Publisher, entrepreneur, and showman Robert “Bob” Self, 55, died August 3, 2022, as the result of an accident at Mono Lake in California.
Born August 5, 1966, Bob had a background in the entertainment industry and worked behind-the-scenes with a number of magicians, comedians, and illusionists. In 2003 he and his wife Rani — a professional costume designer for various TV series including The Orville — formed Baby Tattoo, Inc., ...Read More
The Merciless Ones, Namina Forna (Delacorte 978-1-9848-4872-7, 464pp, $17.99, hc) May 2022.
Former outcasts turned warriors and liberators, Deka and her friends are back on the battlefield in The Merciless Ones, sequel to The Gilded Ones (reviewed here May 2021), this time to free the rest of the goddesses and women in Otera. As the Nuru, or only full-blooded daughter of the goddesses, Deka is the strongest of ...Read More
Samovar 4/22 Strange Horizons 4/18/22, 5/2/22, 5/9/22 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 5/5/22, 5/19/22
April also saw the release of a new issue of Samovar, the sibling publication to Strange Horizons that specializes in speculative stories and poetry in translation. Among the works in the issue, Azrin Fauzi (translated by Ali Aiman Mazwin) captures a weird and compelling journey of three people on the island of Malaysia in “Panorama People ...Read More
Gallant, V.E. Schwab (Greenwillow 978-0-06-283577-2, $18.99, 352pp, hc) March 2022. Cover by David Curtis.
Victoria Schwab’s Gallant is a dark confection, a tale that shares tropes with gothic classics (a curse, ghosts, a house of faded glamour that is shrouded in mystery) and pins its hope for a happy ending on a tortured heroine who is haunted by the secrets of a past she never knew. There is a ...Read More
The Embroidered Book, Kate Heartfield (HarperVoyager 978-0-00838-059-5, $28.99, 672pp, hc) May 2022.
After reading Kate Heartfield’s thoroughly engrossing The Embroidered Book, with its account of the secret role of magic in European politics around the time of the French Revolution, I made the mistake of checking out what Wikipedia had to say about such topics as ‘‘secret history’’ or ‘‘historical fantasy.’’ Not too surprisingly, the depth and consistency ...Read More
Omenana 4/22 Samovar 4/22 Analog 5-6/22
In its 21st issue, Omenana continues to bring a fascinating mix of fantasy, science fiction, and horror from African writers. “Madam Aisirhiowen’s Greatest Invention” by Amadin Ogbewe is an interesting story of a woman who transformed herself into a cyborg ruler. When we meet her she is deposed and staying with her great-granddaughter, building something with her minions. It’s pretty ominous, but ...Read More
Hokuloa Road, Elizabeth Hand (Mulholland 978-0316542043, hardcover, 368pp, $28.00) July 2022.
In days of yore, when the actual internet was merely science fiction, curious fans found out scarce biographical tidbits about their favorite authors in whatever manner they could: from fanzines, or dustjacket flaps, or occasional media articles and even the rare autobiographical essay. Heinlein lived on a walled estate in Colorado Springs. Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert and Jack ...Read More
Spend a few minutes with us and find out about all of the SF/F/H books hitting shelves this week. Our latest New Books video is up!
We’ve got cats in space, more baking weirdness, horror, alien archeological digs, non-fiction about fantasy, and more! Give us a few minutes and we’ll catch you up on the top books that are slated to hit bookstore (and Amazon) shelves for August 2, ...Read More
Echo, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor Nightfire 978-1-250-75955-9, $29.99, 416pp, hc) February 2022.
Reviewing the work of Thomas Olde Heuvelt is no easy task, and Echo, his latest, is no different. Translated from the Dutch by Moshe Gilula, this is a complex, creepy, atmospheric, labyrinthine monster that comes in at more than 400 pages.
Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt is a novel about many things; grief, trauma, unconditional love, ...Read More
The Girl Who Outgrew the World, Zoje Stage (Lethe 978-1-59021-523-4, $15.00, 180pp, tp) May 2022.
Eleven-year-old Lilly is having a growth spurt. Only this is no ordinary, normal march towards adolescence. In Zoje Stage’s new novella, The Girl Who Outgrew the World, the title itself reveals the scale and pace of Lilly’s development, a mysterious, monstrous, and inexplicable surge that baffles and frightens her father, her friends, her ...Read More
The twenty-one winning titles for the PEN Translates awards have been announced, including the following titles and authors of genre interest:
The Doloriad, Missouri Williams (MCD x FSG Originals 978-0-37460-508-7, $17.00, 240pp, tp) March 2022.
Missouri Williams’s debut novel, The Doloriad, comes close to pipping Mónica Ojeda’s Jawbone as the most disturbing book I’ve read this year (note, I said close; Jawbone still holds the crown). It’s a post-apocalyptic story where an unknown cataclysm, possibly environmental (though it’s never made clear) has wiped out humanity. Well, almost. In a ...Read More
The lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice to stop the proposed merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster has gone to trial this week.
Publishers Weekly has been covering the case: Monday featured opening arguments and testimony by Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch for the government, giving an overview of the book business and discussing how the merger would have a deleterious effect on competition.
Tuesday’s proceedings ...Read More
Lakelore, Anna-Marie McLemore (Feiwel and Friends 978-1-250-62414-7, $18.99, 304pp, hc) March 2022. Cover by Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor.
