Category: Swords and Spaceships

Happy Friday, nerd-friends and geek-pals! This week we’re looking at supernatural parenting a la The Changeling and The Stars Between Us, maps in fantasy novels, some queer SF/F to close out Pride month, and a few other items that tickled my fancy.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Libby.

Meet Libby, a new app built with love for readers to discover and enjoy eBooks and audiobooks from your library. Created by OverDrive and inspired by library users, Libby was designed to get people reading as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Libby is a one-tap reading app for your library who is a good friend always ready to go to the library with you. One-tap to borrow, one-tap to read, and one-tap to return to your library or bookshelf to begin your next great book.

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For my fellow Ninefox Gambit fans: What’s your Hexarchate faction? It might not be the next Hogwarts House quiz, but I’m pretty satisfied with my results. (Liozh, natch. Team Heresy!)

Are maps in fantasy novels necessary? One of our Book Riot folks doesn’t think so — or at least, not all the time. This is one of those moments where you realize how different every reader is, because Clay uses the maps in novels very differently from me. I tend to look at them to get an overall idea of the geography before I start reading, and to appreciate them as a piece of illustrative art; I don’t think I’ve ever gone back to trace a route.

We talk about LGBTQ+ SF/F pretty regularly here, but I am not one to pass up the opportunity of Pride month to talk about it more! Have a round-up, with remarkably minimal overlap and lots of personal favorites:
–  Queer SF/F favorites from Unbound Worlds
– 9 Influential LGBTQ SF/F Authors from The Portalist
– LGBTQ+ Characters in YA SF/F from the Metropolitan Library
– A thoughtful look at writing fantasy from the transgender perspective on Foreword Reviews

Want to support diversity in your favorite genres? There’s a scholarship you can help fund via the The Speculative Literature Foundation. The foundation supports “new and emerging writers from underrepresented and underprivileged groups,” and hopes to continue issuing grants over the next five years.

If you’re following the Star Trek: Discovery news, you’ll be delighted to hear that there is finally an air date: September 24. They’ll be showing the premiere on both CBS and CBS All Access, before it switches entirely to All Access. I am still telling myself that I’ll decide after I see the preview if I’m signing up or not, but it’s hard to resist a line-up that includes Michelle Yeoh, Sonequa Martin-Green, and Jason Isaacs.

There have been a recent spate of speculative novels that hinge around fertility and parenthood (with more on the way), and today we’re looking at two of them.

The Space Between The Stars by Anne Corlett

Veterinarian Jamie Allenby has a quiet life on a remote colony planet called Solitaire, and that’s just the way she likes it. Then a virus sweeps from planet to planet — a virus projected to kill 99% of all humans who catch it. After the shock of survival, all she can think of is getting to the nearest planetary hub of civilization and then back to Earth, to her childhood home. She manages to find a few other survivors and a spaceship captain to get them off Solitaire — and that’s just the beginning of her story.

Procreation is a deeply embedded theme in this space adventure. Jamie ended up on Solitaire in the first place following a miscarriage, and the virus might also affect fertility — which means that not only is the human race decimated, but it might never recover. Corlett holds up a warped mirror to current issues of overpopulation, racism, class, and governance, and the reflection ain’t pretty. For all that, it’s also a remarkably quiet, slow novel; while there are a few action sequences, the novel primarily revolves around the internal life and small but pivotal choices of its characters. Think something like Station Eleven but in space and in one timeline. A deceptively straight-forward read, it will stay with you for longer than you might expect.

The Changeling by Victor LaValle

Before I say anything else about this book, let me get it out of the way: I loved it. Now that I’ve declared that, I have to tell you that this is a very hard book to review because of one particular scene, and reviewers seem split on whether to describe it or not. I went into the book knowing absolutely nothing about the plot, which made it incredibly shocking and powerful, but I also believe in being prepared for things that might mess your brain up for the rest of the day (or week, or month…). It’s a conundrum, and a tough one. So I’m splitting the difference. If you want to go in with a clean slate, all you need to know is that this novel is a wickedly effective blend of horror and fantasy, in which a young Black couple discover that parenting is nothing like they thought it would be — and not for the usual reasons. (And you can stop reading this review now, spoilers/warnings hereafter!)

If you’d like details: The Changeling follows Apollo Kagwa, a book dealer trying to make ends meet. We learn just enough about his childhood to understand why being a dad is simultaneously so important and so difficult for him. He falls for a librarian named Emma, they get married and get pregnant, and everything seems to be going well enough — until the day that Emma shackles him to a chair, kills their baby, and then disappears. But that’s just the first third of the book; Apollo soon discovers that nothing is as it seems, and his quest through New York City takes him to places no parent ever wants to go. It’s bloody, it’s terrifying, and not just because of the monsters going bump in the night. Rather, not just because of the supernatural monsters; there are human monsters involved as well.

LaValle has always been good at going to the dark places in the human psyche and lacing in the fantastical. That skill is the reason I pick up each and every book he writes. In this book he’s pulling no punches, and his storytelling is top-notch. If you’re ready to dive into the deep end, pick it up ASAP.

Bonus: If you haven’t read him before, here’s a great piece on where to start.

And that’s a wrap. Happy reading! If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the new SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations across the board you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

Hello lawful, chaotic, and neutral readers! All alignments welcome. Today we’re talking Raven Stratagem, Beren and Lúthien, Octavia Butler Day, global warming in dystopias, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (SORRY/NOT SORRY.)

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This newsletter is sponsored by The Evaporation of Sofi Snow by Mary Weber.

From award-winning author Mary Weber comes a story of video gaming, blood, and power. As an online gamer, Sofi Snow battles behind the scenes of Earth’s Fantasy Fighting arena. Her brother Shilo is forced to compete in a mix of real and virtual blood sport. When, a bomb shatters the arena, Sofi thinks Shilo’s been taken to an ice-planet – Delonese. Charming playboy Miguel is a Delonese Ambassador. He’s built a career on secrets and seduction. When the bomb explodes, the tables turn and he’s the target. The game is simple: Help the blackmailers, or lose more than Earth can afford.

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Let’s get topical!

