Golden Gryphon Press was founded in 1997 by Jim Turner, the long-time editor of Arkham House. He wanted to publish handsome, quality books of short story collections. Upon his death in 1999, Gary Turner and his wife Geri took over the operations Shortly thereafter, Marty Halpern joined the publishing house to help in the acquisition and publication of new titles. Jim Turner won the 1999 World Fantasy Award for his work at Golden Gryphon Press.
Books slated for future release include:
Below you'll find an overview of their books so far, with cover/title links to the SF Site reviews (where applicable) along with synopses of those titles yet to be reviewed (cover images are linked to larger images). They are in reverse order of release, with the newest ones on the left. |
Golden Gryphon Press
Books can be ordered by sending a check or money order only, payable to: Email :gryphon@goldengryphon.com |
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Golden Gryphon Press | |||
Most of the stories in this collection have been picked for various "Year's Best" and Reader's Choice lists. The title story is typical; nanotechnology brings every wish to everyone, and yet on the human level problems of a dire nature are created. This is always the case: typically, you get two stories in one: a focus on cutting-edge technology and the emotional effects of such technology. In many of her stories the pathos of the human condition is explored, where humans plant seedlings and have to decide to weed or not weed—that is, to play God or let natural selection progress. Interfering with a culture, even to save lives, is not so straightforward in "Ej-Es."
The seventeen stories showcase the author's five decades of writing, including his first professional sale, 'The Faces Outside' — written at sixteen. It includes his best-known work, novelette 'Dream Baby,' a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and the basis for his acclaimed novel of the same name. In this dark and foreboding first-person narrative of the Vietnam War, a young army nurse who dreams the deaths of her patients but cannot save them, finally transcends the pain and violence of war and at last is able to save her fellow comrades in arms who, in turn, save her."
"In essentially all science fiction, the problems of actually talking to and understanding a new alien race is usually glossed over, by resorting to the 'universal translator' or by totally ignoring any difference in language. Sheila Finch has addressed this issue in a series of stories that range from the first contact with an advanced alien species on Earth to the development of a galaxy-wide Guild of Xenolinguists that handle all cross-culture communication, and indeed help ascertain if a species is intelligent or not."
"In The Wolves of Memory, the novel that opens this remarkable collection, author George Alec Effinger gives us a rather bleak future where Earth's governing body, the 'Representatives,' have relinquished control to computers that have grown increasingly more intelligent and more self-aware. In addition, this collection offers seven other stories for Sandor Courane fans."
reviewed by Kilian Melloy Set in North Carolina in 1992, this novel features everything that makes fantasy a potentially great genre: epic struggles between good and evil; a blend of realism and magic; an enchanted view of the various fantastical species that dwell in realms other than our own, and sometimes trespass here softly or in malicious, murderous force. It starts with widower Ben Tyson meeting an enchanting woman of great beauty and charm named Valeria who proposes marriage. Marriage and parenthood bring with them a certain transparency, which means that Ben becomes privy to Valeria's secret: she is a leading figure among the Faerie.
reviewed by Stuart Carter Bob Howard, like James Bond, works for the British Secret Service -- but that's where the resemblance ends. Howard is a computer networks manager for the Laundry, the arm of the British Secret Service that deals with events that, for want of a better word, we might label "occult." "Lovecraftian" might also do, even "transdimensional" at a pinch, but not "glamorous" -- never glamorous.
"Fantasy has come to be associated with a literature of escapism but this collection hearkens back to the root meaning of "fantasy," from the word "phantasia" or "a making visible." Myths exist here, not as old stories, but as ancient truths about the nature of being a modern human. There are winged creatures in these stories, and there is odd magic as well, but these serve as elementals of emotion, making apparent the inner lives of humans. There is terror, and humor, too; love and sorrow, despair and recovery — all in a reality where dreams and nightmares do not fade away upon close inspection. Rickert's stories do not lull; they awaken."
reviewed by Paul Kincaid Eric Brown is an author who, for near enough two decades, has hovered around the top of the second division of British writers, without ever quite making the breakthrough into the first rank. He's a solid writer who has steadily earned good if not ecstatic reviews and who has attracted a sizeable body of adherents. Yet there has never been the groundswell of support, the word-of-mouth excitement, the great attention-grabbing work that would propel him to the next level. Reading this entertaining new collection one begins to understand why.
"High in the Smokey Mountains, in an instant of gut-wrenching horror, five lives are about to change forever. For Nick Laymon, that night begins like any other evening during his four years at Ransom College — with cold beer in the company of his closest friends, Finny Durant and Reed Tucker, followed by the sweet midnight promise of the girl he's always dreamed of, Sue Thompson. It will end nine hours later, when Nick and his friends run down a lone pedestrian on a stretch of deserted mountain highway."
