“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) A Black Gat in the Hand makes a rare Fall guest appearance! I think that John D. MacDonald was one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century – in any genre. He’s my favorite…
The first three anthologies in the British Library Science Fiction Classics: Moonrise, Lost Mars, and Menace of the Machine. Covers by Chesley Bonestell and David A. Hardy Two weeks ago I gazed in wonder at Mike Ashley’s 10-volume anthology series of science fiction from the pre-spaceflight era, the British Library Science Fiction Classics. The first three in the series — Moonrise: The Golden Age of Lunar Adventures, Lost Mars: The Golden Age of the Red Planet, and Menace of the…
After Sundown, Beyond the Veil, and Close to Midnight (Flame Tree Press, 2020, 2021, and 2022). Covers: Nik Keevil and Flame Tree Studio I’ve been enjoying Mark Morris’ recent run of unthemed annual horror anthologies. He kicked it off with the highly regarded After Sundown in 2020; the success of that volume convinced the publisher, Flame Tree Press, to make it an annual event. Beyond the Veil followed last year, and Close to Midnight arrived just last month. The newest…
A Pride of Monsters (Collier Books, 1973), Eyes of Amber (Signet, 1983) and Neutron Star (Ballantine, 1976). Covers by Richard Jones, Tom Kidd, and Rick Sternbach Over at Tor.com, James Davis Nicoll looks at a fine set of vintage SF collections, including Eyes of Amber and Other Stories by Joan D. Vinge. Vinge began her publishing career with memorable novellas and novelettes. It’s therefore quite frustrating that, to my knowledge, there are only three collections of her work, all out…
The Frighteners (Universal Pictures, 1996) Read Part I: The Real-Life Inspiration here. I hadn’t seen The Frighteners since it was in the theaters in 1996, until I watched it again last week. Twice. I had drastically different reactions between the second and third viewings. After my first 2022 re-view, I came away thinking the movie was mainly just paying homage through pastiche to a lot of things. While it had interesting vignettes with diverse tones and styles, it never fully…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…