In honor of Octavia Butler’s birthday yesterday, we had a whole day of posts celebrating her work (including one by yours truly about how I discovered Butler via Betty Smith; true story.)

I love Rachel’s on-going round-ups of speculative fiction in translation, as you will have noticed because I keep linking to them! This month she’s looking at spec fic from from Israel, and I’ve already requested Isra-Isle from my library.

For my fellow data-nerds, here are some global warming projections a la The Hunger Games. I confess I had never bothered to look at a map of Panem before, or consider how plate tectonics work in combination with a rising coastline. A+ would learn again!

For your summer reading lists, we’ve got SF/F June book picks from Barnes & Noble booksellers and io9. While there is some overlap between the two, there are enough differences for it to be worth looking at each. I have already waxed poetic about my love for The Prey of Gods, definitely get that on your list.

We’re getting a Dracula TV show from the BBC’s Sherlock team. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss will be adapting the novel as a mini-series of feature-length episodes. I have very mixed feelings about this; Sherlock had some amazing episodes, but there are Known Issues with Moffat’s representation of women and minorities, and it’s hard to believe that the source material of Dracula will incline them to do any better. So: we’ll see, I guess? (But I must confess I am dying to know who the cast will be.)

And now, reviews!

Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee (The Machinery of Empires #2)

OH BOY, YOU GUYS. This is an excellent sequel to Ninefox Gambit, a stellar Book 2 overall, and I need everyone to read it immediately so we can have feelings and thoughts and theories about it together.

Raven Stratagem picks up with General Kel Cheris, a.k.a. Jedao, taking over a fleet recently dispatched to deal with the invading Hafn forces. What are Jedao’s motives? What will happen to the fleet now under their command? What follows is an incredibly high-stakes game of political poker, made further complicated by the fact that we never get Jedao’s perspective. Instead, we’re forced to speculate along with the rest of the Hexarchate. This was both diabolical — I was half-convinced I had forgotten what actually happened at the end of Ninefox Gambit, and more than once yelled “BUT WAIT” at the pages in front of me — and genius, because it makes the book truly impossible to put down. It doesn’t hurt that the supporting characters are so well-drawn; watching General Khiruev struggle with Kel formation instinct, or Hexarch Mikodez manipulate literally everyone he ever encounters, was both engrossing and a delight. (Also I now want an onion deskplant.) I have a few favorites that I’m hoping will reappear in Book 3, and a few theories — @ me when you’re done and we’ll talk, ok?

As you might have noticed, this review reads like a whole lot of word soup if you haven’t read Ninefox Gambit. And while I’m usually all for picking things up mid-stream, the world-building here is complicated enough that I unequivocally recommend starting at the beginning. The twists and turns and tricks that Lee plays out in Raven Stratagem are masterful and deserve full appreciation. This series is well on its way to my Top 5 Favorites, and both books are in paperback. What are you waiting for?

Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien

Are you a completist, a Middle-earth scholar, and/or a lover of epic poetry? Then Beren and Lúthien is 100% for you. Do you generally enjoy The Lord of the Rings and like the thought of knowing more about these characters in particular? Maybe get it from the library.

As noted in the announcement, this book is a collection of different iterations of the story that Tolkien the Elder was working on over the course of many years. Christopher Tolkien has arranged them, with extensive annotations and explanations, end to end in order to give the fullest possible look at where their story starts and ends. Some of it is in prose, some of it is in poetry, lots of names undergo changes, a few characters’ histories are rewritten entirely, and the plot points shift from version to version.

It doesn’t make for smooth reading; while some of the sections have a wonderful internal flow and structure, the annotations and framing necessarily interrupts every few pages. And since I struggled my way through The Silmarillion and never picked up any of the other books edited by Tolkien the Younger, I often was at a complete loss when he was working to establish the context of the story in the greater mythology of Middle-earth. That all being said, I remember Aragorn telling Frodo the tale (including a few actual lines from that rendition) in Fellowship of the Ring well enough that I stuck with it, and the story itself does not disappoint. No matter which version, Lúthien is the hero, and that’s a welcome (and much needed) addition to the canon.

 

And that’s a wrap! If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the new SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations (including the occasional book club question!) you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

Happy Friday, fellow travelers! Have some space hijinks and some new (and old) mythology.

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This newsletter is sponsored by The Evaporation of Sofi Snow by Mary Weber.

From award-winning author Mary Weber comes a story of video gaming, blood, and power. As an online gamer, Sofi Snow battles behind the scenes of Earth’s Fantasy Fighting arena. Her brother Shilo is forced to compete in a mix of real and virtual blood sport. When, a bomb shatters the arena, Sofi thinks Shilo’s been taken to an ice-planet – Delonese. Charming playboy Miguel is a Delonese Ambassador. He’s built a career on secrets and seduction. When the bomb explodes, the tables turn and he’s the target. The game is simple: Help the blackmailers, or lose more than Earth can afford.

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We’ve got enough links for a space section this week, so let’s start there.
– Ikea is sending people to Mars! Well, a Mars-simulation. For furniture science. It’s like The Wanderers, only for three days and in the name of minimalist living.
– This piece on baking in space is excellent if only for the phrase “[C]ake in space is the ultimate goal,” and also makes me want a “Great British Bake-Off”-style reality show on the ISS. A girl can dream, right? And happily, there is the comic Space Battle Lunchtime to tide me over until I get Mary Berry teaching Chris Hadfield how to properly time a soufflé whilst in orbit.
– Asgardia started out as satellite data storage “space nation” and now appears to have plans for an actual station, much to everyone’s surprise. I confess that I am not inclined to be an early adopter when it comes to space citizenship, but you do you Asgardians!

We talked a bit in past newsletters about the surprise (to me, anyway) nomination of The Underground Railroad to several genre awards list. In flipped awards news, for the first time ever, a speculative fiction novel won the Bailey’s Prize for Women. The Power comes out in the US in October, but if you can’t wait that long I know a guy who ships internationally.

With great power comes great responsibility, and here is a list of seven YA novels with heroines who learned that the hard way.

Last but not least, if you’d like a detailed breakdown of that stellar (STELLAR I TELL YOU) Black Panther trailer, io9 has you covered.

On to the reviews!

