Category: Swords and Spaceships

Wormholes in IKEA and Necromancers in Space: Swords and Spaceships for Feb 26, 2019

Post author By Liberty Hardy
Post date February 25, 2019

Hello and happy Tuesday, darklings! It’s me, Liberty! I have attached myself to Jenn’s brain stem, and I am now driving the mother ship. Or she asked me to fill in for her today. One of these things is true. Either way, I am excited to be here! Today we’ve got the teaser for His Dark Materials, wormholes in IKEA, upcoming new releases, a review of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, and more.

Swords and Spaceships Feb 22

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date February 21, 2019

Hello and happy Friday, Fair Folk and Fremen! Today we’ve got some reading lists, a superhero with bipolar disorder, a queer classic, a review of A Big Ship At the Edge of the Universe by Alex White, and more.

This newsletter is sponsored by Flatiron Books.

After her parents die, Camille must find a way to provide for her sister by transforming scraps of metal into money. But soon she begins to pursue a more dangerous mark: the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Camille transforms herself into a baroness and is swept up into life at Versailles. She meets a handsome young inventor, and begins to believe that love and liberty may both be possible. But magic has costs, and when revolution erupts, Camille must choose—before Paris burns.

Love you some magic and modernity? Here’s a great round-up of fantasy with modern elements.

Here’s a nice piece with the writer from The Unstoppable Wasp, on Nadia Van Dyne coping with bipolar disorder.

I’m super excited that Hadriana in All My Dreams (which I loved) made it into the on-going QUILTBAG+ Speculative Classics column on Tor.com!

Speculatively-related, the 2019 Read Harder includes a task to read a book of mythology or folklore, and here are some suggestions.

I talked about female time-travelers on Tuesday, and if you need more here’s a round-up.

With great power comes great responsibility, and here are eight books about magic wielders grappling with that!

Everyone is very hype about this bot’s writing ability; while I will grant you that the quoted Lord of the Rings-inspired scene is passable (barely) in terms of just basic writing, I can’t help but side-eye the assertion that anyone would mistake it for Tolkien’s writing.

Anyway! On to today’s review, which is a 10-lb plot in a 5-lb book, in a very satisfying way.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

Do you need some big, explosion-y fun with a diverse found-family crew of an outer-space starship trying to save the galaxy? Have I got a book for you. I have been describing this book as what might happen if you took some Murderbot and some Firefly and some Fast & Furious and added magic and upped the inclusivity, and I stand by it. (There’s a lot going on, y’all.)

Our two narrators couldn’t be more different. Nilah is an intergalactically famous race car driver with a literal magic touch, poised to become a champion and loving the limelight; Elizabeth, a.k.a. Boots, is the veteran of a horrible interplanetary conflict, is currently a con-artist, and faces constant prejudice because she’s one of the few humans who doesn’t have any magic at all (Muggles being rare in this ‘verse). When one of Nilah’s competitors buys a treasure map from Boots that gets him killed and Nilah accused of the murder, their paths cross, people start getting shot, and then more people start to die. What exactly is it about the fabled warship Harrow that someone is trying to keep secret? Boots, Nilah, and the crew of the Capricious might get killed anyway, so they might as well try to find out.

I really enjoyed this; White writes action well, and gleefully combines space opera and magic. I love the idea of a mechanic-mage almost as much as I love cranky, crochety, scarred, magic-less Boots, who grumped her way right into my heart. White has also clearly considered the ramifications of his world-building, exploring the injustices and inequities that might exist as well as the joys and treasures. Nilah’s journey from a pampered, albeit hard-working, diva to a member of the crew was a nice counterpoint to Boots, who is trying her mightiest to stay an outsider. The Big Bad is very big and very bad indeed, and it’s easy to root for these big-hearted, all too human characters.

While this is the first book in a series, the ending wraps up very nicely; White ties up all the major plot threads while leaving the door open for further adventures. The bonus here is that Book 2, A Bad Deal For the Whole Galaxy, is already out! Book 3 is slated for 2020, so don’t barge through them too fast.

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Feb 19

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date February 19, 2019

Hello and happy Tuesday, chrononauts and Kryptonians! Today we’re talking about the Dune cast (again), a new movie about J.R.R. Tolkien, Chinese sci-fi, The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas, and more.

This newsletter is brought to you by Tor Books, proud publisher of The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons.

