Author: Alex Acks

It’s Tuesday, Lemons and Lemonades! (I promise, that made sense in my head.) It’s Alex, with some new releases for this extra Tuesday of March, and some news that will hopefully brighten your day. By the way, I just started watching The Ghost Bride on Netflix, and if you want a non-book thing to cheer you up, it’s wonderful fun. Or if you’re a person of a certain age group (mine), in case you didn’t know, Nine Inch Nails just released two new albums… for free.

A couple of other great things!

The National Theatre will have plays from its archive available online.

Also, you can now get Girlscout Cookies online.

New Releases

The Sisters Grimm by Menna van Praag – Four half sisters, each connected to one of the four elements, dreamed of a strange other world called the Everwhere when they were children. When they were thirteen, they were torn from the Everwhere and separated; five years later, they’re fighting to come back together and rediscover the magic they lost. Thirty-three days before their eighteenth birthday, they must prepare for an upcoming gladiatorial fight they must survive and a choice their father will force on them… and they don’t know it’s coming.

Anthropocene Rag by Alex Irvine – In a future United States shaped by climate disaster and humanity’s indelible touch, the wasteland teems with monsters and emergent AI who share myths about their long-ago human creators. Prospector Ed is one such AI, so dedicated to learning the truth about the humans that he assembles a band to search out the legendary Monument City.

Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa – Yumeko the kitsune shapeshifter was forced to give up the final piece of the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers in order to save the lives of her loved ones. Assassin Kage Tatsumi has made a deal with the literal demon inside of him to share control of his body and help Yumeko in her desperate quest to stop the Master of Demons from summoning the great dragon god. The battle for the scroll–and survival–is far from over.

Imagine Me by Tahereh Mafi – Ella now knows who Juliette is–and why she was created, to be a weapon. The reestablishment hasn’t been deafeated; its day of reckoning is coming. Ella must unravel the past that haunts her and the uncertain future–and her relationship with Juliette. The time is coming to pick a side, but Ella might not get a choice after all.

Providence by Max Barry – Humanity learns that it isn’t alone in the universe in the most terrifying way possible–via a video. Suddenly, space doesn’t seem like a final frontier just waiting to be explored any more. Instead, humans build a massive warship, the Providence, and launch it to protect the Earth against the threat the video showed them. There’s only a crew of four, there to monitor the ship’s functions… and report back to Earth’s global audience via social media. Suddenly, their communications are cut, their ship becomes increasingly unreliable, and they’re on their own to face a fight they didn’t expect.

News and Views

Science Fiction author Matt Wallace has a special recipe for you: Quarantined French Toast

Stephen Colbert puts his face back on (wait for it).

Jason Sanford has collected a list of resources to help out people in the SFF community during the pandemic.

Chris Evans reading a children’s book.

Neil Gaiman has given LeVar Burton blanket permission to read his stories online.

Sonnet Number 6.

No comment.

The first episode of Vagrant Queen is on youtube.

What a rocket launch looks like from space.

Meerkats meet a large pig. And what happens when sports announcers get bored.

On Book Riot

Book Riot’s hub of ongoing COVID-19 coverage

In Defense of Druhástrana, the Nightmare Country of GINGERBREAD

5 Urban Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels to Add to Your 2020 TBR

All That Glitters: The Fantasy Cities You Don’t Want to Live in

7 Captivating and Unique Magical Cities

Unique Magical Cities You Might Want to Visit

10 Queer Romance YA-Friendly Fantasy Books

8 of the Best Magical Cities in YA Books

New York City in Children’s and Young Adult SFF

Magical Cities in Great Middle Grade Series (That Aren’t Harry Potter)

6 Magical Cities and Their Real World Inspirations

Quiz: Which Magical City Should You Live In?

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Happy Friday, my fellow social distancers! I have it on good authority that we should keep at least 8 books (laid end-to-end, not stacked) away from others at all times. It’s Alex, with some news and a little bookish free association to take you into the weekend.

A thing that made me smile: the only acceptable way for grandma to come down with the sickness.

News and Views

Excited about N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became? Join in the Spoiler Book Club Discussion on March 28!

ConZealand has decided it will be the first WorldCon to be virtual, as a solution to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While it’s sad if you were planning to use this as an excuse to see New Zealand, this could make the World Science Fiction Convention much more accessible internationally!

The Aurealis Awards have announced the finalists!

The Thirteenth Doctor has an important message for you. There’s also a short story you can read about her over at the BBC.

K.M. Szpara on being a quitter.

Patrick Stewart has more sonnets for you. Also, if you want to watch Picard and don’t have CBS All Access, he’s got you covered there, too. What a good.

You can watch Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem adapted as a Minecraft-esque animated series.

