Search Results for: tale covers

New Treasures: The Nissera Chronicles by Hannah West

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I’m still not done unpacking my free book bag from the World Fantasy Convention, but the wheels of publishing stop for no man. Review copies continue to pile up at the Black Gate headquarters, and they demand attention. At least, that’s what Realm of Ruins did when I pulled it out of an envelope on Tuesday, anyway. First, Daniel Burgess’ cover is great. He also did the cover for the first volume, Hannah’s debut novel Kingdom of Ash and Briars, released by Holiday…

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Mystical Beings, Power Struggles, and a Delicious Villain: The Empirium Trilogy by Claire Legrand

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One of the best things about the free book bag at the World Fantasy Convention is that it introduces you to books you’d never have paid attention to otherwise. That’s exactly what happened when I reached inside the bag this morning and pulled out Furyborn by Claire Legrand. I’ve never heard of Claire Legrand. Turns out that’s something of an oversight, as she’s the bestselling author of Winterspell, Foxheart, the YA horror novel Sawkill Girls, and the Edgar Award finalist Some…

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Romance and Ancient Magic: The Earthsinger Chronicles by L. Penelope

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One of the nasty little secrets of American fantasy is that for years virtually no major publisher would put non-white characters on a cover. The situation was so dire that even Ursula K. Le Guin, whose classic A Wizard of Earthsea featured a non-white cast, had to put up with having her hero Ged depicted as white on countless covers for decades. And as recently as this year, Nnedi Okorafor saw the skin tone of her heroine dramatically lightened for the…

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Conquerors, Betrayers, and Lovers: Not One of Us: Stories of Aliens on Earth, edited by Neil Clarke

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I ran into Neil Clarke at the World Fantasy Convention two weeks ago and had the chance to catch up, however briefly, as we chatted in the Dealer’s Room. Since retiring from his day job Neil has become something of an editing dynamo. In addition to editing and publishing Clarkesworld every month, one of the most acclaimed magazines in the field, he’s also produced some of my favorite anthologies of the past two years, including Galactic Empires, The Final Frontier, and…

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A Galaxy in its Scope: The Noumenon Series by Marina J. Lostetter

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If you’ve been reading Black Gate for any length of time at all, you know I’m a fan of space opera. But space opera takes many forms, as demonstrated by Marina J. Lostetter’s tale of a generation ship manned by clones, Noumenon, the opening novel in an epic saga of exploration and adventure in deep space. Publishers Weekly called it “An ambitious and stunning debut… the lingering sense of wonder and discovery thoroughly justifies its title,” and it was selected as…

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The Real Tartan Tat Army! A review of Better is the Proud Plaid by Jenn Scott

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What if I told you that the Highland army at Culloden in 1746 wasn’t really a “Highland” Army? What if I also told you that apart from a few front-ranking testosterone-poisoned sword and targe men, it fought like any other 18th century European army and that at least half the men looked like regular soldiers draped in tartan tat — sashes, tartan trews, a better quality version of the kind of stuff tourists still pick up in Edinburgh’s gift shops…

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Patrick Maynard’s ‘Shades of Yellow’

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Because I find it’s easier to get somebody else to do all the heavy lifting, I secured another guest poster for this week! Fellow Black Gater William Patrick Maynard knows more about Fu Manchu and the Yellow Peril genre than anybody else I know. And if you see his credentials at the end of the post, you’ll understand why! Today, he takes a pulpy look at the ‘menace from the Far East’ topic. Read on! “You’re the second guy I’ve…

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Birthday Reviews: Kara Dalkey’s “Bouncing Babies”

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Kara Dalkey was born on November 4, 1953. Dalkey was nominated for the Mythopoeic Award in 1989 for her novel The Nightingale, a retelling of one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales in a Japanese setting. Ten years later her novel Heavenward Path was also nominated for the Mythopoeic Award for Children’s Literature. She was also nominated for the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award in 2004 for her short story “Lady of the Ice Gardens.” “Bouncing Babies” was published in…

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Gods, Robots, and Man: The Best of Lester del Rey

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Lester del Rey was born in Minnesota in 1915 and died in 1993. One of his boldest fictions was claiming that his full name was Ramón Felipe San Juan Mario Silvio Enrico Smith Heathcourt-Brace Sierra y Alvarez-del Rey y de los Verdes, when it was actually Leonard Knapp. However, it was his other fictions, beginning in 1938 for Astounding, and his work as an editor, a reviewer, and in a literary agency, which resulted in his being made a Grand…

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