Read the epic fantasy debut of the year. What if your destiny was not to save the world, but to destroy it? When a young thief is claimed against his will as the missing son of a treasonous prince, he finds himself at the mercy of his new family’s ruthless ambitions. Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians, calls The Ruin of Kings “Everything epic fantasy should be: rich, cruel, gorgeous, brilliant, enthralling and deeply, deeply satisfying.” Read The Ruin of Kings, available now wherever books are sold. For more info follow @torbooks.

Book news is light today, but as always there is plenty of adaptation news:

Have you already seen the Tolkien biopic trailer? I mentioned that Nicholas Holt is playing J.R.R. himself, and this teaser is way more magical than I was expecting (a failure of imagination on my part, clearly).

Lost producer Liz Sarnoff has optioned The Book of M by Peng Shepherd (which, as you might recall, I loved), for television, and I am SO EXCITED.

In the latest from the increasingly high-profile Dune casting news, Jason Momoa is in talks to play Duncan Idaho. I continue to not how how to feel, since these are all interesting actors, but none of them are matching up to my headcanon.

An adaptation of Cixin Liu’s novella The Wandering Earth has taken the Chinese box-offices by storm and is on track to become China’s highest grossing film of all time.

It’s another great week for exciting new releases:

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, edited by Ken Liu

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark

The Rising: The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant

And here are your ebook deals for the week (or at least, at the time of this sending):

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (a classic) is $1.99.

Wild Seed by Octavia Buttler (Patternist #1) is $1.99 (do recommend)!

In today’s review: This is your brain. This is your brain on chronology.

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

Trigger warnings: self-harm, suicidal ideation, hazing, eating disorders

This debut novel was pitched to me as Hidden Figures plus time travel, and that’s a pretty solid pitch; it is, in fact, a novel about diverse women in STEM — some of color, some queer — who invent time travel. It’s also a locked-room murder mystery with a multi-narrator, multi-timeline, Gordian knot of a structure. While I occasionally found some moments of exposition on the clunky side, on the whole this book was a delight to read — a delving of the human psyche when faced with the power to go anywhere, anywhen.

In 1967, scientists Kate, Barbara, Lucille, and Grace combine their specialties and really, actually invent time travel with remarkably little fuss. When both animal and human trials prove successful, they go public — but in the process, Barbara suffers a nervous breakdown. Steely, practical Margaret decides to cut Barbara off from the project permanently, setting in motion a chain of events that will unfold over the next four decades.

In 2017, the women’s project has grown into The Conclave, an independently governed, incredibly powerful organization that controls all time travel. Its employees are an elite band, bonded together by hazing as well as the unique nature of their job. And when an unidentified woman is found dead in the locked boiler room of a toy museum, all signs point back to The Conclave. Who is she and how did she die? The cast of characters swept up in these questions each have their own motivations and secrets, and some have more to hide — and more power to do so — than others.

I’m hard-pressed to say whether Ruby, Barbara’s granddaughter, or Odette, the young woman who finds the body, were my favorite characters; it’s a close tie. But in fact, each and every character drew me in in their own way, whether through horrified fascination, sympathy, or charm. Mascarenhas’s strength is, as the title says, in imagining how the human psyche might be impacted by, adapt to, and change with time travel. What gets lost and what gets magnified? What strange and terrible effects might it have on a person? What beautiful ones?

Time loops, paradoxes, legal battles, friendships broken and forged, love lost and found, soft and hard sciences; this book has a ton going on. If you’re willing to buckle up and hang tight through all the twists and turns, I think you’ll find it’s worth the ride.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Feb 15

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date February 14, 2019

Hello and happy Friday, monsters and magicians! Today I give you authors in conversation, the business of predicting the future, fantasy with monsters, a review of The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya, and more.

This newsletter is sponsored by Tor Books.

From Charlie Jane Anders, bestselling author of All the Birds in the Sky, comes a brilliant new novel set in a haunting future. January is a dying planet—divided between frozen darkness on one side and blazing sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life in two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk. Sophie should be dead after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the beasts who roam the ice, she vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping to heal. But fate has other plans—and Sophie’s odyssey will change the world.

A bunch of great SF/F writers including Victor LaValle and N.K. Jemisin were in conversation at the NYPL recently, and this recap includes some great tidbits (I definitely needed the section about hope).

If you like monsters, have we got a list for you — of monsters and magic in YA fantasy!