The delicate contemporary fantasy Lakelore uses author Anna-Marie McLemore’s familiar lush language to describe a strange and beautiful world beneath a lake and the two teenagers who explore it. The magic elements are subtle and largely expressed through the papier-mâché construction of alebrije, Mexican folk art sculptures of imaginary creature which come ...Read More
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki has been announced as guest of honor for the 44th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA), with Isiah Lavender III announced as guest scholar.
ICFA 44, hosted by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA), will take place March 15-18, 2023 at the Marriott Orlando Airport Lakeside in Orlando FL.
For more information, see the convention website.
While you are here, ...Read More
Attebery, Brian: Fantasy: How it Works
(Oxford University Press 978-0-1928-5623-4, $27.95, 208pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, June 30, 2022)
Non-fiction, critical exploration of the genre, its popularity, and its relevance to contemporary experience as “the lie that speaks truth”. Authors covered include Ursula K. Le Guin, C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, and Nnedi Okorafor.
Blair, Melissa: A Broken Blade
(Barnes & Noble/Union Square & Co. 9781454947875, $17.99, 448pp, formats: trade paperback, ...Read More
Horror Spotlight, formerly known as The Ladies of Horror Fiction (LOHF), is open to applications for their fourth annual LOHF Writers Grant. “This will be the last year the grant will be a ‘Ladies of Horror Fiction’ grant.” Fourteen awards of $100 each are available “to all women and non-binary femmes who have reasonably demonstrated a commitment to writing in the horror genre.” Applications are open until 11:59 CST, August ...Read More
StokerCon 2023 announced on their blog that Wrath James White will join Daniel Kraus and Cynthia Pelayo as Guest of Honor. The event will be held June 15-18, 2023 at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Hotel at Station Square in Pittsburgh PA, and will will include the Bram Stoker Awards banquet. Early registration is $150 until October 1, 2022, when the rate raises to $200.
For more information, see the official website. ...Read More
Kaleidotrope 4/22 Zooscape 4/22 Escape Pod 4/22 Drabblecast 4/22
I’ll start off with the Spring Kaleidotrope, which does a good job keeping to a few thematic threads throughout the issue. Though the publication often leans into horror, there’s more of a focus on grief and loss with this group of stories and poems, with recurring ideas of alternate dimensions/universes and sacrifices of various kinds. Aimee Ogden opens the issue with ...Read More
The 2022 longlist for the Diverse Book Awards has been announced. The awards were created “to highlight the best of the diverse voices published in the UK & Ireland during 2021, both traditionally and self-published.” Titles and authors of interest follow.
Best Adult
Best Young Adult
The Mythopoeic Society announced the 2022 Mythopoeic Awards Winners during Mythcon 52, held July 29th through August 1st 2022, in Albuquerque, NM.
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature
Sistersong by Lucy Holland (Macmillan; Redhook) and Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (Headline; Flatiron) are on the six-title shortlist for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award.
The award was established in 2017 by independent bookstore Goldsboro Books for novels with “with brilliant characterisation and a distinct voice that is confidently written and assuredly realised.” The winning title will be announced September 8, 2022 and the author will receive £2,000 as well ...Read More
Actor and author Nichelle Nichols, 89, died July 30, 2022 in Silver City NM of heart failure. Nichols was best known for her portrayal of communications officer Lieutenant Uhura in the original series of Star Trek (1966-69) and subsequent film projects. She was one of the first Black women to have a major role on a network television program, and had a profound influence on US culture. She was also ...Read More
Bitter, Akwaeke Emezi (Knopf Books for Young Readers 978-0593309032, 272pp, $17.99, hc) February 2022. Cover by Shyama Golden.
Content warning: sexual violence, anti-Black racism.
I would be amiss to not begin with the words that Akwaeke Emezi writes in their dedication of Bitter: ‘‘Still and always, for Toyin Salau. You deserved a better world.’’ Toyin was raped and murdered by an older man who assaulted her after offering ...Read More
The Moonday Letters, Emmi Itäranta (Titan 978-1803360447, trade paperback, 368pp, $15.95) July 2022.
One of John Campbell’s prescriptions for the kind of science fiction he wanted to see was to say, paraphrased, “Give me a story which could legitimately be presented as contemporary fiction in a magazine of the year 2100.” In other words, a story narrated out of a deep and implicit and shared set of assumptions about ...Read More
The Path of Thorns, A.G. Slatter (Titan Books 978-1-78909-437-4, $15.95, 384pp, tp) June 2022.
Over the last decade, beginning with the collection Sourdough and Other Stories, A.G. Slatter has steadily built a lush and deeply imagined secondary world inspired by European fairy tales, myths, and legends. Last year she published the first novel set in this universe, the fabulous gothic fantasy, All The Murmuring Bones (one of my ...Read More
Ymir, Rich Larson (Orbit 978-0316416580, trade paperback, 416pp, $17.99) July 2022.
If one tried to engineer a young writer who would embody all the core values, tactics, and ambiance of Classic SF while still conveying ultra-contemporary attitudes, ambiance, and affect, one could hardly produce a better candidate than Rich Larson. Just turned thirty years old, he’s already delivered over a hundred fine stories and now brings us his third ...Read More
