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Swords and Spaceships

IKEA Assembly Manuals for Aliens

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with a selection of new releases for this week and a few news items for your clicking pleasure. In Colorado, we’re now firmly back into the season where “smoke” is a valid weather condition according to my weather app, so that tells you how we’re doing out here. Stay safe out there, space pirates, read some good books, and I’ll see you on Friday!

Thing that made my weekend: Cat drinking milk, becomes music. And part 2.

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


New Releases

Hollywood Heroine by Sarah Kuhn

After years of being legends in the real world, superheroines Aveda Jupiter and Evie Tanaka are about to take the world by storm in their own TV show. But Aveda has a hard time getting excited; there’s Otherworld activity outside the Bay Area, and she still has to worry about the fate of the world. When on-set drama goes supernatural, Aveda and Evie must swing in to save the day again.

Cover of The Freedom Race by Lucinda Roy

The Freedom Race by Lucinda Roy

The second Civil War left behind an America that’s no longer the United States, riven with sickness and radiation and divided into factions. One of these factions, the Homestead Territories, has restarted the slave trade, and the other factions let it. Ji-ji was born enslaved in one of the plantations in the Homestead Territories; her possible way out is the annual Freedom Race. She also unknowingly holds the key to breaking the power of the Homestead Territories. To do so, she must unravel the voices of the dead.

The Justice in Revenge by Ryan Van Loan

Partners in crime-solving Buc and Eld have taken a place on the board of the Kanados Trading Company with the intention of destroying the nobility from within and trying to force a little more equality into the island nation of Servenza. But boardroom politics and mages keep progress slow, and the two reach out to a potential patron — the Doga who rules the nation. If they figure out who is trying to assassinate her, they’ll gain her support; if they fail their deadline, they’ll be exiled to to the ends of the world. (Full disclosure: Ryan and I have the same agent.)

Cover of In Beta by Prescott Harvey

In Beta by Prescott Harvey

In 1993, small-town high school seniors (and total geeks) Jay and Colin discover a disk that contains a computer program that’s a pixel-perfect replica of their entire town. And then they discover that if they alter the program, they alter reality. They react to this knowledge with all the calm thoughtfulness one can expect from two teenage boys. But someone is watching what they do, and that someone has their own way of warping reality.

The Fallen by Ada Hoffman

The planet Jai has now become a chaotic, galactic no-go zone; its laws of physics are forever altered and its inhabitants have all changed. The AI gods that once ruled the galaxy have become Jai’s jailers, and Tiv, who once believed utterly in these gods, turns to helping the survivors and fighting for freedom. Her girlfriend, Yasira, debilitatingly ill, cannot lead the necessary revolution. But somehow together, they must solve the mysteries that fractured their planet — and save it.

News and Views

If you’re quick, you can sign up for a flash science fiction reading courtesy of Space Cowboy Books tonight.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2020 Aurealis Awards!

Video interview with Farah Mendelsohn.

Interview with Cat Rambo.

Interview with Sheree Renée Thomas.

Fantasy Hive has a selection of SFF cover art done by women cover artists.

How to create fantasy villains.

Daario Naharis and The Death of Khans: From the Mongol Empire to Game of Thrones.

Future Lord of the Rings films should acknowledge the book’s queer leanings.

Writing with an emotional landscape.

IKEA made assembly manuals for aliens.

Bezos and Branson are going to space! Or maybe not. If you have paid much attention, you can already guess my opinion of the “billionaire space race.” But this is an interesting article that’s about the definition of space itself — particularly where it actually begins.

On Book Riot

8 female authors like Sarah J. Maas

Everything we know about the Ursula K. Le Guin stamp the USPS is releasing

This month you can enter to win a $250 Barnes & Noble gift card, a Kindle Paperwhite, and a Kindle Oasis.


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.