for Shveta Thakrar’s upcoming Star Daughter.) Get all the details on the first volume here.

See all our coverage of the best new SF and Fantasy series here.