The following is an an excerpt from Roy Thomas’ essay for the upcoming book from the Rogue Blades Foundation, Robert E. Howard Changed My Life. I’ve told this story so many time by now that I figure everybody who would want to know it is tired of it already, but I can’t make up new facts just because I have to write a new article, can I? Well, maybe there’ll be a few twists in my tale this time, because…
The Fantastic Imagination, volumes I and II (Avon, February 1977 and December 1978). Cover artist: unknown (left), Elizabeth Malczynski (right) Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski were quite the dynamic pair in the late 70s and early 80s. They edited five anthologies between 1977-81, all but one paperback originals from Avon, and a sixth a decade later, from Academy Chicago specialty press. All are fine volumes well worth your attention today. The Fantastic Imagination (1977) Dark Imaginings (1978) The Fantastic Imagination…
Beyond the Beyond paperback original (Signet first edition, August 1969). Cover artist unknown. When I pick up an old paperback these days, it tends to be an anthology or collection. There aren’t very many published nowadays, and I miss them. So naturally I’m reading many of the old paperbacks I missed out on in my youth. One of my recent favorites is Beyond the Beyond, a thick collection of six stories by Poul Anderson. Anderson was one of the most…
It’s good to see Andrew Liptak back in the saddle, doing what he does best — telling the world about great SF books. Liptak left The Verge last August, but it wasn’t long before he landed at Polygon, and his book column doesn’t seem to have suffered for it. His list of the best books for April includes nine we’ve already discussed here — such as Titan’s Day by Dan Stout, Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang, and Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett —…
The story so far: in this tale of an alternate America, based on a pseudo-memoir written by Philip Roth, anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh was elected president in 1940, keeping the USA out of the war in its darkest hours and inaugurating a scary time for American Jews, especially 9-year-old Philip Levin (Azhy Robertson). Feelings about the Lindbergh administration vary through America’s Jewish community. For some, like Rabbi Bengelsdorf (John Tuturro) and his new bride Evelyn (Winona Ryder), it’s an opportunity for…
Cover art: uncredited (left) and FMA (right) Robert Hoskins was a pretty familiar name on paperback racks in the 1970s. He was a senior editor at Lancer Books from 1969-1972, and during that time published and edited five volumes of the prestigious Infinity SF anthology series. Overall he edited over a dozen science fiction anthologies, including First Step Outward (1969), Swords Against Tomorrow (1970), and Against Tomorrow (1979). He also wrote ten novels, including three for Roger Elwood’s Laser imprint. Between 1969-1979…
Covers by Jaime Jones Martha Wells exploded into the big time with Murderbot. Black Gate readers, of course, know and love Martha from her Ile-Rien tales “Holy Places,” “Houses of the Dead,” and “Reflections,” which originally appeared in the pages of our print magazine (and her Nebula-nominated novel The Death of the Necromancer, which we serialized online in its entirely here.) But the world at large didn’t truly know her the way we did until the first Murderbot tale All Systems Red…
Cover by Matthew Jaffe Canadian Michael Kelly is a Renaissance Man of modern Weird Fiction. He’s an accomplished author, with a novel and three story collections under his belt, including last year’s All the Things We Never See. He’s also the publisher behind Undertow Publications, one of the leading — maybe the leading — houses behind the modern Weird Fiction resurgence. And in his spare time he’s one of the most important editors in modern horror, with over a dozen anthologies…
Cover by Bryan Burke and Scott Faris This review is jointly composed by Gabe Dybing and Nick Ozment Back in 1998 there appeared a book that we bought more than once. We were so excited about it that we were prepared to force it as a gift on anyone who expressed the remotest interest in reading it. The book was The High House, by James Stoddard. It was the most numinous novel we had read since… well, since encountering J.R.R. Tolkien’s The…
Covers by Niina Cord, Rachel Bostwick, and Nicole Grandinetti It’s always a pleasure to discover an exciting series by an author from your home town, and that’s exactly what happened to me at Capricon 40 back in February. Capricon is a long-running and very friendly con here in Chicago, with imaginative programming and a great Dealers Room, and one of the highlights for me this year was the Bad Grammar Theater booth. Bad Grammar is a local reading series, and their booth in…