If you like interviews, S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy) talked with us about her inspirations, Jersey, her writing process, and more.

And on the younger side of the reading spectrum, here are 50 must-read fantasies for kids organized by grade level (and also obviously, all fair game for adult readers)!

Authors + authors = magic: Nicky Drayden (author of The Prey of Gods) decided to cosplay the cover of N.K. Jemisin’s How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? and live-tweeted the process and it was AWESOME.

Which magician are you? Our quiz will help you find out! I am Zacharias Wythe apparently and I’m 100% fine with that.

And I found this deep-dive into the business of predicting the future — which is literally employing sci-fi writers these days — to be totally fascinating.

And now, for the weirdest book I read last year that I can’t stop thinking about.

The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya, translated by Asa Yoneda

Trigger warning: body horror, physical violence

If you’re a regular listener of the SFF Yeah! podcast, you heard me talk about this book on our Weird SFF show. If not, buckle up, because it’s a doozy.

A short story collection that takes reality and warps it every which way, The Lonesome Bodybuilder plays with your expectations at every turn. A noted advice columnist’s final piece goes increasingly off the rails; a newlywed woman notices that her husband’s face has started to rearrange itself; a dating couple end up in a literal battle of the sexes; a little boy discovers the secret to flight while waiting at a bus stop. The title story, “The Lonesome Bodybuilder,” follows a neglected housewife who finds a new passion and completely remakes her body — but her husband never notices.

Perhaps my favorite, and one of the funniest and creepiest stories in the collection, follows a young retail worker waiting on a customer who refuses to come out of the dressing room — and as the story goes on, we start to question whether the customer is even human. It reminds me a great deal of my favorite story from another collection I loved by Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses; apparently I have a thing for possibly-aliens interacting with humans in the most mundane of circumstances!

There is, as stated in the warnings, a great deal of body horror, creepiness, and both implicit and explicit violence; there’s also a great deal of wit, insight, and dark humor. If you’re feeling the need to dip in and out of a collection, and would like a regular influx of “What the heck did I just read?!”, treat yourself.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Feb 12

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date February 11, 2019

Hello and happy Tuesday, xenofauna and xenoflora! Today we’re talking about Maggie Stiefvater’s new series, a possible adaptation for Black Leopard, Red Wolf, some very good e-book deals, and The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders.

This newsletter is sponsored by Here and Now and Then, a uniquely thrilling, genre-bending debut novel by Mike Chen.

Kin Stewart is an everyday family man, working in I.T., trying to keep the spark in his marriage, and struggling to connect with his teenage daughter. But his current life is a far cry from his previous career…as a time-traveling agent from 2142.

Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin’s past is a secret from everyone, despite the increasing blackouts and memory loss affecting his time-traveler’s brain. But one day, his agency’s rescue team arrives…18 years too late. Their mission: return Kin to 2142 where he’s only been gone weeks, not years, and where another family is waiting for him—a family he can’t remember.

Here are a few great bits of news from the books and adaptations world:

Clarkesworld Magazine is working on a dedicated translation imprint, and starting with Chinese sci-fi author Xia Jia!

Children of Blood and Bone is up for a 2019 Audie award.

For my Raven Cycle fans, Maggie Stiefvater has announced a new series, coming in November.

And the third book in S.A. Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy has a title (and a GIF).

In some beautiful synergy, Michael B. Jordan has acquired the rights to Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James as his first producer gig, and this could be incredible.

And Y: The Last Man‘s TV adaptation will be coming to FX in 2020.

In exciting new releases news, out this week:

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde (!!!!)

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas (which I am reading now and thoroughly enjoying)

And here are some ebooks to get on the cheap:

How about a free one? Everything Change is sci-fi around climate change, with an intro from Kim Stanley Robinson.

A couple of N.K. Jemisin’s ebooks are downpriced, including How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? for $4.99 and the entire Inheritance Trilogy for $9.99.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley (a perennial personal favorite) is $1.99.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (also a favorite) is $2.99.

Today in reviews, I have a lot of FEELINGS.

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

I enjoyed the heck out of Anders’ first novel, All the Birds in the Sky, not least because it’s an action-packed mash-up of sci-fi and fantasy. Her second book is a completely different beast; it’s a colonization story, an alien-encounter story, an identity and family story, a survival story.

