Fantasy Books

The Paris Express, a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris…

The post Spotlight on “The Paris Express” by Emma Donoghue appeared first on LitStack.

 

I totally need this!

Hemlock & Silverby T. Kingfisher
From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White” steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind.
Healer Anja knows little of politics but much of poisons. When she is summoned to treat the mysterious illness afflicting the king’s daughter, she finds herself against the clock, desperate to track down the source of the poison killing Princess Snow. But the chance discovery of a strange alternate world inside a magic mirror leads Anja to darker discoveries, including what really happened to Snow’s dead sister, Rose, and why their mother seemingly went mad and cut out her heart.
Aided by a taciturn bodyguard, a narcissistic cat, and a late Renaissance understanding of the scientific method, Anja must navigate the mysteries of the mirror world before the dark queen that dwells within rises to threaten them all.
Expected publication August 19, 2025

 

Book links: Amazon, Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Grady Hendrix is the author of the novels Horrorstör, about a haunted IKEA, and My Best Friend's Exorcism, which is like Beaches meets The Exorcist, only it's set in the Eighties. He's also the author of We Sold Our Souls, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, and the Final Girl Support Group!
He's also the jerk behind the Stoker award-winning Paperbacks from Hell, a history of the 70's and 80's horror paperback boom, which contains more information about Nazi leprechauns, killer babies, and evil cats than you probably need.
And he's the screenwriter behind Mohawk, which is probably the only horror movie about the War of 1812 and Satanic Panic.
You can listen to free, amazing, and did I mention free podcasts of his fiction on Pseudopod. He also does a podcast called Super Scary Haunted Homeschool.
If you're not already sick of him, you can learn all his secrets at his website.
Publisher: Berkley (January 14, 2025) Length: 468  Formats: audiobook, ebook, hardcover, paperback

Grady Hendrix strikes again, this time with Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. He’s trading haunted houses for something much scarier - societal judgment, systemic abuse, and the 1970s institution of unwed mothers’ homes.
The story follows 15-year-old Neva Craven, a pregnant teen dragged by her irate father to Wellwood House, a grim institution in Florida where “wayward girls” forced to give up their babies. Renamed Fern, Neva bonds with her fellow captives - budding revolutionary Rose, sharp Zinnia, and sweet Holly. These girls have been abandoned, dismissed, and exploited by the very people who should protect them.
While there are witchy parts and mischief, the real horror here lies in the everyday atrocities - the crushing weight of societal judgment, toxic families, and the grim realities of childbirth. Fair warning: if you’re squeamish about body horror, this one might hit hard. The story here hits hard, and it’s only Hendrix’s humor and warmth that keep things from sinking into despair.
As mentioned, things take a turn for the magical when a cryptic librarian offers Fern an intriguing book, titled How to Be a Groovy Witch. Things get complicated and sinister when girls play with spells and have their revenge. It’s worth noting the revenge they seek is hard won and comes at a cost, but oh, is it satisfying to see the power dynamics shift, even briefly. The magic and witchcraft parts were most interesting to me and I’ll admit the ending was a bit of a disappointment, but I can’t say why because spoilers.
Despite the heavy themes-shame, injustice, and society’s knack for blaming teenage girls for pretty much everything-Hendrix balances it all with a light touch. If you like your horror with heart, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is worth picking up. It’s a little spooky, a little sad, and satisfying.

The Eye of Sounnu (DMR Books, May 3, 2020)

The concept of barbarism vs. civilization is a topic that Robert E. Howard often explored in his incredibly crafted fiction. Other authors, many inspired by Howard, have explored the concept through their own creations.

Notable among these is modern sword-and-sorcery author Schuyler Hernstrom, whose collection of short stories, The Eye of Sounnu, was published by DMR Books. The collection contains a wonderful story called “Mortu and Kyrus in the White City,” which features northland, pagan barbarian (Mortu) and his learned companion (Kryus), a monotheistic monk who suffers a curse and now lives in the body of a monkey — but that does not preclude him from waxing philosophically about the world and mankind’s place in it.

There was an exchange between the two that I recently read, and I had to reread it, and then reread it again, because I enjoyed it so much, so I share it here, for my friends of similar interests.

(This takes place shortly after the two arrived in “the White City.”)

Mortu whispered to his friend. “How old do you reckon she is?”
Kyrus shrugged. “Perhaps thirty-five, forty? Forty-five at the oldest.”
“Everyone here, the men and the women, all seem to be the same age save Nathia and the (two) children. Where are the families? Where are the elderly?”
“In mankind’s long history, many people have struck off in order to found their idea of a utopia. I suspect the denizens of the White City are such a group. All those that turn away from society in such a way meet a similar fate, gradual disillusionment and dissolution.”
“Utopia?”
Kyrus’ tone became pedantic. “A perfect society.”
Mortu scoffed. “There is such a place, the north, where my people live as the gods intended.”
“My young friend, once again the essential concepts escape your grasp, like eels slipping from your thick fingers. While you may wrongly believe the savages that raised you to be of a perfect society, I refer to man’s long dream of living without inequality or strife.”
The barbarian scoffed again. “Life is conflict. We are but wolves that walk on two legs. Build your temples, write your books, nothing will ever change.”

Lastly, I’d like to thank my friend Morgan for recommending this excellent collection a few years ago. I am enjoying it immensely.

Order copies directly from DMR’s website.

Jeffrey P. Talanian’s last article for Black Gate was Roy Thomas’ Barbarian Life. He is the creator and publisher of the Hyperborea sword-and-sorcery and weird science-fantasy RPG from North Wind Adventures. He was the co-author, with E. Gary Gygax, of the Castle Zagyg releases, including several Yggsburgh city supplements, Castle Zagyg: The East Mark Gazetteer, and Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. Read Gabe Gybing’s interview with Jeffrey here, and follow his latest projects on Facebook and at www.hyperborea.tv.

