Search Results for: tale covers

Vintage Treasures: The Flashing Swords! Original Anthologies, edited by Lin Carter

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Paperback editions of Flashing Swords! #1-5 (Dell Books, 1973-1981). Covers by Frank Frazetta (1 & 2), Don Maitz (3 & 4), and Richard Corben Lin Carter is best remembered these days as the editor in charge of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line, which was by any measure a monumental achievement, bringing back into print a truly impressive array of important fantasy books, many in serious danger of being forgotten. But Carter’s career extended beyond that. He was a very prolific…

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Monsters in a Mist-locked Kingdom: The Shepherd King by Rachel Gillig

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One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crows (Orbit Books, September 27, 2022, and October 17, 2023). Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio I enjoy a good fairy tale. Also a well told-gothic romance. My true love, of course, is monster movies. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a novel that took a stab at mixing all three. At least, not until I read this tasty copy on the back of One Dark Window: Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to…

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Alien Scarecrows, Strange Restaurants, and Mystery in a Spaceport Morgue: March-April 2023 Print SF Magazines

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March/April 2023 issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by Dominic Harman (for “Gravesend”), Shutterstock, and Mondolithic Studios/Jill Bauman (for “Mr. Catt) It’s a bonanza of great fiction in the new print mags this month, with stories by some of the biggest names in the biz — including Peter S. Beagle, Greg Egan, Paul McAuley, Bruce Sterling and Paul Di Filippo, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lavie Tidhar, Allen…

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Beauty and Nightmare on an Alien World: NIGHTBORN: COLDFIRE RISING BY C. S. FRIEDMAN

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  What if your feelings had shape and were visible? What if you could see your nightmares manifest as they turned on you? C. S. Friedman has published 14 novels, including the highly acclaimed Coldfire Trilogy and the groundbreaking science fiction novel This Alien Shore (New York Times Notable Book of the Year -1998). Her Nightborn: Coldfire Rising novel will be published this July, 2023 by DAW Books; this post reviews an advanced review copy (preorder from the publisher). The…

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Vintage Treasures: The 1987 Annual World’s Best SF edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha

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The 1987 Annual World’s Best SF (DAW Books, June 1987). Cover art by Tony Roberts By the time The 1987 Annual World’s Best SF appeared as a paperback original from DAW Books in mid-1987, editor Donald A. Wollheim was of course well established as one of the most important and influential — perhaps the most influential — editor in science fiction. Founding editor at Ace Books, and founder of DAW Books, Wollheim had been editing The Annual World’s Best SF…

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The Cambion Journals series ends with Rise of the Despoiler by Andrew Paul Weston

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The Cambion Journals is a series of six novellas that ends with Rise of the Despoiler; it was just released March 15, 2023 (Raven Tale Publishing). Last August we highlighted the release of Book Three: The Siren Song and overviewed Andrew Paul Weston’s history with Black Gate.  Prior to that, veteran author and Black Gate contributor Joe Bonadonna reviewed Book One: A Hybrid’s Tale review and Book Two: Call of the Cambion.  Learn more about The Cambion Journals by reading the…

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Vintage Treasures: What If?, Volumes 1-3, edited by Richard A. Lupoff

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What If, Volumes 1-2 (Pocket Books, 1980 and 1981) and Volume 3 (Surinam Turtle Press, 2013). Covers by Richard Powers and Gavin L. O’Keefe Richard Lupoff was a True Believer. By which I mean he gave his career to science fiction, and both cared about it deeply and wrote about it fairly extensively — like Isaac Asimov, Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison, Terry Carr, Sam Moskowitz, Donald A. Wollheim, Barry N. Malzberg, Gardner Dozois, and a handful of other crusty old…

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Vintage Treasures: Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin

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Tuf Voyaging (Baen, February 1986). Cover by David Willson George R.R. Martin is the most successful living American science fiction and fantasy writer. He mostly gets attention for his novels these days, but early in his career he was chiefly known for his wonderfully moody and imaginative short stories, most of which were set in his sprawling Thousand Worlds universe, including the novel Dying of the Light and the famous stories “Sandkings,” “Nightflyers,” “A Song for Lya,” and “The Way of…

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Quatro-Decadal Review: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1989, edited by Edward Ferman

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The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1989. Cover by Bryn Barnard I thought that Asimov’s was going to rule the 1988 roost, but MoF&SF gives it a run for its money. The issue jumps straight into the fiction! Fiction — “Icicle Music” by Michael Bishop A story told in time jumps, starting on Christmas Eve 1957. Danny Pitts, living with his mother in a small boxy house near the waste dump — is up early, and finds his…

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Vintage Detectives: Supernatural Sleuths, Sci-Fi Private Eye, and Isaac Asimov’s Detectives, edited by Gardner Dozois, Sheila Williams, Charles G. Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg

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Supernatural Sleuths and Sci-Fi Private Eye (Roc, 1996 and 1997), and Isaac Asimov’s Detectives (Ace, 1998). Covers by Romas Kukalis, uncredited, and Andy Lackow Science fiction detectives have been a popular theme for anthologies for a couple of generations now. We’ve covered a few (including Tin Stars, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh), but there’s lot more out there for the curious and the collector alike. I’ve recently been dipping into some themed anthologies from…

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