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The Top Black Gate Posts in November

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Sean McLachlan was the Black Gate MVP for November, with two articles in the Top 5: “Happy Halloween! Here’s Some Nightmare Fuel” at #3, and “Ten Ways You Know Your Evil Empire Is Doomed,” which scored the #5 slot. Hot on Sean’s heels was Ryan Harvey with two Pellucidar posts, his review of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Savage Pellucidar (#6) and the Series Wrap-Up (#10). The most popular article last month was our survey of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress anthology…

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John DeNardo on the Best SF and Fantasy in November

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I do a lot of work sifting though all the science fiction and fantasy releases every month to select those few that are worth highlighting. Sometimes it seems that I could save myself a lot of time if I just listened more to John DeNardo. Over at Kirkus Reviews, John selects the most interesting new releases to showcase in his column, including new books by Rachel Neumeier, Tim Pratt, Mira Grant, Richard Baker, Brandon Sanderson, James Van Pelt, and many…

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Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Selects the Best Collections and Anthologies of 2016

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One of the reasons I love the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog? Because they split up their Best of the Year selections into multiple lists. Why would anyone do that? To cram in more books! Duh. Their second such list this year is The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Collections and Anthologies of 2016, selected by their editors and jotted down for us by Joel Cunningham. It includes books by Ken Liu, Patricia A. McKillip, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson, Greg…

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Future Treasures: Galactic Empires, edited by Neil Clarke

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2016 was another great year for anthologies. I haven’t read them all of course — not even close — but some of my favorites so far include Things From Outer Space, edited by Hank Davis, What the #@&% Is That? by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen, Bridging Infinity, from Jonathan Strahan, Women of Futures Past, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Drowned Worlds, also from the mighty Jonathan Strahan. Not to mention the various Best of the Year volumes, of course. 2016…

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The B&N Sci-Fi Blog on The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of November

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Jim Killen has been as the science fiction and fantasy buyer for Barnes & Noble for nearly 20 years, and every month he shares his top new SFF releases at the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog. His November list includes exciting new books from Brandon Sanderson, Ben Bova, Emma Newman, Christopher Hinz, Kim Harrison, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Erika Johansen, David Weber, David Dalglish, and others — including Culdesac by Robert Repino, the sequel to the widely acclaimed Mort(e), the tale…

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The 2016 Hugos: Short Fiction Ballot Thoughts

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Here are my compiled thoughts (as promised) on the stories nominated in the short fiction categories for the 2016 Hugo. (Versions of these posts appeared earlier on my blog, Strange at Ecbatan.) A quick word on my voting philosophy: I am not planning to reflexively rank Rabid Puppy entries below No Award. I am of course disgusted by the Rabid Puppy antics, and I feel that many more worthy stories were kept off the ballot by the Rabid choices. And…

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Series Fantasy: The Duelists Trilogy by Julia Knight

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Every time a fantasy series successfully wraps up, we bake a cake. This week we celebrated the completion of Julia Knight’s Duelists trilogy, published by Orbit in quick succession late last year, all with covers by Gene Mollica: Swords and Scoundrels (400 pages, $14.99/$9.99 digital, October 6, 2015) Legends and Liars (400 pages, $15.99/$9.99 digital, November 10 2015) Warlords and Wastrels (400 pages, $15.99/$9.99 digital, December 15, 2015) What’s so special about The Duelists trilogy? It’s an adventure fantasy series “full of…

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John DeNardo’s January Must-Read Speculative Fiction

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We try to keep tabs on the best in upcoming fantasy here at Black Gate. But nobody does it as well as John DeNardo, editor of SF Signal. Over at Kirkus Reviews he offers a tantalizing survey of the best new speculative fiction for the month. Have you made any reading-related New Year’s resolutions? If speculative fiction is on your reading radar, allow me to offer some suggestions. Here’s an abundant selection of tasty speculative titles being released this month….

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The Series Series: Why Do We Do This To Ourselves? I Can Explain!

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What’s up with the Big Fat Fantasy books? Books that crest a thousand pages, books that fell forests, books that travel in savage packs of series. We wait three years, five years, ten years for the next volume. Meanwhile, the scope of what the author must remind readers about between installments expands (a storytelling problem anatomized over here by Edward Carmien). We click over to the fan-run online encyclopedia to remind ourselves who the characters are, both because it’s been…

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