Locus Online

Uncommon Miracles, Julie C. Day (PS 978-1-786363-34-3, £20.00, 234pp, hc) October 2018.

Well, aren’t we about overdue for the bunny apoc­alypse? That seems to be the question Julie C. Day raises in “Everyone Gets a Happy Ending”, the lead story in her first collection Uncommon Miracles, and it’s not quite as whimsical as it sounds. It follows the familiar pattern of end-of-days tales, with two friends making their ...Read More “Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Uncommon Miracles by Julie C. Day”

Foundryside, Robert Jackson Bennett; Tara Sands, narrator (Random House Audio, $32.95, digital download, 19.5 hr., unabridged) August 2018.

The city of Tevanne runs on magitech: “Scrivings,” writings based on the relics of an ancient magical civilization, are used to power vehicles and all manner of technologi­cal innovations. But only the wealthy merchant guilds and their employees benefit from these, or indeed, from any public services at all. The guild­less ...Read More “Amy Goldschlager Reviews Foundryside Audiobook by Robert Jackson Bennett”

Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction, Sunyung Park & Sang Joon Park, eds. (Kaya Press 978-1-885030-57-3, $24.95, 434pp, tp) March 2019.

With Chinese SF gaining such prominence lately, and Japanese SF having been more or less familiar to Western readers for decades (I reviewed the first English-language study of Japanese SF way back in 1992!), it’s reasonable to be curious about what else is going ...Read More “Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Readymade Bodhisattva, Edited by Sunyung Park & Sang Joon Park”

I Am the River, T.E. Grau (Lethe Press 978-1590214459, $15.00, 220pp, tp) October 2018.

The decision of the Man Booker judges to award Anna Burns’s stream of conscious­ness novel Milkman with the top prize for 2018 triggered a fresh bout of navel-gazing amongst reviewers and critics about the accessibil­ity of literary fiction. In a fantastic, erudite article for The Guardian (“Pretentious, impenetrable, hard work… better? Why we need difficult ...Read More “Ian Mond Reviews I Am the River by T.E. Grau”

Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks ((John Joseph Adams 978-1-328-56645-4, $24, 304pp, hardcover, February 2019)

Arguably, we live in a golden age for ghost stories, of an excellence and profusion on a par with the Victorian era classics. Writers such as Mike Carey, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Tim Powers, and Paul Tremblay are working in this mode at the top of their game. As an article in ...Read More “Paul Di Filippo reviews Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks”

Bluecrowne, Kate Milford (Clarion Books 978-1328-466884, $17.99, 255pp, hc) October 2018.

In this prequel to The Left-Handed Fate and her popular books about Greenglass House, author Kate Milford ties together elements from across her sprawling literary landscape to show how, basically, a whole lot of things hap­pened for the first time. It is unnecessary to read any of her other books to enjoy Bluecrowne, however, although new readers ...Read More “Colleen Mondor Reviews Bluecrowne by Kate Milford”

Winners of the 2019 Darrell Awards were announced March 16, 2019 during MidSouthCon 37 at the Hilton Memphis in Memphis TN.

The People’s Republic of Everything, Nick Mamatas (Tachyon 978-1-61696-300-2, $15.95, 336pp, tp) September 2018.

Nick Mamatas is one of my favorite story writers, mostly because I never know what I’m going to encounter under his byline: satirical SF, black-hearted noir, sly his­torical reimaginings, clear-eyed twists on the Lovecraft mythos, open calls for revolution, left­ist politics (and critiques thereof), and weirder things. His latest collection, The People’s Republic of Everything ...Read More “Tim Pratt Reviews The People’s Republic of Everything by Nick Mamatas”

The Mere Wife, Maria Dahvana Head­ley; Susan Bennett, narrator (Macmillan Audio 978-1-42729783-9, $44.99, CD, 9 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital down­load]) July 2018.

Maria Dahvana Headley transforms Beowulf into a modern, vicious, and lyrical story about racial, class, and gender divides, and the messy legacy of gentrification. Dana Mills was an African-American marine fighting a desert war when the enemy slaughtered her team, kidnapped her, faked her ...Read More “Amy Goldschlager Reviews The Mere Wife Audiobook by Maria Dahvana Head­ley”

Random House publisher Susan Kamil announced the closure of imprint Spiegel & Grau:

I am very sorry to announce that with the reorganization of our Group, Cindy Speigel and Julie Grau will be leaving the company, and the Spiegel & Grau imprint, which they have led for the past thirteen years, will be discontinued.

The imprint was launched at Doubleday in 2007 and joined Random House in 2008, and published ...Read More “Spiegel & Grau Closed”

Cross Her Heart, Sarah Pinborough (HarperCol­lins UK 978-0008132019, £12.99, 384pp, hc) May 2018. (Morrow 9780062856791 $26.99, 352pp, hc) September 2018.

As was the case with Behind Her Eyes, Sarah Pinborough’s previous bestseller, there’s a sig­nificant plot twist in Cross Her Heart, her new novel. The difference is, this crook in the narra­tive arrives at roughly its halfway point and is only the first of several which accelerate ...Read More “John Langan Reviews Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough”

Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue, translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen (Yale University Press) and Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell (Oneworld) are on the 13-title longlist for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize.