If the Witcher had a black cat…

The Winchester Mystery House is offering virtual tours.

Astronaut Scott Kelly has some advice about isolation.

On Book Riot

5 Standout YA Fabulism Books

Happening Right Now: The Harry Potter Alliance is Hosting a Virtual Con

Pennsylvania Library Creates a Hogwarts Digital Escape Room

We’re doing a couple giveaways of Barnes and Noble gift cards: $50 and $250!

Free Association Friday: Silver Friday

March 27 of 1980 became known as “Silver Thursday” when the three Hunt brothers tried to corner the market in silver and apparently really hecked things up into a panic for everyone. So here’s five books I found that have Silver in the title and absolutely nothing else to do with perturbing the futures market–but everything to do with a good story.

On the Silver Globe by Jerzy Żuławski, translated by S. Goar – Starting off with some Polish science fiction! This is the first of Żuławski’s Lunar Trilogy (written between 1901 and 1911) and tells the story, in the form of a diary, of a crew of human astronauts who found a colony on the Moon after they are stranded.

Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee – Jane is a shallow, pampered child of privilege on an Earth that’s been radically remade by natural disasters, with wealth and class disparities only deepened. Then she meets a robot minstrel who captures her heart, and she follows him into the worst slums of her city, consumed by a love that borders on madness.

Inside a Silver Box by Walter Mosley – A horrific tragedy brings two people together, and they are united by the powers of the mysterious Silver Box. The most powerful and destructive tool in the universe, the Silver Box has its own designs, and will use or destroy humanity if that means escape from its former master and the aliens known as the Laz.

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh – A scholar goes into the woods, looking for answers regarding the myth of the Green Man, and finds far more than he bargained. Per my housemate, this book is “extremely gay.”

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik – Miryem is the daughter of a money lender who is very bad at asking for his money back; tired of her family being poor and mistreated, she takes over collecting and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. Unfortunately, this gets the attention of the King of the Staryk, leader of a race of icy fey that are encroaching on the kingdom with ever longer winters. Miryem must use all of her cleverness and heart to find a way to save herself, and not one but two kingdoms.

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I hope spirits are high and shelves are full–but in case you’ve got a gap or two, there are some great books coming out this week that could fill them. I’ve also found some self-isolation book sales that might help you out as well–check out the top of the news section.

Some things that made me smile in the last few days:

Flamingo field trip!

Never give a cat a tank.

New Releases

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin – The tagline for this has me so intrigued: “Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She’s got six.” The city has six newborn avatars that can hear her music and her call… but there’s a darkness that would like to destroy them.

A Bond Undone by Jin Yong, translated by Gigi Chang – Guo Jing is hit with several unpleasant truths in quick succession. He learns the story behind his father’s death… and that he’s betrothed to two different women against his will, and neither of them are his true love, Lotus. Torn between his love and his filial duty, he journeys with Lotus as he is pursued by the vengeful wife of an evil man he accidentally killed when he was a child.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel – Vincent has been posing as the wife of a financial fraudster who is running a massive Ponzi Scheme. When the financial empire collapses like a house of cards in a gale, she walks away into the night. Many years later, a person who was a victim of that Ponzi scheme is hired to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a woman from the deck of a container ship that was out to sea. Though the events seem disparate, they are inextricably linked.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo – In-yo, a young woman of royal birth from a defeated people is sent to make a political marriage with the emperor; she must choose her allies carefully if her people–and she–are to survive. Rabbit is a handmaiden sold into the emperor’s court, who befriends this lonely young woman… and gets far more than she bargained for.

Thorn by Intisar Khanani – A retelling of the fairy tale The Goose Girl, in which a princess who is named Alyrra wishes to escape the pressures of royal life–and the betrothal that she definitely did not want–and becomes the goose girl after a sorceress steals her identity. The solution might seem perfect to Alyrra, until she learns of a plot against the prince she was supposed to marry.

The Last Human by Zack Jordan – Sarya is the last living human, the improbable survivor of a species that the rest of the galaxy deemed far too dangerous to be allowed to live over a thousand years ago–though no one’s ever really explained to her the why of that, or the how of her current existence. Then she runs afoul of a bounty hunter and a kinetic projectile that’s miles long. The next thing she knows, she’s helming a stolen ship with the help of an unlikely set of traveling companions (including an android who is way too into death), and it’s taking her to answers that are far stranger than she could have ever imagined.

News and Views

Humble Bundle celebrating 25 years of SFF from Tachyon

Angry Robot Books is running a 50% off sale on ebooks for another week. (Full disclosure: they’ve published two of my novels.)

Fox Spirit Books is doing a 50% off sale on their ebooks. (Via their store.)

Apex Books has a free bundle for all your social distancing needs.