Here are 7 Author Shoutouts for this week. Find your favorite author or discover an…

The post 7 Author Shoutouts | Authors We Love To Recommend appeared first on LitStack.

 

The Unseelie Throne (Maze of Shadows #3)by Kathryn Ann Kingsley
What is it about:When the prize is death, some games are better lost than won.If she loses, she becomes his queen, and he unleashes war across Earth and Tir n’Aill alike. If she wins, he dies. The answer seems clear. But then why can’t she bring herself to want victory?
The longer Abigail wanders through his Maze of Shadows, the less sure she becomes of anything—allies, enemies, wrong, right, evil, good, hate…and love. With every twist and turn, her heart is more fully trapped in his snare.
Facing the choice of whether to win—and kill the Bloody Prince—or lose and become his queen, Abigail can’t decide which is worse. In fact, she is starting to think that she might no longer want to win at all.
No matter the cost.
What did Voodoo Bride think of it:*spoiler ahead*The second book felt a bit like filler, even though I enjoyed it very much. This book is back on track, and there's lots of good scenes between Abigail and Valroy.
I was so invested in this story and the likely doomed romance between them. They might be attracted to each other, but are on opposite sides. Can you be both lovers and enemies?
Then there's finally the first 'all the way' scene and I was... disappointed. It was more about how looooong Valroy is (Peter Steele would have liked a word, were he still alive) than it being satisfying after all the tension and waiting.
Luckily later scenes had the steam and enjoyment I really needed after all the bad things that happened to Abigail since the start of this series.
And then the ending!
I immediately needed the last book to see if this series could end happily or if I would get my heart broken.
Why should you read it:It's a really addictive if sometimes brutal Dark Fantasy (Romance?)

Black Gate’s interview series on “Beauty in Weird Fiction” queries authors/artists about their muses and methods to make ‘repulsive things’ become ‘attractive.’  We’ve hosted C.S. Friedman, Carol Berg, Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, and Janet E Morris (full list of 29 interviews, with Black Gate hosting since 2018).

This round features C. S. E. Cooney (CSEC), who is no stranger to Black Gate [link to listings]. She is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: first, for Bone Swans: Stories, and most recently for Saint Death’s Daughter. Previously on Black Gate, an all-star crew heralded its release with a video cast including readings of Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney.

Forthcoming in April 2025 is Saint Death’s Herald, the second in the Saint Death series. In this post, we reveal exclusive details, CSEC’s creative process, and hint of Book #3’s contents! Read this and her contagious energy will infect you! Cripes, simply by doing this interview, I was infected with a buttery aura! Read more and learn C.S.E. Cooney’s real identity and code name too (Tiger of the gods? Or is it Lainey!)

An Interview with Saint Death’s Daughter (a.k.a. C.S.E. Cooney)

 

SEL:  Saint Death’s Daughter was released in 2022, and we’ll dig into that momentarily.  Mark Rigney interviewed you a decade ago Black Gate (2014 link). How have you changed as an author since then? Were you inspired by your Lord Dunsany readings?

Re-reading that 2014 interview is hilarious. And exuberant. And painful. Oof. That line towards the end about Howard making me read Lord Dunsany? Seth, I have to say that right now, I just want Howard alive again, and making me read anything at all. That’s what I want.

[SEL Sidebar: Howard Andrew Jones, Black Gate print magazine editor, longtime author, and friend/mentor to countless writers, passed away this January after battling aggressive brain cancer. CSEC led the charge with a GoFundMe campaign for his family (with help from a crew including the just-mentioned Mark Rigney), and Black Gate has hosted several tributes (i.e., from John O’Neill, Jason Ray Carney, & Bob Byrne); as one of HAJ’s Skull Interns, I am capturing links to many more memorials. Peace to our dear friend.]

Otherwise, sadly: I don’t recall much about my Lord Dunsany readings. I didn’t even remember that reading Dunsany made me want to be referred to as “the tiger of the gods.” Now, why didn’t that catch on, I wonder? You may henceforth refer to me in this interview as “tiger of the gods,” please.

Have I changed as an author since then? Yes. Yes, I’m not as fast as I was ten years ago, and everything about the world seems harder, and sadder. I think it was always hard and sad, but I’m feeling it more now, I guess.

But also… also, it’s all so much more interesting.

Over the last ten years, I’d experienced such burnout, such weariness and bitterness about the craft, that at one point I announced I wasn’t going to write again until I wanted to write. My friends and family were afraid I was serious. (I was.) They were like, “Claire, what are you doing?”

But I really just wanted to want to write. Was any of the work even worth it if I didn’t want it anymore?

And it took a few weeks of me staring out a window, giving myself permission not to write. But then, suddenly and spontaneously one morning, I had one of those magical “what if” thoughts. That was something that hadn’t happened in literally years of revision and submission and revision and submission. The next morning, that “what if” had built into a whole dang story idea. So I sat down and started writing it out long hand — something I’d also not done in years. The experience was so pleasurable, so permissive, and so, I don’t know. Healing.

The whole world seemed new. Writing was possible again. Phew! I’d made it through the wasteland and to the other side.

Since then, the whole creative process just keeps getting weirder and more wonderful. Concentrating on the unique bizarreness of process has really opened me up to so many branching avenues of boundless curiosity.

Now I know: if I need to stop writing for a while, I will. (After I meet my deadlines, of course. That’s what a professional does.)

For me, the sensual ritual of writing has become the point. And community. Community is the point.

What else has changed? I’ve never done so much body mirroring while writing in my life: writing in silent zooms, or with people in the room. I’ve never done so much timed writing. I even started listening to music while writing — which I never used to do. I still can’t listen to anything with words (some Hildegard von Bingen chanting aside). I started listening to fantasy gaming soundtracks, because if I listen to movie soundtracks, I just have that movie’s story and dialogue running through my brain. But since I’ve not played most fantasy games, that’s not a problem. (I can’t, for example, listen to the Baldur’s Gate soundtrack, because I did play that. Which was awesome.)