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

This is a locked-room mystery, except it’s a locked spaceship and it’s mid-space flight crewed by clones! Are you convinced yet?

You should be; Six Wakes is a page-turner and then some. The ship’s crew, all of whom have criminal pasts, wake up 25 years into a colonization mission to find themselves — Their previous selves? Past selves? They are clones, selfhood become weird — floating around, very dead. Very messily dead. Some were stabbed, someone was hanged, someone else was stabbed and poisoned, and none of them have any memory of what happened. The only surviving crew member, the captain, is in a coma and not telling. What follows is both a whodunit, a look at the backstory of our protagonists, and a highly detailed imagining of what the legality surrounding clones could come to look like.

Brain hacking, political agendas, religious scruples, covert ops, artificial intelligence, personhood, and revenge — naturally — all come into play. In addition to the big plot points, Lafferty doesn’t skimp on the mundane details. How does inheritance work now? How does food work in space? What happens to your personality over that much time?

Six Wakes is engrossing and thoroughly satisfying, and Lafferty succeeds at both laying down a mystery and creating a stand-alone sci-fi novel. Highly recommended, especially for beach/vacation reading!

The Metamorphoses series by Sarah McCarry

Later this year the first translation of The Odyssey by a woman is coming out, and my galley arrived this week. As I ran triumphant laps around my apartment and plotted where exactly it would go on my bookshelf, it reminded me of the series that re-awoke my love of the classics in the past few years: Sarah McCarry’s Metamorphoses trilogy, which feature contemporary retellings of Ovid’s Metamorphoses with teen protagonists and titles from Nirvana songs. A truly excellent combination, I am happy to confirm.

The series starts with All Our Pretty Songs, following our nameless narrator as she tries to get her best friend Aurora and their new friend Jack back from the Underworld. Jack’s musical gifts have attracted the attention of an ancient evil, and that attention is now directed at them as well. It’s a powerful start, both because you don’t get to see sisterhood stories of this kind very often, and because the narrator is one of my all-time favorite Angry Girls Who Are Not Here For Your Supernatural Nonsense.

Dirty Wings is a prequel to All Our Pretty Songs, and while you could read it first it definitely spoils a few things! It too is a best friend story, following Cass and Maia (the mothers from #1). It too features a man who changes their friendship; but instead of a battle with dark forces, it looks at how those dark forces can entire your life all unwitting, and what you do when you find you’ve invited them in.

About a Girl jumps forward to Tally, who is 18, a genius and pretentious to go with it, and just counting down the days til she can go to college and win a Nobel for astronomy. Her aunt (our narrator from All Our Pretty Songs!) has raised her, and she’s never known either her father or mother. She’s got other things to think about, though — until she makes a discovery that finally offers her the chance to find out the truth. Why did her mother leave her? Who was her father? The answers to these questions, plus ones she didn’t even know to ask, take her on a journey that will upend everything she thinks she knows about how the universe works. Spoiler: it ain’t tidy OR scientific.

If you need more sci-fi/fantasy chat in your life, check out our newly launched podcast SFF Yeah!, hosted by yours truly and my fellow geek Sharifah. If you need even more reading recommendations of any kind, you can find me and Amanda at the Get Booked podcast. May the Force be with you!

Happy Friday, friends. Skynet hasn’t taken over yet, so at least we’ve got that.

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This newsletter is sponsored by the thrilling final volume in the Greatcoats Quartet, Tyrant’s Throne by Sebastien de Castell.

The King is dead. The Greatcoats, legendary travelling magistrates who once brought justice to the Kingdom of Tristia, are now scattered to the winds and branded traitors. Falcio Val Mond and his best friends, master swordsman Kest and deadly archer Brasti, have been reduced to working as bodyguards. Surviving ducal conspiracies, invading armies, and an ever-shifting tapestry of sinister forces, Falcio, Kest, and Brasti fight for what is right. With just the iconic, tattered leather coats on their backs, the three comrades continue to pursue justice and their ultimate goal: to place their king’s rightful heir on the throne.

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Happy Pride Month! Have some:
– Queer fantasy!
– LGBTQ #ownvoices SF/F YA!
– Lesbian/bi fantasy!
– And while I don’t go into it specifically in the review below because there’s just so much to talk about, The Prey of Gods is a delightfully queer, action-packed sci-fi AND fantasy novel that you should add to your list immediately!

What do Frankenstein and the Alien franchise have in common? [Spoiler alert] A whole lot, according to Josh. While I haven’t seen Alien: Covenant yet (only for lack of time, I assure you), I find his argument compelling.

Speaking of humanity meddling with things it shouldn’t, I love this list from Tor.com of books in which hacking — either of tech or people — plays a pivotal role. Many of us have dreamed of mecha suits and body mods and a new AI best friend; why not read about them and all the ways it can go horribly wrong?

If you enjoyed the bejesus out of Wonder Woman, as I did, you probably want some read-alikes! Margaret has compiled a list.

I am not an excerpt reader myself (not enough story!), but I know you are out there and you may be excited to get an early read from Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust.

And now, reviews! Today’s picks could not be more different, and yet I love them both so, so, so much.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

Imagine if American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, and All the Birds In the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders contributed DNA towards a headstrong, rambunctious child — that child would be something like The Prey of Gods. It’s set in South Africa in a near-future where life is generally pretty good, which is exactly the problem for a demigoddess who feeds on fear. But then a new illegal drug on the market, advances in genetic engineering, and the burgeoning sentience of a household robot introduce just enough entropy into the system to give her a chance to change things up — and humanity is not going to love these changes. Which is the point, as far as she’s concerned…

Drayden blends mythology with mitochondrial DNA, explores the intersections of faith and artificial intelligence, and packs enough action into this novel to rival a Marvel movie. Her characters (of which there are several, voicing alternating chapters) are flawed and all too human, and just as in real life that is both their strength and weakness. I alternately wanted to shake them and cheer them on, which is of course the best possible combination. Drayden also manages to balance child and teenage narrators with adult narrators without ever losing the flow or the pacing of the novel, which is a rare feat indeed.

I can basically guarantee that if you pick up this book, you will never look at a DNA sequence (or a crab and/or porpoise) the same way again, and I will be throwing it at everyone who comes anywhere near me asking for a sci-fi/fantasy recommendation.

