Search Results for: tale covers

If Batman Were a Teenager and Magically Talented: The Maradaine Novels by Marshall Ryan Maresca

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The Thorn of Dentonhill was Marshall Ryan Maresca’s debut novel. It followed the adventures of Veranix Calbert, diligent college student by day and crime-fighting vigilante by night, in the crime-ridden districts of the port city of Maradaine. It was nominated for the Compton Crook award, but it was the Library Journal‘s pithy review (“Veranix is Batman, if Batman were a teenager and magically talented”) that really piqued my interest. I featured the sequel, The Alchemy of Chaos, as a Future Treasure in…

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Patrick Swenson on Talebones, Fairwoods Press, and the Bad Old Days of Print on Demand

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Patrick Swenson has been a major figure in speculative fiction for decades, first as the editor of Talebones, and now as the editor in chief of Fairwood Press. Many still remember his semi-pro magazine as the market to send to if you had a story that fit nowhere, but was nevertheless amazing. He has an eye for such things. Nowadays, getting published by Fairwoods requires more than a good agent or query letter. It is by invitation only, and to be…

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A Tale of Magical Apocalypse: The Ley Trilogy by Joshua Palmatier

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Joshua Palmatier’s Ley Trilogy is one of the more original fantasy series out there. Set in Erenthrall, a vast city of light and magic fueled by a ley line network, the series follows a sprawling cast of rebels, traders, assassins, guardsmen, and magic wielders through a series of shattering events that bring apocalyptic change to their world, including quakes, magical distortions, and creatures beyond nightmare. The first novel is available in paperback from DAW, and the second in hardcover; the…

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Weird Tales Reprints Published by Goodman Games

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The Goodman Games site is one of my regular stopping points on the web. The company’s well known as an imagination factory that produces some of the most innovative and entertaining game supplements in print today. It’s also home of the popular Dungeon Crawl Classics role-playing game. What it’s never been until now is a purveyor of Weird Tales, so I was intrigued when I discovered five facsimile issues of the famous magazine were available for purchase on the site. I wrote…

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Pirates, Golems, and the Dread Queen of the Skies: Tales of the Ketty Jay by Chris Wooding

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Retribution Falls, the opening volume of Chris Wooding’s four-volume Tales of the Ketty Jay saga, was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Pretty auspicious beginning for a steampunk adventure series featuring pirates, sky battles, and armored golems. The series has been widely acclaimed over the years. Publisher’s Weekly praised its “Beautifully crafted prose and remarkably imaginative scenes,” and SFFWorld called it “One of the best pieces of fun I’ve read in a long while… a whip-cracking pace and with…

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Future Treasures: Pathfinder Tales: Pirate’s Prophecy by Chris A. Jackson

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For the past three years Chris A. Jackson, author of The Warcaster Chronicles, has been writing an ambitious fantasy saga for the Pathfinder Tales line, featuring pirate captain Torius Vin and his snake-bodied naga navigator Celeste, who forsake pirating to chase slave galleys and set the prisoners free. According to his bio, Jackson is a marine biologist who, with his wife Anne, has lived on a 45-foot sailboat since 2009, cruising the Caribbean and writing full time. Sounds like an ideal…

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New Treasures: Seize the Night: New Tales of Vampiric Terror, edited by Christopher Golden

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Do you remember when vampires were terrifying creatures of the night? Not moody boyfriends who sparkled in sunlight, or lovers who assisted their tough private investigator girlfriends in a series of encounters with deadly yet also strangely sexy werewolves and other paranormal beasts? I sure do. And so does Christopher Golden, editor of the new anthology Seize the Night: New Tales of Vampiric Terror, which gathers tales of terror in which vampires are figures of overwhelming terror once more. It includes brand new stories…

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Vintage Treasures: Tales From Gavagan’s Bar by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt

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In March of 1925, the great Lord Dunsany created the character of Joseph Jorkens for the short story “The Tale of the Abu Laheeb.” Dunsany would return to the character many, many times, writing over 150 Jorkens tales over the next 32 years. They were some of his most popular stories, published in widely-circulated magazines like The Strand, Atlantic Monthly, The Saturday Evening Post and Vanity Fair. The Jorkens tales are widely credited with creating the genre of the “Club Tale,” which…

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Vintage Treasures: Cautionary Tales by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

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There’s nothing quite like finally laying your hands on a book that’s eluded you for years. That happened this week with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s first collection, Cautionary Tales, published in paperback by Warner Books in 1980 with a moody and gorgeous cover by Leo & Diane Dillon, showing a group of aliens and humans conducting a (surprisingly effective) seance. Cautionary Tales collects 13 science fiction and dark fantasy stories published between 1971 and 1978 in magazines like Galaxy and IF, and anthologies like Chrysalis. and Faster Than…

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Future Treasures: The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by William Sloane

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I’m not familiar with William Sloane, but my interest was piqued this week when I saw his omnibus collection coming out next month from NYRB Classics. The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror collects two pulp-era tales of supernatural horror: To Walk the Night (1937) and The Edge of Running Water (1939). Here’s the description: In the 1930s, William Sloane wrote two brilliant novels that gave a whole new meaning to cosmic horror. In To Walk the Night, Bark Jones…

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