I know this now: even when I’m sad, and tired, and lacking all motivation, I still want to want to write. All the rest is hacking my brain to get the motor running. Music, company, handwriting, candlelight… all of those rituals put me in a more celebratory and ludic headspace for writing.

What’s the same? Well… every time I have to write something new, it’s still like learning how to write all over again. Some of the same skills apply, sure, but I’m constantly learning how to write something I couldn’t even fathom before I started.

Like fight scenes. Fight scenes are so hard.

“Henceforth refer to me in this interview as ‘Tiger of the Gods’ ” — C.S.E. Cooney Saint Death’s Daughter (2023 World Fantasy Winner) Blurb

Nothing complicates life like Death.

Lanie Stones, the daughter of the Royal Assassin and Chief Executioner of Liriat, has never led a normal life. Born with a gift for necromancy and a literal allergy to violence, she was raised in isolation in the family’s crumbling mansion by her oldest friend, the ancient revenant Goody Graves.

When her parents are murdered, it falls on Lanie and her cheerfully psychotic sister Nita to settle their extensive debts or lose their ancestral home — and Goody with it. Appeals to Liriat’s ruler to protect them fall on indifferent ears… until she, too, is murdered, throwing the nation’s future into doubt.

Hunted by Liriat’s enemies, hounded by her family’s creditors and terrorised by the ghost of her great-grandfather, Lanie will need more than luck to get through the next few  months — but when the goddess of Death is on your side, anything is possible.

At first glance, the summary of Saint Death’s Daughter sounds like a horror adventure, but it reads more like a comedic/fun, coming-of-age story. How would you describe the book to new readers?

TIGER OF THE GODS: Generally, I give this elevator pitch: “Girl grows up in a family of assassins, but is allergic to violence. Her allergy indicates that one day, if she survives long enough, her aversion to violence will be so strong, she’ll be able to RAISE THE DEAD.”

Boom! Necromancy book, baby.

For comp titles, I say something along these lines: “Like if Terry Pratchett and the Addams Family had a necromancer baby who really liked pink frilly dresses and cutie patootie mouse skeletons.”

Those are light, easy ways about talking about my book. My book which is, in reality… much weirder.

BUT! I really don’t want to intimidate people. I want to invite people.

I also like to describe Saint Death’s Daughter as a Bildungsroman — a coming-of-age story. Now, I know that all YA books must perforce be coming-of-age stories. That’s the genre. It’s just that, at no point in the drafting process, did I imagine I was writing YA with Saint Death’s Daughter. But it is still a Bildungsroman.

I am, as I was ten years ago, still under the influence of Lois McMaster Bujold. I wanted to write a character like Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan. The first few novellas about him may have covered his childhood, but over time, we get to experience him at many ages.

Saint Death’s Daughter is just Lanie Stones’s first book. It’s just one point in the timeline of her full life — perhaps not even the most important part. I imagine her in her thirties. (Sexy beast!) Her forties! (Whoa, what a powerhouse!) I imagine her as an old woman — with even more wisdom and compassion and mischief, and far, far more powerful. (Also, probably a foodie.) I imagine her on her deathbed. I imagine future scholars writing about her as a historical figure of a certain time and place that is perhaps no more. (This makes footnotes very fun.)

SEL: Discuss the media of necromancy which feels very artistic, especially the paint-like, colored essences of panthuama and ectenica.

TIGER OF THE GODS: I made up the word “panthauma” out of the words “pan” (all) and “thaumaturgy” (miracle or marvel-working). I wanted a word for sorcery that was slightly alien, so I could apply my own set of rules to it without previous reader bias. But I also wanted, in addition to that whiff of mysterious, a sense of familiarity, linguistically-speaking.

And then I wanted a new word for “death magic” that wasn’t just, you know “death magic.” “Necromancy” is the obvious word, and I do use it in the book. But its actual etymology has more to do with divining via the dead than raising them up. (All the “-mancy” words have to do with divination.) So I wanted necromancy to be a specific kind of death magic, not the word for death magic.

I wanted a new word, something more flexible, less familiar. A word that evoked ghosts! And also super fun to say. So I took a closer look at our word “ectoplasm,” and then just sort of f*&%ed with it to make “ectenica.” Just say it aloud. All those clicky consonants!

Lanie’s a bit of a synesthete, in that she associates smells and colors with magic; that’s her brain trying to process the unimaginable. So, for panthauma, when the gods are drawing close and lighting up the world with Their attention, her vision goes bright-yellow with hard edges, like faceted topaz, and her body responds with a kind of champagne-y, effervescent reaction. Her sensual reaction to ectenica is much colder. She perceived it as a sort of starry blue. And the smell of her god, and of death magic, is always some variation of citrus. Other gods have other smells. I think, to some degree, most of the sorcerers/saints in my world have synesthesia.

SEL: Celerity Stones, one of Lanie’s aunts, was also a traditional artist, and her portfolio included portraiture like “Barely There: The Exquisite Art of Excoriation, With (Predominantly) Live Models”.  I’d love to see her collection. Can you tell us more about Celerity’s inspiration and art?

Celerity had been much in demand for her pen and ink drawings, her sanguine sketches, her oils, watercolors, and illuminated calligraphy. Later, she won renown as an anatomical scientist. Very precise with spreader, was never easy to ignore her most famous work, The Flayed Ideal, which hung on the wall of Stones Gallery and had a way of glaring at you. Its exposed and accusatory eyeballs, rendered in oil on canvas with exquisite delicacy, followed you around the room — and very often out the door and down the hall.

