Search Results for: tale covers

Rejoice, Mortals, for Tales from the Magician’s Skull #3 is Here!

“Rejoice, mortals! I have heard your pleas and returned to grant your greatest desire: More sword-and-sorcery! Once again I will bring you tales of thrilling adventures in time-lost lands. There are swords, and there is sorcery. There are dark deeds and daring rescues…” —The Magician’s Skull  Should You Trust a Talking Skull? Well, no sane person would, but I attest this particular skull does not lie. Tales from the Magician’s Skull (installments #1 and #2) spawned from a successful 2017 Kickstarter…

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Goth Chick News: Tales from the Haunted Mansion Book Series

Disney parks worldwide have a lot of things in common, namely being the ‘Happiest Place(s) on Earth’, which is why the Haunted Mansion ride may seem like a bit of an anomaly. From Mystic Manor in Hong Kong, to Phantom Manor in Paris, to the Haunted Mansions in Tokyo, California and Florida, each park has a unique haunted house ride. The only park where you won’t find one is Shanghai, where ghosts and the fear of hauntings have a very…

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Vintage Treasures: The Weird Tales Anthologies

Weird Tales and More Weird Tales (Sphere, 1978). Covers by Les Edwards Weird Tales is unquestionably the most storied and respected American fantasy magazine. It first appeared in March 1923, and published its last issue in Spring 2014 — a nearly 91-year run. That’s impressive by any standard. Of course, Weird Tales isn’t measured purely by its longevity. The three greatest pulp fantasy writers — Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith — did their most important work in its pages,…

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Kay Kenyon Wraps Up the Dark Talents Trilogy with Nest of the Monarch

Covers by Mike Heath At the 2016 World Fantasy Convention I enjoyed a bunch of terrific readings, but my favorite — by a wide margin — was Kay Kenyon, who read from her  WWII spy novel At the Table of Wolves, the tale of a young English woman with superhuman abilities who stumbles on a chilling Nazi plan to invade England using superhuman agents. The sequel Serpent in the Heather arrived last year, and just last month the concluding volume in…

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Future Treasures: Fog Season, Book II of Tales of Port Saint Frey by Patrice Sarath

I was proud to publish Patrice Sarath’s short story “A Prayer for Captain LaHire” in Black Gate 4, and see it reprinted in Year’s Best Fantasy 3 (2003). She turned to novels with the popular Gordath Wood trilogy (Gordath Wood, Red Gold Bridge, and The Crow God’s Girl). But her real breakthrough came last year with her first release from Angry Robot, The Sisters Mederos, the tale of a once-great family fallen on hard times, and the two sisters — one a…

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A Treasure Trove of Classic British Horror: Darkness Mist & Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper

I first saw the three volumes of Darkness Mist & Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basic Copper at Greg Ketter’s booth at Windy City seven years ago. It was a gorgeous set of hardcovers, with magnificent wraparound Stephen Fabian artwork, and it drew my eye immediately. It was prohibitively expensive, however — nearly $200 for the set, if I remember correctly. Two hundred bucks buys a lot of vintage paperbacks. I put them back on the shelf with a…

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Fantasia 2018, Day 4, Part 1: Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura and Aragne: Sign of Vermillion

Sunday, July 15, was going to be my first really busy day of the Fantasia Film Festival. There were four movies I planned to see, with a chance of a fifth, depending on how things worked out. The day’d begin at the Hall Theatre; first, I’d see Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura, a lighthearted Japanese urban fantasy. Then would come Aragne: Sign of Vermillion, also from Japan, a horror anime. Destiny (Kamakura Monogatari, DESTINY 鎌倉ものがたり) is directed by Takashi Yamazaki,…

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Imaginative Tales, July 1957: A Retro-Review

Imaginative Tales was the adventure oriented companion magazine to William Hamling’s Imagination. Imagination (often called Madge) is still affectionately remembered by some older fans — it was a fun magazine, though I can’t say it published much really memorable fiction. Imaginative Tales arguably tried to be even funner, but I think less successfully, based on my limited exposure. (Hamling, by the way, is a controversial figure, not really remembered, I gather, as affectionately as his magazine. He lived to be…

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My All-Story Story, or, A Tale of Tarzan (Not Triumphant)

Those who know me well are aware that I’m not a morning person (to put it mildly). Accordingly, they’d be shocked to learn that not only did I get up on Saturday, November 25th morning at 5:00 a.m., I did so voluntarily and eagerly! As collectors will attest, however, no price – even missing hours of delightful sleep! – is too great to pay in the pursuit of one of your collecting grails. Of course, it’s much more gratifying when the…

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The Funny and Frightening Tale of the Supernatural Demise of London: Magicals Anonymous by Kate Griffin

Catherine Webb is an extraordinary young writer. Under her own name she’s published several popular YA novels, including four novels in the Carnegie Medal-nominated Horatio Lyle mystery series, featuring a scientist and occasional sleuth in Victorian London. She writes science fiction under the name Claire North, including the Campbell Award-winning The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (2014) and the World Fantasy Award nominee The Sudden Appearance of Hope (2016), among many others. And under the name Kate Griffin she writes fantasy…

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