Our setting: the tidally-locked planet January, where humanity has settled and eked out a tenuous existence in the dusk zone. They cluster in a handful of cities, trying to defend themselves from the indigenous megafauna and keep enough Earth-tech going to ensure their survival — and time may be running out.

Our cast: Sophie and Mouth.

Sophie is a lower-class outsider living in Xiosphant who works her way into college, only to be left for dead outside the city gates for being involved with an illegal political student group. She’s rescued by a creature she knows only as a “crocodile,” a tentacled creature who finds a way to communicate with her and reveals that they have a massive city of their own. Sophie’s struggle to understand and repay the Gelet clashes directly with her obsessive friendship with and love for the glamorous, wealthy, ambitious Bianca.

Mouth was born on the road and is used to the harshest of January’s ways, quick to violence, and the last surviving member of an itinerant religious community. When a chance to retrieve an artifact from her community crosses her path, she in turn crosses Sophie and Bianca’s paths, and the result might change the fate of all of January’s inhabitants.

The first and last third are indeed action-packed, with pirate attacks, political machinations, gangsters battling in the streets, giant squid, and desperate struggles for survival aplenty. But the middle section is a ramble through January itself, a meander into the world-building, and a deep dive into each character’s psyche. While some readers might lose patience with that long, slow middle section, I found I didn’t care that the plot had come to rest for a moment. Mouth and Sophie were continually surprising me, as well as becoming beautifully familiar. January and the Gelet are fascinatingly complex, and I would have spent far more time among the Gelet in particular if it had been offered.

And the ending, friends! While some doors have closed, nothing is wrapped up with a bow and no one’s survival is assured; the future is deeply unclear. I closed the book and sat there having feelings for a good five minutes. What will happen to Sophie and Mouth? What does it mean to be human? What does our past grant us, and what should we set down? And why do we pick the wrong people to love? There are no answers, just various beings struggling with these questions. If that sounds like your jam as well, then grab a copy and @ me when you’re done; we can have feelings together.

That’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Feb 8

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date February 7, 2019

Hello and happy Friday, centaurs and space cadets! Today we’ve got linky goodness in the form of hard sci-fi round-ups, speculative poetry, black writers to watch for, and more, plus a review of Nicola Griffith’s Ammonite.

This newsletter is sponsored by HMH Teen.

First in a duology, this darkly thrilling page-turner set in the world of the best-selling His Fair Assassin series is perfect for fans of Throne of Glass, Red Queen, and Game of Thrones. Told in alternating perspectives, when Sybella discovers there is another trained assassin from St. Mortain’s convent deep undercover in the French court, she must use every skill in her arsenal to navigate the deadly royal politics and find her sister in arms before her time—and that of the newly crowned queen—runs out.

I’m still working my way through Black Leopard, Red Wolf, and can only currently say WOW THIS BOOK. (I’m enjoying it but also fair warning; I’m 100 pages in and my trigger warning count currently includes domestic violence, harm to children, child abuse, female genital mutilation, homophobia, torture, and a lot of gore.) Until I finish and can review it properly, may I suggest you read this conversation between Marlon James and Victor LaValle?

And speaking of incredible black writers, here’s a round-up of books coming out this spring and summer to get on your radar (including several debuts, exciting!).

I’m officially already behind on February, and the month has barely started, so here’s a round-up of some books from this month that should be on your radar.

Did you know speculative poetry was a thing? Because it totally is! I had no idea there was such a thing as the Science Fiction Poetry Association and am fascinated.

If you need more hard sci-fi in your life, here’s a list focused on sci-fi grouped around themes like tech, aliens, world-building, and more.

And on the “softer” side of SF/F, here’s a round-up of five books about family (including the bananapants Temper by Nicky Drayden, do recommend).

Last but not least, if you’ve been looking for a starting point with Harry Potter fanfiction (and who amongst us has not), Namera has you covered.

I complain about being behind on February, and it’s all backlist’s fault.

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith

There have been a crop of SF/F novels lately that take the male/female binary as grounds for a “what if” — what if all the women had electrical superpowers, or could only say so many words per week, or all turned into mushroom-people, etc. (I’m paraphrasing but The Power, Vox, and The Beauty in case you’re wondering.) I’m on record as being disinterested in this, because gender isn’t binary and it feels like in this, The Year of Our Continued Angst 2019, we should be able to come up with some more interesting and intersectional explorations of gender dynamics. With all that as my current mental context, I wasn’t sure what I’d think of Ammonite; it’s more than 20 years old now, and it eschews a binary for a more monochrome version of gender. But in Griffith’s skilled hands, a world of women turns into an exploration of the full range of human emotion and behavior, and I’m so glad to have finally read this book.

