Black Gate – Page 1062 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

New Treasures: The Corpse-Rat King, by Lee Battersby

Tuesday, April 16, 2013 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

When I was a wee lad, I didn’t pay much attention to the name under the title on my favorite books. My mother gently nudged me one day, when I complained that I didn’t know what to read, pointing out that if I knew who had written the last book I’d really enjoyed, I might be able to find another just like it.

My mom. She was right about what would happen if I touched the burner when it was glowing that pretty red color, and she was right about this, too. I learned to pay attention to authors, and soon stopped complaining about not having anything to read. Or having to bandage my fingers so often.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned this principle can be applied more broadly with some success. I now avoid touching anything that glows red, regardless of how damn cheery it looks, and when I find a publisher putting out quality books, I stick with them.

Case in point: Angry Robot, publisher of Chris F. Holm’s noir crime novel Dead Harvest, Aliette de Bodard’s Aztec mystery Obsidian & Blood, Tim Waggoner’s undead detective opus The Nekropolis Archives, and many others. My latest discovery is Lee Battersby, whose The Corpse-Rat King was published by Angry Robot in August.

Marius dos Hellespont and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional battlefield looters. When they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed, Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers and is transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead.

Just like living beings, the dead need a King. And Marius is banished to the surface with one message: if he wants to recover his life he must find the dead a King. Which he fully intends to do… Just as soon as he stops running away.

An intriguing mix of humor, madcap characters, and stylish prose, The Corpse-Rat King promises to be just what I’m looking for. Mom, I owe you. Again.

The Corpse-Rat King was published by Angry Robot on August 28, 2012. It is 411 pages in paperback, priced at $7.99 ($6.99 for the digital edition.) The sequel, The Marching Dead, appeared in March.

The Guardian Selects the Best Young SF and Fantasy Novelists

Monday, April 15, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Back when I used to subscribe to Granta magazine, I enjoyed their semi-annual lists of Best Young Writers. This year’s list came out recently, and this morning I came across an article in The Guardian pointing out that no equivalent list for genre fiction exists, and asking, “If it did, who might be on it?”

The author, Damien Walter, endeavors to answer his own question, supplying an intriguing list of 20 SF and Fantasy authors under 40:

Joe Abercrombie is the self-proclaimed Lord of “grimdark” epic fantasy, whose writing displays a wit and style beyond the battle sequences and torture scenes that dominate the gritty world of grimdark. NK Jemsin brings an immense storytelling talent to the tradition of epic fantasy, with a series of beautiful stories that have garnered Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy award nominations. The Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed is notable for its middle-eastern fantasy setting, but the work’s real strengths are its deep sense of irony and dark humour. And of course British author China Miéville has re-worked the fantasy genre into many and varied weird forms from Perdido Street Station to Embassytown, though he is technically ineligible, as he turned 40 last year.

Catherynne Valente’s novels and stories range widely across the fantastic, but it is her dark urban fantasies such as Palimpsest that best showcase her baroque prose style. Tom Pollock’s debut The City’s Son marked the appearance of a powerful new imagination in SF, and hopes are high for the upcoming sequel. As they are for the debut novel of Elizabeth May, with The Falconer among the most anticipated fantasy novels of 2013.

This list fills me with hope for our genre, and simultaneously makes me feel very old at 48.

You can see the complete list here.

Adventure On Film: Westworld

Monday, April 15, 2013 markrigney Comments 4 comments

How any adult, in this day and age, can approach Westworld (1973) in anything remotely close to the appropriate frame of mind is beyond me. To further complicate an open, honest viewing, the film could not possibly telegraph its intentions more bluntly. Will the tourists attending Western World, Roman World, and Medieval World have the time of their vacationing lives? Well, yes –– but in short order, they will be done in by their out-of-control hosts, robots one and all, semi-sentient machines understandably tired of living out their days getting gunned down by their rich and warm-blooded doppelgangers.

Pardon me if in the course of this review I don’t concern myself with spoilers. If the DVD’s cover doesn’t give the game away, the first two minutes of the film surely will.

Leaving, then… what? A cautionary tale, in which we fragile mortals should learn to stop messing around with simulacrums? Or is it an adventure in which the stakes are high and the six-guns are fast?

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Weird of Oz Reviews Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies

Monday, April 15, 2013 Nick Ozment Comments 2 comments

A non-fiction fad of the past decade has been for an author to do something outrageous for a year and then write a book detailing the experience. If you know someone who inexplicably stopped bathing for months, or who stopped shaving or cutting his hair, or who started eating all her food raw and communicating only with gestures and grunts, you may know someone who has embarked on living like a person in the Middle Ages, or like a caveman — with an eye, of course, to chronicling it all and cranking out a bestseller. Do them a favor and tell them it’s probably already been done. Writers like A.J. Jacobs (The Year of Living Biblically) have cornered the market on myself-as-the-story immersive or “stunt” journalism.