The award is given “annually for a single work of fiction, translated into English and published in the UK.” The £50,000 prize is divided equally among the author and translator(s). ...Read More “2019 Man Booker International Longlist”

Katherine Paterson won the $10,000 E.B. White Award for achievement in children’s literature, given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Paterson’s genre work includes Bridge to Terabithia, for which she won the Newbery Medal in 1978.

Judges for the E.B. White Award were Judy Blume and Alison Lurie. The award will be presented in May 2019 at the Academy’s annual ceremony in New York NY.

For more ...Read More “Paterson Wins E.B. White Award”

Strange Horizons 10/18
Samovar 9/18
Giganotosaurus 11/18
Big Echo 8/18
Liminal Stories 8/18
Red Sun #3

Fall brings expanded coverage from Strange Ho­rizons as their successful annual fundraiser “un­locked” extra stories in October. “The Fortunate Death of Jonathan Sandelson” by Margaret Killjoy is one such story, a cyber-punkish tale of left wing activists using doxxing/IT/hacking tools to go after abusive corporate and government powers. Jeje has been following ...Read More “Karen Burnham Reviews Short Fiction: Strange Horizons, Samovar, Giganotosaurus, Big Echo, Liminal, and Red Sun”

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor 978-0-7653-7996-2, $26.99, 368pp, hardcover, February 2019)

Charlie Jane Anders’s debut novel from 2016, All the Birds in the Sky, marked the emergence of a truly distinctive voice. In her tale of battling magicians and scientists, she managed to gainfully conflate a touching love story with a scary apocalypse, yoking the quotidian with the cosmic, the comic ...Read More “Paul Di Filippo reviews The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders”

The Million, Karl Schroeder (Tor.com) August 2018.
People Change, Gwynne Garfinkle (Aqueduct Press) October 2018.
Mother of Invention, Rivqa Rafael & Tansy Rayner Roberts, eds. (Twelfth Planet Press) Sep­tember 2019.

The Million by Karl Schroeder is a very intrigu­ing novella set in the future of his novel Lockstep, which I have not read. In this future, Earth is in­habited by close to one million people who ...Read More “Rich Horton Reviews The Million, People Change, and Mother of Invention”

Voting has opened for the 2020 North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC). Ballots are available on the SpikeCon/NASFiC 2019 site. Voting by mail is open until June 29, 2019 to members of NASFiC 2019 who have paid the $35 Advance Supporting Membership fee. Voting at the convention is available July 4-5, 2019.

The only qualifying bid on the ballot is Columbus in 2020, to be held August 20-23, 2020 at ...Read More “NASFiC 2020 Site Voting”

Summerland, Hannu Rajaniemi; Antonia Beamish, narrator (Macmillan Audio, $23.95, digital down­load, 10 hr., unabridged) June 2018.

Rajaniemi’s standalone supernatural spy thriller is set in an alternate Cold War during the 1930s. The British have successfully colonized a piece of the af­terlife, which they call Summerland, and the Soviets have built a supercomputer based on a hive mind of the deceased, controlled by the spirit of Lenin. The two sides ...Read More “Amy Goldschlager Reviews Summerland Audiobook by Hannu Rajaniemi”

Confessions of the Fox, Jordy Rosenberg (One World 978-0-399-59227-0, $27.00, 334pp, hc) June 2018.

When Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox appeared last summer to some mainstream fanfare, drawing praise from figures as diverse as China Miéville and Kelly Link, it didn’t come to my immediate attention since – at least tech­nically – it’s not quite SF or fantasy. Instead, it concerns a failing professor named Voth who comes ...Read More “Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg”

The top five results of the Uncanny Magazine 2018 Favorite Fiction Reader Poll have been announced.

1. “The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat”, Brooke Bolander
2. “The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society”, T. Kingfisher
3. “How to Swallow the Moon”, Isabel Yap
4. “The Thing About Ghost Stories”, Naomi Kritzer
5. (tie): “The Hydraulic Emperor”, Arkady Martine and “She Still Loves the Dragon”, Elizabeth

The Plastic Magician, Charlie N. Holmberg (47North 978-1503951778, $24.95, 225pp, hc) May 2018.

Returning to the world of her Paper Magician novels, author Charlie Holmberg takes readers along on the trials and tribulations of Alvie Brechenmacher, as­piring Plastic Magician. There is a journey far from home! Great magical achievements! A smidgeon of romance! A dastardly villain! A battle to save life, limb, and reputation! A robbery! A car! A ...Read More “Colleen Mondor Reviews The Plastic Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg”

All Systems Red, Martha Wells; Kevin R. Free, nar­rator (Recorded Books 978-1-5019-7701-5, $11.95, CD, 3.25 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) October 2017.

Artificial Condition, Martha Wells; Kevin R. Free, narrator (Recorded Books 978-1-5019-7700-8, $11.95, CD, 3.25 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) May 2018.

Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells; Kevin R. Free, narrator (Recorded Books 978-1-5019-7699-5, $11.95, CD, 3.75 hr., unabridged [also available ...Read More “Amy Goldschlager Reviews the Murderbot Audiobooks”

The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced finalists for the 31st Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”), celebrating “the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books.” Nominees of genre interest follow.