Marghe Taishan is an anthropologist from Earth who’s been dreaming of studying a far-off planet colloquially referred to as Jeep, and she’s about to get her wish. As she travels from the nearby space station to the planet’s surface, she’s faced with multiple challenges right from the get-go. To avoid getting the virus that contaminates the entire planet’s human population she must faithfully take an experimental vaccine, and even that will only protect her for six months; she has to act within the self-serving strictures of the controlling Company; and the women meant to be her assistants have either refused to return to the planet or gone missing.

Jeep itself is a mystery: a native virus killed all the original male settlers, with only some of the women surviving. It’s no static utopia, monolithic culture, or aimless hive, but a planet with all the complexities of any other. How the inhabitants procreate, how their societies and languages function, how their customs and methods have evolved since they first left Earth, all of these are open questions that Marghe is meant to answer — but finding out the answers might endanger her life.

The journey Marghe goes on is a Quest in the classic sense, and the mental dangers she faces are just as real as the physical dangers. Alienation, childhood trauma, and resilience; identity, love, sexuality, and community; Griffith explores these things and more through Marghe’s interactions with Jeep’s different clans and cultures. For counterpoint, we also get to follow the commanding officer of the Company outpost as she comes to terms with the realities of the Company’s situation on Jeep, and these intertwining storylines build to a beautiful crescendo.

Griffith notes in an afterword that in writing this book, she set out to combat the simplification and stereotyping of women, and to show that the gender contains all of the many positive and negative attributes of humanity as a whole. Ammonite focuses specifically on womanhood in order to make a necessary point: that any person, of any gender, embodies a complete and complex human experience. Whatever our identity may be, we each contain multitudes. And perhaps we should not have to be told or reminded of this, but here we are. If you want to explore the vagaries of humanity and read an amazing “what if” story in the process, pick up Ammonite immediately.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Feb 5

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date February 4, 2019

Hello and happy Tuesday, shapeshifters and spice mongers! Today we’ve got a bunch of book news including an Atwood cover reveal, a lost Merlin story, Dune casting continued, plus buzzy new releases, some ebook deals, and a review of The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni.

This newsletter is sponsored by Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik.

Ada von Hasenberg fled her family after her father tried to arrange a politically valuable, but personally undesirable, marriage. Now, after two years on the run, the spirited princess’s luck has run out. Thrown into a prison cell with the notorious former soldier Marcus Loch, she’s about to be returned to her father when her ship is attacked by a rival noble house – the man she was supposed to marry. If her jilted fiancé captures her, Ada will become a political prisoner. Her only hope is to strike a deal with the dangerous fugitive Loch – but if she’s not careful, she’ll lose much more than she bargained for…

Let’s start on book and adaptation news:

You might recall that Margaret Atwood is writing a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, called The Testaments, and her publisher recently revealed the cover. Reactions are STRONG, y’all.

Also in cover reveals, Karen Lord’s Unraveling is one of my most anticipated reads of 2019 and just look at this gorgeous cover!

And in sequel news, Kat Howard has announced that there will be a sequel to An Unkindness of Magicians called A Sleight of Shadows, releasing in 2020.

Academics discovered new story material about Merlin of Arthurian legend in a book printed in the late 1400s, and I cannot wait for the full transcription omg.

In further Dune casting news, which is just getting bonkers at this point, Javier Bardem is in talks to play Stilgar and Oscar Isaac might play Duke Leto and Zendaya might play Chani, and I don’t even begin to know how to feel about all of this?!

CBS All Access is bringing viewers a new limited-series adaptation of The Stand by Stephen King. Watching the 1994 mini-series was a formative moment in my life, and this religiously-apocalyptic pandemic novel is my favorite of his bar none, and therefore I feel personally attacked by this news. Will they finally get my $5 a month!? Stay tuned, friends.

A few of this week’s new releases to keep an eye on:

A People’s Future of the United States, edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams

Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (which I’m reading right now, stay tuned for a future review and in the meantime, trigger warning for every kind of violence under the sun to all possible persons)

The Ruin of Kings by Jenny Lyons (the buzz has been strong on this one)

And here are your ebook deals:

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison, $0.99.

