Tag Archives: Night Shade Books

A Review of Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year Volume Eight

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Eight
Ellen Datlow, ed.
Night Shade Books
Trade paper $15.99
ebook $14.99

Since this is a review of a horror anthology, I’m going to run with that theme and say August has come from one of the circles of Hell. Just which one, I’m not sure. I need to brush up on my Dante. I finished this book two (three?) weeks ago, and I’m just now getting a relatively quiet and uninterrupted moment when I’m not too wiped out to put coherent sentences together. (The previous post doesn’t count. A careful reading will show I wasn’t in a good mood, and I don’t write reviews when I’m ~~cranky~~ crankier than usual.) The only part of the process that went the way it should was requesting the book and the quick response. Thanks to Brianna Scharfenberg of Night Shade Books. Delays in reading the book and posting the review are entirely mine.

Datlow is one of the most accomplished editors in the field. I know that any project, whether reprint or original, will have a top-notch selection of stories. That’s the case here. Not every story was to my taste, but then I don’t expect them to. The only anthology that will be completely to my taste will be one I’ve edited, and maybe not even then. Continue reading →

A New “Year’s Best” Debuts

Bloodsounder’s Arc Concludes

6 Replies

Chains of the Heretic
Jeff Salyards
Nightshade Books
Hardcover $25.99
Trade Paper $15.99
ebook $14.99

And so it comes to an end. I finished this book over a week ago, and I’ve found myself reluctant to write the review. At first I thought it was just time constraints. I had final exams to write and to give and to grade. I had all the usual stuff that happens at the end of the semester that takes up time. Like averaging and posting grades. Meeting with students about why they had a C when they were sure they were going to get an A. (That didn’t happen this semester, but you get the idea. I did have some meetings with a few folks about grades.) Or why they have the grade they have when they didn’t attend most of the labs. (This always happens.)

But those things are over and done. I’ve got plenty to do to get ready for summer classes and fall, what with the new lab room coming online. But none of that is urgent, and much of it depends on other people doing certain things before I can do certain other things.

So what’s my point rambling on like this? I finally realized that by writing the review, I was done with the story and the characters. (Those that survived to the end, at least.) And I didn’t want to be done. Continue reading →

Veil of the Deserters

4 Replies

Veil of the Deserters
Jeff Salyards
Night Shade Books
Trade Paper $15.99
ebook $13.99

Jeff Salyards emailed me late last year asking if I would be willing to review his new novel, Chains of the Heretic. Having quite enjoyed his first novel, Scourge of the Betrayer, I immediately said yes. And created for myself a small problem. Chanins of the Heretic is the third novel in Bloodsounder’s Arc. And I hadn’t at that time read the second, Veil of the Deserters. So that’s what I did.

I commit dayjobbery in acdemia, and this semester has been unusually hectic. You may have noticed I’m not posting as often as I have in the past. There are reasons for that. I finished Veil in about thrice the amount of time I normally would; the reasons it took so long had nothing to do with the book. The reason it’s taken nearly a month to get the review up have nothing to do with the book, either. (Unless the universe takes aim at me this week, there will be a flurry of reviews of books I’ve readover the course of the last three months.) I’m hoping to read and get the review of Chains up in a few weeks.

If you’re a fan of grimdark fantasty, then Jeff Salyards is an author you will want to check out. He’s extremely good. Continue reading →

“Arimetta” by Manley Wade Wellman

7 Replies

“Arimetta” was originally published in Kadath #4 in July of 1981, something that isn’t listed in the ISFDB. It was reprinted once in Sin’s Doorway and Other Ominous Entrances, The Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman, Volume 4 (Night Shade, 2003). The latter is where I read it. It’s the type of story set in the mountains that Wellman became known for.

This is a fairly short tale, one that’s loosely connected to the John the Balladeer stories. Earl Wood is wandering the mountains and ends up literally singing for his supper in the cabin Big Don Imbry shares with his wife and daughter. John taught Earl how to play the guitar, which makes him immediately welcome.

One of the songs Earl plays is “Wildwood Flower”, which he learned in Arkansas. The song is an actual folksong, not a fictional one. (Here’s Johnny Cash singing it.) Welllman changes the name of one of the flowers mentioned from “aronauts” to “arimetta”. That line has been changed in all the recordings I can find of it online to “the pale and the leader and eyes look like blue”.

