Black Gate – Page 505 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

New Treasures: Pawn: A Chronicle of the Sibyl’s War by Timothy Zahn

Tuesday, May 30, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

One of the many things I love about Tor.com is their editorial independence. Tor Books just published Timothy’s Zahn’s new novel Pawn, the opening volume in a brand new space opera series, while over at Tor.com, Liz Bourke’s review calls it “a rather bland and textureless experience. While there are hints of a thriller-plot and a deeper mystery within the text, and while Zahn puts together a perfectly acceptable string of adventure-story set-pieces, there’s very little depth.” You gotta love an editorial team willing to damn the torpedoes and diss their own books.

Anyway, Timothy Zahn is a superstar, and one lukewarm review is not going to dissuade his legion of fans. It certainly didn’t dissuade me — I read and enjoyed Zahn’s 1983 novel Blackcollar, and that (plus my fondness for his short stories) was enough to convince me to pick up a copy. Zahn, the author of the bestselling Star Wars novel Heir to the Empire and its sequels, knows his way around space opera.

Nicole Lee’s life is going nowhere. No family, no money, and stuck in a relationship with a thug named Bungie. But, after one of Bungie’s “deals” goes south, he and Nicole are whisked away by a mysterious moth-like humanoid to a strange ship called the Fyrantha.

Once aboard, life on the ship seems too good to be true. All she has to do is work on one of the ship’s many maintenance crews. However, she learned long ago that nothing comes without a catch. When she’s told to keep quiet and stop asking questions, she knows she is on to something.

Nicole soon discovers that many different factions are vying for control of the Fyrantha, and she and her friends are merely pawns in a game beyond their control. But, she is tired of being used, and now Nicole is going to fight.

Pawn: A Chronicle of the Sibyl’s War was published by Tor Books on May 2, 2017. It is 347 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Stephen Youll. Read an excerpt at Tor.com.

May 2017 Apex Magazine Now Available

Tuesday, May 30, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Rocket Stack Rank gives Evan Dicken’s “How Lovely Is the Silence of Growing Things” three stars, saying:

The world is ending, but Kate and her daughter Mel survive by hiding in the basement during the day eating peanut-butter-and-spider sandwiches… Plenty of action. Plenty of tension.

Intriguing, although it’s not much of a story description. I prefer Jason McGregor’s review at Tangent Online, which has a more off-the-wall summary:

I could describe a lot of the surrealistic details about the sun turning green and poets hanging around like bats and centipedes fighting at Ohio Stadium but, basically, this is about a kid and one of her two mothers running around in a sort of nightmare…

Read Jason’s complete review here.

The May issue of Apex contains new fiction from Evan Dicken, E. Catherine Tobler, and Karen Lord, as well as a reprint by John Chu, a podcast, an editorial by Jason Sizemore, short fiction reviews by A.C. Wise, an article on writing by Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem, plus interviews with Evan Dicken, Stephen Korshak, Robert J. Sawyer, and cover artist Marcela Bolívar.

Here’s the complete TOC, with links to all the free content.

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Stories from a S&S Griot: Nyumbani Tales by Charles R. Saunders

Tuesday, May 30, 2017 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 7 comments

“I am going to tell a story,” the griot says.
“Ya-ngani!” the crowd responds, meaning “Right!”
“It may be a lie.”
“Ya-ngani.”
“But not everything in it is false.”
“Ya-ngani.”
The griot begins his tale.

from “Amma” by Charles R. Saunders

For those unfortunates unacquainted with Charles R. Saunders and the tales he’s woven, you can read plenty about them here at Black Gate. Suffice it to say he is called the father of sword & soul. Starting in the 1970s, he took the elements of swords & sorcery — mighty heroes, beautiful women, monsters, deadly magic, and more monsters — and turned them to his own purpose.

A fan of sci fi and fantasy growing up in the 1950s and 60s, by the time he graduated college in 1968, he was frustrated with a lot of what he was reading. As he recounted in an interview with Amy Harlib in The Zone:

I began to realise that in the SF and fantasy genre, blacks were, with only few exceptions, either left out or depicted in racist and stereotypic ways. I had a choice: I could either stop reading SF and fantasy, or try to do something about my dissatisfaction with it by writing my own stories and trying to get them published. I chose the latter course.

It was to the great benefit of heroic fantasy that Saunders made the choice he did. In addition to helping expand the horizons of the genre beyond the European settings that dominated it back then, he also created two monumental characters.

Imaro is the outcast warrior who eventually finds his destiny as champion against the forces of evil. Dossouye is an exiled warrior-woman from the kingdom of Abomey. The stories and novels featuring Imaro and Dossouye belong on the shelves of any S&S fan. If you haven’t read them yet, I suggest you snag copies of Imaro: Book I and Dossouye, clear off whatever else you’re reading, and get started.