— from Saint Death’s Daughter

TIGER OF THE GODS: You know those stories we have of anatomists and resurrection men in prior centuries who’d illegally dig up bodies in order to study them, to become better doctors? (I’m glad that the laws — and some minds — have changed to allow for voluntary donation in such endeavors, but for a while it was considered absolutely heinous.) And you know all those stories about how powerful people in history — doctors, surgeons, psychologists, prisons, military — exploited marginalized communities, sometimes going so far as to medically experiment on people without their informed consent, for purposes of their own research?

That’s my inspiration for Celerity Stones.

She was not a good person. She was talented and precise and obsessed with her work. But she — like the whole toxic Stones family — hurt people to achieve her greatness.

One of the reasons that the Stones family ultimately falls is that cruelty like that is not sustainable, however it sometimes seems to advance society in the moment. Undoing the Stones’s legacy, and especially the glamorization of the violent family narrative, is something that Lanie has to consciously learn how to do as she gets older.

SEL: Every time I’ve seen you at Gen Con, you are wearing impressive regalia. Do you craft the costumes?  Do they represent characters?

TIGER OF THE GODS: I don’t craft costumes, per se. Like, I don’t think of myself as dressing up as certain characters. But I do dress according to my mood that day — or the mood I’d like to have. Heck, I just like dressing up. When I was a kid I had a “dress-up trunk” and I just preferred every secondhand prom dress and thrift store “glass slipper” (plastic with rhinestones) and dilapidated tiara to any of my school uniforms, softball jerseys, or neon skorts in my regular wardrobe. All these years later, I still do. Only now MOST of my closet is “dress-up” trunk.

These days, if I have to dress to go somewhere where there’s an expectation of dress code, that’s when I feel like I’m in costume. Like, when I go into the booth for audiobook narration, I have to wear “soft clothes.” I think of them as “ninja clothes,” but a friend of mine said it just looked like I was wearing pajamas. But you can’t wear anything that tinkles or rustles or chimes!

I was watching a “maximalist” influencer talking on Instagram about how the act of getting dressed is a creative process. And when you put together an outfit (or “fit” as the kids are calling it) to completion, you get that little bump of dopamine, like when you finish a puzzle or complete a recipe or win a game. Creative clothing is a small, achievable goal, and it makes me happy. Maybe, in some ways, I’ve been sartorially self-medicating since childhood!

Saint Death’s Herald Blurb

Much-anticipated follow-up to the whimsical, joyous, zombie-packed World Fantasy Award-winning Saint Death’s Daughter

Lanie Stones is the necromancer that Death has been praying for.

Heartbroken, exiled from her homeland as a traitor, Lanie Stones would rather take refuge in good books and delicate pastries than hunt a deathless abomination, but that is the duty she has chosen.

The abomination in question happens to be her own great-grandfather, the powerful necromancer Irradiant Stones. Grandpa Rad has escaped from his prison and stolen a body, and is heading to the icy country of Skakhmat where he died, to finish the genocide he started. Fortunately for her, Lanie has her powerful death magic, including the power to sing the restless dead to their eternal slumber; and she has her new family by her side.

Grandpa Rad may have finally met his match.

Saint Death’s Herald (preorder link) is coming in April 2025. What can we reveal? Anything special we can say about this, only heralded via Black Gate?

TIGER OF THE GODS: Oh, gosh. Well. A Black Gate exclusive, eh?

Well, here’s the thing. I LOVE spoilers. I don’t even call them spoilers. I call them SPICERS. But not everybody (not even most people) think of them that way. So, with the caveat that those people who consider any information at all a SPOILER, perhaps they could skip this part?

Hush, come close! I’ll tell you, dear Black Gate readers, that Lanie Stones has only grown in power since Saint Death’s Daughter. I’ll tell you that when she enters fully into sympathy with a dead object, she can… SHARE PARTS OF ITS SHAPE.

She is also learning how to communicate through the dead — so if she has a… a toe bone, for example, from a particular corpse, and if you have a different toe bone from that same corpse, she’ll be able to call you. Like a one-way cell-phone.

My plan is, for Book 3, that Lanie will be so good at sharing shapes with the dead, that she can basically take on and maintain the appearance of any dead creature whose accident (physical material) she is in contact with. This makes going undercover to investigate crimes against the death god (totally random plot idea, not the basis for Book 3 at all, doo-dee-doo) much easier.

Can you discuss the cover art creation and artist?

TIGER OF THE GODS: Oh, this is the wonderful, wonderful Kate Forrester! Fantasy readers will already know and love her work from such glorious novels as Zen Cho’s The True Queen and Theodora Goss’s Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club trilogy. Basically, for Book 1, my editor Kate Coe consulted me about different cover artist options, and some ideas for the art.

When Kate Forrester was chosen, Kate Coe and I generated a few wild cover ideas to throw her way. Then Forrester came up with the wonderful silhouette idea. My editor asked if I could send the artist a few elements from the book that the silhouette could have trapped in her hair.

Then, for Saint Death’s Herald, my editor David Moore arranged the same sort of information exchange. In Book 2, the silhouette is facing the opposite direction, with different elements caught in her hair. The cover was done long before the book was done — so I had to make sure that my final draft included all the visual cues that I had originally suggested when I was still in the early stages of writing! Phew!

I wonder what Book 3 will look like? Forward facing? Or two silhouettes facing in opposite directions? That would be kind of cool: especially if Lanie spends most of the book incognito — as both herself and not herself!

But that’s years away.

“For me, the sensual ritual of writing has become the point. And community. Community is the point…even when I’m sad, and tired, and lacking all motivation, I still want to want to write” – C.S.E. Cooney

 

I adore your character names. For example, the protagonist & heroine “Lanie Stones” has a formal name of “Miscellaneous Stones”; and her contentious grandfather  Irradiant ‘Grandpa Rad’ Stones. Can we contract you to assign us pseudonyms with all the grandeur your characters’ names have? I’d love to lure you into calling me names.