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark, $3.99.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (reviewed here), $2.99.

Today’s review is for a backlist title that recently jumped out of the library and into my heart.

The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Content warnings: domestic violence; rape; racially motivated violence; narrow representation of Native Americans.

I found this book through the magic of late night library e-book browsing, and it feels like a book I should have read years ago. It’s got real-world-plus-magic, nuanced characters, takes a hard look at racism, immigration in America, the gaps between generations, identity, and love, and it reads like a dream.

Tilo, our narrator, was born a long time ago in a land far away, and through a tangled personal journey (including sea snakes and pirates!) discovered that she has a talent: she can see into people’s hearts and souls, and name their troubles. That talent also means that she had the ability to learn the magic of spices, which have the power to help heal or harm (please note, I will never look at ginger or cinnamon the same way). But to become a Mistress of Spices, you have to let go of your time, physical being, and identity, and accept the mission you are given. Hers takes her to Oakland in modern times (well, modern-ish — this book was published in 1998) and gives her the body of an old woman, where she runs a small spice shop and dispenses her magic unbeknownst to her customers. There are many rules, and she follows them willingly, until the night a lonely stranger walks into the store. He’s struggling to make peace with his own identity, and his pull on Tilo is almost irresistible.

Tilo must decide what her powers mean to her; she has to figure out who exactly she is; she has a chance at love, but it’s not a fairytale in the slightest; and most importantly, she has to help the people around her — and make sure her help doesn’t make things worse. There are heartbreaking moments in here, alongside the magical ones, as well as a deep-dive into the Indian-American experience, and I was gripped from the first to the last page. It’s not a perfect book, but it is a beautiful one, and it gave me many feelings.

Side note, I just discovered there is a movie version!? Will watch and get back to you all.

The spice must flow,
Jenn

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Feb 1

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date January 31, 2019

Hello and happy Friday and happy first day of February, wargs and woozles! Today we’ve got linky goodness from around the web including a Hugo Awards explainer, a Star Wars reading order, fan-art, and a review of the Folio Society edition of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, introduced by Nalo Hopkinson and illustrated by Francis Vallejo.

This newsletter is sponsored by DAW Books.

Collected for the first time in an omnibus edition, discover the Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning sci-fi trilogy that tells the story of Binti, a young Himba girl with the chance of a lifetime: to attend the prestigious Oomza University. But after the jellyfish-like Medusae attack her spaceship, Binti must fend for herself, alone with the beings who murdered her crew, with five days until she reaches her destination. If Binti is to survive this voyage and save the inhabitants of the unsuspecting planet that houses Oomza Uni, it will take all of her knowledge and talents to broker the peace.

This week on SFF Yeah!, Sharifah and I got very excited about this year’s Hugo awards, and here’s a reminder that you can (and should) nominate and vote, plus a step-by-step tutorial on how!

If you too feel like you’ve been dumped into the wrong timeline, here are some parallel universe reads that might make you feel better. (Or worse? Or just the same; mileage, it varies!)

Looking for advice on where to start with the many recent Star Wars books? Kristina breaks it down for you!

SF/F by female authors is often mistakenly categorized as YA, and this piece has some thoughts on how and why it happens.

Baby, it’s cold outside … excuse me while I put every one of these superhero hoodies on my wishlist (but particularly that Cap. Marvel one, holy wow).

Winter is here, obviously, and we’ve got 50 Game of Thrones quotes to use around the fire (or in work emails or whatever).

This is such a simple fan-art concept, and yet this Meet Cute piece gave me feelings.

In today’s review, we’re gonna talk about Books as Art.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, with an introduction by Nalo Hopkinson, illustrated by Francis Vallejo

If you’re not familiar with the Folio Society, be prepared to drool. They do beautifully packaged and illustrated editions of classics, and have more modern titles alongside standbys like Alice in Wonderland and The Time Machine. One of their latest releases is an incredibly lush edition of Anansi Boys, and wowza.