Adrian Tchaikovsky has put an impromptu short story collection together that you can get for free.

Tor dot Com is starting a new read-along for The Goblin Emperor (This is one of my favorite audiobooks of all time.)

Glittership, a queer SFF magazine, is running its Kickstarter for year four.

Trailer for season 2 of What We Do in the Shadows!

Oh Captain, my Captain: William Shatner is doing captain’s log-style tweets about being in quarantine. Meanwhile, Patrick Stewart is using his twitter to distribute Shakespearean sonnets.

Exploring the People of Middle-earth: Fëanor, Chief Artificer and Doomsman of the Noldor

Rosario Dawson has maybe been cast as Ahsoka Tano for the second season of The Mandalorian.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost give us a PSA a la Shaun of the Dead.

The Field Museum continues to be a gift.

NASA fixes Mars Lander by telling it to hit itself with a shovel.

A science news story that combines two things I know we all love: coprolites and horrifying, predatory sea worms.

On Book Riot

From Film to Fiction: Creating the Alien Franchise’s Literary Canon

5 Books Set on the Moon

15 Bookish Gifts for the Sarah J. Maas Fandom

See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Happy Friday shipmates! It’s Alex, with some news and some suggestions for escapism if you, like me, are now basically trapped in your house. And if you’re unable to work from home, please be safe and stay healthy!

In non-SFF news of things that made me happy:

The Dropkick Murphys live-streamed their annual St. Patrick’s Day show since concerts aren’t actually compatible with social distancing–and it’s still available to watch even if it’s no longer live. Finding a solution that welcomes even more people in? Very punk.

In the absence of visitors, the Shedd Aquarium has let its rockhopper penguins wander the facility.

News and Views

Read A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, originally from Made to Order: Robots and Revolution.

Subterranean Press is going to be doing a limited edition of N.K. Jemisin’s How Long ’til Black Future Month?.

Birds of Prey will be releasing on digital early!

If you’re curious what SFF shows have halted production due to Covid-19, Tor.com has the current list.

Aliens are the size of polar bears (probably)

Screen Rant has 10 Godzilla myths fans should let go of, already

In Plots That Would Get Pooh-Poohed as Unrealistic if They Happened in a Novel, a cartoonishly evil firm is trying to block Covid-19 tests using… Theranos patents?

Slime mold and dark matter? Sure, why not.

On Book Riot

20 Must-Read Feel-Good Fantasies

5 Matriarchal Worlds of Science Fiction and Fantasy

A Game of Heirs: 9 Books Featuring Female Leads Battling for the Crown

Folktales, Myths, and Legends: 10 Middle Grade Mythology Novels

Free Association Friday: Irish SFF Showcase

It’s St. Patrick’s day week, so what could be more appropriate than a look at science fiction and fantasy written by Irish authors? Since this is entirely authors from Ireland, the list isn’t as racially diverse as we normally aim for–and unfortunately while there’s actually a lot of SFF written in gaelic, trying to find copies available from the US is a different matter. This is by no means an exhaustive list–I’ve actually aimed for authors who I hadn’t heard of before researching this.

First off, Dublin 2019 (last year’s WorldCon) has a great guide you can download for a quick overview of Irish science fiction and fantasy.  The guide was written by Jack Fennell, who has written an entire book about Irish Science Fiction. He’s also edited an anthology of classic Irish short SFF fiction called A Brilliant Void.

Probably the oldest, most famous Irish you-can-die-on-the-hill-that-it’s-actually-SFF is Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. But for another older offering, check out History of a World of Immortals Without a God by Jane Barlow. It’s about a misanthropist from Earth going to Venus and plunging its immortal inhabitants into eternal despair.

Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Maria Griffin – Nell is a young woman who lives in a near future where society was almost wiped out by a plague that may or may not have been set off by computers, and in its aftermath, most humans are missing body parts. Nell herself has an artificial heart that’s kept her alive since birth. Nell struggles to connect to others, and lacking friends, decides that she’ll build herself a robotic companion from “spare” parts that might belong to other people. (And you bet, it’s a homage to Frankenstein.)

Dark Paradise by Catherine Brophy – On a planet called Zintilla, humans have evolved into two almost entirely separate species; regular humans who live in the wilderness, and “Crystal Beings” who live under the artificial cover of “the Cowl.” The Crystal Beings have no legs or reproductive organs and abhor emotions as being too chaotic. A group of young Crystal Beings join forces with the regular humans to end the hegemony that controls their society.

The Ragged Astronauts by Bob Shaw – Start of a trilogy that’s considered to be Shaw’s masterwork; the story is set on twin planets that are improbably connected by a column of atmosphere. One of the planets has no metals whatsoever, so infrastructure and technology are built using a kind of wood called brakka, which is now running out. Worse, the jellyfish-like animals that live symbiotically with the trees are getting ticked about it and have started hunting the humans. Humanity’s only hope is to abandon their planet and try to reach the other.

