UK publisher The Folio Society has announced the sale of its company to its employees for £10 million. The sale gives the employees 100% ownership of the company.
CEO Joanna Reynolds, leading the buyout for employees, says of the sale:
The Folio Leadership Team is very excited about the move to an EOT. It is a progressive, innovative, industry-leading approach that reflects our values and will position the business strongly ...Read More
Blood Like Magic, Liselle Sambury (McElderry Books 978-1-53446-528-2, $19.99, 496pp, hc) June 2021. Cover by Thea Harvey.
In an intoxicating blend of science fiction and fantasy, author Liselle Sambury has written in Blood Like Magic a novel that embraces technological advances while wholly immersing the text with magic. Set in Toronto in the year 2049, teenager Voya Thomas has at last experienced her Calling – the moment when one ...Read More
Asimov’s 9-10/21 Uncanny 9-10/21 On Spec 6/21, 9/21
Greg Egan’s “Sleep and the Soul” (Asimov’s 9-10/21) is an intriguing piece presented as an alternate history where the Jonbar point is a biological change, not a historical one. Humans in this world do not need to sleep and, at least in the 19th-century US in which the story is set, sleep is regarded with horror because the loss ...Read More
C. Dale Brittain, The Sapphire Ring (Daimbert Publishing 979-8-7211-2328-3, $14.95, 293pp, tp) April 2021.
The third volume in the Starlight Raven series in the Yurt universe finds Antonia no longer the only girl at the wizards’ school run by her father. Still, she’s concerned about the remaining divide between women’s magic and men’s. Then she gets kidnapped by a strange group of women, members of the magic-using Sisterhood, but with ...Read More
The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess, Andy Marino (Redhook Books 978-0316-62948-5, $16.99, 352pp, tp) September 2021.
Andy Marino’s The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is a creepy, tense narrative that exists somewhere between violent psychological thriller and supernatural horror novel. However, while most of the elements of those two subgenres are present here, the novel also delves deep into serious topics like guilt, substance abuse, and mental health. The ...Read More
The Last Graduate, Naomi Novik (Del Rey 978-0-593-12886-2, $28.00, 400pp, hc) September 2021.
Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education introduced us to the Scholomance, a magical high school for wizards that kills the better part of each incoming class by the time they are seniors. The school is not driven by pure malice (although it does seem to take a certain glee in making its students miserable) but by hope. ...Read More
Paladin’s Hope, T. Kingfisher (Red Wombat Studio 978-1-61450-551-8, $34.95, 270pp, hc) October 2021.
Paladin’s Hope is the third book in T. Kingfisher’s (AKA Ursula Vernon’s) Saint of Steel series. Like Paladin’s Grace and Paladin’s Strength before it, Paladin’s Hope is a fantasy romance at its core. There are gods and clerics and gnoles set against a medieval-esque city and countryside. The two main characters are destined for each ...Read More
AudioFile has announced its list of the best science fiction & fantasy audiobooks for 2021:
For more, see the AudioFile
Shortlists for the 2021 Costa Book Awards, for books “by writers resident in the UK and Ireland,” have been announced. The Stranding by Kate Sawyer (Coronet) is on the four-title Costa First Novel Award shortlist. The High House by Jessie Greengrass (Swift) made the Novel Award shortlist. Anna Goodall’s Maggie Blue and the Dark World (Guppy) and Ross Montgomery’s The Midnight Guardians (Walker) are both finalists in the Children’s Book ...Read More
Dream Foundry, a “non-profit dedicated to bolstering the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts,” has announced the finalists for its 2021 contests.
Writing Contest
Art Contest
Editor and publisher Jeremy G. Byrne, 57, died November 25, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia after a long illness.
Byrne co-founded Eidolon Publications in 1990 and co-edited all 30 issues of Eidolon: The Journal of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy until its closure in 2000. He was an integral part of publishing Terry Dowling’s The Mars You Have in Me, Storm Constantine’s The Thorn Boy, Robin Pen’s The Secret ...Read More
This Thing Between Us, Gus Moreno (MCD x FSG Originals 978-0-37453-923-8, $17.00, 272pp, tp) October 2021.
I’ve never owned an Amazon Alexa. I do have a Google Nest sitting beside the TV, but other than my daughter asking the device to play songs from The Greatest Showman soundtrack, the family rarely engages with it. I am, however, aware that both the Alexa and the Nest are always listening, ...Read More
White Smoke, Tiffany D. Jackson (Katherine Tegen Books 978-0063029095, $18.99, 384pp, hc) September 2021.
