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Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for March 2

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with new releases for this first week of March. Because… it sure is March again. I don’t know about you, but it feels like we never really left this month. And it’s okay to have some feelings about that, from the horrible to the merely complicated. (We passed by the anniversary of the last meal I had out with my friends, which was on my best friend’s birthday. That was a lot harder than I thought it would be.) Take care and be gentle with yourselves, shipmates. I’ll see you on Friday.

Thing that made me laugh a lot this week as a person with a BA in Japanese Language and Culture: 38 ways to say ‘no’ in Japanese

Let’s make 2021 better than 2020. A good place to start? The Okra Project and blacklivesmatter.carrd.co


New Releases

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass travel out to the edge of Teixcalaanli space to take on a new impossible task even as they reel from the upheaval of the empire. An alien armada waits for them, one that no one has been able to communicate with. Failure will guarantee the death of billions. Success will save Teixcalaan, and in so doing allow it to continue its aggressive expansion. (Full disclosure: Arkady and I have the same agent.)

Dead Space by Kali Wallace

Hester Marley is far from home, stranded injured and indebted on a mining station in the asteroid belt. Her only chance to survive is taking a dead-end security job from the company that owns the station. Then she receives a message from an old friend who claims to have new information about the terrorist attack that injured her… and he winds up dead before they can meet. As she investigates his brutal murder, she soon realizes that finding his killer will unearth secrets about him, her, and the outpost that has been her home–one that very dangerous and powerful people will kill to keep hidden.

Machinehood by S.B. Divya

A bodyguard witnesses her client being murdered in front of her, and it seems the culprits were the mysterious Machinehood, a terrorist group whose members seem to be part human, part machine. And what the Machinehood wants is an end to the production of the pills humans depend on to allow them to compete with AI in the worldwide gig economy. As pill production slows down, frightened people turn on their bots… and the US government turns to the bodyguard in need of redemption to take the Machinehood down permanently.

One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky

When time warriors break time, the end result is a Causality War that no one remembers anything of–not who started it, not who fought in it, and not who ended it. Or maybe almost no one. Because the one who ended it is the lone survivor, and they’ve taken up a new mission: to make sure it never happens again.

The Conductors by Nicole Glover

Hetty and her husband were Conductors on the Underground Railroad, rescuing countless people from enslavement with their wits, skill, and the magic of the constellations. Now with the Civil War at an end, they use those skills to investigate crimes ignored by the white authorities; this time, it’s the murder of an old friend that promises to unearth long-buried secrets.

News and Views

Cora Buhlert has a roundup of Indie Speculative Fiction from February

Blood Matters: Growing Up in an SF/F House

SciFiNow has an interview with my favorite Doctor, Sylvester McCoy

Afrofuturism: the rise of Black science fiction and fantasy

Trailer for Shadow and Bone!!!

I normally would not be excited about yet another Superman reboot, but this one has Ta-Nehisi Coates attached as a writer. Tell me more.

The Middletown Public Library has posted an interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky

CrimeReads has an interview with Jeff VanderMeer

Jane Yolen on the occasion of her 400th book

George RR Martin and Kalinda Vazquez are developing an adaptation of Zelazny’s Roadmarks

TW for abuse and harassment: Inside Joss Whedon’s ‘Cutting’ and ‘Toxic’ World of ‘Buffy’ and ‘Angel’

A fascinating piece about modern action film, looking at bodies that are simultaneously fetishized and desexualized: Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny

8 facts about Attack the Block (if you haven’t seen this movie, please do. It put John Boyega on the map, and it’s EXCELLENT.)

APOD: The Perseverance landing site from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

On Book Riot

Tango Delta: Celebrate the Perseverance Landing With 18 Books About Mars (this list isn’t all SF/F but includes some great SF/F titles)

10 Innovative Sci-Fi Novels About Robots and AI

This month you could win a Kindle Oasis, a 1-Year subscription to Book-of-the-Month, and/or a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books.


See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.