Tiger:  That sounds like SO MUCH WORK! But it reminds me of the Fairy Tale Heroines workshop that The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic runs. One of the last things everyone does is assign themselves a “fairy tale heroine” (or hero/non-binary) name. But to do this, here are some questions: What’s your favorite animal? What kind of magic user would you be? If you could choose one of these to be: human, gentry (fairy folk), or goblin, which one would you be? If you were to choose one of the 12 gods from Saint Death’s Daughter, which would you choose? What’s your favorite obscure or forgotten word?

SEL:  Eh gad, return fire. Those are hard questions! Fairy and “humors” (alchemical medicinal version) … and I am still learning the 12 gods of your stories. I’m too young and ignorant to recall them all and choose (I’m not worthy). I do love Lainey and her scarecrow though.

Tiger: Okay, then, so if you were a Stones, you’d probably be named Butter-of-Antimony Stones, son of Alkahest and Argyropoeia Stones…. Friends would call you “Bu” for short. (We won’t get into what your enemies call you.) And if you were a gentry, you probably would be named Crasis, a cloudskin (sometimes “cloud — skin” and sometimes “clouds-kin”) who can transform into whatever shape they please, though you will be insubstantial as vapor.

SEL: Okay, I want to know your secret Stoneses name too.

Tiger: Miscellaneous, of course!

BU: You are an award-winning poet (Rhysling Award-winning poem “The Sea King’s Second Bride” included in How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes), and have written plays. The previous Black Gate interview mentioned you also sing! Please discuss how expression works across media.

TIGER OF THE GODS: Oh, gosh. I’m just drawn to some kinds of media over others. Like, I don’t have any current desire to write a screenplay or a graphic novel or MG/YA. But I often get the itch to write plays and musicals and poetry.

I just wrote a 10-minute play to submit to a local theatre festival for fun, and it felt so good to stretch those playwriting muscles again. My husband Carlos wrote one too! We both submitted to the same festival. Whatever happens now, at least we’ll have done something that challenged us artistically and brought us delight.

Re: musicals and albums: for the past few years, as time allows, I’ve been collaborating with Tina Connolly and Dr. Mary Crowell on a 6-episode musical theatre podcast called The Devil and Lady Midnight. And in 2023, I mounted a short, collaborative musical called Ballads from Distant Stars, with songs by myself, Amal El-Mohtar, and Caitlyn Paxson (with occasional melodies and harmonies by my brother Jeremy Cooney and Dr. Mary Crowell).

Eventually, I’d love to figure out how to bring both of the projects to full audio production. I’ll probably record Ballads from a Distant Star myself, with the help of my awesome musician brothers, and helpmate husband — like I did with my Brimstone Rhine album and EPs. However, The Devil and Lady Midnight will be a lot more complicated and expensive — but super rewarding if we can do the work!

What I’ve learned over the last 10 years about making albums and theatre: without an infrastructure already in place, a space to perform in, and people wanting to produce the work for you, you have to build that infrastructure from scratch. So there’s either a lot of crowdfunding involved, so you can hire people who already know what they’re doing to help you, or you’d better be ready to go full autodidact and learn how to do it all yourself. Whichever way you go, there’s still a cost: in time, in equipment, in the goodwill of the community, etc.

I try to find collaborators who are interested in making art for art’s sake with me. It’s not like I think we shouldn’t get paid, but I don’t really go into a creative project dreaming about all the money it might rake in. That said, I’m interested in collaborative partners who, once the creative process part is done, are also interested in taking that piece of polished art to production or publication — either via crowdfunding, bootstrapping, submitting, or grant-writing. Because it’s really daunting to try to run that gauntlet alone.

I also adore writing poetry. I stopped for a while — though in that lacuna, I did start writing songs — and now that I’m writing poetry again, I’ve got enough for a collection. I’m calling it The Day I Superglued the Moon: 10 Years in the Life of a Speculative Poet. It’s massive. It needs curation. I don’t know what to do with it. Self-publish? Ask my agent to submit it? Approach a small press?

Meanwhile, I feel so raw and tender and personal about it, because it’s poetry! so I keep avoiding doing anything at all. For now.

BU:  ‘Macabre and beautiful’ (and fun) has even taken root in a game! You and your husband Carlos Hernandez co-designed a table-top roleplaying game called Negocios Infernales, Kickstarted October 2023. What is this game about? Does it inspire storytelling? Weirdly beautiful stories?

“In the initial design, taking this all into account: here’s what we did. One of Claire’s favorite games is Mysterium, which she loves in part for its gorgeous, surreal cards that have this melancholy timbre to them. You can look at the cards and be inspired, even outside of the game. So I thought: What about instead of dice and all the rules that govern them, you have a deck of beautiful cards, maybe a little macabre, but also inspiring? It’s always very simple to determine success or failure in Negocios, as easy as Candyland. If your card matches one of the cards on your character sheet, success. If it doesn’t, not success! And everything else you just get to make up.” – Cultureslate Interview, Carlos Hernandez quoted

TIGER OF THE GODS: Co-designing a narrative game was a wild departure from my personal normal. And I’m so grateful that Carlos nudged me in that direction, because it opened up the whole world of gaming to me — board games, TTRPGs, and video games!

Carlos is a game designer, and when we first got together, he said I was perfect, I was MORE than perfect; maybe my only flaws were that I don’t like coffee and I don’t really play games.

Dear Black Gate Readers, I now like espresso. Okay, just a little bit of an espresso—¡un pocito espressito!—once every few months, but I can honestly say I like it.

And now, I also like games. But I didn’t always. In fact, I liked board games much better than TTRPGs when we first started playing together, for all that I’m an actor and a writer, and by my nature should be a shoe-in for roleplaying games. But I’d sort of had a “meh” view of TTRPGs, due to some less than stellar experiences, so Carlos suggested we design one together that I’d actually like.

