New Treasures: The Chimes by Anna Smaill

New Treasures: The Chimes by Anna Smaill

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The Chimes Anna Smaill-smallAnna Smaill is the author of one book of poetry, The Violinist in Spring, but beyond that I don’t know much about her. Except that her debut fantasy novel is being called “What might be the most distinctive debut of the decade” by Tor.com, and “A melodic, immersive dystopian tale set in a London where writing is lost and song has replaced story” by Kirkus Reviews. And Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brooks calls it “”A highly original dystopian masterpiece, an intricately imagined, exquisitely invoked world in which music instills order and ravages individuality.”

Sounds like I need to check it out. It goes on sale in hardcover this week from Quercus Books.

After the end of a brutal civil war, London is divided, with slums standing next to a walled city of elites. Monk-like masters are selected for special schooling and shut away for decades, learning to write beautiful compositions for the chimes, played citywide morning and night, to mute memory and keep the citizens trapped in ignorance.

A young orphan named Simon arrives in London with nothing but the vague sense of a half-forgotten promise, to locate someone. What he finds is a new family — a gang of scavengers that patrols the underbelly of the city looking for valuable metal to sell. Drawn in by an enigmatic and charismatic leader, a blind young man named Lucien with a gift for song, Simon forgets entirely what originally brought him to the place he has now made his home.

In this alternate London, the past is a mystery, each new day feels the same as the last, and before is considered “blasphony.” But Simon has a unique gift — the gift of retaining memories — that will lead him to discover a great injustice and take him far beyond the meager life as a member of Lucien’s gang. Before long he will be engaged in an epic struggle for justice, love, and freedom.

The Chimes will be published by Quercus on May 3, 2016. It is 287 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover artist is uncredited.

Black Gate Declines Hugo Nomination

Black Gate Declines Hugo Nomination

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2011 Hugo Award-smallEarly last week, Black Gate was nominated for a Hugo Award in the category of Best Fanzine. On Friday, we contacted the Awards Committee at MidAmeriCon II, the World Science Fiction Convention, to inform them that we have declined the nomination.

Why did we decline? While we won’t know the exact number of nominating ballots until the stats are released (after the Hugos are awarded), it’s clear that Black Gate largely benefited from Vox Day’s Rabid Puppy Hugo slate. As we reported Wednesday, roughly 80% of this year’s Hugo ballot was dictated by that slate — it swept six categories, including Short Story, Graphic Story, and Fanzine. Our choice to withdraw was informed by many of the same factors that led us to make the same decision last year.

It also seems fairly obvious that we cannot win. Of the 61 nominees the Puppy ballots placed on the Hugo ballot last year, only one, Guardians of the Galaxy, received an award. The Rabid Puppy brand, which BG is now unwillingly associated with, is so toxic that it’s virtually impossible to overcome that association without the equivalent of a $100 million advertising campaign. Those nominees who stubbornly argued otherwise last year, and attended the Hugo ceremony with high hopes, learned that the hard way, unceremoniously losing out to No Award in a painful rout across virtually every category. (Incidentally, I also voted No Award for most of the ballot.)

Several folks I admire, including George R.R. Martin and John Scalzi, are urging nominees not to withdraw, and for excellent reasons. However, the reason that’s paramount to me, my desire to step aside in favor of a worthy publication not on the slate, outweighs those considerations. A great many publications I deeply respect were completely swept aside by the Rabid Puppy ballot, including John DeNardo’s SF Signal, Rich Horton’s Strange at Ecbatan, Coming Attractions, and even last year’s winner — Journey Planet. By giving up our very slim chance at winning, we can give another deserving publication a shot. That seems like a fair exchange to me.

Good luck to all the nominees — I mean that. As usual, we’ll be covering the Awards, and the events leading up to them, here on the blog.

Future Treasures: War Factory by Neal Asher

Future Treasures: War Factory by Neal Asher

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War Factory Neal Asher US-small War Factory Neal Asher UK-small

I’ve been in the mood for fast-paced space opera recently. Something with big guns, bigger ships, and nasty aliens. I’m thinking Neal Asher.

