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Fell asleep reaching for mah phone.

I think you might have a problem, my dude.

Yeah, he thinks his pan is half full, but actually…

That’s a really weird metaphor, my friend.

It really is.

He’s going to be pissed when he wakes up and finds THE PHONE IS MINE.

 

1996 was 30 years ago. And it was quite the year for movies. Big-screen extravaganzas dominated the box office, and some movies outside the Top 10 still more than resonate today.

On July 3, Independence Day dropped. Man, that was a huge hit. EVERYBODY I knew saw, or was talking, about it. And smooth crooner Harry Connick Jr. became a lot more popular. With a US gross of $306,156,000 ($644,338,000 in today’s dollars) on a budget of $75 million, it was a smash hit.

Big-screen action continued the trend of domination, with Twister ($241,721,000) second, and The Rock ($134,069,000) fourth.

And at number three saw the birth of a mega-franchise that seven hit follow-ups and which only wrapped up last year: Mission Impossible. That first movie was an homage to the original series, and I really liked it. Then John Woo turned it into special effects cotton candy and I never watched another installment.

Eddie Murphy was at the end of his run as a box office super draw, and came it at number five with The Nutty Professor. The rest of the top ten was Ransom (Mel Gibson), The Bird Cage (Robin Williams), A Time To Kill (Matthew McConaughey), 101 Dalmations (a bunch of dogs), and The First Wives Club (Goldie Hawn).

Some Other Notable films

Eraser (11)
Arnold Schwarzenegger was five years removed from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. And two years from the disaster that was Junior. Ugh. But in addition to the sci-fi noir Eraser, he also made one of my favorite Christmas movies, Jingle all the Way (number 25).

Star Trek: First Contact (14)
I loved the original cast reboot of Star Trek. And then Generations transitioned to a new era. First Contact ensured there would be more Star Trek films, and it had James Cromwell. BTW – if you’ve not seen 1997’s LA Confidential, it’s a superb hardboiled noir flick, and if you have read James Ellroy’s novel, Cromwell was a terrific choice as Dudley Smith.

Jerry Maguire (18)
The box office rankings are by the calendar year receipts. It released on December 13, and its total gross would have ranked it fourth for the year. This was the Romcom of 1996.

Twelve Monkeys (22)
I never got into this movie with Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe, but it became a sci-fi cult classic. I should give this another try.

Tin Cup (26)
Post-apocalyptic movies – Waterworld (1995) and The Postman (91st this year) – did not exactly build on the success of The Bodyguard. But in between those two movies, Costner made a charming golf Romcom with Rene Russo and Don Johnson.

Grumpier Old Men (31)
The two-year take would put his up at number 17 (which was Broken Arrow). In the last 7 years of Walter Matthau’s life, he made Grumpy Old Men, Grumpier Old Men, Out to Sea, and The Odd Couple II, with Jack Lemmon. And I am darn glad those two old friends rekindled their on screen magic, which began in 1966 with The Fortune Cookie. And if you like this duo, I highly recommend My Fellow Americans. James Garner slips into a Walter Matthau role opposite Lemmon. My favorite of this whole bunch.

Toy Story (32)
Released the prior year, it’s total gross would have made it the number three movie of 1996. This was Pixar’s first feature film, and it changed movies. Pixar, and the animated types of movies it influenced other studios to make, are still part of the industry today.

Happy Gilmore (38)
I’m not an Adam Sandler fan. Stuff like Little Nicky, and The Waterboy, falls in what I call ‘dumb funny’ and I think it’s just dumb, not funny. To each their own. However, I LOVE Happy Gilmore. It’s simply funny. And frankly, hilarious. Great comedy. I put Talladega Nights in this category.

The Ghost and the Darkness (39)
I’m a big William Goldman fan. He wrote The Princess Bride (novel and screenplay), and two memoirs about working in Hollywood are among the best memoirs you’ll ever read. His chapter on this movie, which was not the hit expected, is interesting. The guy was an elite screenwriter, if you check his IMDB.com.

