Editor Scott M. Roberts announced that Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show (IGMS) will close after the June/July 2019 issue. In his editorial for the February 2019 issue, Roberts said:
When IGMS first rolled onto the scene, online magazines were few and far between. Now the main mode of consumption of short SFF literature is online in one form or another (podcasts, e-issues, webpages, etc). And the voices of SFF ...Read More
The Way of the Shield, Marshall Ryan Maresca (DAW 978-0756414795, $7.99, 354pp, pb) October 2018. Cover by Paul Young.
I’m shallow enough to admit I only picked up Marshall Ryan Maresca’s The Way of the Shield because I was told the secondary protagonist was a queer woman. Well, that, and it sounded like a potentially entertaining, city-based, sword-and-sorcery-style adventure.
Dayne Heldrin is a young man whose future with the Tarian ...Read More
The Labyrinth Index, Charles Stross (Tor 978-1250196088, 368pp, $27.99, hc) October 2018.
Charles Stross’s Laundry Files books have been getting darker with every new entry, and the ninth, The Labyrinth Index, may be the darkest yet – which is saying something, given that the whole series combines some of the more unsettling aspects of the espionage and horror traditions. While I’m unpacking genre/influence components, let me add the gadget-wise terminological ...Read More
A Room Away From the Wolves, Nova Ren Suma (Algonquin 978-1-61620-373-3, $18.95, 315pp, hc) September 2018.
A Room Away From the Wolves is the story of 17-year-old Sabina (“Bina”) who runs away from her small upstate New York home for a Manhattan boarding house that caters to young women seeking safety and security. Bina’s story is sadly familiar; she and her two stepsisters fight constantly and to keep the family ...Read More
Dracul, Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker (Putnam 978-0-7352-1934-2, $27.00, 512pp, hc) October 2018.
In his “Authors’ Note” appended to Dracul, a “prequel” to Dracula that he co-wrote with J.D. Barker, Dacre Stoker relates peculiarities about the publication of his great-grand-uncle Bram’s landmark vampire novel, some of which will surely be news to many readers, as they were to this reviewer. The manuscript of Dracula as we know the novel today ...Read More
The Deep and Shining Dark, Juliet Kemp (Elsewhen Press 978-1911409243, £9.99, 272pp, tp). September 2018.
The Deep and Shining Dark is Juliet Kemp’s first novel, out of small outfit Elsewhen Press. Kemp (whose recent novella from Book Smugglers Publishing you may remember me discussing here before) has written a novel that’s one part high fantasy, one part political fantasy, and one part old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery – without the swords or the ...Read More
Shimmer 9/18
Black Static 9-10/18
Nightmare 11/18
The Dark 10/18, 11/18
Uncanny 9-10/18
Shimmer #45 is the publication’s penultimate issue, with the last, #46, out in November. The magazine’s goal was to be a “speculative magazine that focused on stories that existed in the in-between places. Not quite science-fiction, not quite fantasy, but having threads of both. Also, stories that were not afraid to focus on loss and death and ...Read More
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have released the final ballot for the 2018 Nebula Awards.
Novel
Novella
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has announced the candidates for open Board of Directors positions:
Candidate for President
Candidate for Secretary
Candidates for Director-at-Large
Three positions for director-at-large are available. The listed candidates have been verified as ...Read More
The longlists for the Carnegie Medal for best children’s book and the Kate Greenaway Medal for best illustrations in a children’s book have been announced. Titles of genre interest follow.
Carnegie Medal
Melinda Snodgrass is the recipient of the 2019 Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (AKA the Skylark Award). The award was presented by the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) at Boskone 56, held at the Westin Boston Waterfront, February 15-17, 2019.
The Skylark is given to “some person, who, in the opinion of the membership, has contributed significantly to science fiction, both through work in the field and by exemplifying ...Read More
The 2019 Spectrum Awards finalists have been announced.
Advertising
Book
Comic
Vida Cruz and Ana Hurtado are the 2018 recipients of the Tiptree Fellowship. Each winner will receive a $500 grant, and work produced as a result of this support will be recognized and promoted by the Tiptree Award.
The fellowship program “will complement the on-going work of the Award — that is, the celebration of speculative fiction that expands and explores gender roles in thought-provoking, imaginative, and occasionally infuriating ways.” ...Read More
The shortlist for the 2018 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards has been announced.