The first book in his Transformation trilogy, Dark Intelligence, was published in February 2015. It introduced us to Thorvald Spear, dead for a hundred years after being betrayed by Penny Royal, the rogue AI sent to rescue his team on a hostile world. When Spear wakes up in a hospital, returned to life by strange technology, he finds the war versus the alien Prador has been over for a century. But Penny Royal is still on the loose, and Spear vows revenge at any cost.

Publishers Weekly called Dark Intelligence “Beautifully paced… space opera at a high peak of craftsmanship.” War Factory is the second volume in the trilogy, and the newest title set in Asher’s Polity universe (Prador Moon, The Line of Polity, Brass Man, The Skinner, and many others).

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The Late April Magazine Rack

The Late April Magazine Rack

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Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-197-rack Cirsova-rack Uncanny-magazine-March-April-2016-rack Pulp Literature 10-rack
Locus-April-2016-rack The-Great-Detective-Delia-Sherman-rack Lightspeed-April-2016-rack Interzone-263-rack

Fletcher Vredenburgh kicks off our coverage of two very promising new publications this month in his regular magazine column: Cirsova, a magazine of sword and sorcery and science fiction, and Pulp Literature, which attempts to re-capture the high adventure spirit of the great pulp mags — and largely succeeds. Here’s Fletcher.

Two incredibly impressive magazines crossed my desk this past month: the very first issue of the brand new Cirsova, edited by P. Alexander, and Pulp Literature #10, edited by the triumvirate of Mel Anastasiou, Jennifer Landels, and Susan Pieters. Both are hefty collections (Cirsova is 95 pages and Pulp Literature is 229) and are available as e-books as well as real live paper versions.

P. Anderson may say that what ties the various stories in Cirsova together is a love for the glorious pulp adventures of the past. While that is clearly true, their truest similarity lies in the authors’ love of storytelling… Cirsova has built a stage for writers to tell stories with narrative force, audacious adventure, and outlandishly magnificent settings. If this is what the first issue looks like, I expect future ones will blow me away…

Pulp Literature has been around for several years now, having published ten thick issues… While it has only a few swords & sorcery stories, I was blown away by PL’s quality and richness… Pulp Literature is filled with a wide variety of genres. Senior citizen detectives, Jewish monsters in contemporary Ontario, poetry, all sorts of good things. Don’t let that literature tag scare you off. The editors’ love of pulp in so many varieties means they have a love of storytelling and don’t neglect it. How such a magazine has escaped wider notice eludes me.

In other news, we also reported that dark fantasy magazine The Dark is switching to monthly. Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our Mid-April Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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Notes from the Underground: Tremors & Tremors 2: Aftershocks

Notes from the Underground: Tremors & Tremors 2: Aftershocks

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Tremors Kevn Bacon Fred Ward

Tremors (1990)
Directed by Ron Underwood

Earl Bassett: What kind of fuse is that?
Burt Gummer: Cannon fuse
Earl Bassett: What the hell do you use it for?
Burt Gummer: My cannon!

Will Tremors, the movie, go down through the ages as a great and enduring work of art? Nah. Is it a pretty good monster movie and perhaps even one of the better examples of the breed? I would argue that it is.

Once upon a time — the Fifties, to be more specific — there was a flood of movies about giant critters of various shapes and sizes wreaking havoc in assorted and sundry ways. Once in a while the planets would align just so and someone might turn out a pretty decent one of these. Them, a yarn about rampaging giant ants, springs to mind.

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April 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

April 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

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Lightspeed April 2016-smallThe fiction in every issue of Lightspeed is gradually made available on the website as the month progresses; the last story in the newest issue became available on April 28th, and the entire issue is now yours to enjoy free. The April issue includes tales of supervillain ex-boyfriends, queens rescued from dragons, quantum challenges, and the first mating between humans and aliens.

Robert L Turner III reviewed the issue at Tangent Online:

In “Origin Story” by Carrie Vaughn we are introduced to Commerce City, a town overrun with heroes, supervillains, and vigilantes. Mary, the protagonist, is standing in line when she recognizes that the supervillain robbing the bank is none other than her ex-boyfriend Jason Trumble. The story is more a quick vignette about lost loves and rekindled (?) relationships than SF…

“The Birth Will Take Place on a Mutually Acceptable Research Vessel” by Matthew Bailey is the final entry for the month. In it, the first mating between Humans and the recently met Tharkan species is the subject. Told from the viewpoint of the expectant human mother, the story delves into the complexities of intercultural and interspecies communication. Bailey does a solid job of presenting the larger world through the eyes of the narrator and making the personal universal. The constant repetition of the idea of Self and Autonomy is well played against the unique situation of a first interspecies birth. Overall, the story, while not groundbreaking, is interesting and the best of the issue.