No. Not THAT one!

Heat (42)
Michael Mann had hit it big with The Last of the Mohicans – not the case with his adaptation of F. Paul Wilson’s The Keep. Heat is a ‘really good but not quite great’ movie for me. Like Bogie’s Dead Reckoning. But man, this is a taut heist film, with a great cast. Another one I’m due to watch again.

Striptease (48)
I am almost done re-reading/re-listening to the first ten Carl Hiassen novels (they drop off for me around number nine, so this won’t be a complete re-read). But I do love his books. They are laugh-out-loud dark crime comedies. I remember seeing this movie and thinking it wasn’t bad. But the book was much better. I suspect that would still hold true. Still, I think I’ll check it out again. TV’s R.J. Decker (based on Double Whammy) is losing it’s Hiassen roots, but still worth watching so far.

So, that’s it for the Top 50. Other notable movies of 1996:

Leaving Las Vegas (53)
Sabrina (61) Excellent remake of a Bogart/Hepburn film
That Thing You Do! (67) A total gem!!!!!!!
From Dusk til Dawn (68)
Escape From LA (70) A far cry from the original.
Scream (74) A late release that would have been #11 for the year
Fargo (75) Coen Brothers wizardry, but not box office magic
Last Man Standing (97) Based on Hammett’s Red Harvest (which influenced Yojimbo)
The Phantom (100) Bruce Campbell lost out to Billy Zane for the lead
GoldenEye (108) Late release that was a 1997 hit
My Fellow Americans (120) See Grumpier Old Men, above
Mulholland Falls (124) Was a good year toe be a hardboiled/noir fan
2 Days in the Valley (125) More noir
Two if by Sea (128) See Grumpier Old Men…
Seven (129) 1997 hit
Heavens Prisoners (161) Hollywood is 0 for 2 on James Lee Burke. Do better!)
Swingers (164) $4 million box office, but a cult classic
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (166) Big hit in 1997
Cutthroat Island (170) Not quite Pirates of the Carribean
Barb Wire (180) Pamela Anderson remakes Casablanca/The Maltese Falcon. Soooo bad

Tastes certainly vary, but there was a lot to go see in 1996. As a hardboiled guy, Heat, Mulholland Falls, Last Man Standing, and 2 Days in the Valley, were all worthwhile. I liked Heavens Prisoners okay, as a Dave Robicheaux fan.

Scifi, comedy, action, offbeat – a good year for movies.And up top, Independence Day is still a great watch. That was from Dean Devlin, who had written Stargate, and would give us Leverage, and The Librarians. Mission Impossible continued to make bank for decades.

Share your thoughts on the list. Or others I left off. I skimped on the horror stuff.

So…what year shall we look at next?

Some previous entries on things to watch:

Firefly – The Animated Reboot
What I’ve Been Watching – February 2026 (The Night Manager, SS-GB, Best Medicine)
What I’ve Been Watching – October 2026 (Return to Paradise, Lynley, Expend4bles, and more)
What I’ve Been Watching – August 2025 (Ballard, Resident Alien, Twisted Metal, and more)
What I’ve Been Watching – May 2025 (County Line, The Bondsman, Bosch: Legacy)
What I’ve Been Watching – October 2024 (What We Do in the Shadows, The Bay, Murder in a Small Town)
What I’m Watching – November 2023 (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, A Haunting in Venice)
What I’m Watching – April 2023 (Florida Man, Picard – season three, The Mandalorian)
The Pale Blue Eye, and The Glass Onion: Knives Out
Tony Hillerman’s Dark Winds
The Rings of Power (Series I wrote on this show – all links at this one post)
What I’m Watching – December 2022 (Frontier, Leverage: Redemption)
What I’m Watching – November 2022 (Tulsa King, Andor, Fire Country, and more)
What I’m Watching – September 2022 (Galavant, Firefly, She-Hulk, and more)
What I’m Watching- April 2022 (Outer Range, Halo, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, and more)
When USA Network was Kicking Major Butt (Monk, Psych, Burn Notice)
You Should be Streaming These Shows (Corba Kai, The Expanse, Bosch, and more)
What I’m BritBoxing – December 2021 (Death in Paradise, Shakespeare & Hathaway, The Blake Mysteries, and more)
To Boldly Go – Star Treking – (Various Star Trek incarnations)
What I’ve Been Watching – August 2021 (Monk, The Tomorrow War, In Plain Sight, and more)
What I’m Watching – June 2021 (Get Shorty, Con Man, Thunder in Paradise, and more)
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
What I’ve Been Watching – June 2021 (Relic Hunter, Burn Notice, Space Force, and more)
Appaloosa
Psych of the Dead
The Mandalorian
What I’m Watching: 2020 – Part Two (My Name is Bruce, Sword of Sherwood Forest, Isle of Fury, and more)
What I’m Watching 2020: Part One (The Adventures of Brisco County Jr, Poirot, Burn Notice, and more)
Philip Marlowe: Private Eye
Leverage
Nero Wolfe – The Lost Pilot
David Suchet’s ‘Poirot’
Sherlock Holmes (over two dozen TV shows and movies)

Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.

The Dark of the Soul (Tower Books, 1970)

Here’s another anthology I picked up because it had a Robert E. Howard story in it.

The Dark of the Soul, edited by Don Ward, A Tower book, 1970. Cover artist unknown. It contains a short story by Robert E. Howard called “The Horror from the Mound.” It’s a good story, although not one of Howard’s best.

This collection is more horror and gothic, magic and witchcraft, and not Sword & Sorcery (S&S). The stories are atmospheric but maybe slow for modern audiences. Here are my thoughts.

1. Introduction by Don Ward. Gives some context to the stories but probably wasn’t needed.

2. “The Horror from the Mound” by Robert E. Howard has the highest level of action in the collection, and is genuinely creepy.

3. “The Muted Horn” by Dorothy Salisbury Davis doesn’t have any action and is not my cup of tea.

4. “Mrs Amworth” by E. F. Benson was also slow, with a long setup that could mostly have been cut.

5. “Song of the Slaves” by Manly Wade Wellman is a long way from this author’s best work.

6. “The Ash Tree” by M. R. James is a creepy piece. James didn’t beat around the bush getting to the heart of the tale and this is one of the better pieces in the book.

7. “Cool Air” by H. P. Lovecraft. I’m a big Lovecraft fan but this isn’t among his best stories.

8. “Taboo” by Geoffrey Household was a solid tale but maybe with too much unnecessary material.

9. “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a memorable tale from an author you don’t generally see in such collections.

10. “Smee” by A. M. Burrage is a good ghost story, though fairly slow.

11. “The Dressmaker’s Doll” by Agatha Christie was a surprise. I knew her from her mysteries but this was creepy and with a strong ending.

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was a review of two Sword & Sorcery anthologies from L. Sprague de Camp. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.

The fifteenth annual Women in SF&F Month continues with three new guest posts this week, starting with a new essay tomorrow. Thank you so much to last week’s guests for another fantastic week! The new guest posts will be going up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week, but before announcing the upcoming schedule, here are last week’s essays in case you missed any of them. All guest posts from April 2026 can be found here, and last week’s guest […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Week 3 Schedule & Week in Review first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

So there is no sigl for clearing bruisings? Mending doesn’t apply an rebuild can only work on muscles, do all people that might get bruisings (like soliders) have basicly constant bruisings or do they get enhanced priorly, sothat there is no reason to think about healing bruisings?

Art by Vladimir Logos

I’ve lost count of novels that involve some sort of magical college featuring adolescent misfits plucked from humdrum daily existence thrust into contests between good and evil, not to mention raging hormones.

Blame Harry Potter, though Rowling was building on the trope, not inventing it (c.f., in particular, A Wizard of Earthsea). She just got wildly successful with it. So why shouldn’t others also build on that success?