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The Return of a Classic Fantasy Hero: A Review of T.C. Rypel’s Dark Ventures

Monday, May 29, 2017 Joe Bonadonna Comments 2 comments

Dark Ventures by T.C. Rypel
Wildside Press (212 pages, $14.99 in paperback/$4,99 digital, March 16, 2017)
Original cover painting by film director Larry Blamire (The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra)

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, many authors were churning out their own versions of big, iron-muscled barbarian heroes like Conan of Cimmeria. There were exceptions, of course, like Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, and Jack Vance, to name three authors I’ve always favored. But then along came T.C. Rypel, who hit the ground running with something different, something uniquely his own… his character of Sabatake Gonji-no-Sadowara, the half Scandinavian and half Japanese samurai.

Gonji was truly a breath of fresh air in the genre of Sword and Sorcery, although I think Rypel’s novel are much more epic and actually closer to Heroic Fantasy in scope and theme. His setting wasn’t some imaginary world filled with ancient gods, powerful warlocks and fanciful kingdoms, but was instead deeply rooted in and around Romania and the Carpathian Mountains of the 16th century. Perhaps a parallel world, but close enough to the Europe of that era to lend it a flavor of historical reality. Besides the non-barbaric character of Gonji, who was introspective, poetic, and humble, as well as a total bad ass with a sly sense of humor, what also set Rypel’s novels apart from so many others was the fact that he worked gunpowder and firearms into his stories, right along with the sorcery and creatures and other elements of the fantastic. And like Robert E Howard’s Solomon Kane before him, Rypel made it all work, too.

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Fantasy Warriors and Plastic Toy Soldiers on Memorial Day

Monday, May 29, 2017 Nick Ozment Comments 3 comments

Black Gate is a site devoted to fantasy and science fiction, and an inordinate amount of fantasy and science fiction is devoted to soldiers, warriors, barbarians, slaughter and destruction. Which I’m all for in my fiction.

Today, though, here in the United States, we observe Memorial Day and remember real soldiers and fallen warriors. So, if you don’t mind, for the blog today I am posting the transcript of the speech I delivered this morning at the Memorial Day service in Elgin, Minnesota. It is short (I kept it to one page). And if you came here looking for your daily dose of fantasy, don’t worry — the speech contains at least one reference to ghosts and alternate realities (How could it not? It is a speech by Oz)…

I brought a plastic army man with me today because I want to talk about the grim knowledge we gain as we grow up, the understanding that comes along with putting aside childish things. When I was a boy — my son’s age, and he loves to play with army men — we’d set them up and knock them over. Make our gun and explosion noises, like we’d learned from the movies. It was all right; they’re just pieces of plastic.

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Future Treasures: The Wayward Children Trilogy by Seanan McGuire

Monday, May 29, 2017 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Every-Heart-a-Doorway_Seanan-McGuire-small

Tor.com Publishing has had some stellar successes recently. Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti won both the Nebula Award and Hugo Award for Best Novella, and this year the line received six Nebula nominations and five Hugo nods… pretty extravagant results for a publishing imprint that’s not even two years old.

Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway, published by Tor.com last April, received both a Hugo and a Nebula nomination this year, and just last week it won the Nebula Award for Best Novella. In her BG review last year, Elizabeth Cady said:

A departure from McGuire’s usual fare, Every Heart a Doorway is a bittersweet twist on conventional fantasy that neither shies from more dwells on the darker side of our encounters with the fantastic…

Out in the countryside exists a boarding school for unusual children… Each student at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children has accidentally stumbled into an otherworld and then returned home to find themselves so changed that they can no longer fit in at home. Some of them are heartbroken at being kicked out of paradise. Some of them are traumatized by what they experienced there. Most of them hope to return to their individual worlds, somehow, by finding their Door again.

We find our own Door into this school through Nancy, a young woman who has just returned from one of several Lands of the Dead. Shortly after her arrival, another student is found dead and Nancy, along with her newly made friends, must find the killer before the school is closed or they become the next victims… I was very pleasantly surprised by this little gem of a book.

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An Epic Steampunk Firefly: The Scorched Continent Trilogy by Megan E. O’Keefe

Sunday, May 28, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Megan E. O’Keefe’s debut novel Steal the Sky launched an ambitious fantasy series set in an oasis city, featuring a noble conman on the run from some very powerful people who stumbles onto a complicated conspiracy… and a chance to pull off a heist of epic proportions. It was nominated for the 2017 David Gemmell Morningstar award for Best Debut novel, and author Beth Cato (The Clockwork Dagger) summarized it thusly: “Two lovable rogues, a magical doppelganger, and a nasty empire… it’s like an epic steampunk Firefly.” And NPR called it “A buddy tale, a heist caper, a socioeconomic thriller and a steampunk-seasoned fantasia all at once…. And it fires beautifully on all cylinders.”

Still, even a great steampunk adventure isn’t worth much if you have to wait too long between installments, no matter how rollicking the open volume is. But fortunately O’Keefe has kept up the pace with the Scorched Continent novels — the second volume arrived right on time last October, and the concluding novel, Inherit the Flame, was published last month. Now that’s what I like to see. Here’s the complete details on the whole trilogy.