I’ve read a number of these “stunt books” by various authors; frequently they are entertaining page-turners, and they do offer interesting perspectives and provide some bizarre, oftentimes fascinating trivia. But I have also grown oversensitive to the tendency of some such writers to indulge in a bit of melodramatic self-pity: “For 200 days now I haven’t been able to [fill in the blank], and my wife is totally exasperated!” Yes, these folks put themselves through some crazy regimens of self-denial and eccentric behavior, but journalists have gone through far worse to get a story: try reporting from a war zone, for instance.

For his “stunt book,” Australian film critic Michael Adams undertook a task that puts him squarely on the radar of this blog: he decided to watch at least one bad film every day for a year in a quest to find the Worst. Film. Ever Made. Ever. As somewhat of a connoisseur of B- and Z-grade films, I eagerly picked up this comprehensive report from a fellow cinephile: Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies (2010). So here, now, is a brief review of the bad-movie viewer…

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “Truck Stop Luck” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Sunday, April 14, 2013 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Someone has turned all of Keith Sharp’s family into statues, and he’s trying to find out how and why — and what he can do to fix the situation. But as he soon discovers, that’s the least of his problems.

“Someone made statues of your family, you’re hauling them around, and you don’t know why,” Mike asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Keith.

Mike stood up, and shrugged into a ragged, full-length black leather jacket. “I want to see these statues of yours,” he said.

“You’re not used to this, are you?” he asked when they had stepped outside into the pouring rain.

“Used to what?” Keith had to raise his voice to be heard over the water.

“Dealing with people like me. People who do things like this.” Mike’s hand gripped the back of Keith’s neck, and Keith felt heat flash from Mike’s fingers into his brain. Keith led him to where the van and trailer were parked. I shouldn’t be doing this, Keith thought. Thinking didn’t stop his eager trot toward his cargo, though. Mike’s fingers were hot on his neck, invasive, as though they were plugged into him.

“Statues,” Mike murmured. He dragged Keith closer, and reached for the rope that held the tarp down. Wind sneaked under the tarp and lifted it, revealing Ma and Pa, James and Olivia, Mary and Sadie.

“Mighty fine collection,” said Mike.“ I’m going to have me some fun with this lot. Give me the keys to your car.”

Keith fished the keys out of his pocket. He dropped them in Mike’s outstretched claw.

Over the past thirty years, Nina Kiriki Hoffman has sold adult and YA novels and more than 250 short stories. Her works have been finalists for the World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, and Endeavour awards. Her fiction has won her a Stoker and a Nebula Award. Ace published several of Nina’s adult novels, among them Fistful of Sky and Fall of Light. Viking published Nina’s Young Adult fantasy novels, including Stir of Bones, Spirits that Walk in Shadow, Thresholds, and Meeting. A collection of her short stories, Permeable Borders, was published in 2012 by Fairwood Press.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Ryan Harvey, Emily Mah, David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna, Aaron Bradford Starr, Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Vaughn Heppner, E.E. Knight, Howard Andrew Jones, Harry Connolly, and others, is here.

“Truck Stop Luck” is a complete 12,000-word short story of contemporary fantasy. It is offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1951: A Retro-Review

Sunday, April 14, 2013 Matthew Wuertz Comments 5 comments

Galaxy Science Fiction’s fourth issue was published for January, 1951. Now with 50% more illustrations, Galaxy was rolling along, ready to offer the best fiction on the market.

“Tyrann” by Isaac Asimov – This is the first part of a three-part serial of Asimov’s novel. It was later reprinted under the title: The Stars, Like Dust. Biron Farrill is a young nobleman visiting Earth when someone tries to kill him with a radiation bomb. An acquaintance of Biron’s tells him that there’s a plot underway by the Tyranni. The Tyranni, who control the galaxy by oppressing the various world leaders, killed Biron’s father and are now coming after him.

Biron flees to Rhodia in hopes of finding refuge under their leader, Hinrik V. The Tyranni track Biron’s movement, allowing him to reach Rhodia in order to test Hinrik’s loyalty. Soon after his arrival, however, Hinrik’s daughter and cousin confide in Biron that they are not loyal to the Tyranni and that the three of them must find a way to escape the planet without alerting the Tyranni.

I love this story so far. The characters are great, especially Hinrik’s cousin who shows two personalities – one is a public façade in order to keep his work secretive. Plus, their ships jump to hyperspace!

Asimov didn’t coin the term hyperspace, but he was one of its early adopters, and the way the jump is described will resonate well with Star Wars fans. By the way, if FTL (Faster Than Light-speed) travel was good enough for Asimov and Galaxy, why is it shunned by some editors today?

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Centurion on Kickstarter: After Action Report

Saturday, April 13, 2013 FraserRonald Comments 0 Comment

Sword’s Edge Publishing’s great Kickstarter experiment – Centurion: Legionaries of Rome – has completed. I’m still waiting for the final tally on actual money raised (I’ll get to the discrepancy between promises and cold hard cash later), and while I count it a success, only slightly so. That’s not Kickstarter’s fault. Totally mine.