Granted there is nothing new under the sun; no one is irked that Maggie O’Farrell did yet another riff on a Shakespeare play with Hamnet. Even so, not to knock the whole dark academia thing, I can understand how some might sneer at yet another mystical schoolyard fantasy.

Sure, some are tapping into a built-in audience without trying to rise much above the hackneyed (c.f., example, Starfleet Academy, despite the presence of Paul Giamatti and Holly Hunter, though you could probably say the same about most of the Star Trek spinoffs, The Next Generation and Strange New Worlds notwithstanding). Most others expand the form (c.f., the aforementioned Hamnet).

Which brings us to The Library of Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw. A sort of middle finger to the whole Harry Potter universe.

The Library at Hellebore, by Cassandra Khaw (Tor Nightfire, July 22, 2025)

Here’s how it starts.

When I woke up, my roommate, Johanna, was dead… the walls were soaked in effluvium. Every piece of linen on our beds was at least moderately pink with gore. The floor was a soup of viscera, intestines like ribbons unstrung over the scuffed wood.

So despite all the familiar elements — The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted, students with magical abilities, the titular library — we’re not in Kansas anymore. Hammering home the point that this is not a Harry Potter clone is when the headmaster says,

That we might be sorted into houses, a prospect so repellant the crowd spontaneously lost all fear of her and began groaning objections.

“I am just kidding,” she simpered among the thunderous murmurs. “Although the way you’re all complaining, I might have to make it happen.”

Though she retained her mask throughout, what mystique she possessed was lost in the wake of that awful joke.

While Hellebore might seem to connote humdrum existence in the netherworld (and maybe at some level Khaw intends to convey that), a hellebore is actually a poisonous plant, sometimes used in antiquity to treat psychosis. Indeed, our narrator, Alessa Li, hasn’t escaped a humdrum Muggle existence by being chosen to enroll in the institute; rather, she’s been kidnapped to prevent her powers from harming normal society.

Further distancing the novel from run-of-the-mill dark academia is that the Institute’s faculty aims to eat the student body. Now that’s dark.

Which brings us to the titular library, where Alissa and some of her surviving classmates — though hardly friendly allies — escape from professorial ravenous cravings. But there are no safe spaces even at this bastion of learning and knowledge as the monstrous librarian has her own carnivorous cravings.

The only lesson here is that of kill or be killed. Not in a Hunger Games kind of way. More like in an eat or be eaten Darwinian kind of way. Literally.

The horror genre is transgressive, meant to provoke revulsion in reminding us of bodily disgust, of psychological dislocation, of humanity’s animalistic nature. The horror of the Library of Hellebore is that “things like decency are nothing but human inventions. The cosmos bends nowhere except toward annihilation.”

David Soyka is one of the founding bloggers at Black Gate. He’s written over 200 articles for us since 2008. See them all here.

As You Like It speaks directly to the twenty-first century through its explorations of sexual…

The post Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” | A Fun-Loving Celebration Of Sexual Ambivalence appeared first on LitStack.

At least the editor replied back to you. Hopefully nothing needs to be done so your draft will be ready for print

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

Green & Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons

Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Tor Books (March 3, 2026)

Length: 368 pages

Author Information: Website

I enjoyed Jenn Lyons’ Sky on Fire, so when I heard she was returning with another standalone novel which sounds right up my alley, I was immediately intrigued. But while Green & Deadly Things is an undeniably entertaining “in the moment” kind of book, it’s also not one that’s easy to breeze through. Despite being packed with action and big ideas, it also somehow feels lighter and surface-level than expected, never quite digging deep enough to leave a lasting impression.

The story follows Mathaiik, a young novitiate training with the Idallik Knights, an order devoted to protecting the world from the lingering threat of necromancy. But though he has spent years preparing, Math still struggles to control the magic required to complete his training to become a full knight. At the same time, he’s hiding a secret related to his family’s past and his own strange connection to plants. In a world where nature itself has become increasingly dangerous, Math’s ability to tap into its powers is something that is viewed upon with suspicion.

