Strange Horizons has raised its pay rate for fiction to 10 cents per word, for original essays to $90, and for poetry to $50 a poem. The rates will take effect for works published in 2020. They will also collaborate with Be the Serpent for a joint podcast in 2020, and will publish special issues next year on Mexican SF/F and climate change.
While you are here, please take a ...Read More
The Outside, Ada Hoffmann (Angry Robot 978-0-85766-813-4, $12.99, 346pp, tp) May 2019.
The Outside is Ada Hoffmann’s much-anticipated debut novel. Well, much anticipated in my circles and, I have to say, the novel lives up to its buzz. (If you take nothing else away from this review, take away that it’s well worth checking out.)
In Hoffmann’s space opera universe, artificial intelligences have become Gods. These AI-Gods don’t exist ...Read More
The Gameshouse, Claire North (Orbit 978-0-316-49156-3, $15.99, 448pp, tp) May 2019.
Claire North has made something of a career of taking weatherbeaten tropes (reincarnation in The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, invisibility in The Sudden Appearance of Hope, Death personified in The End of the Day) and reimagining them in a stylish contemporary voice, usually with a witty twist on the original conceit. In The ...Read More
Upon a Burning Throne, Ashok K. Banker (John Joseph Adams Books 978-1-32891-628-0, $26.00, 688pp, hc) April 2019.
Ashok K. Banker returns to America with little to prove. He has already published dozens of books in India, including a great deal of epic fantasy. His American return, Upon a Burning Throne, is the first in a new series, the Burnt Empire. Whether the series will do as well here ...Read More
Last Day, Domenica Ruta (Spiegel & Grau 978-0525510819, $27.00, 272pp, hc) May 2019.
Domenica Ruta’s fiction debut, Last Day is a novel about the apocalypse, but one where there’s no sign that the world is about to end, no plagues no zombies, no fallout from a nuclear blast. Instead, Ruta invents an ancient holiday, named “Last Day”, where every year people celebrate the possible and sudden cessation of all ...Read More
The Fever King, Victoria Lee; Michael Crouch, narrator (Brilliance Audio 978-1-7213-3626-5, 11 CDs, $26.99, 14 hr., unabridged [also available on MP3-CD and as a digital download]) March 2019.
The early 21st century of an alternate Earth becomes infected by magic, a plague which kills most but leaves the survivors with powers. The dangerous disease and violent prejudice against the surviving “witchings” splinters the US. The most powerful witching, Calix ...Read More
Uncanny 5-6/19 Galaxy’s Edge 5/19 Bourbon Penn 3/19 Writers of the Future, Vol. 35, David Farland, ed. (Galaxy Press) April 2019.
Uncanny‘s May-June issue is also a bit slight. Still, Ellen Klages, as one might expect, doesn’t disappoint with “Nice Things“. Phoebe Morris is dealing with her late mother’s things and, in so doing, dealing with memories of her perfectionist mother, how she wouldn’t let her ...Read More
Emily Hockaday, formerly associate editor at Asimov’s and Analog, has been promoted to managing editor of both magazines. In addition to handling poetry selections and companion blogs for the science fiction magazines, she recently co-edited a horror anthology, Terror at the Crossroads (Penny), with Jackie Sherbow, managing editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Hockaday said, “I’m busy working toward Analog’s 90th Anniversary year, including the ...Read More
Audible, Amazon’s audiobook publishing arm, announced plans for “Audible Captions,” a feature that displays the text of a book along with the narration on listener devices. Audible said the feature would be “available on hundreds of thousands of audiobooks at launch” – a declaration that was met with surprise and alarm by publishers who haven’t licensed the rights to publish such text to Audible. Publishing the text without permission would ...Read More
A number of immigrant and refugee authors published an open letter in The Nation calling on the US Congress to take “immediate steps to rectify the atrocious conditions for asylum seekers being detained” after attempting to enter the US. Isabel Allende, Lelsey Nneka Arimah, Neil Gaiman, Salman Rushdie, Gary Shteyngart, and Art Speigelman are among the 120+ signatories. The letter reads, in part:
Dear Members of the United States Congress: ...Read More
When the Sky Fell on Splendor, Emily Henry (Razorbill 978-0-451-48071-2, $17.99, 340pp, hc) March 2019.
The publisher makes a direct comparison to Stranger Things in the dust jacket copy for Emily Henry’s latest, When the Sky Fell on Splendor. While I can see some similarities – teens on bicycles in a sleepy midwestern town who encounter something otherworldly with very negative results – I find that the novel ...Read More
Million Mile Road Trip, Rudy Rucker (Night Shade 978-1-94094838-6, $24.99, 504pp, hc) May 2019.
