Black Gate is very proud to announce that we will be presenting the complete fantasy novel The Death of the Necromancer, by Martha Wells, as part of our Online Fiction series, starting this Sunday, June 2. The Death of the Necromancer is one of the most important fantasy novels of the past 20 years. When I ran SF Site, we received an advance proof in 1998, and it electrified our entire office. In his review, senior editor Wayne MacLaurin wrote:…
Read More Read More
What a book to assign to high school students! The plot plods, the characters wallow, the ending claims to be happy but is, in most readers’ experience, a huge downer. The book manifests many forms of excellence, too, but it’s simply the wrong book for high school, and it’s part of a canon of eat-your-brussels-sprouts literature that notoriously turns boys off from reading in general. Fortunately, I have discovered a secret reading protocol that takes some of the sting out…
Read More Read More
Howard Andrew Jones’ debut novel The Desert of Souls is finally available in trade paperback, with a brand new cover by Scott Grimmando. It’s been a busy week for our Managing Editor. Yesterday we told you Thomas Dunne Books had released the cover art for the sequel, The Bones of the Old Ones, and announced a release date of August 21, 2012. And less than two months ago Howard published The Waters of Eternity, an exciting collection of stories featuring the heroes of…
Read More Read More
Imagine Conan in Shadizar, meeting with a beautiful woman calling herself Fortuna who pays him to find Thuris, the man who kidnapped her younger sister. Conan accepts the woman’s coin but finds himself in the middle of double and triple crosses as Fortuna — known as Brigid the Bold in the underworld — seeks for the Falcon of Maltus along with her betrayed confederates, Jubliex Cairo, Wilmer the Younger, and Gutmar. Think of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser hired by…
Read More Read More
At work today, the Internet failed. A monstrous failure. A failure that neither Nancy the Techie from Never-Never or Nice Mike from St. Louis could fix for me. Something about reconfiguring a router. All sorts of passwords I didn’t have access to. Cords everywhere. And I thought to myself, “I know why this is happening. It’s happening because I just read Cory Doctorow’s story ‘Shannon’s Law’ in Welcome to Bordertown.” That too, was full of things I didn’t understand. Binary…
Read More Read More
A few months ago James Enge and I sat down for a cyber conversation about serial characters and the book deal. We both had a lot of fun, and the the exchange seemed of interest to Black Gate readers, so I asked my friend Scott Oden to join me for a similar back-and-forth interview. If you haven’t yet heard of Scott Oden, you’re missing a rising star in historical fiction. I learned of his work when our mutual friend, Robert…
Read More Read More
Swords From the West Harold Lamb Howard Andrew Jones, ed. Bison Books (602 pp, $26.95, 2009) Swords From the Desert Harold Lamb Howard Andrew Jones, ed. Bison Books (306 pp, $21.95, 2009) Reviewed by Bill Ward Harold Lamb (1892-1962) is an author in danger of being forgotten. This should not be the case, for a number of reasons. Firstly, Lamb is good — from his historical biographies that read like action-adventure novels, to his actual action-adventure stories that cemented his…
Read More Read More
The masterminds at SF Signal have asked the contributors and editors of Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword & Sorcery — including some of the biggest names in fantasy — to define Sword and Sorcery, as part of their Mind Meld series. They’ve published responses from Michael Moorcock, Glen Cook, C.J. Cherryh, James Enge, Lou Anders, Garth Nix, Joe Abercrombie, Bill Willingham, Tanith Lee, Tim Lebbon, and others. Here’s what Moorcock said, in part: I didn’t get this the…
Read More Read More
Over at SF Signal, editor John DeNardo asked ten science fiction and fantasy writers and editors to pick the best sword and sorcery stories, and explain what makes them so good. The writers include Black Gate authors James Enge and Martha Wells, as well as Steven Brust, Mercedes Lackey, Mary Robinette Kowal, Mark Chadbourn, P.C. Hodgell, Gail Z. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, and Lou Anders. Here’s what James Enge had to say, in part: There’s no doubt in my mind that Fritz…
Read More Read More
224 pages, $9.95 On Sale March 31, 2009 Edited by John O’Neill Published by New Epoch Press Website Editor: Dave Munger Cover by Malcolm McClinton Spot Art by Bernie Mireault Interior Art by Kent Burles, Storn Cook, Mark Evans, Leif Jones, John Kaufmann, Malcolm McClinton, Bernie Mireault, Jim Pavelec, and Michael Vilardi Buy this issue — only $9.95 plus postage and handling! FICTION “The Beautiful Corridor” By Jonathan L. Howard Kyth had penetrated every chamber of the ancient and deadly tomb……
Read More Read More