The cover artist this issue is Sam Schechter.

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Vintage Treasures: The Elsewhere Anthologies, edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold

Vintage Treasures: The Elsewhere Anthologies, edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold

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Elsewhere Volume 1-small Elsewhere Volume 2-small Elsewhere Volume 3-small

Terri Windling is a superstar in the field of fantasy. She’s been awarded the World Fantasy Award nine times, and she’s also won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the 2010 SFWA Solstice Award. As an editor at Ace she discovered and promoted first novels by Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, and many other important authors; with Ellen Datlow she co-edited 16 volumes of the seminal Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror from 1986–2003. She’s also an author in her own right, with several highly regarded works to her credit, including the Mythopoeic Award-winning novel The Wood Wife, and a number of children’s books, such as The Raven Queen and The Winter Child.

But believe it or not, she got her start in this industry as an artist. I didn’t discover that until I interviewed Ellen Kushner for my Tale of Two Covers article on her Basilisk anthology earlier this month. Here’s Ellen:

It’s an anthology I’m still really proud of. It’s also how I met Terri Windling, who did the interior illustrations (which much more accurately represent the aesthetic of the stories). She’d just come to town, and was showing her art portfolio around. Jim [Baen] thought I’d like her work, and that he wouldn’t have to pay her much… Terri, of course, essentially took over my job as fantasy expert for Jim a few months after I left Ace.

Ellen reached out to Terri as we were fact checking the article, and in the process Terri gave me the fascinating back story on how she began her career as one of the most respected and admired editors in the field with the Elsewhere series of anthologies, the first of which won the World Fantasy Award. Here’s what she said.

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Rosarium, Diversity, and the Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria

Rosarium, Diversity, and the Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria

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Rosarium_Comix_Banner_tbjinlHello, there!

I just wanted to pop in to tell you about the Indiegogo campaign that Rosarium Publishing is currently running.

From the first two paragraphs of their campaign page:

Rosarium Publishing (distributed through IPG) was started in 2013 with one goal: to bring true diversity to publishing so that the books and comics we enjoy actually reflect the fascinating, multicultural world we truly live in today.

We publish science fiction, crime, steampunk, satire, comics and represent over 40 artists and writers from all over the world.  With the success of this campaign, we will be able to print thousands of books and continue our mission to further our quest for diversity in publishing with the high quality of work you deserve.

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New Treasures: Starflight by Melissa Landers

New Treasures: Starflight by Melissa Landers

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Starflight Melissa Landers-small Starflight Melissa Landers back-small

Black Gate is a fantasy site, and there’s more than enough fantasy releases to keep us busy every month. But sometimes adventure SF — especially off-world space opera — reads an awful lot like great fantasy. It’s too early to see if Melissa Landers’s latest novel Starflight will go down in the annals as classic space opera, but it’s sure got the ingredients… including a plucky heroine, lawless outer realms, long-buried secrets, and an eccentric crew on a fast ship.

Solara Brooks needs a fresh start, someplace where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. The outer realm may be lawless, but it’s not like the law has ever been on her side. Still, off-world travel doesn’t come cheap; Solara is left with no choice but to indenture herself in exchange for passage to the outer realm. She just wishes it could have been to anyone besides Doran Spaulding, the rich, pretty-boy quarterback who made her life miserable in school.

The tables suddenly turn when Doran is framed for conspiracy on Earth, and Solara cons him into playing the role of her servant on board the Banshee, a ship manned by an eccentric crew with their own secrets. Given the price on both Doran and Solara’s heads, it may just be the safest place in the universe. It’s been a long time since Solara has believed in anyone, and Doran is the last person she expected to trust. But when the Banshee‘s dangerous enemies catch up with them, Solara and Doran must come together to protect the ship that has become their home – and the eccentric crew that feels like family.

Starflight was published by Disney-Hyperion on February 2, 2016. It is 368 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital version.