Then, an unexpected attack throws the Idallik Knights into chaos, leaving Math in a position to help uncover the truth behind the sentient vegetation that has suddenly turned hostile. Subsequently, he finds himself magically linked to a mysterious woman he awakens from beneath the order’s fortress. A necromancer from the long-lost era of the Grim Lords, Kaiataris may hold the key to understanding and ultimately stopping the unchecked wild magic driving these cycles of destruction. From there, the two are forced into an uneasy alliance as they flee from the knights and into the unpredictable wilderness, where the enemy is the very landscape around them.

Necromancy. Ancient magic. Killer plants. There’s a lot to like here. Lyon’s creative talents are something to be admired for sure, especially when it comes to world-building and magic systems. The integration of botanical horror into the epic fantasy framework is genuinely cool, giving readers some vivid and occasionally unsettling imagery as the natural environment comes to life and IT IS PISSED. There’s also a quiet sense of dread lingering just beneath the surface, because I guess there’s just something deeply unsettling about the inevitability of cyclical destruction.

That said, my biggest issue with the book involves its pacing and its lack of depth, in that it never quite slows down enough to let all its ideas breathe and settle. The plot is relentless, throwing the characters into one crisis after the other. While this rapid-fire development is what kept the pages turning, paradoxically it also made it more difficult to stay fully invested as events started to blur together.

The characters fall into a similar pattern. Math is a likeable enough protagonist, but he’s also tragically bland, an earnest figure caught between loyalty, truth, and his own feelings, like any standard fantasy hero pulled from a template. Kaiataris, meanwhile, offers a slightly more intriguing dynamic as an ancient necromancer who challenges everything Math believes. However, rather than fully exploring that conflict, the story quickly steers them into a romance, and a rushed one at that. It’s frustrating and it’s disappointing, because one feels that both characters deserve far more than simply becoming a checkbox for a romantic subplot.

Still, that’s not to say the book isn’t enjoyable. Lyon’s writing is approachable and easy to get into. The characters’ banter has plenty of sass and humor to keep things from getting grim. I also love the fact that it’s a standalone. As it was with Sky on Fire, it felt refreshing to read Green & Deadly Things knowing you’ll get a complete story in one volume. These strengths go a long way toward counterbalancing the novel’s weaknesses, which mainly come down to parts of the narrative feeling predictable or too convenient, and the relationship between the characters relying too heavily on proximity and magic rather than more organic development. Still, all this, along with its accessible tone which sits comfortably in a crossover space between adult and YA, makes this book a strong “entry into fantasy” kind of read.

In the end, Green & Deadly Things is a fun, fast-moving fantasy with lots of cool concepts and an easy reading style, but while reading it, I also couldn’t help but feel a nagging sense that it’s reaching for something a little deeper, a little more. Regardless, it remains accessible and entertaining, a good standalone that will probably work best for readers looking for a lighter entry point into fantasy rather than something more complex or layered.

French publisher Monsieur Toussaint Louverture will publish their new two-volume translation of The Wolf’s Hour on May 22, 2026. They have not revealed the covers yet, but they have teased them. Monsieur Toussaint Louverture has previously published Boy’s Life and Swan Song.

Here’s their new Facebook post:

Après plusieurs tentatives, plusieurs directions, nous avons fini par trouver une forme de livre en mesure de correctement accueillir, aujourd’hui, les romans de Robert McCammon, qu’ils soient inédits ou non, qu’ils soient amples ou resserrés, qu’ils parlent de psychopathes ou de loups. Ces livres étaient pourtant sous notre nez (bouché, donc) depuis quelques années !

La Bibliothèque McCammon s’inscrit dans la continuité du geste esthétique engagé avec Michael McDowell et Pedro Oyarbide.

Une fabrication française, un format accessible, pour faire découvrir, simplement, l’un des plus grands conteurs contemporains.

L’Heure du loup, volumes 1 & 2, paraissent ensemble et l’histoire forme un tout. Le volume 2 inclut une nouvelle inédite consacrée à Michael Gallatin.

