Search Results for: tale covers

Andrew Liptak on 24 Sci-fi and Fantasy Books to Check Out in October

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Covers by: Kathryn Galloway English, DoFresh, and uncredited (click to embiggen) Andrew Liptak’s monthly SF and fantasy book roundup in his email newsletter is both exhilarating and frustrating. You probably know what I’m talking about. It’s like being rushed through a tantalizing buffet — it looks fantastic, but no way you’ll have time to try it all. His October book list is especially appetizing, with new releases from Linda Nagata, Kim Stanley Robinson, V.E. Schwab, Elizabeth Bear, P. Djèlí Clark, Cory Doctorow, Alix…

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Strange Plants, Ruined Cities, and the Dangers of Antarctic Exploration: Weirdbook #43

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Cover by Fotolia It was a pleasure to get the latest issue of Weirdbook in the mail last month. Sadly, as has become almost routine, editor Doug Draa devotes much of his heartfelt editorial to eulogizing a lost contributor, in this case the talented author Joseph S. Pulver. (Though in the process he did misspell Pulver’s name, something also fairly routine for Weirdbook. A spellchecker would have caught the mistake, and the ones in the next few sentences. Amateur editing is part…

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Delve Deep in Lost Catacombs in Empire of the Ghouls from Kobold Press

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Empire of the Ghouls (Kobold Press, April 2020) The Free City of Zobeck, a booming trade city in Kobold Press’ popular Midgard, is one of my favorite modern adventure settings. It’s a terrifically imaginative urban environment with guilds, gangs, and gods, a notorious Kobold Ghetto, the Arcane Collegium, a clockwork wizard school, and much more. It was originally designed by Wolfgang Baur and, according to Kobold Press, is where the setting of Midgard was first born, “a clockpunk city forged…

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Barbarians at the Gates of Hollywood by P. J. Thorndyke

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Let me start with a story from when I was fifteen and had yet read only the Lancer Conan the Warrior, but was friends with several serious Conan (and Kull, and Solomon Kane) readers. They learned that Creation Con in Manhattan would include a presentation about the upcoming movie Conan the Barbarian featuring Valeria actress Sandahl Bergman, and they quickly convinced a bunch of us to get tickets. On a Saturday afternoon, we made the drive into the city. My memories of the convention itself are…

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New Treasures: Dead Man in a Ditch by Luke Arnold

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The Last Smile in Sunder City and Dead Man in a Ditch by Luke Arnold (Orbit, 2020). Covers by Emily Courdelle Luke Arnold is an Australian actor and star of the pirate saga Black Sails. He played Silver John, a younger version of Long John Silver, the antagonist of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and one of the greatest characters in English literature. Arnold is also an author, and earlier this year his fantasy debut The Last Smile in Sunder City…

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DMR Books: Swords, Sorcery, and Science Fantasy!

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Cover by Brian LeBlanc I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most people aren’t very happy with how 2020 has turned out. However, there have been some bright spots. For one, fans of quality Sword and Sorcery have plenty of new reading material, as I’ve released six titles so far this year through DMR Books. Things kicked off in grand fashion with the reprint anthology Renegade Swords, which collected stories that were rare or overlooked in…

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Future Treasures: After Sundown, edited by Mark Morris

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Mark Morris is known primarily as a British horror writer with over 20 novels under his belt, including Toady, The Immaculate, The Deluge, and the Obsidian Heart trilogy. More recently he’s earned a rep as a fine editor with two volumes of the New Fears anthology series from Titan. His latest effort is After Sundown from Flame Tree Press, containing 20 original horror stories from some of the biggest names in the biz, including Ramsey Campbell, Tim Lebbon, John Langan, Robert Shearman, Alison Littlewood,…

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What Would You Exchange at the Rack at the Track?

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In my Vintage Treasures posts, I like to talk about paperback fantasy that’s been out of print for decades. Books you’re not going to find without a search, but which are worth it all the same. Hopefully I intrigue a few of you lot to search out some of those books every week, and sample authors and titles you might not have discovered otherwise.  The idea is encourage readers to try something that’s given me enormous pleasure for most of my life: tracking down and shelling out…

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Understanding the New Order

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Since Disney’s acquisition of Star Wars and its consequent films and streaming episodic shows — the very good The Mandalorian being only the first of several planned — many would be forgiven for forgetting the very long time between The Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace. 1983 to 1999. In that time, novels and comics were the primary vehicle for keeping Star Wars stories going, including the Thrawn Trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn, published from 1991 to…

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 20: Iron Fist, Blame Canada, and Some Strike-Outs

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This Quixotic blog series of my reread of the Uncanny X-Men has gotten to twenty posts! When I started in December, I wasn’t sure how long I could do this, but it’s been a lot of fun! In this post, I’m going to go over two gems from 1977: the Canadian Invasion in Uncanny X-Men #109 and the dinner party gone bad in Iron Fist #15. Then I’m going to take a bit of a higher level look at a few swing-and-a-miss guest appearances and another issue…

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