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

It was probably inevitable that after watching King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, I would reread Mary Stewart. Arthuriana in all its manifestations has been a love of mine since I first watched The Sword in the Stone, which led me to T.H. White, which led me to The Dark is Rising, which led me to The Pendragon Cycle, which led me to Persia Woolley and Marion Zimmer Bradley, which led me to Geoffrey of Monmouth once I got to college … you get the idea. But the series that I always go back to, the one I actually still own, is Mary Stewart’s Arthurian Saga.

The Crystal Cave starts, naturally enough, with Merlin. And this is a Merlin with powers, but they’re not the flashy powers of, say, your Gandalf-type wizard. Instead it’s the power of Sight, true-seeing passed down from his mother. Add to that an education and the resourcefulness that being a bastard without an acknowledged father develops in a child, and you’ve got a formidable figure indeed. Telling the story of Merlin’s childhood up through Arthur’s conception, Stewart weaves a historical novel touched briefly by fate and the gods, but ultimately centered around the actions of men. It’s a quiet and powerful start to an extraordinary series, one that I will keep rereading for years to come.

And that about wraps it up! If you need more sci-fi/fantasy chat in your life, check out our newly launched podcast SFF Yeah!, hosted by yours truly and my fellow geek Sharifah. If you need even more reading recommendations of any kind, you can find me and Amanda at the Get Booked podcast. May the odds be ever in your favor!

Happy Friday, sky pirates and space invaders. Here be exoskeletons.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Book Riot Insiders.

Join your fellow book nerds at Book Riot Insiders and get a sweet store deal each month, exclusive content from the Book Riot staff, the magical New Releases Index to keep track of upcoming books for your TBR, and more! 

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Eco-thrillers, graphic novels, and The Rabbit Back Literature Society (which I cannot stop hearing about) all made Rachel’s list of speculative fiction from Finland to watch for.

I absolutely do judge books by their covers — one of my favorite things to do in new bookstores is find their sf/f section, try to find an author I haven’t heard of, and buy it if the cover is good. And I definitely have read at least one of the books in this round-up thanks primarily to Richard Anderson’s excellent art. (It is also hard to resist dinosaurs and hippos, am I right?)

If you’ve read Lightless, or if you read that David Peterson piece on naming from last time and don’t mind some spoilers (seriously though, spoilers herein), C.A. Higgins talks about how she chose the names for her trilogy. Rather than making anything up, she went looking to history for inspiration, and her choices are interesting.

N.K. Jemisin has some thoughts about new releases in science fiction and fantasy in her New York Times column; you could do much worse than let her help you find your next read! Thanks to her I need Buffalo Soldier, like, yesterday.

We are one step closer to our best mecha selves, thanks to Lowes (of all people). They’ve developed exoskeletons for their workers to help with all the lifting and carrying.

This week, I’d like to recommend some space hijinks and some magical realism.

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

Scalzi has a new series, and this is a doozy of a first book. Let me get a couple things out of the way first: You don’t have to have read the Old Man’s War series to get this (they’re completely separate storylines, if not universes). You don’t have to have read any Scalzi previously to get into it (and it might be a solid jumping on point, for reasons below).

The doomed empire in question is the Interdependency, a network of planetary systems linked by the Flow, a handy extra-dimensional field that allows people to travel relatively quickly from one planet to the next. (No FTL travel here, sorry folks.) Except that the Flow is having problems, potentially civilization-ending ones, and no one wants to talk about it because then they would make less money! No seriously, they need to make their money while the getting is good.

The Interdependency is ruled by merchant guilds, and this was both a strength of the plot and a weakness for me. Everyone’s motives are super clear and very believable, and the politicking is spot on. But when you’re looking at the oncoming apocalypse, a lot of it comes across as unbearably petty. Which is probably the point, but definitely had me contemplating chucking the book across the room in frustration a few times.

Anyway! The book is vintage Scalzi: the characters are well-drawn and quippy as all get-out, the plot moves along at a crisp pace, and the spaceships are named after 1920s songs. You could almost call it “good clean fun” except for all the sex scenes and f-bombs — about which I am certainly not complaining! Some bonus reading: 5 books Scalzi was thinking about when he wrote it, and an excellent fancast.

What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi

Have you read Kelly Link? (Go read Kelly Link.) How about Borges, or Garcia Marquez? (Go read those too.) Murakami? Rushdie? A.S. Byatt? If you’ve read and loved any of the above, or even if you haven’t, you need to be reading Helen Oyeyemi.

This collection is jaw-droppingly, heart-stoppingly good. Whether she’s writing about an apartment with too many strange doors, or puppetry, or a drowned kingdom, or a hidden garden, or making Little Red Riding Hood far more horrifying than I thought possible, Oyeyemi is at her best. The sentences are beautiful, the worlds and characters are just the right mix of familiar and uncanny, and the flow from story to story seamless. She’s deftly and subtly bound the collection together through a single image — keys — and a few recurring characters, and I found myself scavenging the pages for when they might appear.

I’ve been a fan of Oyeyemi’s work since I first read Boy, Snow, Bird, but What Is Not Yours… blows everything I’ve read by her out of the water. It is short stories done right; it makes the fantastical real and the mundane strange; I couldn’t read it fast enough, and I couldn’t bear for it to be over.

Happy Friday, fellow dreamers! Let’s get fictional.

We’re starting out with the adaptations corner today…
– … Because I want to talk about King Arthur! Tor.com ranked a bunch of adaptations including the Guy Ritchie’s Legend of the Sword and I have some feelings about it! While Emily and Leah are correct that the film is intent on murdering a lot of women and that there is a distinctly fratty feel to the end of the movie, they haven’t mentioned that the film not only has characters of color (who have names and plot-points), but none of them die. I’d also point out that the one visible magic user in the movie is a woman, without whom the story couldn’t happen. These facts doesn’t erase the film’s problems with women, but it’s hugely refreshing to see this kind of inclusion in a historical action film about a very blonde king. It’s also a ton of fun to watch; if you’re willing to put up with its failings and its complete disregard for mythological accuracy (Vortigern is Uther’s brother? Mordred is older than Vortigern??), I do recommend it.
P.S. re: this article, I extremely cosign “Lance-not” in regards to Richard Gere.
P.P.S. Tor.com are hardly the only ones to pan it; apparently I disagree with almost everyone on this.
– In VERY EXCITING WOULD WATCH news, Snowpiercer is getting a TV treatment with Hamilton‘s Daveed Diggs as the star. I enjoyed but am not particularly attached to the film, and I’m curious to see how an episodic format changes the narrative.