After her public collapse and a stint in rehab, Marigold, a Black high school track star, is finally getting a second chance. When her artist mom gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a residency that comes with a free house, Mari, her mother, brother, step-father, and step-sister move from coastal California to a rundown Midwestern town. ...Read More
NPR’s Books We Love (formerly Book Concierge) has an extensive list of Best Books in an assortment of categories, including It’s All Geek to Me and Young Adult, with hundreds of titles recommended by “NPR staff and trusted critics.” The Sci Fi, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction category includes titles by leading authors like Charlie Jane Anders, Becky Chambers, Fonda Lee, Rivers Solomon, Cadwell Turnbull, Jeff VanderMeer, and many others.
For ...Read More
George R.R. Martin announced the opening of Sky Railway, the renamed and renovated historic short-haul railroad he purchased, with other investors, in 2020. “Mostly what I have been doing is throwing out ideas and writing checks,” Martin said.
We had two big old diesel locomotives, so right off we decided we would run two trains: the Wolf and the Dragon. And to paint them, and give each its own character ...Read More
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) has organized a free workshop “geared towards writers of colour” called Need To Know: Knowing Your Power as an Author of Colour. “This workshop is aimed to help you break down the processes of being published so you know where your power lies.” The event is scheduled for January 15, 2022 and will take place virtually. Workshop leaders are Patrice Lawrence ...Read More
Shards of Earth: The Final Architecture Book One, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor 978-1-5290-5188-9, $28.00, 549 pp, hc) August 2021. Cover by Steve Stone.
Once upon a time I used the term “recombinant SF” to describe stories that whipped multiple ideas and themes and gadgets and speculations and story-patterns into busy, complicated, surprising concoctions: a Chinese AI emperor and Tibetan yak-wranglers on a terraformed Mars; a moon-size ancient alien and clone-soldiers ...Read More
Invisible Sun, Charles Stross (Tor 978-1-250-80709-0, $27.99, 285 pp, hc) September 2021. Cover by Neil Lang.
Partway into Charles Stross’s Invisible Sun, a harried intelligence/security chief says, ‘‘We’ve got a lot of balls in the air,’’ a condition that might apply as well to a number of his fellow characters and to Stross himself in his authorial role. This ninth and final entry in what is now called ...Read More
The New York Public Library has announced its lists of the best books of 2021 in various categories, including 100 Best Books for Adults, 50 Best Books for Teens, and 145 Best Books for Kids.
The Adult category includes numerous genre titles, with Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (Tor), Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Ballantine), and Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor (Tordotcom), plus many more. The Teen ...Read More
The Financial Times has announced the five best SF books of 2021, as selected by James Lovegrove:
For more, see the Financial Times website.
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The 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize has announced its 37-title longlist. The award honors “mid-career authors in fiction,” and the winner receives a $50,000 prize, given by the New Literary Project. Authors of genre interest, along with their most recent titles, include:
Kirkus has announced its list of the eight best science fiction and fantasy books of 2021:
A Lesson in Vengeance, Victoria Lee (Delacorte Press 978-0-593-30584-3, $18.99, 384pp, hc) August 2021. Cover by Maggie Enterrios.
From start to startling finish, Victoria Lee’s A Lesson in Vengeance is a dream novel for fans of dark academia. Felicity Morrow has returned to the Dalloway School after receiving intense counseling following the previous year’s tragic death of her classmate/girlfriend, Alex. She will now be back in their former dorm, ...Read More
The winners of the 2021 Ditmar Awards for Australian SF were announced November 20, 2021 in an online ceremony.
Best Novel
The Achievement & Assessment Institute (AAI) at the University of Kansas has announced the creation of the Ad Astra Center for Science Fiction and the Speculative Imagination, headed by director Chris McKitterick.
The center “brings writers, readers, scholars, educators, and fans of speculative fiction together to study and create work that changes the world.” It will initally offer
interdisciplinary workshops, masterclasses, courses, seminars, and other opportunities, using speculative fiction ...Read More
The Nommo Awards, honoring the best in African SF, will be presented at Discon III, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held December 15-19, 2021 in Washington DC. Sheree Renée Thomas will be master of ceremonies. She says,
