Search Results for: tale covers

Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year 11 edited by Terry Carr

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year 11 (Timescape, July 1982) I’ve realized I enjoy these old Terry Carr anthologies much more now than when they first appeared 40 years ago. I wasn’t a sophisticated reader in those days (not that I’m particularly sophisticated today, but at least I’m more patient). I was still discovering science fiction, and purely on the hunt for tales of wonder and adventure. I’d read Carr’s Best Science Fiction volumes with a skeptical eye, not…

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Vintage Treasures: A Second Chance at Eden by Peter F. Hamilton

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“Sonnie’s Edge” by Peter F. Hamilton (adapted for Love, Death & Robots, 2019) Peter F. Hamilton made a name for himself in the early 90s with a popular SF series featuring Greg Mandel, a veteran of a tactical psychic unit in the British army who becomes a psychic detective in a near-future Britain where the messy collapse of a communist government has left the country in ruins (Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder, and The Nano Flower). By 1998 he had…

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Treasures to Return To: The Best of Lucius Shepard

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The Best of Lucius Shepard, Volumes One and Two (Subterranean Press, August 2008 and December 2021). Covers by J. K. Potter and Armando Veve I think the first thing I ever read by Lucius Shepard was his famous novella “R&R,” an ultra-realistic tale of American G.I’s in near-future Guatemala caught up in a senseless war guided by psychics, and fought by young men on a dangerous cocktail of combat drugs. It was unlike anything I’d ever read before, and it…

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Vintage Treasures: The Lord Darcy Adventures by Randall Garrett

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Too Many Magicians, Murder and Magic and Lord Darcy Investigates (Ace, 1979 – 1981). Cover art by Robert Adragna In 1977 Jim Baen accepted an offer from publisher Tom Doherty to return to Ace Books to head their science fiction line. Doherty left Ace to found Tor Books in 1980 and Baen soon followed him, but his years at Ace were extraordinarily productive. He resurrected an enormous amount of classic SF and fantasy from the magazines and brought it to…

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New Treasures: Servants of War by Larry Correia and Steve Diamond

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Veteran fantasy readers may yawn if they hear about an epic fantasy about a farm boy in a remote village rising to power, and the first few pages of Servants of War dangles that trope before readers. And then horror rushes in like a tidal wave, and before Chapter 1 can end, the worn trope is burning with hellfire billowing alchemical smoke, a Grimdark spirit rises out of the book to slap the reader in the face, crank the head…

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Vintage Treasures: The Best of British SF 1 and 2 edited by Mike Ashley

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The Best of British SF 1 and 2 (Orbit, 1977). Covers by Bob Layzell Every once in a while I sit back, take stock of our accomplishments, and think, “Man. We’ve showcased countless forgotten writers here at Black Gate, discussed tens of thousands of neglected books, writing late into the night on tight deadlines, and nobody has spell checked anything.” Still, I’m justifiably proud of what we’ve accomplished in the 23 years this website has been live. Though I do…

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Quatro-Decadal Review: Asimov’s Science Fiction, November 1989, edited by Gardner Dozois

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An unappealing cover by Wayne Barlowe, more on that in a second After the somewhat uninspiring November 1989 Analog, I turned next to Asimov’s, and found it to be pretty good. Editorial — “Half Done” by Isaac Asimov Starting with the quote ‘Half done is hardly begun,’ Isaac Asimov (That’s Dr. Asimov, if you’re nasty) jumps into looking at how we conceptualize and compare time. Starting with the fact the Earth is 15 billion years old, half of that is…

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Vintage Treasures: Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy edited by Lin Carter

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Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy, Volume 1 (Ballantine Books, 1972). Cover by Gervasio Gallardo Over the decades we’ve spent a lot of pixels at Black Gate talking about Lin Carter’s groundbreaking Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. He was under contract to produce a book a month for editors Ian and Betty Ballantine, and that’s exactly what he did for five years and 65 titles, almost all reprints of out-of-print fantasy novels and original anthologies. For the most part my favorites…

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High-spirited Mayhem: The Founders Trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Foundryside, Shorefall, and Locklands (Crown and Del Rey, 2018 – 2022). Cover designs by Will Staehle Robert Jackson Bennett is the author of the Divine Cities trilogy (City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles), as well as the BFA and Shirley Jackson Award winner Mr. Shivers. Locklands, the closing novel in his Founders series, was released at the end of June and, in keeping with tradition, we baked a cake here at our rooftop headquarters to celebrate…

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Porch Pulp #2

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun) And we’re wrapping up another summer run of A (Black) Gat in the Hand with Back Porch Pulp #2. So, here we go! DAVID DODGE Back Porch Pulp is reading the first novel by David…

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