For my fellow word-nerds: David Peterson dives into the do’s and don’t’s of fantasy naming conventions and creating your own, and I found it absolutely fascinating. It’s not a short piece, but if you’re contemplating your own world-building and/or have been wanting someone to think critically about the politics of naming, add this to your reading list immediately.

Pottermore is getting a book club! Kind of. I’ll be very curious to see if this isn’t just a free-for-all of competing theories and ships and minutiae debates on Twitter (which is where they’re encouraging people to post). But that’s also what the Harry Potter area of Twitter is like on a regular day, so who knows!

In this piece contemplating empire and space opera, Liz Bourke hits on why Ann Leckie and Yoon Ha Lee’s books are some of my favorite in science fiction.

Do you need a Wonder Woman tutu? Or bow-tie? Or hoodie? Or other swag, or all of the above? Jamie has the links you are looking for.

Today’s reviews are accidentally themed around: power(s) gone haywire! Good job, subconscious.

Lightless by C.A. Higgins

There are differing opinions about this book amongst the fellow readers I’ve chatted with, but I’m here to tell you that I loved it and am hooked — just in time for the third book in the trilogy, Radiate (preceded by Supernova) to come out!

Before I picked it up I kept trying to figure out what it might be comparable to. Firefly? Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers? Wise voices told me “Definitely not,” and they were correct. While Lightless does feature a mechanic, takes place entirely on a spaceship, and is to a certain extent about outsiders and found families, it’s also a dark and twisted look at AI, the use and misuse of power, and the violent ends to which people will go to ensure their freedom.

The story opens with Althea, mechanic aboard the Ananke, a top-secret ship that is (purportedly) doing top-secret scientific experiments. She and her two crewmates — Domitian, the captain, and Gagnon, a scientist — are alone in the black and just fine with it. Until, of course, some space-thieves come out of nowhere, trick the ship into letting them on board, and get in a firefight with the crew. Turns out they’re just not any vagabonds but Leontios Ivanov and Matthew Gale, wanted criminals. Ivanov is taken into custody and Ida Stays, an investigator who has been hunting them for suspected terrorist associations, is dispatched to the ship to interrogate him. In the meantime, Gale did … something… to the computer during his escape attempt and now everything is going haywire all the time.

The novel alternates between the interrogation (which ain’t pretty, as you might suspect) and Althea’s fruitless attempts to find out what is wrong with her beloved Ananke. No matter which storyline, everything is tense and no one is behaving themselves. Add to that the terrorist attacks spreading across the interplanetary System, and you’ve got a recipe for certain disaster — which Higgins delivers on. I came for the characters and ultimately stayed for them, but the blood and guts involved in the plot (sometimes literally) are no joke. Is “space noir” a thing? Because Lightless is very space noir. So if you’re ready for a dark tale of troubled people behaving badly in space, this is your book.

Turbulence and Resistance by Samit Basu

Not interested in noir-ish intrigue but still want some action and a little comedy? Samit Basu is here for you! Turbulence and Resistance are two of my favorite “What if you suddenly had powers?” books, and I’m delighted to introduce them to you.

Turbulence starts, as you might guess from the title, on a plane. Everyone on Flight 142 left London as perfectly normal humans and arrived in Delhi with superpowers. They didn’t know it at the time, and don’t know why or how it happened, but they sure as heck figured it out (some of them faster than others). And their powers aren’t the same — each received a power related to their deepest wish, which works out much better for some than for others. While they’re trying to figure out what to do about it, someone starts hunting them.

The book follows Aman Sen, a young man who becomes a communications technology demigod, who is trying to put together his own league of heroes, and those who join or oppose him. Basically imagine an X-Men movie but set internationally with a focus on India, and you’re on the right track.

Resistance picks up 11 years later, when someone is once again hunting down powered folks. The players from Turbulence have grown and changed, alliances have shifted, and there are new players added to the mix. Resistance includes giant lobsters, mecha warriors, and a whole lot of property damage (naturally), and satisfied both my itch to see where my favorites were at and my need for a whole new adventure to savor.

TL;DR: Surprise super powers! Some people use them for evil! Every villain is the hero of their own story! Hijinks ensue! Delightful!

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This newsletter is sponsored by The Traitor’s Kiss by Erin Beaty.

An obstinate girl who will not be married.
A soldier desperate to prove himself.
A kingdom on the brink of war.

With a sharp tongue and an unruly temper, Sage Fowler is not what they’d call a proper lady—which is perfectly fine with her. Deemed unfit for a suitable marriage, Sage is apprenticed to a matchmaker and tasked with wrangling other young ladies to be married off for political alliances. She spies on the girls—and on the soldiers escorting them.

As the girls’ military escort senses a political uprising, Sage is recruited by a handsome soldier to infiltrate the enemy ranks. The more she discovers as a spy, the less certain she becomes about whom to trust—and Sage becomes caught in a dangerous balancing act that will determine the fate of her kingdom.

With secret identities and a tempestuous romance, Erin Beaty’s The Traitor’s Kiss is full of intrigue, espionage, and lies.

Happy Friday, my fellow fans of skiffy and fanty! Let’s get to it.

The Locus Award finalists, like the Arthur C Clarke shortlist, include Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. This is interesting because the Locus Awards are selected via an open poll to readers, rather than by a panel of judges based on publisher submissions (although there is a “recommended” list provided by editors and reviewers). It had not occurred to me before I saw the Clarke list that anyone would consider it science fiction of the same kind as, say, Death’s End. But perhaps I am in the minority? In the meantime, the First Novel category has much beloveds Ninefox Gambit, Everfair, and Roses and Rot, and I now need to read every other debut nominated as well.

Andy Weir’s next book will be about a heist on the Moon and everyone is really freaking excited about it. Which I get — the words “heist” and “Moon” are an excellent combination.