Anansi Boys was actually the first book by Neil Gaiman that I ever read, probably close to 20 years ago now, and I’ve somehow never revisited it. My intention was just to read the new Hopkinson intro and then page through this Very Fancy, Oh God Must Not Get Food On It edition; I started reading and found myself five chapters in before I knew it. I hadn’t realized that Gaiman reached out to Hopkinson for help with the Caribbean dialogue and details when he was first writing it, and Hopkinson’s notes both on what that process was like and on ‘nancy stories’ are wonderful. And rediscovering Fat Charlie and Spider was a pleasure, especially since I did an American Gods reread not too long ago. I’ll definitely be finishing the book, and glorying in seeing the art unfold alongside the text this time around.

I say this time around, because absolutely the first thing I did upon receiving this book was to page through and find each and every one of Vallejo’s illustrations. There are the chapter splash pages, which tell their own spider story; full-color pages scattered throughout that are a glorious riot of color and style; and the black and white drawings that share space with text, grace notes bringing specific moments of plot to life. I love the range of texture and media Vallejo employs; his art feels just as exuberant, dynamic, and moody as the story itself. There’s a lovely video interview with him here — it’s very thoughtful, and also gets into the nitty gritty of how one specific illustrator approaches a task like this.

You won’t be surprised to hear that the price-tag is high; at $135, this isn’t a casual purchase for most readers. If you want an entirely new reading experience and a killer intro from Nalo Hopkinson, put it on your wishlist or in your birthday budget; you won’t regret it.

Bonus: Hopkinson is also part of the team writing new installments in the Sandman universe, which you should check out if you have not already!

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Jan 29

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date January 28, 2019

Hello and happy Tuesday, archers and aeronauts! Today we’re talking about Robert Jordan’s first ever novel, another bookish lawsuit for Netflix, another exciting adaptation deal, A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna, and more.

This newsletter is sponsored by Mulholland Books.

In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a place very similar to California, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible. In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth—speaking a lie—is the greatest crime. Stopping those crimes is Laz’s job. A mind-bending vision of America, Golden State is a wild journey into our post-truth society, a Fahrenheit 451 for our anxious times.

Let’s start out with a little book news, shall we?

Here’s a cover reveal for Fran Wilde’s new novel in the Gemworld series.

Tor is publishing Robert Jordan’s first-ever, previously unpublished novel, and I would like to be on the record as unsure whether this is every a good idea.

Fans of the She-Ra reboot, rejoice! We’re getting a novel that ties into the first two episodes.

And in the adaptation world:

The Wheel of Time TV show starts production this fall, which means we’ll probably actually get a show at some point.

Empire of Sand (reviewed here) has been optioned! Huzzah!

Here’s the Umbrella Academy trailer.

Nicholas Hoult is going to play JRR Tolkien in this biopic and I feel old, anyone else remember him in About a Boy?

The hits keep coming for Netflix (the not-good kind); now they’re being sued by Chooseco, makers of Choose Your Own Adventure novels, over Bandersnatch.

Buzzy new releases for this week:

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

Vigilance by Robert Jackson Bennett

And here are some deals for your digital library:

A Study in Honor by Claire O’Dell, $1.99

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri, $4.99 (just read it already)

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, $4.99 (old school)

Today’s review is for a novel about a space princess set in a world inspired by Indian mythology, and some of you are already sold.

A Spark of White Fire (The Celestial Trilogy #1) by Sangu Mandanna

I heard a lot about this book when it came out, and I am happy to report that the reading experience lived up to the promise. How far would you go for family? The characters in A Spark of White Fire must each find an answer, and their answers will change the world.

Our heroine Esmae has grown up an orphan on Wychstar, exiled from her family by a curse and hidden away in obscurity. She yearns for nothing more than to be reunited with them, and has spent years of her young life planning and training for that day. (She’s basically Cinderella on Deep Space 9, and I am here for it.) Opportunity has come knocking: the king of Wychstar built a sentient, gods-blessed, unbeatable spaceship called Titania, and he’s holding a contest. The victor of the contest will win Titania, and every royal in the galaxy will be competing. It’s a beautiful plan: Esmae will win the contest and the ship, and then take it to help her deposed family regain their throne on Kali. Despite the warning of the goddess Amba, she sets out to do just that — and learns that even with her brilliant tactical mind, the best laid plans often go awry. There’s an enemy prince who turns out to be much more complex — and much more interesting — than she could have imagined; her long-lost family is less than overjoyed to see her; and the deeper into her plot she gets, the less people seem to be who she thought they were.

