Tales of the Emerald Serpent: Ghosts of Taux

4/5 ( ratings)

Taking a page from classic early 80s anthologies like Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars and Robert Asprin’s Thieves World, Beyond the Black Gate maintains an old school feel while bringing you some of the latest talent in today’s science fiction, fantasy, and horror markets.

Set in Art of the Genre’s trademarked universe, The Nameless Realms, this anthology takes readers to the Free City of Taux, a fantasy port of cursed stones, dark plots, and a core of rich characters who share space inside the infamous Black Gate District.

This rich anthology links characters and tales in an interwoven mosaic that helps draw the reader on, and with authors like Lynn Flewelling, Harry Connolly, Juliet McKenna, Martha Wells, Robert Mancebo, and Julie Czerneda sharing characters with newcomer Michael Tousignant and iconic fantasy artist turned writer Todd Lockwood, the book plumbs the depths of dark city-born fantasy.

Editor and contributor R. Scott Taylor helps create the shadowed metropolis of Taux, where Razor Duelists and mailed and heavily armed Sturgeons try to hold back the tide of ghosts, Moon Cultists, and shadow magic that lurks inside the slithering coils of Wizard’s Mist. Rogues, harlots, and merchant princes share the same streets, and all watch their backs as the stones of the city call out to the living in a never ending game of cat and mouse for the true ownership of the great port.

Memories of Lankhmar, Sanctuary, and Waterdeep merge in each unfolding tale, and fantasy artists Jeff Laubenstein and Janet Aulisio bring form to each story with their incredible pen and ink renderings. Contributor Todd Lockwood also lends his artistic vision to an epic cover that wraps this project in a package so special it’s almost too good to be true.

If you like fantasy, and you remember the days when books sang with slim stories of high adventure and burst with rich illustrations to lend solidity to every epic tale, then Beyond the Black Gate is what you’ve been longing for.