Some food for serious thought: who gets to be a geek? The essay Dragons Are For White Kids With Money looks at the inclusion issues that continue in geekdom on the fan side, and is well worth the read.

Back to the adaptations corner:
– The Left Hand of Darkness is getting an adaptation and I have many concerns, which Margaret articulates very well! How will they cast it? Le Guin has said she used “he/his/him” pronouns at the time of the novel’s publishing because that was the accepted default, but my fear is that Hollywood will take this literally. Le Guin is a consulting producer, so I will be over here crossing my fingers and toes and hoping she doesn’t let them.
– I don’t know if Scalzi’s Collapsing Empire will ever get to the big screen but I want it so badly, thanks to this fancast. (His odds are probably very good, considering this newsletter has to have an adaptations corner!)
– You already know this if you clicked the Andy Weir link above but Artemis has also already been optioned.

Not an adaptation per se: we finally have a trailer for Star Trek: Discovery! And it is gooooooooood. I have been skeptical about this show for a variety of reasons, but I’m taking off my skeptic’s hat and starting to get excited.

Last but most certainly not least, a dinosaur got named after a Ghostbusters character and that is just the best news ever.

And now, let us discuss bioengineering and music magic.

Borne by Jeff VanderMeer

You’ve likely seen reviews all over the place for Borne, and for good reason. VanderMeer has been working in sci-fi for many years but broke through in a big way with the Southern Reach trilogy (which maybe we’ll talk about another time; you’ve all read them though, right? Right?!). So Borne couldn’t help but be a big deal. For me and I’m sure many others, the question was: could it measure up to Area X? The answer is a resounding yes.

The book follows Rachel, a young woman and former refugee making a life by scavenging in the ruins of a city (in my head, Los Angeles) ruled by a giant bioengineered flying bear named Mord. No, really. And the plot kicks off when she finds a creature of indeterminate origin — is it vegetable? animal? mineral?? — stuck to Mord’s fur, takes it home, and names it Borne, where it proceeds to grow into sentience. No, really! Rachel’s increasingly maternal relationship with Borne creates problems with her partner and lover Wick, while other forces in the city threaten their tenuous existence. Also featured: talking foxes, many skeletons, mutant children, the nefarious Company. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but I don’t want to spoil the ending for you.

If you’ve read VanderMeer, none of this will particularly surprise you; his imagination is decidedly weird, and his plots don’t always bother to make sense. This is part of their power — I cannot tell you how many text, DM, and in-person exchanges I’ve had debating what actually happened in one of his books. The internal logic is always sound, the characters are compelling and often feel deeply familiar, and his ability to twist and reshape reality is frequently jaw-dropping. And in Borne, it’s his characters — specifically Rachel and Borne — that resonated the most for me. Their relationship, which is also the engine for the plot, shifts all other relationships as well as the very structure of their world, and I would have happily read another hundred pages of it.

If you’re already a fan, you want this on your shelf. If you’ve never read him this is a great entry point (although by no means an “easy” read); Borne will introduce you to the pyrotechnics VanderMeer is capable of, and I guarantee you’ll never look at a bear the same way.

 

Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

If you took The Craft and set it in 1980s Mexico City, you’d have something very like Signal to Noise. Half of you are already on your way to the Buy button; let me convince the rest of you!

Mercedes “Meche” Vega, a teenager in Mexico City in 1988, lives for her vinyl collection and the occasional mixtape. She’s not pretty, she’s not popular, she doesn’t like books, school is a drag, and her parents are always fighting. She’s sullen and judgmental, and I loved her. Then there are her friends Sebastian and Daniela. Sebastian is bookish and awkward; Daniela is a good-hearted pushover who suffers from lupus. They’re brought together more for their social status rather than any shared interests, but they also get each other. And when Meche discovers that she can make strange, magical things happen with the right song, they form a coven and set about making their lives better. Fast forward to 2009, and Meche has returned home to help bury her father. She hasn’t talked to Sebastian or Daniela since 1989, and the book alternates between the book’s past and present as we find out why.

Moreno-Garcia has nailed her characters here. Meche’s thorny edges and flashes of anger, Sebastian’s impatience with his situation, Daniela’s hesitant journey towards confidence, and the ways that they both hurt and heal each other are all perfectly captured. It’s also hard to fault the internal logic of the magic; who hasn’t had a full-body-and-brain experience with the right song at the right time? While they’re very different books on the surface, Signal to Noise reminded me of another favorite, Emma Bull’s War For the Oaks, in terms of my reaction. I needed those songs in my ears, and I needed to know what happens next.

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This newsletter is sponsored by The Noble Servant by Melanie Dickerson.

New York Times bestselling author Melanie Dickerson returns with The Noble Servant, a retelling of the fairytale classic, The Goose Girl. In this medieval tale, Lady Magdalen is on her way to join the Duke of Wolfberg in marriage when her maidservant betrays her, takes her identity, and sends her down to the lowliest household position—tending the geese. But while out in the field, Magdalen encounters a mysterious shepherd who reveals that not all is as it seems in the castle, and it is up to them—the lowest of the low—to regain all that is lost.

It’s time for a very speculative Friday, y’all! I am writing this from your past, and you are reading this in my future. Welcome back.

Who’s ready for a new Nick Harkaway novel??? (Answer: Me, I am, right here.) He answered 20 questions for the Times Literary Supplement and there’s a section in it about Gnomon, which is coming to the UK in October and the US in January (sob).

The adaptations roll on:
– Wired feels some kind of way about The Dark Tower trailer and if that one’s on your list, this piece is worth a read.
– Game of Thrones is getting FOUR spin-offs (and here I just want one measly Jacqueline Carey adaptation).
– The Black Company series by Glen Cook has been optioned by Eliza Dushku’s production company (#TeamFaith). Guess I need to read these now!

“If we do not imagine the future, how can we invent (or prevent) it?” The healthcare industry in the UK wants your science-fictional ideas, and I love everything about this contest.

What do we think about the new design for the World Fantasy Awards? Does anyone else feel like that tree wants to talk to them, and not in a friendly way? Creepiness aside, this seems like a solid choice, both in terms of symbolism and in terms of picking something that is currently inclusive and can stay inclusive in meaning.