There’s little doubt that Rudy Rucker deserves his reputation as one of the founders of cyberpunk – his Software predated Neuromancer by a couple of years – but his own literary origins seem to reach as far back as Lewis Carroll and Edwin A. Abbott, to whose Flatland Rucker paid a kind of parodic tribute ...Read More
Strange Horizons 4/19, 5/19 Samovar 3/19 Constellary Tales #2 Deep Magic Spring ’19
At the end of April Strange Horizons set aside an issue to focus on Nigerian science fiction and fantasy that featured two original stories: “The Storm Painter” by Avodele Olofintuade and “Where the Rain Mothers Are” by Rafeeat Aliyu. Both happen to hit on themes of returning. Olofintuade’s story features an artist, ...Read More
The Theory of Flight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (Penguin) won the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize, part of the 2019 Sunday Times Literary Awards, which “are considered the most prestigious literary accolade in South Africa.” The R100,000 Barry Ronge prize, “now in its 19th year, honours the authors who enthral with their imagined worlds.” The award was judged by Ken Barris (chair), Wamuwi Mbao, and Nancy Richards. Winners were announced September ...Read More
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced the recipients of its 2019 scholarships.
The $2,500 Horror Writers Association Scholarship went to Sara Adams. First awarded in 2014 and open to all horror writers, the scholarship is “designed to assist in the professional development of horror writers.”
The $2,500 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship went to Theresa Derwin. Open to female horror writers and first awarded in 2014, it is given annually “to ...Read More
Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, Carlos Hernandez; Anthony Rey Perez, narrator (Listening Library 978-1-98484579-5, $27.50, digital download, 9.5 hr., unabridged) March 2019.
Once again, I’m bending the general rules for this column to review a middle-grade book; suffice it to say that adults will not regret spending time engaging with it, whether or not they have tweens in their lives.
Twelve-year-old Sal, a clever aspiring stage magician, has ...Read More
First Fandom Experience has announced the Cosmos Prize, a contest inviting writers to create a new final chapter for the novel Cosmos, published serially in Science Fiction Digest starting in June 1933. The novel was based on a plot by editor Raymond A. Palmer, who also coordinated the 16 writers who took part (including Edmond Hamilton, Otis Adelbert Kline, and A. Merritt). The contest organizers think Cosmos “deserves a ...Read More
On August 7, 2019, Barnes & Noble announced the closing of their deal to be acquired by Elliott Advisors Limited, which also acquired UK bookselling chain Waterstones in 2018. Each chain will operate independently, though Waterstones head James Daunt will serve as CEO of both companies, and plans to relocate from London to New York. Daunt says,
This is a very good day for bookselling. Barnes & Noble is the ...Read More
The City and the Cygnets, Michael Bishop (Fairwood Press/Kudzu Planet Productions 978-1933846781, $19.99, 466pp, trade paperback) August 2019
Many authors can’t resist the temptation to revisit the work of their younger selves and do a little improving, while others subscribe to the famous verse by Omar Khayyám: “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,/Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit/Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,/Nor ...Read More
The Campbell Conference has been renamed the Gunn Center Conference. In a Facebook post on September 5 director Chris McKitterick said,
The Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction acknowledges and condemns the problematic words and actions of John W. Campbell. We had already been discussing changing the name of the Campbell Conference to the Gunn Center Conference, which is in any case more accurate, as we’ve added other ...Read More
Opposite of Always, Justin A. Reynolds (Katherine Tegen 978-0-06-274837-9, $17.99, 464pp, hc) March 2019.
It is not a spoiler to state that Opposite of Always is a novel about time travel; specifically, the story of Jack traveling back over the same period of months again and again (and again and again) to save the life of his girlfriend, Kate. All of this is revealed on the book’s cover, which ...Read More
The James White Award Short Story competition has announced this year’s winner:
A special commendation was also given to Donoghue.
Maskill receives £200 and publication in Interzone. His story will also be translated into Italian and published ...Read More
The Concept Art Association has announced five recipients of its inaugural lifetime achievement award: Ron Cobb, H.R. Giger, Jean “Moebius” Giraud, Ralph McQuarrie, and Syd Mead. The award, which includes a trophy created by Legacy Effects, will be presented at the first annual Concept Art Awards, to be held September 7, 2019 during LightBox Expo at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena CA.
For more information, including a complete list ...Read More
No Country for Old Gnomes, Delilah S. Dawson & Kevin Hearne (Del Rey 978-1-52479-777-5, $28.00, 416pp, hc) April 2019.
Can we agree that writing humor is really difficult? And that writing humorous fantasy is even tougher? It’s so easy to write dreadful humorous fantasy, and so difficult to write it well that I can count the definite successes on one hand: Terry Pratchett, Robert Asprin, and maybe Piers Anthony. ...Read More
“Crash-Site” by Brian Trent (F&SF 5-6/18) is the winner of Baen‘s fifth annual Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF Readers’ Choice Award, announced September 1, 2019 at Dragon Con in Atlanta GA. The prize includes $500 and an inscribed plaque.
The winner was selected by public vote from 12 finalist stories published in The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF, Vol. 5, edited by David Afsharirad (Baen).
[via File ...Read More
The Locus Selected Books by Author list has been updated on our Forthcoming Books page, with information from the September 2019 issue covering upcoming titles from genre houses slated through June 2020. Find out about your favorite authors’ upcoming books!
For the complete list of books by publisher, subscribe to our print magazine or purchase the September issue in print or digital editions, available September 1, 2019.