Précommandes la semaine prochaine. Sortie le 22 mai.

In English:

After several attempts and exploring various directions, we have finally found a book format capable of properly housing Robert McCammon’s novels today—whether previously unpublished or not, whether sprawling or compact, and whether they feature psychopaths or wolves. Yet, these books were right under our noses (stuffed-up noses, evidently!) for the past few years!

The McCammon Library continues the aesthetic vision first established with Michael McDowell and Pedro Oyarbide.

Produced in France and featuring an accessible format, this series offers a straightforward way to introduce readers to one of the greatest contemporary storytellers.

*The Hour of the Wolf*, Volumes 1 & 2, are being released simultaneously, forming a complete, cohesive story. Volume 2 includes a brand-new, previously unpublished short story centered on Michael Gallatin.

Pre-orders open next week. Release date: May 22.

As we mentioned in December, Earthling Publications is producing a signed limited edition of MINE, the last Robert McCammon novel to receive the limited edition treatment. Copies were available as part of a bundle back in December, but the remaining copies will be going up for pre-order on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at Noon ET. The book features art by Tomislav Tikulin. Three of the art pieces are shown below.

Full information and ordering details will be posted here on Tuesday!

Earthling’s MINE art by Tomislav Tikulin Earthling’s MINE art by Tomislav Tikulin Earthling’s MINE art by Tomislav Tikulin

A new Dresden short story hits the shelves soon in Paranormal Payback! This collection of urban fantasy stories holds an all new Dresden Files story featuring Goodman Grey. Paranormal Payback is available April 14th!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Yesterday, we read about Maggie going on tour and witnessed some of the excitement of being able to see Ilona and Gordon live.

But not all of us could be there to ask our questions and give them our love. So now we’re fixing that:

Maggie Zoom

Ilona and Gordon will be hosting a Zoom Q&A on Saturday, April 18th at 10 AM Central Time to chat with us about everything This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me and what comes next.

REGISTER FOR MAGGIE ZOOM

I have almost three hundred questions gathered for the Zoom list, so over the weekend I’ll be whittling them down into something manageable for our brave authors to tackle. To be fair to the Horde, they knew exactly what they were doing! Of course we barsaed all over it.

If you have more questions, please continue the discussion on the spoiler thread for now. Since the book is longer than usual, we need to protect our fellow readers who may still be making their way through it.

The Q&A will be posted on the Ilona Andrews Moderator YouTube channel a few days later, but if you want to interact with our IA live, please register as Zoom spots are limited.

The bit more

When is the Maggie sequel coming?

We wouldn’t be BDH if we hadn’t started asking this even before release day.

The good news is that House Andrews are hard at work on it, and it is shaping up to be a substantial draft. We like big books and we cannot lie, the other Hordes can’t deny, when a draft comes in with a wordcount high and a plot that won’t de…Ok, I hear you, Sir Modsalot out. 

As soon as the manuscript is ready to move to the next stage in the traditional publishing process (developmental edits), we will hear about it here first.

Ilona and Gordon have just come off an intense release cycle and tour and went straight back into writing the Maggie 2 draft and ongoing admin work. We’ll need to allow them a little breathing room so they can keep doing what they do best: telling us the stories we love.

To put to rest the conspiracies already cropping up thanks to my people, Team Facts be Damned: yes, this is a planned trilogy. No, there is no cruel joke at play intended to leave us with an unfinished series and just two novels like Maggie’s own situation. In over 20 years of publishing, House Andrews have never failed to deliver on a contract. The best thing we can do is wish them health, rest, and long creative lives so they can keep feeding the Horde for years to come.

And reread, just in case … If one day we wake up on the streets of Kair Toren we’ll need to know exactly which Duke to ask for help. (Jk, of course we would go to Clover.)

Audiobook news?

The traditional audiobook recording for Beast Business (Augustine’s Hidden Legacy novella) will begin soon – once it enters editing stage, we will be able to estimate a release date better and will announce it.