It’s Friday, we all deserve a beer! Alex has some pairings for you — speculative fiction and beer pairings, naturally.

For this week’s reviews, let’s have some astrophysics and some necromancy!

Astrophysics for People In a Hurry by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

If you are like me and often skim through the sciencier parts of science fiction, this book is for you! If you cannot get enough of NDT’s dad jokes, this book is also for you. If you are already an astrophysicist and/or a science-nerd, you probably know everything in it already.

Tyson is, as we know, great at breaking complex theory into digestible nuggets. And as the title suggests, that’s the goal here: to bring astrophysics to readers who otherwise don’t have time for it. (Hi Neil, it’s like you know me!) While I read this just to feel a little bit smarter — which I 100% did, upon finishing — I also found that it complimented the harder sci-fi reading I’ve done. Faster than light travel, dark matter, the origins of moons, exoplanets: these things all make sense now in ways they didn’t before, and I was deeply entertained by Tyson’s bons mots sprinkled throughout the actual explanations. In addition to being funny and informative it is less than 300 pages, and has an absolutely gorgeous cover.

So, to sum up: if you or someone you know has forgotten everything you learned in college physics (assuming you took it) and would like a powerhouse scientist and pop culture figure to explain it to you, look no further than Astrophysics For People In a Hurry.

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

Before we talk about anything else, I have to warn you that this book is extremely Book 1 of a Series. The ending actually made me yell “WHAT!?!” to an empty room, and we’re going to have to wait till March of 2018 for the next installment. So if you’re not prepared to sequel-wait, put this towards the bottom of your TBR list — but definitely still put it there, if you’re a fan of necromancy, world-building, and/or female characters who refuse to play by the rules.

The Bone Witch follows Tea, who is born with the power to raise the dead and channel Dark magic. She doesn’t find this out until she accidentally resurrects her dead older brother at his funeral, of course. Awkward! In Tea’s world, “bone witches” or Dark asha are known and training is available, but they’re also looked on with suspicion and fear. The story alternates between the discovery of her powers in her early teens and subsequent training, and her at 17, on a beach and making some very dark choices indeed. This was my favorite part of the book — I love a complicated heroine, and when the heroine in question might burn down the world you have my full attention.

If I had to point to a flaw, it would be the lack of any plot resolution; no threads are tied up, and we’re left with far more questions than answers. But that’s part of what makes the story so urgent, and keeps the pages turning. It’s an origin story, an immersion into a beautifully-rendered and complex Asian-inspired new world, and a meditation on power: who can wield it, and what happens when it wields the user. For an excellent dive into that last in Bone Witch, see this piece on Tor.com (especially all the Buffy fans in the audience).

Magic and ritual, darkness and light, politics and passion: The Bone Witch has these all in spades. Consider me very ready for whatever comes next.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Carry On by Rainbow Rowell.

A #1 New York Times bestseller.

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen.

His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend dumped him, and there’s a monster running around wearing Simon’s face. Baz, his roommate and nemesis, would be having a field day with all this, if he were here—it’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and he hasn’t shown up.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, and a mystery. It has as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story—but far more monsters.

Happy Friday, y’all!

Let’s start off with a bang: The Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist has been announced! The big surprise on here is Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, which is sweeping the awards circuit — and for good reason. It’s an incredibly powerful book, as well as an alternate history of the Civil War that posits underground steam locomotives. Once you think about it as alternate history, you can see how it made the list, but I’d bet most folks weren’t expecting to see it pop up here. I’m also a huge fan of A Closed and Common Orbit and Ninefox Gambit. If I had to vote, it would be for Ninefox — I haven’t read a space opera that intricately built and plotted in a very long time and I’m dying to see it get some critical recognition, but there are no bad picks here.

How many different retellings of The Beauty and the Beast can you think of? I maxed out at five, but Amanda put together a list of literally 100 (!!).

This guy is building a wearable puppet version of K-2SO for Halloween. Apparently you just need a 3D printer, a bunch of PVC and sculpt-able foam, oh, and some killer construction skillz. And I thought my collapsible lightsaber was cool… (I still think it’s cool.)

For those who like hearing their stories: Tor is launching a new imprint called Tor Labs “emphasizing experimental approaches to genre publishing, beginning with original dramatic podcasts.” Which basically means we’re getting new story podcasts, starting with Steal the Stars which includes UFO-related hijinks.

Tak is a boardgame you could actually play, even if you don’t live in Patrick Rothfuss’s books. (Which possibly everyone on this list would prefer, perhaps?) More astonishing to me is that the Kickstarter collected over $1 million before it closed. A million dollars! That is some serious Kingkiller Chronicles love.

And finally, because I am writing this on May 4th, I require you all to read some Star Wars puns.

For this issue’s reviews, I am delighted to present to you: Zombies, two ways.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

While there are blood and guts aplenty, Zone One is more about the bureaucracy of the apocalypse than its monsters. Think of it as the literary baby of The Office and The Walking Dead. The main character, nicknamed Mark Spitz in an extended running joke, is part of the clean-up crew sweeping through lower Manhattan, trying to clear out zombies one building at a time. In this horrible future there are two kinds of zombies: skels, which will tackle, bite, and turn you if given half a chance; and stragglers, which return to one location and just … stand there. Creepy, sure, but not so hard to dispose of — in theory.

Our narrator, nicknamed Mark Spitz in an impressively long-running joke arc, has survived both the normal world and the apocalypse by being perfectly mediocre. When you’re the ultimate average, gliding through life looks a lot easier apparently! We get his own backstory of flight and survival, along with those of his crew; we also get the marketing ploys of the new provincial government, the vagaries of logistics for body-bags and ammunition, the promotionally-driven allowances for looting, the daily annoyances of “sweeper” duty, and the daydreams of times gone by. Mark Spitz was, among other brief careers, a social media manager, and one of the most-quoted passages of the book (at least in my circle) comes from his anecdotes about that job.

The narrative jumps back and forth in time from one chapter — often one page — to the next, lending to the surreal tone of the narrative. Whitehead deploys that surrealism to both hilarious and devastating effect. And just when you think you know the story, that’s when things get really interesting.