Esmae is prickly, headstrong, and so believable. She knows her faults, but she also knows her strengths, and watching her defy everyone, even fate itself, to work toward her goals was both harrowing and a joy. I also loved how Mandanna depicted her community; so many heroines, both in YA and adult, are loners or lacking in support, and it was a real pleasure to watch someone with friends and found family from the start, and to see her struggle with all the emotions (positive and negative) that go with those ties. Then there’s the world-building, lush and evocative, a breath of fresh air in the space opera genre.

Complicated family dynamics, tangled loyalties, political backstabbery, a sentient spaceship, and an inclusive cast of characters (in sexual orientation, ability, and ethnicity) — it’s reader catnip, I tell you, catnip! And while I know the basics of the Mahabharata, from which Mandanna is drawing her inspiration, I think this book will be accessible to readers regardless of their familiarity with her source material. (For those who would like to know more, here’s an interview.)

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

May your arrows fly true,
Jenn

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Jan 25

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date January 24, 2019

Happy Friday to all you travelers from past, future, and present! Today we’re talking about fantasy graphic novels, subverted gender roles, recaps for series, sharks, and Long Division by Kiese Laymon.

This newsletter is sponsored by Tor Teen.

In the lower wards of Kahnzoka, eighteen-year-old ward boss Isoka enforces the will of her criminal masters with the power of Melos, the Well of Combat. When her magic is discovered by the government, she’s arrested and brought to the Emperor’s spymaster, who sends her on an impossible mission: steal Soliton, a legendary ghost ship. On board Soliton, nothing is as simple as it seems. She doesn’t expect to have to contend with feelings for a charismatic fighter who shares her combat magic, or for a fearless princess who wields an even darker power.

Y’all, we had a World of Fantasy Day on Book Riot and there was so much good content, I’m just going to link to the full round-up of posts. If you’re looking to read lots of different kinds of fantasy from lots of different parts of the globe, get clicking.

And if you’d like more graphic novels in your fantasy diet, here’s a great post for that.

On Tuesday I noted that Leigh Bardugo’s work will be adapted by Netflix; if you’re not sure where to start with her work and want to catch up, we’ve got a reading pathway!

So far this month on SFF Yeah!, Sharifah and I have talked about some of our most anticipated stand-alones and sequels of 2019.

Where is the petition to make recap chapters a thing in series books? I will gladly sign it.

Subversion of gender roles is one of my favorite things to see in SF/F novels, and this round-up of five includes a couple I haven’t read yet!

Which SF author correctly predicted the Internet? To be quite honest I would not have predicted any of these three possible names!

Scientists for the continued win: a shark is now named after Galaga!

Today’s review is for a book that takes time travel into rarely-traveled territory.

Long Division by Kiese Laymon

Trigger warnings: family violence, racial violence, use of slurs

Laymon is currently best known for his nonfiction writin, in particular his intense memoir Heavy (which I talked about on All the Books), but his first novel is a meta-fictional time travel novel that is well worth your time if you like weird, funny, and heart-breaking coming-of-age novels.

Long Division takes place across two narratives. In 2013, Citoyen “City” Coldson melts down on a nationally-televised vocabulary contest and has to deal with his sudden infamy, structural and overt racism, and the everyday hazards of teenage life. His one comfort during the aftermath of his meltdown is a book called Long Division by an unknown author. Chapters from this internal Long Division are woven into City’s story, and follow the exploits of another young black boy named City who lives in 1985 and discovers a hole in the woods that allows him to travel back and forward in time — but only to two specific times, 2013 and 1964. As the story moves back and forth the two narratives become increasingly intertwined, and the various characters have to choose when and how they want to live — and what that might mean for those they love.

I’m a sucker for a “book within a book,” and time travel well-handled (NO TIME LOOPS, PLEASE) is another personal favorite, so this book was like catnip. We so rarely get time travel books about characters of color, much less teenaged ones, and Long Division contemplates both its pleasures and dangers through an adolescent perspective. The results are refreshing, occasionally hilarious, and also made me want to reach into the book and yell “OH GOD DON’T DO THAT!”. But let there be no doubt that this book is not breezy or light-hearted — the issues City and his friends encounter are real, dangerous, and life-changing.

If you’re down for a weird, wild ride that will make you sit up, pay attention, and think about it well after the last page, pick this up ASAP, particularly if you’re a fan of Charles Yu, Victor LaValle, and/or Jeff VanderMeer.

Don’t step on any butterflies,
Jenn