"This is George Zebrowski's first collection of horror stories, culled from throughout his career, with an emphasis on the more recent, and one original novella, the titular "Black Pockets." The 19 stories are divided into Personal, Political, and Metaphysical horrors, i.e. stories that should scare you individually, stories that should terrify you as a social animal, and stories that should scare the whole human race, in the collective."
reviewed by Rich Horton The title story is about a man with synesthaesia. He becomes an accomplished piano player and composer, even as he perceives the notes he plays or composes as sights or smells or tastes. Somehow coffee ice cream causes a special hallucination: a young woman. As he grows older, he finds that pure coffee allows real contact with this woman, and he learns that she, too, is an artist and a synesthaesiac. The story climaxes as he tries to complete a major musical composition.
The Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford
Attack of the Jazz Giants and Other Stories by Gregory Frost
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reviewed by Matthew Cheney The author's imagination is so fecund, his writings so fueled by tremendously strange and vivid visions of distant futures and strange forms of life, that each story benefits from our memories of the wonders he has delivered in the past, so that with the first paragraph of each new tale, our readerly desires are funnelled down into a single yearning to know what marvels await us this time.
reviewed by Margo MacDonald It's an interesting contemplation. Many people who decide to have children feel that in having offspring, a part of themselves becomes immortal. But what if you already are truly immortal and can't have offspring? What if you lived forever watching generation after generation of your kin be born, grow, and die? How far would you go to protect them? What would you risk to be near them and to keep them out of harm's way?
reviewed by Steven H Silver The story details a world in which a Communist revolution succeeded in central Europe in the middle of the nineteenth-century. Twenty years later, as the last of the old guard are dying, there is a series of reports of visitations by the spirits of the martyrs of the revolution, Karl Marx, Joseph Engel, and Richard Wagner. It is dropped in the lap of Comrade Rienzi to determine why these apparitions are appearing.
reviewed by David Soyka Set in the same far-future setting of his grand space opera novels, this novella portrays sibling rivalry and reconciliation in the context of planetary invasion and destruction. Sisters Naqi and Mini Okpik are researchers on the largely aquatic world of Turquoise, studying a life form that coats the oceans in an algae-like way. (A song lyric by Echo and the Bunnymen apparently inspired the setting.) The life form is a Pattern Juggler, which inhabits other worlds (and figures a bit in the author's other novels).
"George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth, the author's second book from Golden Gryphon Press, contains a hearty selection of Effinger's critically acclaimed short fiction. This collection features twenty-two tales handpicked by those who knew him best — among others, fellow writers and editors Neil Gaiman, Mike Resnick, Michael Bishop, Barbara Hambly, and Howard Waldrop. Then, as a tribute to Effinger, who passed away in April 2002, these friends each contribute commentary about their favorite story, offering insights into its writing, as well as personal anecdotes about the author himself."
"In an extremely productive career that has spanned more than 50 years, William F. Nolan is best known for co-authoring Logan's Run, which first appeared in print in 1967, became a cult-classic movie in 1976, moved into television as a CBS series, and is now being remade by Warner Brothers for a new big screen release. In addition to the Logan (and many other) novels, he has written numerous award-winning short stories, ranging from the serious to totally off-the-wall zany stories, such as "Toe to Tip, Tip to Toe, Pip-Pop as You Go," where everyone is kept in a perpetual drugged state, and social deviates are those who are straight. These nineteen stories, representing the best of fifty years of William F. Nolan's career."
reviewed by Chris Przybyszewski In her Afterword, the author talks about the importance of science fiction to rebuild a new world, a post-9/11 world. "There were, after all, a number of anecdotes about science fiction readers who had become physicists working on nuclear weapons, or to cite a more hopeful example, science fiction fans who ended up as engineers, research scientists, even as astronauts. The world could be remade, and your writing might even, in some small way, help to remake it."
reviewed by Matthew Cheney Pity poor Asel Iacola, who only gets to be Prince of Christler-Coke for an hour and a half before Ducky Du Pontiac Heinz kills his family, steals his new bride, and sends Asel off to the National Executive Rehabilitation Facility. No-one of such fine breeding as Asel should suffer the deprivations of tacky clothes and honest work. By the end of the novel, though, Asel will have experienced far worse.
Prince of Christler-Coke by Neal Barrett, Jr.
Bumper Crop by Joe R. Lansdale
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