Search Results for: tale covers

A Tale of Two Covers: Ellen Kushner on Basilisk

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August 1980 May 1984 Last month I was delighted to find a brand new copy of Ellen Kushner’s first anthology Basilisk on eBay for the criminally low price of $1.50 — less than cover price! The copy I found was the original 1980 edition (above left), with the gorgeous Rowena cover. In fact, it wasn’t until I started researching it that I discovered it was re-issued in 1984, with a brand new cover by Stephen Hickman (above right). Well, here was a curious mystery….

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A Tale of Two Covers: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

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For this installment of A Tale of Two Covers, we look at my favorite book by one of my favorite writers: John Brunner’s Hugo Award-winning Stand on Zanzibar. Stand on Zanzibar was published in 1969. I read it about a decade later, when I was in my mid-teens, and it pretty much blew my mind. It’s set in the far-distant future of 2010, when the Earth groans under the weight of a staggering seven billion souls, terrorists are the major…

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A Tale of Two Covers: The Last Page by Anthony Huso

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I bought the hardcover edition of Anthony Huso’s debut novel The Last Page after reading Matthew David Surridge’s review in Black Gate 12. The Last Page is a high fantasy steampunk novel, and a love story. We follow the sexually charged relationship between the improbably named Caliph Howl, heir to the throne of the northern country of Stonehold, and a witch named Sena. The two of them meet at university, go their own ways, and then come together again after…

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Besting the Beast and Other Fantasy Tales: Scott Forbes Crawford’s Weirdly Accessible Adventure

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Besting the Beast by Scott Forbes Crawford (2024, Kindle); Cover art by Ben Greaves Besting the Beast is Grimm-like tales for Grimdark readers Fantasy readers often seek escapism and encounters with the unknown, but those adventures can become too weird to be accessible. Shorter forms help. Incorporating some grounding in history or reality helps too. One of the most accessible styles is the fairy tale, and Scott Forbes Crawford delivers five remarkable fun, and easy-to-read, adventures bridging the short story…

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Quatro-Decadal Review: Weird Tales, November 1989, edited by John Betancourt, George H. Scithers, and Darrell Schweitzer

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Weird Tales, Fall 1989 (Terminus Publishing). Cover by J.K. Potter There has been quite the gap in my reviews. I’ve been high-centered on Weird Tales. Many factors played a role in this — mostly that it is not a small magazine by any stretch. Then there is the fact that I read it in early 2023, got distracted by other things, and had to re-read it to write about it. As readers of these reviews know, I don’t hold back…

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The Art and Act of Story-telling: Evenmere Tales and Other Stories by James Stoddard

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Evenmere Tales and Other Stories (Ransom House, October 23, 2023) James Stoddard, author of six novels including the delightful Evenmere trilogy (The High House, The False House, and Evenmere), has finally released a complete collection of his short stories. These stories at their best are first rate American fantasy. Even when they are not at their best, they are worth reading. Stoddard’s ambitions are extraordinary, and achieved often enough that he should be read, and read again. Stoddard’s complete collection…

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Vintage Treasures: Tales By Moonlight edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

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Tales by Moonlight, volumes One and Two (Tor, January 1985 and July 1989). Covers by Mark E. Rogers and Jill Bauman Jessica Amanda Salmonson has produced only a handful of anthologies, but they are all highly regarded. Her first, Amazons!, won the World Fantasy Award in 1980, and the two Heroic Visions volumes she edited in the mid-80s are still enjoyed and discussed today, with an original Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser novella by Fritz Leiber, plus terrific sword and…

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Vintage Treasures: Lin Carter’s Weird Tales, Part II

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Table of Contents for Weird Tales 1, edited by Lin Carter (Zebra Books, December 1980) For yesterday’s Vintage Treasures post, I finally had the chance to discuss Lin Carter’s early-80s attempt to resuscitate the Magazine that Never Dies, the long-running weird fiction pulp Weird Tales. Since I examined all four paperbacks, there wasn’t room in that article to look back at some of the fascinating discussions they’ve triggered over the last four decades, including lengthy commentary from Carter himself —…

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Vintage Treasures: Lin Carter’s Weird Tales

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Weird Tales , Volumes 1 -4 (Zebra Books, December 1980 – August 1983). Covers by Tom Barber (#1-3) and Doug Beekman (#4) Lin Carter was one of the finest genre editors of the 20th Century, and Weird Tales magazine was the most important fantasy magazine of the last century, publishing the career-defining work of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and hundreds of other writers. In December 1980 Zebra Books published the equivalent of a genre superhero Team-Up,…

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A Tale of the Last Free Humans: Fletcher Vredenburgh on Jack Vance’s “The Dragon Masters”

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Various covers for Jack Vance’s novella “The Dragon Masters” over the years: the original appearance in the August 1962 Galaxy, the 1972 Ace Double, and the 1981 Ace paperback edition. Cover art by Jack Gaughan, Josh Kirby, and David B. Mattingly Over at Goodman Games Bill Ward, Howard Andrew Jones and a team of thousands have assembled a world-class fantasy blog around their magnificent magazine Tales From the Magician’s Skull. Recent articles include Bill Ward’s delightful survey of the Classic…

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