Steal the Sky (448 pages, $7.99 paperback/$2.99 digital, January 5, 2016) — excerpt
Break the Chains (400 pages, $7.99 paperback/$6.99 digital, October 4, 2016) — excerpt
Inherit the Flame (448 pages, $7.99 paperback/$2.99 digital, April 4, 2017) — excerpt

All three volumes are published by Angry Robot, with cover art by Kim Sokol. Check out the links above to sample excerpts from each book.

Military Androids, Space Zombies, and the Business of Time Travel: A Review of the March/April 2017 Analog

Sunday, May 28, 2017 Adrian Simmons Comments 0 Comment

The cover story this issue is “Nexus,” by Michael Flynn, with cover art by Tomislav Tikulin. A series of coincidences brings a time-traveler, an immortal, a group of aliens mostly passing as humans, a secret military android, a telepathic private-eye, and an alien invader all together. It has a lot of plates spinning, and looks a little silly packed into that last sentence, but Flynn pulls it off.

The nonfiction article this issue is “Sustainability Lab 101, Cuba as a Simulation of Possible Futures,” by Stanley Schmidt. Condense Cuba’s history, pick a couple of outlandish internet comments and go! Dr. Schmidt presents a good case, and opens up some interesting discussions. Still… for a sci-fi guy, I find his lack of imagination about the future to be a bit alarming.

“Europa’s Survivors” by Marianne Dyson. This has a great illustration by Vincent DiFate, but the story doesn’t quite measure up to it. The tale demands a bit too much of the reader — rockets landing on Europa have to actually smash through the ice (a “thin layer”) and go down the same shaft where the pumps that keep the ice from being a “thick layer” are housed; robo-stress relief pets and a convenient lack of qualified personnel. I liked the basic set-up with the cancer patient going one-way due to the radiation exposure in space and, although it was a bit much, the problems faced and the solutions found were quite good.

“Eli’s Coming,” by Catherine Wells. One of seven (eight if you count “Nexus”) time travel stories in this issue. An owner of a time-traveling business tries it out for himself, ends up at the wrong place and time, instead of the Herod’s Palace at the top of Masada in 10 BCE, he ends up at Herod’s Palace at the top of Masada as the Roman 10th Legion is just finishing up their siege ramp. This one I liked quite a bit. The rebels under Eleazar are desperate, the situation is dire, and Eli (the MC) is trying his best to keep calm and survive until his retrieval chip activates.

“Time Heals,” by James C. Glass. Another time travel story. I’m going to admit that at this point I wasn’t in much of a mood for another one, so after the first attempt to change the past and discovering one couldn’t change the past, I skipped it.

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New Treasures: The Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel

Sunday, May 28, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Sylvain Neuvel’s debut Sleeping Giants was nominated for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. It was the tale of Rose Franklin, who made an incredible discovery as a child: a huge metal hand buried deep underground in South Dakota. As an adult, she’s a celebrated physicist leading the team tasked with uncovering the strange artifact’s secrets — starting with its impossible age and strange composition. When additional pieces are located around the world, hinting at a titanic whole, the mystery only deepens. Chicago Review of Books called it “A complex tapestry with ancient machinery buried in the Earth, shadow governments, and geopolitical conflicts,” and Jason Heller at NPR labeled it “A thriller through and through… one of the most promising series kickoffs in recent memory, [and] a smart demonstration of how science fiction can honor its traditions and reverse-engineer them at the same time.”

Now the second volume, Waking Gods, has arrived in hardcover and significantly raised the stakes, as mankind faces a deadly invasion of colossal machines touching down across the globe. It arrived in hardcover from Del Rey last month.

Sleeping Giants (320 pages, $26 hardcover/$16 paperback/$7.99 digital, April 26, 2016)
Waking Gods (336 pages, $28 hardcover/$13.99 digital, April 4, 2017)

Read an excerpt from Sleeping Gods at the Del Rey/Penguin Random House website here.

The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 5

Saturday, May 27, 2017 John R. Fultz Comments 2 comments

This series explores the Savage Sword of Conan collections from Dark Horse reprinting Marvel Comics’ premiere black-and-white fantasy mag launched in the mid-70s. Previous installments: Vol 1 / Vol 2 / Vol 3 / Vol 4

Volume 5 collects issues #49 – 60 (1980 -’81), and it begins with the proverbial bang. Reigning art champs John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga return for a 4-issue adaptation of the L. Sprague DeCamp/Lin Carter novel CONAN THE LIBERATOR. These four issues are gorgeous–the Buscema/DeZuniga team is firing on all cylinders.

Story-wise this adaptation succeeds far better than the previous DeCamp/Carter adaptation, CONAN THE BUCCANEER (collected in Volume 4). Whereas BUCCANEER tended to meander and lack proper pacing, LIBERATOR moves at a brisk pace and gives us more classic Conan time.

LIBERATOR is basically a military fantasy with bit of sorcery thrown in to complicate the saga of Conan’s revolt against a mad tyrant. We have a beautiful spy, a scheming wizard, and a truly insane king who butchers his own subjects in a futile quest for immortality. Here is the story untold by Conan creator Robert E. Howard: The story of exactly how Conan became King of Aquilonia.

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