We designed a game that has some moving pieces and some timed elements (like a board game), that’s big on character creation and world building and plot development, that’s easy for beginners, but also incredibly rich for experienced players. It’s so much fun, and so weird, and so moving.

Negocios Infernales’s tag line is: “The Spanish Inquisition… INTERRUPTED by aliens!”

Imagine a fantasy world — Gloriana — much like Earth (Gloriana’s more of a superplanet that’s mostly water, and it has two suns, but bear with me here). Now imagine a country called “Espada”—Spanish for “blade” — which is a lot like our Spain in the 15th century. The queen, Reina Resoluta, is about to sign religious persecution into law. Then… benevolent, enlightened aliens intervene! They offer cosmic powers in exchange for a zero-genocide policy on Espada.

Of course, the Espadans mistake the aliens for devils (because their deelie boppers look like horns), and while they do strike a deal for “magic powers,” they think their bargain is an infernal one.

So you play a “wizard” with “magical powers,” certain that you’ll be damned for all time for it. It is a game of cosmic irony.

One of the best things about it is our “Deck of Destiny.” It’s a 70-card oracle deck, and it’s our main mechanic for character creation, world-building, magic checks, inspiration, all of that.

But separate from the roleplaying game, we use the Deck of Destiny to run what we call “Infernal Salons,” where we invite writers and artists of every stripe to pull a card prompt or three. We set a timer. Everyone writes something, no matter what form it takes. And then, whoever wants to, shares aloud. This creates such fantastic, generative, creative nights. Many published stories and poems have come out of these salons, both for Carlos and myself, and also for many of the people who’ve participated. The “Infernal Salons may be my favorite thing that has come from designing this game.

Negocios Infernales is available for pre-order right now from Outland Entertainment, and should be in our backers’ hands in a few months — if the International Shipping gods are kind.

C. S. E. Cooney

C. S. E. Cooney (she/her) is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: for novel Saint Death’s Daughter, and collection Bone Swans, Stories. Other work includes The Twice-Drowned Saint, Dark Breakers, and Desdemona and the Deep. Forthcoming in 2025 is Saint Death’s Herald, second in the Saint Death Series. As a voice actor, Cooney has narrated over 120 audiobooks, and short fiction for podcasts like Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Tales to Terrify, and Podcastle. In March 2023, she produced her collaborative sci-fi musical, Ballads from a Distant Star, at New York City’s Arts on Site. (Find her music at Bandcamp under Brimstone Rhine.) Forthcoming from Outland Entertainment is the GM-less TTRPG Negocios Infernales (“the Spanish Inquisition… INTERRUPTED by aliens!”), co-designed with her husband, writer and game-designer Carlos Hernandez. Find her website and Substack newsletter via her Linktree or try “csecooney” on various social media platforms.

Other Weird and Beautiful Interviews #Weird Beauty Interviews on Black Gate:

1. Darrel Schweitzer THE BEAUTY IN HORROR AND SADNESS: AN INTERVIEW WITH DARRELL SCHWEITZER 2018
2. Sebastian Jones THE BEAUTY IN LIFE AND DEATH: AN INTERVIEW WITH SEBASTIAN JONES 2018
3. Charles Gramlich THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE REPELLENT: AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES A. GRAMLICH  2019
4. Anna Smith Spark DISGUST AND DESIRE: AN INTERVIEW WITH ANNA SMITH SPARK  2019
5. Carol Berg ACCESSIBLE DARK FANTASY: AN INTERVIEW WITH CAROL BERG 2019
6. Byron Leavitt GOD, DARKNESS, & WONDER: AN INTERVIEW WITH BYRON LEAVITT 2021
7. Philip Emery THE AESTHETICS OF SWORD & SORCERY: AN INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP EMERY  2021
8. C. Dean Andersson DEAN ANDERSSON TRIBUTE INTERVIEW AND TOUR GUIDE OF HEL: BLOODSONG AND FREEDOM! (2021 repost of 2014)
9. Jason Ray Carney SUBLIME, CRUEL BEAUTY: AN INTERVIEW WITH JASON RAY CARNEY(2021)
10. Stephen Leigh IMMORTAL MUSE BY STEPHEN LEIGH: REVIEW, INTERVIEW, AND PRELUDE TO A SECRET CHAPTER(2021)
11. John C. Hocking BEAUTIFUL PLAGUES: AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN C. HOCKING (2022)
12. Matt Stern BEAUTIFUL AND REPULSIVE BUTTERFLIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH M. STERN(2022)
13. Joe Bonadonna MAKING WEIRD FICTION FUN: GRILLING DORGO THE DOWSER! 2022
14. C.S. Friedman.  BEAUTY AND NIGHTMARES ON ALIENS WORLDS: INTERVIEWING C. S. FRIEDMAN2023
15. John R Fultz BEAUTIFUL DARK WORLDS: AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN R. FULTZ(reboot of 2017 interview)
16. John R Fultz, THE REVELATIONS OF ZANGBY JOHN R. FULTZ: READ THE FOREWORD AND INTERVIEW (2023)
17. Robert Allen Lupton (2024) https://www.blackgate.com/2024/05/26/horror-and-beauty-in-edgar-rice-burroughs-work-an-interview-with-robert-allen-lupton/
18. C.S.E. Cooney (2025) You are here!
19. Interviews prior 2018 (i.e., with Janet E. Morris, Richard Lee Byers, Aliya Whitely …and many more) are on S.E. Lindberg’s website

SE Bio, aka Bu

S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Black Gate, regularly reviewing books and interviewing authors on the topic of “Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction.” He is also the lead moderator of the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group and an intern for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies. He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction; short stories of Dyscrasia Fiction have appeared in Whetstone, Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades Vol I and Vol II, DMR’s Terra Incognita, and the 9th issue of Tales From the Magician’s Skull.