Best Novel
Best Shorter Fiction
Eugene Teplitsky, co-owner of Curiosity Quills Press, says the company has fallen behind on paying royalties, and will temporarily cease print publishing, except for middle-grade novels. He blames “month after month” of dwindling sales, and is offering “no strings attached” termination of contracts for any of their authors who want to leave the company: authors should “simply email <editor@curiosityquills.com> and we will revert rights to all who ask for it, ...Read More
Occupy Me, Tricia Sullivan (Gollancz 978-1473212978, £8.99, 288pp, tp) November 2016. (Titan 978-1473212978, $13.99) September 2018.
I had planned to pick up Tricia Sullivan’s Occupy Me two years back when it was first published in the UK. I never got around to it. When the novel was shortlisted for the 2017 Arthur C. Clarke award, I made serious plans to read it with the rest of the nominees. I failed ...Read More
Artist Vincent Di Fate, 73, has been inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, and will be honored at the induction ceremony to be held June 14, 2019 in New York.
Inductees are honored “for their distinguished achievement in the art of illustration. Artists are elected by former presidents of the Society and are chosen based on their body of work and the impact it has made on ...Read More
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced their first annual Summer Scares Reading list.
ADULT
YOUNG ADULT
MIDDLE GRADE
Finalists for the 2019 Darrell Awards have been announced:
Best Midsouth Novel
Best Midsouth Novella
Best Midsouth Short Story
Shadow Captain by Alastair Reynolds (Orbit 978-0316555708, $15.99, 448pp, trade paperback, January 2019)
A person huddles alone in the wreckage of a spaceship, body glowing with strange patterns of light. And all that the person can think of is revenge on those responsible for the situation.
Sounds familiar, right? Good old Gully Foyle in The Stars My Destination. Well, surprisingly, that’s not the book under discussion today. Instead, we ...Read More
Mercedes Lackey, The Bartered Brides (DAW 978-0-7564-0874-9, $27.00, 314pp, hc) October 2018. Cover by Jody A. Lee.
Though the title evokes the comic opera The Bartered Bride by Smetana, this latest novel in the Elemental Masters series owes a lot more to Sherlock Holmes, or maybe the Sherlock TV series. Holmes’s death at Reichenbach Falls has just been announced, but the Watsons (both Elemental Masters), psychic Nan Killian, and medium ...Read More
Winners for the 2018 Children’s and Young Adults Bloggers’ Literary Awards (Cybils) have been announced. Titles of genre interest are listed below:
Young Adult Speculative Fiction
The Society of Authors announced the winners of its translation prizes on February 13, 2019 in a ceremony at the British Library in London, UK.
TA First Translation Prize
The £2,000 TA First Translation Prize is sponsored by Daniel Hahn and the British Council, and given “for a debut literary translation into English published in the UK.” Hong shares
...Read More
Several authors of genre interest are recipients of 2019 Literature Fellowships awarded by The National Endowment for the Arts.
Ama Codjoe, Ilya Kaminsky, Kiki Petrosino, and Keith S. Wilson are among the writers who received grants of $25,000 each. The grants are meant to give “writers the time and space to create, revise, conduct research, and connect with readers.” A total of 35 creative writing grants were given, for a ...Read More
Clarkesworld 9/18
Lightspeed 11/18
Omenana #12 8/18
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 11/8/18, 11/22/18
Fireside 10/18
Apex 9/18, 10/18
Terraform 9/14/18, 9/23/18
e-flux 9/18
Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores 9/18
Clarkesworld brings us five original stories for the month of September, of which the strongest is “When We Were Starless” by newcomer Simone Heller. Starting out with an alien tribe eking out a subsistence living in a blasted wasteland, we learn about ...Read More
Legendary editor and publisher Betty Ballantine, 99, died February 12, 2019 at home in Bearsville NY. Her career in publishing began in the 1930s, and she was instrumental in the rise of mass-market paperbacks and helped found both Bantam Books and Ballantine Books.
Elizabeth Norah Jones was born September 25, 1919 in India to a colonial family. At 12 she moved with her family to Jersey in the Channel Islands, ...Read More
Fright Into Flight, Amber Fallon, ed. (Word Horde 978-1-939905-44-4, $15.99, 246pp, tp). September 4, 2018.
Fright Into Flight, Amber Fallon’s editorial debut, is an anthology featuring women as authors and story subjects. Despite the “Fright” part of the title and the “horror” label invoked in the description, not to mention Fallon’s Introduction, “Now Boarding: Your Ticket to Terror”, the stories compiled within are not all horror stories. Those that fall ...Read More