Beginning Operations: A Sector General Omnibus by James White – If you’re looking for space opera mixed with medical drama, come and get it. Sector General is a massive, 384-level hospital space station out on the Galactic Rim. Human and Alien medicine meet, weird things happen, new species are found. It’s delightful fun. (And if you want to see James White at his absolutely, unapologetically angriest, get your hands on a copy of Underkill, which is a satire set in a disguised but recgonizeable Northern Ireland.)

The Poison Throne by Celine Kiernan – Wynter Moorehawke returns home to care for her dying father and finds that things have changed horrifically in her absence. The king she once loved has become a violent despot and his son and heir Alberon has been forced to flee. Razi, Alberon’s half brother and Wynter’s friend, has been elevated to his own throne and is struggling with the violent demands of the king and trying to remain loyal to his friends. The choices Wynter faces between loyalty and love, will decide the fate of everyone.

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with new releases and some mostly non-viral news. And happy March 17, which is an extremely important day for me–my mom’s birthday! Happy birthday, mom! I love you!

In fun, non-book news:

After the Metropolitan Opera was forced to cancel their upcoming performances, they have committed to streaming a different encore opera performance each night, starting on March 16 with Carmen.

Gloria Gaynor washing her hands to I Will Survive.

Humans are wonderful, actually: Twitter reminded me of this Ode to Joy flash mob from 2012.

New Releases

Liquid Crystal Nightingale by Eeleen Lee – Pleo has clawed her way through a life that seems intent on destroying her; her twin sister is dead and her father is broken by tragedy. The pain only fuels her determination to escape the colony that’s taken so much from her. Then she’s framed for the murder of a fellow student, who happens to be the daughter of someone very wealthy and influential, and she has no choice but to go on the run.

The Fortress by S.A. Jones – Jonathan is a high-powered, wealthy lawyer in a prestigious firm that occupies a world just like our own–with the exception that it exists beside the Fortress, populated by the Vaik, a society run and composed only of women. When Jonathan’s wife finds out about his parade of interns that he’s taken as lovers and the ugly undercurrent of sexual violence in his law firm, she gives him an ultimatum: he must offer himself to the Fortress for a year or their marriage is over. Jonathan agrees to do so, but is unprepared for the three conditions of his stay: He cannot ask questions, he cannot raise a hand in anger, and he cannot refuse sex.

88 Names by Matt Ruff – John Chu is a “sherpa,” who is paid to usher lower level characters through a popular MMO, Call to Wizardy. He gets who he initially thinks might be his dream client, “Mr. Jones,” who is exceptionally wealthy and powerful… and then John begins to suspect that Mr. Jones might actually be Kim Jong-un. Soon he finds himself caught up in international intrigue, both online and then, much more dangerously, offline.

Crush the King by Jennifer Estep – Evie has been through a lot already as a queen–the murder of her entire family, training to become a gladiator in the bloody aftermath, and unleashing her mysterious ability to destroy magic. Yet another assassination attempt by the king of Morta is the last straw for her, however. She heads to the Regalia Games, where royals from all the nearby kingdoms come to compete in sporting events; this is her best and perhaps last chance to outwit and outlast her enemies.

News and Views

Library of America is going to release a volume of the works of Octavia Butler in 2021. And as if that’s not cool enough, it’ll be co-edited by Nisi Shawl and Gerry Canavan. (Nisi Shawl co-edited Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler)

Wonderful humans LeVar Burton and Patrick Stewart take a selfie together.

Ursula Le Guin and the Persistence of Tragedy.

Jim Hines started an awesome Twitter thread of free short fiction reads that are light-hearted if you need something fun.

If you need another thing to recite while washing your hands, you could try out Princess Leia’s speech from the original Star Wars.

The six types of fan theories and why they matter.

An interesting sci-fi short film about who might be a secret robot… via game show.

Best geology-adjacent tweet of the month.

Scientists put trackers on cats in an attempt to trace the full reach of their ecologically destructive capabilities.

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got something a little different for you this week. The Lambda Literary Award finalists got announced, and there is a lot of awesome SFF in there, a bunch of which is hiding in other categories. So for most of this newsletter, we’re taking a quick tour through the finalists. Happy Friday the Queer-teenth!

News and Views

For your short story reading pleasure: The Night Sun by Zin E. Rocklyn

S. Qiouyi Lu examines Beneath the Rising (Premee Mohamed) and Steel Crow Saga (Paul Krueger): A Framework for Decolonizing Speculative Fiction

Speaking of Beneath the Rising, Premee talked about it over at the Big Idea.