I love villains. I love writing them. I love reading them. I love seeing them brought to life on big screen and small.

Well, let me modify that. I love villains in fiction and movies and television shows. I can’t stand real-life villains. (In the interest of keeping things civil, I won’t name any of the real-life villains I have in mind, even the one whose name rhymes with Peon Husk.) But a good fictional villain can make even the most mundane of stories shine. And a boring or ineffective villain can ruin an otherwise effective narrative. Over the years, as a reader, teacher, and editor, I have seen many beginning writers undermine their stories by making the same mistakes in the development of their antagonists.

What qualities make a villain compelling? I intend to dive into that. Who are some of my favorite villains? I’ll get into that, too. But let me offer a few quick points up front. I don’t think much of the all-powerful-evil-through-and-through villains one often encounters in the fantasy genre. Sauron, for instance — the evil god whose world-conquering designs lie at the heart of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings — is, to my mind, a very boring villain. He’s really powerful, and he’s really, really evil. And yes, he’s cunning, which is a point in his favor, and he’s scary (or his minions are). But beyond that, and unless one has gone back and read all his backstory in The Silmarillion, there isn’t really much to him. He lacks dimension and complexity.

So, let’s begin there. In my opinion (and yes, ALL of this is just my opinion), villains should be complex. There should be more to them than mere evil. Their backstory should contain the seeds of their villainy and the twisting of their world-view. Because let’s face it, most of the villains we encounter and create do some pretty messed up things in pursuit of their agendas. They’re not all there sanity-wise. But how they wound up there ought to be an interesting tale in and of itself. And the fact that their actions are working at cross purposes with those of our protagonists should not mean they can’t have some normality and even joy in their lives. They can and should have people and things that they love. They should be relatable for our readers. One of my very favorite villains is Brandan of Ygrath, the emperor-sorcerer who is the villain of Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana. He is charming, brilliant, loving with those he cares about, handsome, refined. He is also ruthless, merciless, temperamental, and unpredictable. He does horrible, cruel, vicious things for reasons that are both understandable and insufficient. He is nearly as easy to like as he is easy to hate.

Too often, I see young authors make their villains unintelligent and unsubtle. They give their villains lots of power, but then undermine that power by making their machinations transparent. Villains, I believe, need to be canny, keen of mind, creative. Their schemes should be the stuff of genius. Remember the old Adam West Batman series? I used to watch it after school when I was little. Invariably, Batman’s foes would leave him in a situation where he wasn’t dead yet, but he would be soon. They were sure of it. So they didn’t need to wait around to make sure. They could leave, and eventually, the pendulum on the giant clock with the medieval axehead attached to it would cleave the masked crusader in two! And, of course, their premature departure gave Batman and the Boy Wonder the opportunity they needed to escape their less-than-certain deaths. Stupid villains were entertaining and convenient when we were kids watching bad TV. But for more sophisticated fiction, stupid villains will ruin a good tale.

Think of it this way: Assuming that our protagonist eventually manages to overcome the villain in our story, the power AND intelligence AND shrewdness of the bad guy reflect well on our good guy. The easier the villain is to defeat, the less challenging their plot against the world, the less impressive our hero appears when they prevail. When we build up our villain, when we make them really smart and really cunning, our hero’s victory becomes that much more of an achievement. Consider it narrative mathematics.

Some of my favorite villains from my own work? Quinnel Orzili from the Islevale Cycle (Time’s Children, Time’s Demon, Time’s Assassin), Saorla from the second and third books in The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, and, my absolute favorite, Sephira Pryce from the Thieftaker books. Yes, she later become something other than a pure villain, but that was basically because she became SO much fun to write that I had to find a way to keep her around and relevant.

My favorite villains in the work of others? I already mentioned Brandan of Ygrath. John Rainbird, from Stephen King’s masterpiece, Firestarter, is a terrific villain. Smart, brutal, and yet also human. In Catie Murphy’s marvelous Negotiator trilogy there are two supernatural “bad guys,” Daisani and Janx, whose personal rivalry threatens the fabric of the mortal world. Their mutual animus and their own needs and desires humanize them and make them terrific foils for Magrit Knight, the series’ protagonist. And I would add that a certain writer I care not to mention in light of recent revelations has created some truly amazing villains. Too bad he wound up being a villain worthy of his own undeniable storytelling talents.

So, make your villains relatable, make them canny and dangerous and terrifying, and make their eventual defeat a true achievement for your protagonist. And try not to be villainous yourself.

Advice for this week. Cheers!!

 

Last night, I dreamt of a windowless room with pale green walls and blank clock faces without numbers. Where time had vanished, and no doors existed.

(First 2 sentences of The Drowners by David A. Anderson)This is an uncorrected ARC, so text and cover might be different on release: March 17, 2025.
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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, previously hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: - Grab your current read - Open to a random page - Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) - Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their  TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Book links: Amazon, Goodreads

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nnedi Okorafor’s books include Lagoon (a British Science Fiction Association Award finalist for Best Novel), Who Fears Death (a World Fantasy Award winner for Best Novel), Kabu Kabu (a Publisher's Weekly Best Book for Fall 2013), Akata Witch (an Amazon.com Best Book of the Year), Zahrah the Windseeker (winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature), and The Shadow Speaker (a CBS Parallax Award winner). Her adult novel The Book of Phoenix (prequel to Who Fears Death) was released in May 2015; the New York Times called it a "triumph". Her novella Binti will be released in late September 2015 and her young adult novel Akata Witch 2: Breaking Kola will be released in 2016.

Nnedi holds a PhD in literature/creative writing and is an associate professor at the University at Buffalo, New York (SUNY). She splits her time between Buffalo and Chicago with her daughter Anyaugo and family. Learn more about Nnedi at Nnedi.com.

