Search Results for: peter beagle

Companion Robots, Grave Robbing, and Monster-haunted Catacombs: July/August 2017 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Comments 3 comments

Cover art by Nicholas Grunas, based off “There was a Crooked Man, He flipped a Crooked House.” “In a Wide Sky, Hidden” by William Ledbetter. This story gets the issue off to a strong start. MC and his companion robot are crossing the depths of space to unknown worlds looking for the MC’s sister. Not an easy task since humanity has never found a way to beat the light-speed barrier, so people have to have their body destroyed in one…

Read More Read More

Cover Reveal: Dark Run by Mike Brooks

Comments 2 comments

Saga Press had hands-down the most impressive launch of 2015, kicking off their new line of fantasy and SF titles with four popular launch titles early this year, including Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings and Genevieve Valentine’s Persona. I caught up with editor Navah Wolfe at the Nebula Awards this year, and she assured me I hadn’t seen anything yet. That wasn’t hyperpole… Saga has released over two dozen books in 2015, and their 2016 line up promises to be even more…

Read More Read More

Sarah, William Morris, and Me

Comments 7 comments

Hurry, hurry, hurry! Step right up, you whippersnappers, and see Old Fogy’s Carnival of Cantankerous Complaints. Present your tickets and take your seats for yet another unsolicited argument justifying my personal preference for bound paper books over electronic texts. Keep your arms and hands inside the diatribe at all times. (Go away kid, you bother me.) Ready? A while back I decided I wanted to read William Morris’s 1877 book-length epic poem, Sigurd the Volsung, a violent Victorianizing of old Norse…

Read More Read More

Galaxy, April 1961: A Retro-Review

Comments 0 Comment

Here’s an issue from Galaxy late in H. L. Gold’s editorial tenure, which probably means that Frederik Pohl was doing most of the editorial work. (Pohl officially took over with the December 1961 issue, but I have read that he was editor in all but name from the late ’50s.) It’s got a pretty impressive Table of Contents, though it’s a bit disappointing in that the best known writers (Sturgeon and Leiber) are not at their best, and a couple…

Read More Read More

Twenty Years of Smart Science Fiction and Fantasy: The Tachyon Publications Catalog

Comments 3 comments

While I was at the World Fantasy Convention last November, I kept being irresistibly sucked into the Dealers Room. Seriously, the place was like a giant supermarket for fantasy fans. There were thousands of new and used books on display from dozens of vendors — books piled high on tables, books crammed into bookshelves, books being pressed into your hands by enthusiastic sellers. When I came home I moped around for a few days, and then mocked up some HTML…

Read More Read More

Get a Dozen E-books for Just $1.99 Each from Harper Voyager

Comments 0 Comment

Harper Voyager has announced a special Halloween sale: a dozen urban fantasy, science fiction, and horror ebooks are on sale for $1.99 or less. Titles on the list include novels from Vicki Pettersson, Nick Cole’s Soda Pop Soldier, The Stolen by Bishop O’Connell, Katherine Harbor’s Thorn Jack, Jack Heckel’s Once Upon a Rhyme, and additional suitable Halloween fare. Also included is the excellent anthology Ghosts By Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Supernatural Suspense, edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers, containing…

Read More Read More

His Name is Vengeance: Kellory the Warlock by Lin Carter

Comments 40 comments

Poor Lin Carter: perhaps the greatest champion heroic fantasy ever had, an editor with few equals, one of the most knowledgeable fan boys in the world, but a poor writer. I think he would have liked his stories and novels to be remembered more fondly than they are. I believe Kellory the Warlock proves he had the potential to have been a better writer. Carter remains despised among the Robert E. Howard scholars for his involvement in Sprague de Camp’s Conan…

Read More Read More

Check Out the Humble ebook Bundle: Pay What You Want for 6 Great Books

Comments 0 Comment

I had a look at the Humble ebook Bundle today, and was very impressed. I’ve heard rumblings about this Humble thing for a while, but to be honest I never looked into it. They sold video game and music bundles, or something, on a “pay-what-you-want” basis, raising over $13.5 million for charity. That’s cool. You go, humble peeps. But now they’re offering four great SF and fantasy titles, at a price you set yourself, for the next nine days. Suddenly I’m…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: The Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

Comments 5 comments

The Weird arrived on my doorstep today, with a resounding thump. And for once, I’m not speaking metaphorically. It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for this baby since it was first released in the UK back in October. From everything I’d read The Weird looked like the single most important fantasy anthology of the last few years. And now that I hold it in my hot little hands, I’m convinced that impression was correct. The Weird is a massive 1,126-page…

Read More Read More

Convention Report: Ad Astra 2012

Comments 0 Comment

Last weekend I went to Toronto to attend the Ad Astra science fiction and fantasy convention. It was the third convention I’ve been to in my life. I learned a fair bit. To start with, I learned a bit about the thriving Toronto sf scene. Toronto’s a huge city, both geographically and in terms of population; over six million people live in the Greater Toronto Area, and over eight and a half in the ‘golden horseshoe’ region around the western…

Read More Read More