20 Obscure SF/F/H Books Recommended by the Pros

Understanding why some SF/F/H novels become massively popular while others languish in obscurity is an exercise in futility. For whatever reason, some books simply never get the right combo of marketing support, reader buzz, and magical-mass-market-mojo to become popular. Other books have moments of critical and popular success only to fade into obscurity over time. It’s no surprise then that there are dozens—if not hundreds or thousands—of SF/F/H gems that are largely unheard of and unread by modern readers. In an effort to unearth some of these gems I invited fourteen authors to recommend their favorite obscure spec-fic novels. Along with my own recommendation, we’ve dug up over twenty novels for readers to go out and discover. Enjoy!

-G. Calcaterra


“The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster
-Recommended by Garrett Calcaterra, author of Dreamwielder

Brave New World, Ninteen Eighty-Four, and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We always get credit for being the grand-daddies of dystopian fiction, but E.M. Forster's novelette “The Machine Stops” predates all of them. First published in 1909, it is a stark warning tale of what could happen when humans become too reliant on technology. It seems more prescient than ever in today's era of dependency on smart phones, GPS navigation, and auto-correct. “The Machine Stops” is not entirely obscure, having been included in Volume 2B of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology (1973), but few people know about it today. Dig up the Hall of Fame anthology, the Penguin collection of Forster's Selected Stories, or find the story free online, thanks to it being in the public domain.

Big Orange Book Festival 2013 Recap

Bruce McAllister, Garrett Calcaterra,
Terri Nolan, and James Scott Bell

Book festivals, conferences, and conventions are always a great time, especially when they're in your backyard, and especially-especially when you get to participate in one of the panels. That was the case for me this year at the Big Orange Book Festival. I had the honor of moderating a panel on "Making a Career in Writing" and it was a wonderful experience. The three authors I got to work with were all insightful, informative, and a pleasure to hang out with. They included:

Find Me at the Big Orange Book Festival

If you live in the southern California area, you should come check out the Big Orange Book festival this weekend, located at Chapman University in Orange, California. I will be moderating a panel on Sunday at 12:30 pm called Making a Career in Writing, and the panelists will include an amazing cast of writers:

• Bruce McAllister—acclaimed SF/F author and writing coach
• James Scott Bell—suspense/thriller author; author of the #1 bestseller for writers, Plot & Structure; former fiction columnist for Writer's Digest; and author of the Mallory Caine zombie legal thriller series, written under the pen name K. Bennett
• Terri Nolan—mystery author, who by some odd coincidence is represented by the same literary agency as me, Kimberly Cameron & Associates

The History of Modern Fantasy Fiction (Sort of) – Part I

So, I’m teaching a fantasy writing course at the Orange County School of Arts, and it’s…well, pretty freaking fantastic! The students are highly enthusiastic, all are well-read for their age, and we’re having a grand time talking about things like world building, magic, exposition, and whatnot. Because the students are all high schoolers, though, their reading has been focused primarily on contemporary fantasy authors, so I’ve made an effort to expose them to some of the key authors in the evolution of modern fantasy writing. It’s no easy chore to pick only one author a week who represents a transformative moment in the genre, but here’s what we’ve gotten through so far, complete with reading recs and my thoughts.

Origins of Fantasy: Mythology, Legends and pre-20th Century Literature

I have no qualms arguing that fantasy is the oldest genre of storytelling in the history of human civilization. Our earliest ancestors created fantastic tales to explain everything from the creation of Earth to why humans must experience suffering and pain. Fantasy authors have drawn from this well from the start, tapping into archetypes that are culturally, and perhaps even evolutionarily and spiritually, ingrained into us.

The most common inspirations for fantasy authors include Greek and Roman mythology, Norse mythology, Judeo-Christian mythology, Celtic mythology, Arthurian legend, and, to a lesser extent, Eastern mythology and philosophy (Taoism, for example, seems to be a big inspiration for Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea series.)

Now, for the sake of defining limits for my class, I somewhat arbitrarily drew the starting cut-off line for “modern fantasy” as

Author Interview: Wendy Wagner

You’ll not find a nicer person in the SFF community than Wendy Wagner. By some odd coincidence, she and I actually went to college together at Pacific University many moons ago. Since then, thanks to the glory of the Interwebs, we’ve been able to strike up an online friendship based on our shared love of everything spec-fic related. Wendy isn’t just a nice gal, though. She’s got the writing and editing skills to cement herself firmly in the SFF community. She’s worked as an assistant editor for Fantasy Magazine, she’s had her short fiction appear in top publications like The Way of the Wizard, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Three-Lobed Burning Eye, and Armored, and she has a new tie-in novel coming out as part of the Pathfinder RPG. I had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy for my recent article on the writing life at Blackgate, and I’m happy to present the entire interview transcript here.

Welcome, Wendy. Can you please describe your writing career up to this point, and what's the story with your Pathfinder Tales novel? When and where is it coming out?

I started out writing novels about eight or nine years ago. I struggled through drafting and endless revisions of two books (one of which sold, but the publisher went out of business before release), and realized that I wanted to practice on something a little shorter. So for a long time, I focused on short stories, even doing some work for an online magazine to learn more about the craft. Now I'm writing novels again, including a
tie-in for the Pathfinder RPG. That book, Skinwalkers, is due out sometime next year, and you'll see it on shelves in bookstores and game shops all over.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

A pirate walks into a bar and the bartender notices he has a big steering wheel attached to his crotch. The bartender dutifully pours a stiff rum drink for the pirate, cut can't help himself—he has to find out about the steering wheel.

"So, hey there, mister pirate captain, I couldn't help but notice you had a steering wheel down there. What's the deal with that?"

The pirate took a nip off his rum, turned to the bartender to regard him with his unpatched eye, and replied, "Arrr, it drives me nuts!"

Ba-dum-dum-cha! Thank you, thank you very much.

Author Interview: M Todd Gallowglas

I met M. Todd Gallowglas last year at Conjecture Con in San Diego, California. Being a bit of a newbie on the small SFF convention scene, it was great to meet Gallowglas, a guy who was cheerful and welcoming, making me feel right at home. Gallowglas is a frequent attendee and panelist at SFF conventions, and a born storyteller. In fact, he has been a professional storyteller at Renaissance Faires and Medieval Festivals for over twenty years, and he began self-releasing two series of fantasy novels several years ago, to much success. I interviewed Gallowglas for my recent article at Blackgate, and am now excited to release my full interview with him here.

Welcome! Can you describe your writing career up to this point in a nutshell, and don't leave out the part about being a Ren-Faire storyteller!

It’s funny that everyone asks about the storyteller bit, like it’s some secret. My professional writing career came out of my storytelling show, “Bard’s Cloak of Tales.” Let’s see…in a nutshell…A few years ago, I had this storytelling show to help make ends meet while I was seeking a position as an English teacher after having gone back to school to earn my BA in English (with a focus on Creative Writing, of course). My wife and a few friends sent me a couple of articles about this Amanda Hawking chick and John Locke dude, saying they were making a killing selling their self-published books straight to Kindle. I said, “Huh…interesting.” A few months later, I put some stuff up to see if I could make a little extra money by sending people from my show to my ebooks. At the same time I jumped into the self-publishing world, I wrote some Cthulu short stories for Fantasy Flight Games and