Search Results for: tale covers

Underground Bazaars, Generation Ships, and the Mountains of Madness: November/December Print SF Magazines

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Covers by Kurt Huggins, Eldar Zakirov, and David A. Hardy Things have finally settled down in the magazine section of my local Barnes & Noble, and my favorite print magazines are reliably showing up again. I have to say, I’m relieved they all survived the chaos — in distribution, the market, and to their readers — caused by the pandemic. Magazines are fragile things at the best times, and fiction magazines particularly so. Having said that, the recent issues are…

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 25: The Proteus Saga and My First Comics!

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Welcome to the 25th installment of my reread of The Uncanny X-Men from 1963’s issue #1. We’re now in 1979 and this post will cover issues #125-#128. This is a really memorable run for me for a few of reasons. First of all, it’s an amazing 4-issue story with huge stakes and high drama, and an example of the Claremont-Byrne team entering their creative peak. Second, in these 4 issues, some really messed up stuff starts to be revealed about the psychological manipulation of…

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A Heist in a Sword and Sorcery World: A Hazardous Engagement by Gaie Sebold

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Cover by Duncan Kay I’ve had my eye on Gaie Sebold ever since I bought her brilliant and funny short story “A Touch of Crystal” (co-written with fellow Brit Martin Owton), the tale of a shopkeeper who discovers some of the goods in her New Age shop are actually magical, for Black Gate 9. She’s been well worth the watch. Her debut novel Babylon Steel (described as “Sword & Sorcery for the girl who wants to be Conan”) kicked off…

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New Treasures: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

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We’re nearing the end of 2020 and like most of you, all I can think is, man. Good riddance. There were a few highlights, of course. As always there were a number of exciting debuts, and that cheered me up a little. One of the most talked about SF debuts of 2020 has been Micaiah Johnson’s The Space Between Worlds, named one of the Best Books of the Year by Library Journal, NPR, and Book Riot. In The New York…

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An Evocation of the Science Fiction Dream of Exploration: “The Star Pit” by Samuel R. Delany

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Worlds of Tomorrow, February 1967, containing “The Star Pit” by Samuel R. Delany. Cover by Morrow This is the first of what I hope will be an extended series of essays taking a closer look at some stories I either consider to be particularly good, or interesting for other reasons. Of necessity, each of these essays will go into some detail as to the plot of the stories – in most case, in my opinion, this will not “spoil” the…

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Imaro Series Tour Guide

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“Who am I? Who is my father? Where is my mother? Why do death and demons follow me wherever I go?” – Imaro in The Quest for Cush Charles R. Saunders, the originator of Sword & Soul, passed away May this year (2020, Greg Mele covered a tribute for Black Gate). Saunders is most known for his Imaro tales chronicling an African-inspired “Conan the Barbarian” on the fictional continent of Nyumbani. Saunders also wrote of a heroine named Dossouye (separate series), amongst…

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 24: Arcade, Murderworld and their First King-Sized Annual

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Oh hi! You’ve stumbled onto part 24 of my ongoing reread of The Uncanny X-Men. We’ve reached the year 1979, about halfway through the Bronze Age of comics and about a third of the way into the legendary Claremont-Byrne-Austin run. Looking back, we’ve come a long way from 1963; the Bronze Age was a time of growing sophistication and experimentation in comics, and the X-Men was one of the petri dishes. This post will only cover issues #123 and #124 because…

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New Treasures: Nebula Awards Showcase 54 edited by Nibedita Sen

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The Nebula Awards Showcase is one of the most auspicious and long running anthology series in science fiction. Founded way back in 1966 by Damon Knight (the man who founded the Science Fiction Writers of America), the series was originally created to help fund the annual Nebula Awards, and in that regard it’s had a successful run for over five decades — and produced a great many top-notch anthologies in the process. Want examples? Just have a look at the…

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The Art of Things to Come, Part 1: 1953-1957

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The Science Fiction Book Club’s Things to Come bulletin, March-April 1957 Like tens of thousands of science fiction fans before and after me, I was at one time a member of the Science Fiction Book Club (or SFBC for short). I joined just as I entered my teen years, in the fall of 1976, shortly after I discovered the wonder of science fiction digests. I remember the bulletin of the SFBC, Things to Come, arriving in our mailbox every month,…

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Gizmodo on November’s New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

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Covers by Kieryn Tyler, Adam Auerbach, and Timothy Truman We’re getting close to the holiday season, and you know what that means. 2020 will finally be over. But also! Many of us will have enough vacation time to catch up on our reading. The new flurry of November releases hasn’t made that any easier. What we need is a roadmap to the most interesting destinations in this publishing wilderness. Something like Cheryl Eddy’s comprehensive list of November New Sci-Fi and…

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