Publisher: William Morrow (January 14, 2025) Length: 441 pages

Zelu Onyenezi-Onyedele doesn’t fit in anywhere—not in her high-achieving Nigerian-American family, not in academia, and definitely not in the literary world. She’s broke, disabled, and stuck in the shadow of siblings who actually listened when their parents said “doctor, lawyer, or engineer.” So when she loses her job and another one of her books gets rejected, she does what any loner with nothing left to lose might do: she writes for herself. What comes out is Rusted Robots, a gritty sci-fi epic set in a post-human Nigeria, where robots and AI wage existential war in the ruins of humanity. Against all odds, this weird, raw, wildly creative book becomes a bestseller. Zelu finds fame and money, but she remains an outsider. Death of the Author walks a fine line between literary fiction and Africanfuturism. It’s also a nice example of the book-within-a-book format; we follow the events through Zelu’s life and excerpts from her sci-fi book. I liked how Okorafor shifted between the two genres. And I loved the surprising ending that connected both parts extremely well. But, you know, spoilers. Cultural complexities of Zelu’s Igbo-Yoruba family and the pressures of being a first-generation immigrant influence her story and development. Her relationships—with her family, her work, and herself—are toxic and difficult. Meanwhile, Rusted Robots features solid worldbuilding, even if its chapters sometimes feel too brief. There’s also another layer to the story, the one I rather enjoyed. It contains a sharp commentary on the publishing industry, internet fame, and who gets to tell which stories. While it doesn’t dominate the book, it’s important to the story, especially as Zelu’s rise to fame forces her to confront personal and cultural expectations or social media outrage. Death of the Author is a good story with an excellent ending. It’s not perfect -won’t appeal to everyone—but it’s bold, heartfelt, and entertaining. Bonus points if you’re a fan of robots or literary drama. Audiobook narration: excellent.

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

Upon A Starlit Tide by Kell Woods

Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Tor (February 18, 2025)

Length: 432 pages

Author Information: Website

I’ve never made secret my feelings for modern fairy tale retellings, which have saturated the fantasy genre in recent years. In fact, I’ve even started DNFing novels that tread this well-worn path—not necessarily because they’re bad, just that I’m not up for the same old same old. But then, every so often, a book will come along that stands out from the crowd by doing something a little different. Kell Woods’ Upon A Starlit Tide is one such novel. Drawing inspiration from multiple fairy tales—a bit of The Little Mermaid here, a bit of Cinderella there, along with a whole smattering of other classics—this history fantasy set in 18th century Brittany blends their many themes together to create something that feels at once nostalgic and entirely on its own.

The story follows Lucinde Leon, affectionately called Luce, the foundling daughter of a successful merchant in the busting and well-fortified seaside town of Saint-Malo. Caught between worlds, Luce chafes at the social expectations imposed upon her and her two sisters. Drawn to the ocean, she dreams instead of a life adventuring on the seas but is prevented from following this path due to her gender and the fact of her misshapen feet. Secretly, she spends much of her time hanging out by the shore where she interacts with the local fishermen, smugglers, and even the occasional water faerie.

One fateful day, however, Luce witnesses a shipwrecked sailor floundering in the ocean and rescues him. The young man turns out to be Morgan de Chatelaine, the charming and handsome son of a powerful shipping family. After locating the de Chatelaine’s doomed ship with her smugger friend Samuel, Luce helps him plunder its valuable cargo of precious sea stones and they discover that poor Morgan was the only survivor of the entire crew. Now awake and recovered from his near drowning, the merchant prince appears to remember that it was Luce who saved his life, and subsequently there is an undeniable spark between them. Meanwhile, despite being adopted, Luce has always been her father’s favorite child and unexpected receives a generous gift from him—a ship to call her own.

Luce’s future now has many possible paths, each shaped by the forces at play around her. But as she navigates the uncertainties of her new circumstances, she must decide where her loyalties lie and what kind of life she wants to build. Her own origins are a mystery that may hold the key to understanding the connection that Saint-Malo has with the fae and offer clues why the world’s supernatural elements seem to be in retreat everywhere.

The storytelling here is multilayered and immersive, painting a richly detailed picture of the world and characters who inhabit it. The addition of the regional mythology results in a distinct flavor for the setting, making this more than just another fairy tale-inspired fantasy. For you see, magic is worked into every thread—all encompassing, but still subtle in some cases. It’s part of their way of life for Luce and those around her, whose livelihoods depend on the sea, a force that can give but also take away. Superstitions are alive and well, especially involving the fae folk and the legends surrounding sea maids and storm stones. This is why it made sense that Upon A Starlit Tide turned out to be a mermaid story, but what surprised me was the inclusion of elements from other well-known fairy tales, completely turning my expectations on their head while keeping me guessing constantly at the direction the plot was going to take.

The set up for all this potential required a lot of description and foundation building, which occasionally slowed the pacing but fortunately the momentum takes off in the second half.  While the first half of the book felt like a charming blend of historical realism and fantasy making the world feel both idyllic and enchanting, things take a tense turn as the hidden dangers emerge and secrets begin to unravel. The stakes become far more personal for Luce. Her journey from a restless young woman to someone who has more power than she realizes was satisfying to witness. While there were a few plot developments which I found predicable, there were also some genuinely surprising twists.

Overall, Upon A Starlit Tide is a beautifully written historical fantasy that breathes fresh life into the familiar fairy tell retelling. Although the novel takes its time establishing the world and characters, the payoff was well worth it. Readers who enjoy this subgenre will find much to love about Luce’s journey of self-discovery, adventure, and embracing the magic and mysteries that shape her life.

Goddess Complex, a biting examination of millennial adulthood, the often fraught conversations around fertility and…

The post Spotlight on “Goddess Complex” by Sanjena Sathian appeared first on LitStack.