Jeannette Ng re-read 1984 and had some fascinating thoughts about it.

Star Trek‘s Prime Directive is influencing real-life space law. 

This Chart Will Tell You What Kind Of Space-Based Sci-Fi You’re About To Watch Just By Looking At The Main Ship

Archaeological evidence fo an ancient human settlement being wiped out by a meteor impact

On Book Riot

This week’s SFF Yeah! Podcast is about urban fantasy and science fiction.

5 Out of This World Alien Romance Books

A Celebration of Clones in Comics

5 Unapologetically Ambitious Women in SFF

Friday the Queer-Teenth: 2020 Lambda Literary Finalists

Massive congratulations to all the finalists! Obviously SFF gets its own whole category in the Lammies, but we’ve infiltrated a few of the other categories as well!

In Transgender Fiction:

The Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács – This is Bogi’s debut short story collection, filled with speculative goodness.

Honey Walls by Bones McKay – “Row is perfectly normal for a transgender man. That is, if you ignore the fact his girlfriend talks to ghosts, his sister spies on him through his reflection, and that he has no heart.”

Poet, Prophet, Fox: The Tale of Sinnach the Seer by M.Z. McDonnell – A “new myth” inspired by the old myths of Ireland, about a powerful druid and prophet who is a trans man.

In Lesbian Mystery:

The Hound of Justice by Claire O’Dell – Sequel to A Study in Honor, the next adventure of a gender-bent Watson and Holmes, set in near future America in the midst of a new civil war.

In Lesbian Romance:

Aurora’s Angel by Emily Noon – A broken-winged angel and a huntress with a bloody past come together–and find romance–in a journey beset by monsters.

In LGBTQ Children’s/Young Adult:

The Grief Keeper by Alexandra Villasante – An El Salvadorian girl named Gabi flees across the US border after her brother is murdered. Caught by US authorities and certain her asylum claim will be denied, she agrees to join an experimental study that allows her to take the grief of another into her own body.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi – A young trans girl named Jam befriends a frightening creature named Pet, who has come to her world to hunt a monster–but Jam has been told her entire life that all the monsters are gone.

The Wilder Girls by Rory Power – Eighteen months after the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine, all the teachers are long dead from the mysterious disease called Tox, and the woods around the school have been made impassable by the infected. When Hetty’s beloved Byatt goes missing, she’ll do anything to find her–even break quarantine.

In LGBTQ Studies:

Queer Times, Black Futures – An examination of Afrofuturism across the arts, looking at the significance of these imagined worlds to queer and black freedom.

And then the LGBTQ SFF/Horror Category – there’s some familiar titles in here!

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James – A mercenary is hired to find a missing boy, and searches through a lush, fantastic, and brutal world in order to find him.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon, et al. – Yetu’s people are the descendants of pregnant, enslaved African women who were thrown overboard during the middle passage, and Yetu is the historian who alone remembers their traumatic past. Overwhelmed, she flees and rediscovers the world her people left behind long ago.

False Bingo: Stories by Jac Jemc – A story collection filled with sinister forces, some supernatural, some not.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon – “A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.” And there are dragons.

The Rampant by Julie C. Day – A decade after an ancient Sumerian god descended on Indiana and promised a sort of Rapture… but the dark herald monster that will kick it off is missing in action, and bored gods have started snacking on humans.

A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney – A marsh-bound town in Maryland has been home to a movement of African-American artists, all of whom use the same haunting color somewhere in their work. That spectral hue calls graduate student Xavier to the town… and then out into the marsh itself.

Stories to Sing in the Dark by Matthew Bright – A short story anthology of the queer fantastic.

Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung by Nina MacLaughlin – A reclaiming of the stories and myths of women previously told and translated by men.

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex with a slightly calmer (but still excellent, if I do say so myself) new release stack after the absolute book storm we got hit with last week. Spring is in the air in Colorado, so you know what that means (or if you don’t, you’re about to find out): a bunch of gorgeous, sunny weather, punctuated by a random day of snow. Hope things are warming up (or cooling down as appropriate to your hemisphere) as they should!

My favorite thing I saw this week: one star reviews of national parks rendered as posters. I want this as a calendar.

Also, YOU MUST SEE THIS CAT. And there are some other extremely awesome cats in the thread.

New Releases

A Phoenix First Must Burn: Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope edited by Patrice Caldwell – An anthology of stories about Black women and gender nonconforming individuals that ranges from fantasy to science fiction to the unclassifiable. It doesn’t get better than this: “Witches and scientists, sisters and lovers, priestesses and rebels: the heroines of A Phoenix First Must Burn shine brightly. You will never forget them.”