Hadriana in All My Dreams by René Depestre

If Gabriel Garcia Marquez were to write a zombie novel, it wouldn’t be this but you’d be in roughly the same ballpark. René Depestre’s amazing Hadriana in All My Dreams, originally published in 1988 and now reissued by Akashic Books, is a riotous, magical, raucous look at Vodou culture as well as an ode to Jacmel, Haiti.

Set in his own hometown, Jacmel, it follows the wedding-day zombification of a beautiful young French-Creole girl named Hadriana. About to wed her Haitian fiancé, she collapses immediately after giving her vows. But Hadriana is not dead — instead, she’s been drugged and transformed into a zombie by a man with nefarious purposes. The first half of the book is told by Patrick, her childhood friend and unrequited lover, and gives us a local’s view of the folklore, religion, spirituality, and racial politics that blend and clash in Jacmel.

This novel is both sensual and sexual; from succubus butterflies to Hadriana’s Carnival-influenced funeral to the enslavement of women via zombification, bodies are central to both the narrative and plot. Depestre is unabashed in his celebration of sexuality and unflinching in chronicling the ways it is abused. Refreshingly — and importantly to this reader — he also chronicles women’s agency in ways I was not expecting to see. This is a fever-dream of a book, a look into the origins and folklore of zombies, and a local’s-eye view of Haiti in the early 1900s, and it will change the way you think about zombies.

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This newsletter is sponsored by 5 Worlds Book 1: The Sand Warrior.

The 5 Worlds are on the brink of extinction unless five ancient and mysterious beacons are lit. When war erupts, three unlikely heroes will discover there’s more to themselves than meets the eye. The clumsiest student at the Sand Dancer Academy, Oona Lee is a fighter with a big destiny. A boy from the poorest slums, An Tzu has a surprising gift and a knack for getting out of sticky situations. Star athlete Jax Amboy is beloved by an entire galaxy, but has no real friends. Can these three kids discover their talents in time to save the 5 Worlds?

Happy Friday, Padawans and paladins!

A bunch of exciting announcements have come out of Star Wars Celebration, but the one that produced actuals screams of glee from me is that Ken Liu is writing a Skywalker novel [insert confetti space-canon here]! If you haven’t been keeping track, he’s the author of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Dandelion Dynasty series, and I cannot wait to see what directions he takes our favorite space-cinnamon-roll Luke in. I should add that the only Star Wars novel I’ve read in the past decade was Bloodline (which was great, for the record); I am now officially cherry-picking their new offerings.

Does your TBR need some exploding? Liberty wrote a list of 100 must-read SFF debuts that should keep you busy for at least the next decade or so. Like she notes, it is so hard to believe that some of these were an author’s very first published book!

Do redshirts actually die more often on Star Trek? Well, it depends on how you do the math apparently. I do love it when people crunch fictional data — see also, this piece on braid-tugging and skirt-smoothing in the Wheel of Time.

This is a monster year for adaptations, what with The Handmaid’s Tale and American Gods both coming to screens, The Wheel of Time finally moving forward, and a bunch of others I’ve already lost track of. And we can add to the pile: China Mieville’s The City & The City is coming to TV.

Friday whimsy: Harry Potter books with cocktail pairings. Both for the drink recipes and the pairing notes (lolsob).

And now, for some recommendations!

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

I wish I could remember who recommended this book to me; I’m sure I didn’t find it on my own. It’s been a long-term favorite of mine ever since I picked it up, and a Swiss army knife of a recommendation because it hits so many notes so well. It’s also one of my favorite books because it illustrates beautifully how one can write a “political” book — in that the main character is queer woman of color who has a chronic illness, and those identities are heavily politicized — that is 100% space opera adventure, for all those folks who “just want a good story.”

Alana Quick is a sky surgeon, meaning she fixes spaceship engines and is damn good at it. But she and her aunt, who run their own business, are barely keeping their business afloat. So when a cargo vessel swings by looking for her sister Nova, it’s the opportunity she’s been waiting for. She stows away on the ship, hoping to find herself a permanent spot as ship’s mechanic, and then finds out that she’s put herself in the middle of a tangles web of shifting alliances and dangerous missions, all surrounding her sister’s special abilities.

Action! Adventure! Romance! People who are not as they seem! Strange beings! Strange powers! Explosions! Space! Truly, this book is a delight. Here’s me crossing my fingers that we eventually get another book of Alana’s adventures, because I need more! Side note: Koyanagi contributed a task to this year’s Read Harder Challenge.

 

Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

If you’re looking for speculative fiction in translation, classic fantasy, and/or South American authors, Angélica Gorodischer is the answer to all of the above. The book is translated by Le Guin (!!) and follows the rise and fall of an empire over many narrators, each with their own distinct style and story to tell.

Gorodischer manages a few amazing feats in this book. In a series of vignettes with incredibly disparate narrators, often with no clear connections between them, she manages to give shape and depth to a nameless empire. Her timeline is enormously long, but the chapters each feel personal and compelling. And while it lies firmly in the realms of fable, folklore, and fantasy, Kalpa Imperial nonetheless feels contemporary and familiar.

I had the happy experience of reading this in close proximity to both Sofia Samatar and NK Jemisin, both of whom have written beautifully about the ebb and flow of empire. Pair those three with the stories in Galactic Empire, and you’ve got a beautifully multi-faceted look at genre fiction’s obsession with the various manifestations of political structures. Of course, you might just also want a story beautifully told — and this is that, above all else.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Elves, written by Jean-Luc Istin and illustrated by Kyko Duarte.

Volume One of the critically-acclaimed and original dark fantasy saga Elves comes to US audiences for the first time this May.

The Blue Elves in a small port town have all been massacred. Lanawyn, a Blue Elf, and Turin, her human ally, set out to discover who is responsible. The trail they uncover together leads back to a warlike clan of humans who hate Elves.

Meanwhile, the Sylvan Elves have hidden themselves away from the world, jealously preserving their independence. Eysine, the City-State of the East, has always observed respect for the ancient pact between Elf and Man. But when a powerful army of Orks besiege the kingdom, Eysine must remind the Elves of the treaty that linked their two peoples.