I’m very happy to share that the actor who was chosen for Augustine was such a perfect fit that he will also be recast as Pancakes Montgomery in the Graphic Audio dramatized adaptations of Catalina’s Hidden Legacy trilogy, which should make for a wonderfully consistent listening experience for us.

I also have a 70% off promotion for the Burn For Me dramatized Graphic Audio adaptation on Audiobooks.com, as a Friday treat.

I do not have any official news about the dramatized adaptation of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, by Graphic Audio or otherwise. The traditional audiobook, narrated by the wonderful Kristen Sieh is available from all major retailers.

International editions of This Kingdom?

German readers in particular seem to be very worried – keine Sorge!

• The German edition of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me has already been announced by Cove Verlag and is scheduled for September 25, 2026
• The Spanish edition coming from Editorial Hidra is planned for June 2026
• The French edition, handled by Éditions Bookmark, will also release in June, and will come in three formats: boutique edition with reversible dust jacket (art by Luisa Preissler), bookstore edition and digital

That’s it for this Friday update. Thank you again for these past two weeks of discussion, theories, laughter, and sheer joy of seeing the Horde in full swing!

The post Maggie Zoom Q&A and a bit more first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

https://kriswrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Consecrated-Ground-Book-Trailer-Small-.mp4

Here’s the book trailer, specifically designed to feature the Kickstarter, for my noir novel, Consecrated Ground. This is the novel that I mentioned on Tuesday, the one that the original editor slapped an offensive title on (which stuck for nearly two decades). I’m using the original title.

This novel is historical through and through, although, like its compatriot in the Kickstarter, the novel straddles two different timelines. Memory and crime feature in both novels.

There’s also a short story collection in the Kickstarter, and it has some previously unpublished stories. Readers who are in my newsletter told me they wanted to see more short story collections, so I’m working diligently to give them what they asked for.

I hope the trailer interests you enough to send you to the Kickstarter. Consecrated Ground won’t be available anywhere but the Kickstarter for several months. So if you want to get a copy early, head on over now.

Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is Veronica G. Henry! Her short fiction includes “Lessons in Virtual Reality for Wayward Women” in Many Worlds and “A Terminal Kind of Love” in FIYAH Literary Magazine. She is also the author of the historical fantasy novel Bacchanal, which was a Manly Wade Wellman Award finalist in 2022, and the near-future fantasy books in The Scorched Earth duology, which begins with The Canopy Keepers. Her latest novel is The People’s Library, a science […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Veronica G. Henry first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

SOLD OUT in 22 minutes after the official announcement! Please join the Wait List to be notified of any additional copies after we do our manual check of the available numbers against the orders we have received. Thank you! (You can also check out the retailers below.)

Pre-order from Subterranean Press

From Lividian Publications:

Lividian Publications is proud to be publishing a deluxe signed, numbered, and slipcased Limited Edition hardcover of Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon, the first volume in his acclaimed Matthew Corbett series. Due to the massive size of the story, this deluxe special edition is split into two volumes, housed in a slipcase. Vincent Chong provided stunning color artwork for both of the dust jackets along with a full-color frontispiece and exclusive black and white illustrations for the interior.

This edition is designed to complement our Limited Editions of The King of Shadows, Seven Shades of Evil, and Leviathan, which were inspired by the editions published by Subterranean Press and Cemetery Dance for the previous books in the series. Speaks the Nightbird was originally published by a different small press and that edition doesn’t look and feel like the other Limited Editions and did not have Vincent Chong artwork. So, for someone making a complete set of the Matthew Corbett series, this new edition will match the rest of the series on the bookshelf.

Retail Price: $195
Publication Date: Fall 2026
Page Count: 888

Special Features:
• Full-color dust jacket artwork by Vincent Chong
• Full-color frontis artwork by Vincent Chong
• Black and white interior illustrations by Vincent Chong that are exclusive to the signed editions
• Includes a collectible bookmark

Deluxe Production Features:
• Offset printed on an acid-free archival quality paper stock
• A fine binding
• Hot foil stamping on the front cover and spine
• Smyth-sewn to create a more durable binding
• Twine head and tail bands
• High-quality endpapers
• Sewn-in satin ribbon page marker
• Custom-made slipcase stamped with hot foil and featuring a unique die-cut window
• Signed by Robert McCammon
• Limited to 750 signed and numbered copies

Here is a link to the product page to learn more or place your order while these limited supplies last.