The biggest problem I faced was one of planning. I did a fair amount of it, and my Kickstarter page was ready to launch eight days before my deadline. I verified Amazon payments two weeks before the campaign was to launch, and then could get the approval from Kickstarter more than a week before my drop-dead date. That was due to planning and the fear of delays pushing my launch date back.

If you’re out there building interest in your campaign, you’re likely giving people a date when they can expect the Kickstarter to – sorry for this – kick off (heh heh). Now, one way of avoiding screwing yourself with delays is not to have a hard launch date. I could have said something like “first week in March” or “early in March,” and that could have given me a good buffer of time. I mean, if people were excited, they would likely have seen the multiple messages I sent through comms in the month of the campaign.

Here’s the thing: I needed to do a lot more publicity than I did. I hit all the social media I regularly used – and even went to Facebook, which I really only use to share photos with friends, so really don’t have a business presence there – and did a few podcasts. Not enough.

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Are You Going to Eat That?

Friday, April 12, 2013 Violette Malan Comments 5 comments

A mystery writer friend of mine once remarked that he didn’t care for crime novels that included either cats or recipes – unless they were recipes on how to cook cats. My friend was kidding (mostly), but I’m sure plenty would agree with his sentiments. Not everyone is fascinated by food or cooking, and that can affect readers’ reactions when they encounter these things in the books they’re reading.

But like it or not, there’s a purpose being served by every mouthful of food and every drop of drink in every book or story we read – or write.

No matter the genre, food and drink can certainly provide motivation in terms of characters’ taking action to acquire some. Every book that has a trading empire at its core (think Elizabeth Moon’s Ky Vatta books, or Robin Hobb’s The Liveship Traders) deals at least in part with the availability of foods, especially spices.

As a general rule, however, food and drink don’t drive the plot. Even in the mystery novels, the recipes aren’t usually directly involved in either the crime or the solution – though the same can’t be said for the cats.

But I digress.

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Barnes and Noble Calls Out the 20 Best Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the last Decade

Friday, April 12, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Paul Goat Allen at Barnes&Noble.com has compiled a list of the Top 20 Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the last ten years.

What is “paranormal fantasy” exactly, as opposed to, say, “fantasy?” Paul seems to be using it to encompass contemporary fiction with supernatural elements, including horror, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance — but apparently not science fiction, or secondary world fantasy. Here’s Paul’s loose attempt at a definition:

We are in the midst of a glorious Golden Age of paranormal fantasy — the last ten years, specifically, in genre fiction have been nothing short of landscape-changing. The days of rigidly defined categories (romance, fantasy, horror, etc.) are long gone. Today, genre-blending novels reign supreme: narratives with virtually limitless potential that freely utilize elements of fantasy, romance, mystery, horror, and science fiction…

The list below includes 20 novels that are not only extraordinarily good, but have also dramatically influenced — and continue to influence — the course of the genre.

A bold claim, but I think he’s not far off. As the years go by, fantasy has seeped inexorably into the mainstream — witness the success of Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Twilight, etc — and writers of all genres seem to be dipping into the fantasy pool with fewer reservations. The result is a public that accepts zombie westerns and modern-day vampire mysteries without batting an eye.

Regardless of how much you want to read into Paul’s list, you’ll find plenty of good reading on it, including books by Cherie Priest, Seanan McGuire, Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Kat Richardson, Marcus Pelegrimas, Stacia Kane, Jim Butcher, and Richard Kadrey.

Check out the complete list here.

HAMMETT UNDONE

Friday, April 12, 2013 William Patrick Maynard Comments 1 comment

No writer enjoys receiving a bad review of their work. Sometimes the reviewer pinpoints a genuine weakness and the writer benefits from constructive criticism. Many times, the writer is left feeling the reviewer was influenced by petty jealousy or an unspecified bias or was just fond of exercising the power of the pen to tear others down and amuse their own regular readers. I don’t enjoy receiving bad reviews and I can’t say I enjoy writing them either. If I take the time to read a book, I want to walk away having felt it was time well-spent.

I am not a fan of Hammett Unwritten by Gordon McAlpine writing as Owen Fitzstephen. McAlpine is a good writer. I do not have much in the way of constructive criticism to offer. I disliked his book because I am biased. I considered dropping the review entirely. After all, why make an enemy of the author or his friends? Nothing is worse than typing the title of your book in a search engine only to find some hack tearing you to shreds for no good reason. It was the recognition of my bias against the book that I felt justified sharing why it rubbed me the wrong way.

I revere the work of Dashiell Hammett. Beyond the books and short stories, I’ve read every Hammett biography and critical analysis I could find. I’ve read his published letters. I’ve read works of fiction involving Hammett as the principal character. Some, such as Joe Gores’s Hammett and Ace Atkins’s Devil’s Garden, were brilliant works that rang true in their portrayal of Hammett the man and their evocation of Hammett’s writing style. Others, such as William F. Nolan’s Black Mask Boys series and McAlpine’s Hammett Unwritten, left a bad taste solely because I wanted to love the books, but walked away disappointed.

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