Unknown 9: Genesis by Layton Green – PhD student Andie has experienced strange hallucinations her entire life, and has come to dismiss them totally… until her advisor is murdered in Italy. Then she finds drawings in his office that bear an uncanny resemblance to the hallucinations she has dismissed for so long. As she digs deeper, she learns that her advisor was working on a device that touches on the nature of reality itself–and that her mother, long missing, was also involved in the project. Determined to solve this new mystery, Andie follows a bread crumb trail of clues left by her advisor… but she’s not the only one looking for answers, and a mysterious elite society soon has her in their sights as a target.

That We May Live: Speculative Chinese Fiction edited by CJ Evans and Sarah Coolidge – A collection of speculative short fiction in translation, by authors from China and Hong Kong, thematically touching on issues of urbanization, sexuality, and propoganda.

Servant of the Crown by Duncan M. Hamilton – The third book of the Dragonslayer trilogy starts with a king on his deathbed and the power Amaury has always wanted just within his grasp. Dragonkind faces a fight for its very survival.

Cries from the Lost Island by Kathleen O’Neal Gear – Hal is a sixteen-year-old outcast in small town Colorado; he’s only got two friends. One of them, Cleo, is convinced she’s the reincarnation of Cleopatra and that she’s being stalked by an ancient Egyptian demon called Ammut. It sounds ridiculous, but when Cleo ends up dead in the forest nearby, her last request sends Hal and Roberto the Biker Witch on a journey to Egypt, where they join an archaeologist in the search for the tombs of Marc Antony and Cleopatra.

News and Views

(Huge TW for discussion of sexual assault and abuse.) A really intense piece about consent and coercion in K.M. Szpara’s book Docile and how it relates to these issues in the genre as a whole.

How Toss a Coin to Your Witcher got written.

Did you get your free copy of Nevertheless, She Persisted?

Amazon has optioned Rebecaa Roanhorse’s award-winning short story Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™, which first appears in Apex Issue 99.

Alex Brown’s got short fiction recommendations for you from what was published in February.

Chuck Wendig has shared his recipe for oatmeal cooked in apple cider.

This is an absolutely gorgeous cover, which is for E. Catherine Tobler’s upcoming short fiction collection The Grand Tour.

There is an Honest Trailer for The Witcher.

There’s a new trailer for Antebellum and I am getting SERIOUS Kindred vibes.

Here’s the trailer for the new Penny Dreadful series. And some teasers for the next season of What We Do in the Shadows!

A komodo dragon in the Chattanooga Zoo had triplets via parthenogenesis.

Geology nerd moment: I am SO EXCITED about ALL THIS OLIVINE.

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Happy Friday, shipmates! We made it to the weekend, believe it or not. Your reward is some news items and books from me, Alex. And I promise that this next bit is the only mention of virus-related things there will be.

Public service announcement: How to clean your smart phone the right way, according to Wired. Also, hand washing advice from Lady Macbeth. Or, alternate songs you can sing the chorus of to keep the soap going for 20 seconds.

News and Views

To get ready for The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin, reread the short story that kicked it off: The City Born Great

An illustrated edition of Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales is coming.

Starting March 8, you can download Tor.com’s Nevertheless, She Persisted for free!

MIT Press has reissued some of Stanisław Lem’s less well known work.

How much does accuracy matter in an adaptation? (I’m guessing this was prompted by the not entirely crowd-pleasing Artemis Fowl trailer.)

If you’re in a board game mood, there’s Harry Potter: House Cup Competition, which is a worker placement game.

Really cool: ConZealand has announced a scholarship to help marginalized fans attend.

Season 1 of The Witcher in 20 seconds.

Daniel Radcliffe talks about his new movie… and how glad he is that the Harry Potter actors weren’t online as much in their day as the Stranger Things crew is now.

A planetary scientist ranks the “ringed planet” emojis. 

SETI@Home is ending. 🙁

On Book Riot

This week’s SFF Yeah! podcast features favorite Star Trek and Star Wars books.

Which Queer YA Fantasy Couple Do You Ship?

Free Association Friday: The SFF Abides

I had to think a lot about what to do for this Free Association Friday. Then I discovered March 6 is “The Day of the Dude,” celebrating the anniversary of the release of The Big Lebowski and the easygoing philosophy of the Dude himself.

Protagonists in SFF tend to be a lot more… kinetic than the Dude, let’s be honest. A laid-back slacker is kind of fun to watch on screen, but maybe less arresting to read about. But there are some books about hapless small-timers or downright schmoes who just want to be left to their own business… and then big things happen to them. In order of least dude-like to most dude-like:

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Casiopea works too hard to be called a slacker, but she has a very ordinary life, taking care of her ailing grandfather, and hoping that at some point she can get out of her small town in southern Mexico and have some jazz-age-fun in the big city. Then she accidentally wakes up the Mayan god of death, and he’s out for revenge, and she gets dragged along.

Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines – Mops is just a regular ol’ space janitor, trying to keep her Earth Mercenary Corps ship clean when a bioweapon attack takes out almost the entire crew. Suddenly Mops and her intrepid band of sanitation specialists have to figure out how to pilot a ship, care for the survivors of the crew, and then unravel the galaxy-shaking mystery of just what happened to humans many years ago when the aliens showed up to invite Earth to join their alliance and things went unexpectedly to hell.

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty – Nahri isn’t a slacker as such, but she’s a con woman and a swindler who’s enjoying her life extracting money from Ottoman nobles. Then she accidentally summons an [incredibly hot] djinn warrior named Dara, and his very existence forces her to reassess her basic disbelief in magic. And that’s just the beginning of how Nahri’s life and knowledge of herself are about to be turned upside-down.

The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter – While this is a book absolutely packed full of intense combat, the main character, Tau, has a very humble beginning where he aspires to nothing more than getting injured–but not too injured–at the start of his warrior training so he can go home, live out a peaceful life, and hopefully marry the girl he likes. As you can imagine, fate has other ideas in store for him, and his path goes to a very bloody and dark place.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells – Poor Murderbot. A sophisticated security android that has hacked its own security module, all it really wants is to be left in peace to watch soap operas. But the humans around it keep getting in trouble, and then the Company keeps trying to murder them all, and it’s just a massive amount of fuss.

Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling – Peter Jobless is not, in fact, jobless–that was his dad–but he’s definitely not anyone important, and he’s totally fine with that. He just wants to be left alone to scrap defective machines… except he can’t bring himself to scrap some of them, and unwittingly, he’s becoming the leader of a band of robotic misfits. Even that’s not such a big deal. The real problem is that the infallible algorithms of TheShop have sent him something, and he doesn’t want it. And then he tries to return it. And then all hell breaks loose.

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Hello, shipmates! It’s Alex, with new releases for you… and honestly, that’s nearly all I could fit in this newsletter because there are SO MANY AMAZING BOOKS coming out today! March is coming in hard, I guess.

But by the way, if you loved the javelina from last week, there’s a whole Twitter account for javelina+music now. Because sometimes the internet is good, actually.

New Releases

Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed – Nick and Joanna have been friends since they were kids, though she’s rich and white and he’s brown and poor. Joanna is also a genius, and Nick is secretly in love with her. Then Joanna invents a clean reactor that could solve all the world’s fossil fuel problems… but it comes with the little wrinkle that in the process, she’s awakened evil Ancient Ones who want to subjugate humanity. Now Nick and Joanna have a new mission: survival. And to accomplish that, they’ll have to trust each other completely.

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry – It’s 1989, and the Danvers (Massachusetts) High School women’s field hockey team will stop at nothing to win–even the witchcraft that haunts their town’s history.

Cyber Shogun Revolution by Peter Tieryas – Third book in the series that started with United States of Japan. Ace mecha pilot Reiko Morikawa has been recruited into a secret organization that’s plotting to overthrow the corrupt governor (who also happens to be a Nazi sympathizer) of the United State of Japan. An assassin code-named Bloody Mary get to him first… but she’s not going to stop with just him. Reiko must join forces with Bishop Wakana, an agent of the secret police, who is also hot on Bloody Mary’s trail.

Docile by K.M. Szpara – In an all-too-plausible near future where generational debt has destroyed countless families and eaten the future of the unborn, indentured servitude has made a comeback, with the rich and powerful buying the contracts of the impoverished and doing with them as they please. To ease the horror of their servitude, most take the drug Dociline, which gives the indentured their name: Docile. Elisha refuses the drug, which took his mother from him. But the owner of his contract is the scion of the ultra-rich family behind both the drug and the system of debt that has trapped him and countless others.

This Town Sleeps by Dennis E. Staples – In Languille Lake, an Ojibwe reservation, an Ojibwe man named Marion starts a relationship with a closeted white man. Then one night, Marion accidentally brings the spirit of a dog back from the dead, and the dog leads him to the grave of an Ojibwe basketball star who was murdered at the age of seventeen. Marion’s investigation of the still-unsolved mystery takes him deep into his own family–and old legends.

The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu – Nannerl Mozart has only one wish: to be remembered forever. But she’s a woman in 18th century Europe, and her unquestionable talent for music only buys her the chance to perform until she can be married off by her father. As her own star dims, her younger brother Wolfgang’s only seems to shine brighter and more fiercely. Until one day, a mysterious stranger offers to make her wish come true–but at the cost of everything she holds dear.