Don’t forget that our books are also carried by some of our favorite small presses and retailers:

Bad Moon Books
Buchheim Verlag (Germany)
Camelot Books
Cracked and Spineless Books (Australia)
Jake’s Rare Books
Kathmandu Books
Midworld Press
Overlook Connection
Pat Cramer, Bookseller
SST Publications (UK)
Subterranean Press
Veryfinebooks
Ziesings

Thank you, as always, for your continuing support and enthusiasm. We have another very exciting announcement in the works for next week on April 10, so stay tuned.

In reply to Bill.

Yes, I’ll let you know. I did finally hear back from my editor this week, but unfortunately the edits still aren’t done. I’ll put up a post when I know more.

Thank you very much for this! Interesting stuff… I hope that progress with Book #5 continues apace!

I’m assuming that you’d tell us if the First Edits had been received?

Neil R. Jones

Neil R. Jones was born on May 29, 1909 in Fulton, New York, the youngest for four children. He has stated that the first science fiction novel he read, in 1918. Was Will N. Harben’s The Land of the Changing Sun, a lost world novel, which led him to the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

His first published story, “Vengeance of the Ages” was published in his high school yearbook in 1926, with a second story, “The Meteor of Fate” appearing the following year.

“The Death Head Meteor,” was his first professional publication, published in the January 1930 issue of Air Wonder Stories and is believed to contain the first appearance of the word “astronaut.” He had previously sold the story “The Electrical Man,” but it didn’t appear until May of that year in Scientific Detective Monthly, earning him his first cover.

January 1930 Air Wonder Stories, Cover by Frank R. Paul

One of the stories he had submitted to Gernsback was “The Jameson Satellite,” which kicked off a series of stories about Professor Jameson. When his payment for “The Electrical Man” was less than expected because Gernsback declared he had charged Jones for editorial preparation, Jones decided to submit the revised story to T. Conor Sloane at Amazing Stories. The story introduced the cyborg Zoromes, who featured in subsequent Jones stories about Professor Jameson.

Another innovation Jones introduced was the idea of a planned out, reasonably coherent future history, focusing on the cult of Durna Rangue from the 24th through the 25th centuries and which also tie in to the stories about Professor Jameson, although those are set in the extremely far future. The Jameson story “Time’s Mausoleum,” however, includes time travel to the period of Durna Rangue and refers to events there and was published prior to most of those stories’ publication.

Between 1930 and 1942, Jones published 38 stories and a two part serial, with only about eight stories published after 1942. On May 2, 1942, Jones was drafted into the army as part of the war effort, becoming Corporal Neil R. Jones. He was deployed to North Africa, serving in Morocco and Algeria before participating in the invasion of Sicily. He was also part of the D-Day invasion.

Interplanetary board game

While in England during the war, Jones married Rita Rees on June 19, 1945 in London. The couple returned to the U.S. in the fall of that year and Jones was mustered out of the army in October. Having a wife to support now, he apparently found more traditional jobs working for the New York unemployment office and possibly other book keeping positions.  IN 1946, he also invented a board game called Interplanetary during this period, which he may have sold privately. Apparently only four copies are known to exist.

On September 29, 1964, Rita was found by a neighbor with her throat cut. She died in the hospital and an investigation declared it was  self-inflicted wound and that she had been suffering health issues. Although some of Jones’s stories were reprinted, he had few new stories published after this point. He retired from the New York unemployment office in 1973. Sometime in the late 1970s, he remarried, to Leona Tice, who survived him.

Jones died on February 15, 1988 and is buried in Mount Adnah Cemetery in Fulton, New York.

Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.