“Arimetta”, from what I’ve been able to determine from my Google-Fu, is a woman’s name from that region of the country that’s no longer common and doesn’t appear to ever have been. Continue reading →

“The Golgotha Dancers” by Manly Wade Wellman

4 Replies

“The Golgotha Dancers”
Manly Wade Wellman
ebook $0.99

This story was originally published in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales. It’s now available as a short story in electronic format.

This is an early Wellman, so it doesn’t have the strong sense of place as his later work set in the Southern mountains, such as the John the Balladeer stories. Still, it’s a solid piece of fiction in its own right, even if it isn’t Wellman’s best work.

Just so you know, below the CONTINUE READING line, there will be spoilers. Continue reading →

2014 in the Rear View Mirror

1 Reply

And good riddance to it. But before I get to that, here’s a quick rundown of the publishers I thought had the best overall lines in 2014. Rather than do multiple posts across all the blogs, I’ll list everything here.

I received more review copies than I was able to read this year. I would like to thank everyone, large publisher or individual, who sent me something to review. I apologize if I didn’t get to it. Personal factors also cut into my reading more than I would prefer. Still, I managed to read quite a bit from a number of different publishers. What follows is a list of who had some of the best overall material in 2014 with a brief commentary. These are trade publishers, not indie publishers. In most cases, I’ll not discuss individual titles. Nor will I do a best books list. I wasn’t able to read as many titles as I wanted, and as a result there are some glaring omissions in what I did read.

The list is in alphabetical order, not ranked. Continue reading →

The Raksura Return

1 Reply

Stories of the Raksura, Volume 1
Martha Wells
Night Shade Books
trade paper, $15.99
ebook Kindle $9.99 Nook $7.49

Have you ever had one of those books that took you forever to read? Not because the book isn’t interesting, but every single time you try to read it, you can’t get more than a few pages further along before something interrupts you.

That was my experience with this book. It seemed the Fates were conspiring to thwart me every time I picked the book up. But I persevered.

And I can say it was nice to revisit this world. I would also like to thank Lauren Burstein of Night Shade Books for the review copy. There are two novellas and two short stories here plus a couple of appendices. Here’s what you get. Continue reading →

When October Goes

2 Replies

Now that Halloween is over, I’m going to shift gears a bit. Time to return to more sword and sorcery here at Adventures Fantastic. Or at least solid adventure fantasy. I’ve already started reading Shattered Shields, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt, which hits shelves on Tuesday. I don’t know if I’ll have the review up by the release date, but I’ll do my best.

Pyr and Solaris have both sent me copies of some cool titles since the first of the summer that I never got a chance to work into the schedule. I really want to go back and pick read some of them. They’re mostly fantasy, but there’s some science fiction mixed in. Also, Night Shade has sent me some titles, and one of the first I’ll read is Stories of the Raksura, vol.1, by Martha Wells. I’ll probably start that one by the end of the week.

Speaking of science fiction, there are some titles sitting around I want to read. Some of them will be popping up at Futures Past and Present as I work them in. I’ll also be reading some mystery/noir titles and reviewing them at Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams.

Plus there are some titles from various other publishers I want to read. I’ll be mixing them in at random. I’m going to try to strike a balance between titles that someone has sent me and stuff I just want to read for fun. So you never know what’s going to pop up next.

What to Read While Waiting for Abercrombie’s Next Book

6 Replies

Scourge of the Betrayer
Jeff Salyards
Night Shade Books
hardcover $24.99
trade paper $14.99
ebook $24.99 Kindle ($12.99 at this writing) Nook ($13.99 at this writing) Baen ($6.00 at this writing)

If you like your fantasy gritty and dark, with layers of plots and schemes, then Jeff Salyard’s debut novel will probably be right up your alley.

It’s been out for a while, but as regular readers of the blog will know, I’m a bit behind. And I have no idea why the ebook is priced the same as the hardcover. I sure didn’t pay that much. (This wasn’t a review copy.) Baen has the book at a reasonable price, which is where I got my copy.

But I digress. This isn’t a rant about ridiculous ebook prices. This is a rave about how good this novel is. If Salyards can keep up this level of quality with the rest of the series, he’ll be a major player in the field. Continue reading →