Otaku by Chris Kluwe – Ditchtown is a city of skyscrapers built on the drowned remnants of Miami, filled with miscreants, unbelievers, and the other dregs of society. Ashley Akachi lives in that stinking prison as an anonymous girl whose family is falling about–but she also lives in the Infinite Game, a virutal world where she is known, feared, and loved by millions across the world. Then Ashley stumbles across a conspiracy that threatens to bring her two worlds crashing together and might tear them down around her ears.

News and Views

Jeannette Ng did a from-memory translation of The Ballad of Mulan.

More short fiction ahoy! The 2019 winners of the Clarke’s World readers’ survey.

AO3 has been blocked in China.

Lady Gaga has gone colorfully post-apocalyptic in the music video for her song Stupid Love.

The required plots of Star Trek.

Sex in the Theater: Jeremy O. Harris and Samuel Delaney in conversation

All 35 Video Game Movies, Ranked From Least Bad to Worst

On Book Riot

15 Books Like Skyrim for Bold Adventurers

3 Sci-fi Books by Black Women That Changed My Life

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.

Happy friday, shipmates! It has been cold as heck here in Colorado… hopefully you’re somewhere warmer, or if not, you’re getting to curl up under a blanket with a good book and a mug of your favorite hot beverage of choice. It’s Alex, with some news items (there was a lot of book news this week!) and some combat-heavy books to peruse for you.

In the department of things I can watch again and again: this amazing video of an owl in flight.

And on a completely different level, were you aware of the viral moment on twitter where we learned how fast a javelina can run? A lot of people set that video to music. Here’s my favorite.

News and Views

A hard-hitting essay about The Hunger Games and revolution for mass consumption: The Revolution Will Be Dramatized

Three Crows magazine did an interview with Tamsyn Muir about, among other things, Gideon the Ninth and the fanfiction controversy. TW for discussion of child abuse.

Amazon is partnering with Macro TV and Ava Duvernay’s production company for the adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Dawn.

File 770 brings you the 2019 edition of Novellapalooza! If you’re looking for a short-but-not-too-short-read recommendation, this is an amazing place to go.

Alix E. Harrow would like to tell you about her next novel.

Rest in peace, Clive Cussler.

Beer inspired by Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy.

Drama dots!

The next Star Wars universe major project: The High Republic. Let me tell you, as a resident of Colorado, I really have to wonder if they thought hard enough about that name.

Smithsonian Curators Remember Katherine Johnson.

A 46,000-year-old preserved bird.

On Book Riot

10 Dark Fantasy Books Like The Witcher

Cover Reveal: The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

Bookish Candles for Fans of The Raven Cycle

Free Association Friday: Combat-Heavy SFF

I just finished reading The Rage of Dragons, which is honestly a little darker than I normally like to go in my fantasy, but it still gripped me from start to finish. (And after a slightly long “training montage” middle, it takes a left turn into some absolutely dizzying fantasy politics that had me on the edge of my seat.) But one thing that really stands out in this book is just how focused on the feel, mechanics, and intensity of absolutely brutal sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat.

So I was thinking, what are some other books that have a major focus on the nitty-gritty of combat… and make it interesting instead of a dry play-by-play? (And I’ll admit right here that I’m skirting military scifi, because that’s really its own whole topic.)

The Phoenix Guards by Steven Brust is a fantasy take on The Three Musketeers, following the story of a young noble from the country who wants to make his way in the emperor’s court. And it’s got SO MANY SWORD FIGHTS. And magic duels. There’s just a lot of fighting in this book.

Jade City by Fonda Lee has a fighting tournament that’s a major turning point for one of the characters, and to go with the tournament there is some intense kung fu action.

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse is about a lady who hunts monsters and also has to fight plenty of humans who don’t like her. There’s a lot of down and dirty combat. There’s also an (illegal) fighting pit that gets a moment in the spotlight.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman does not actually have as many sword fights as some of the other books, but it more than deserves a place on the list because the fight between Wesley and Inigo is full of so much intense fencing nerdery.

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner is not as intensely nerdy about its fencing as The Princess Bride, but it is approximately a million times gayer.

And then as honorable mentions for intense combat that isn’t so up close and personal:

Ninefox Gambit is the token scifi for this list and it opens off with an amazing ground forces battle scene of “calendrical warfare,” which involves using math to just rip your opponents to shreds. Then some quick thinking leads our protagonist into giant ship-to-ship battles… and a war that will end up encompassing billions of lives.

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik has often been shorthanded as Master and Commander but with dragons instead of ships, and for good reason. The level of detail and thought that goes into Patrick O’Brian’s (or C. S. Forester’s a la Horatio Hornblower) loving and intense descriptions of ship-to-ship combat and sailing action in his novels is basically replicated here… with massive dragons crewed by humans.

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See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. 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.