Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with a couple new releases for you and some short fiction, since I’m in a bite-sized kind of mood today. First Friday of the new year — hard to believe that it’s 2023 already! We’ve got a lot of possibility ahead of us, good and bad, but I’m hoping for good for everyone. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday!
Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge is in its ninth year, with a set of 24 tasks that invite readers to expand their worldview through books. Read one book per task, or do some multi-tasking by counting one book for multiple tasks. It’s all fine! The point of the challenge is to push yourself to expand your horizons. Thank you to Thriftbooks for sponsoring Read Harder 2023.
To find the tasks and subscribe to our newsletter for tips and recommendations, visit Read Harder 2023.
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process.
Bookish Goods
Build & Destroy Black Science Fiction Prints by DiasporanSavantPress
This very colorful collection of prints honors Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, and N.K. Jemisin for their contributions to imagining new realities. $60
New Releases
Cool. Awkward. Black. edited by Karen Strong
This anthology is filled with stories of a wide range of characters who all share two very important features: all of them are geeks and all of them are Black. The genres run the gamut from contemporary stories to fantasy and science fiction, brought to you by beloved and awesome authors such as Tochi Oneybuchi, Tracy Deonn, and Roseanne A. Brown.
Unseelie by Ivelisse Housman
Iselia “Seelie” Graygrove is, to all appearances, the identical twin of her sister Isolde…but she’s actually an autistic changeling left in the human world by the fae. Her unpredictable magic makes it difficult for her to socialize — and it also puts her on the hunt for a fabled treasure that will have her and her twin unraveling mysteries rooted in the history of both human and fae.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
I’m in a short story mood this Friday, it seems!
How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
This is N.K. Jemisin’s first collection of short fiction, and all I can say is I hope she’ll publish another one sometime soon. The stories are a mix of science fiction and fantasy, new worlds and old history and some stories in direct dialog with classic works that have come before. It’s not to be missed!
A Universe of Wishes edited by Dhonielle Clayton
This collection is actually the fourth collaboration with We Need Diverse Books, and it features fifteen authors (including Zoraida Córdova, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Samira Ahmed) who bring us fantasy stories of princesses who need no princes and monsters who have been deeply misunderstood.
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.