The Long Sunset, Jack McDevitt (Saga 978-1-4814-9793-0, $27.99, 451pp, hc) April 2018. Cover by John Harris.
Here I am, still reading novels from two very long-running series. How could I not? These books have been, like rolling stones, gathering momentum over the years, developing their characters and worlds and (to mix the metaphor) poking and prodding at their givens and motif-sets and turning them around to find new angles or ...Read More
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing 978-1-250-16384-4, $3.99, 232pp, eb). March 2018. Cover by Jon Foster.
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson is cunningly structured, a sly sleight of hand that sees two parallel stories told simultaneously. One of these stories is entirely linear, as befits a time-travel narrative. The other story… is not.
In Mesopotamia, in or around 2024 BCE, the king ...Read More
Asimov’s 1-2/18
Analog 1-2/18
F&SF 1-2/18
Clarkesworld 1/18
Lightspeed 1/18
2018 is off to a good start – perhaps nothing exceptional enough to make the Hugo ballots was published in January, but there was lots of good, entertaining reading.
The January/February Asimov’s featured solid storytelling that took us to a number of exotic locales. “Barren Isle” by Allen M. Steele takes us back to the still partially unexplored colony world ...Read More
Spirits of the Vasty Deep, by Brian Stableford (Snuggly Books 978-1-943813-54-4, $17.95, 300pp, trade paperback) March 2018
For a stretch of years in the recent past, the indefatigable and talented Brian Stableford was producing upwards of a dozen books annually. These consisted of his own fiction; translations for the essential Francophile publisher Black Coat Press; and non-fiction critical works, including the massive four-volume set New Atlantis: A Narrative History ...Read More
Pride and Prometheus, John Kessel (Saga 978-1-4814-8147-2, $27.99, 384pp, hc) February 2018.
One of many things that come to mind in reading Pride and Prometheus, John Kessel’s thoroughly enjoyable full-length expansion of his 2008 Nebula- and Shirley Jackson-winning novelette, is that Pride and Prejudice might have made a pretty suitable title for Frankenstein, at least from the unfortunate creature’s point of view. After all, he’s the product of Victor Frankenstein’s ...Read More
Void Black Shadow, Corey J. White (Tor.com Publishing 978-0–7653-9692-1, $3.99, 218pp, eb). March 2018. Cover by Tommy Arnold.
Void Black Shadow, the sequel to Corey J. White’s explosive Killing Gravity and the second volume in the Voidwitch Saga, isn’t what you might call measured, not by a long chalk. Hectic is one word for it. Breakneck another.
Mariam “Mars” Xi is a living weapon, a “voidwitch.” A genetically designed psychic ...Read More
The African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS) has announced the shortlist for the 2018 Nommo Awards. All titles “are speculative fiction, were published in calendar year 2017, and are thought to be by Africans as defined by the ASFS and Nommo Awards Guidelines.”
Best NovelWinners for the This Is Horror Awards 2017 have been announced:
Novel of the Year
Novella of the Year
With the April 2018 issue, Mike Allen’s fiction and poetry magazine Mythic Delirium is closing after 20 years. In his editorial, Allen says,
I’m putting Mythic Delirium on what those of us in Smallpressville call ‘indefinite hiatus.’ Put more plainly, the zine is coming to an end—though I reserve the right to bring it back, should the course of my career deliver me to a point where (re)starting a magazine ...Read More
The finalists for the 2018 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction of the year have been announced:
The 57th Japan Science Fiction Convention has announced the 2018 Seiun Awards finalists (the Japanese equivalent to the Hugo Awards), honoring the best original and translated works published last year in Japan. The nominees for translated works follow.
Best Translated Novel
Andrew Sean Greer has won the Pulitzer Prize in the Fiction category for his novel Less (Lee Boudreaux/Little, Brown). The award, given for “distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life,” comes with a prize of $15,000.
The Pulitzer jury called Less “a generous book, musical in its prose and expansive in its structure and range, about growing older and ...Read More
Uncanny 1-2/18
Anathema: Spec from the Margins 12/17
Kaleidotrope Winter ’18
The Dark 1/18
Mythic Delirium 1-3/18
Although more concerned with character than plot, Elizabeth Bear‘s “She Still Loves the Dragon” (Uncanny) still tells the love story of a knight-errant and a dragon. (“She still loves the dragon that set her on fire.”) Since love stories often turn dark and end bittersweet, I feel justified in praising it here. Compelling, ...Read More
The Robert E. Howard Foundation announced the nominees for its 2018 REH Foundation Awards.
The Atlantean – Outstanding Achievement, Book (non-anthology/collection)
The Hyrkanian – Outstanding Achievement, Essay (print)
Mapping the Bones, Jane Yolen (Philomel 978-0-399-25778-0, $17.99, 418pp, hc) March 2018.
I should point out up front that Jane Yolen’s powerful young-adult Holocaust novel Mapping the Bones is a straight historical without overt fantastic elements, although – like her earlier Briar Rose – it’s woven around the armature of a classic fairy tale, in this case “Hansel and Gretel”. Almost inevitably, considering its subject, it’s a horror story, and ...Read More
StokerCon, sponsored by the Horror Writers Association, was held at the Biltmore in Providence RI, March 1-4, 2018. HWA president Lisa Morton said, “It’s hard to beat hundreds of horror-lovers huddled together in a supposedly haunted hotel while a Nor’easter rages outside.” Guests of honor were Ramsey Campbell, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Victor LaValle, Elizabeth Massie, Sam Weller, and Craig Engler; Jeff Strand was emcee. Morton said, “This was our third ...Read More
The Hollow Girl, Hillary Monahan (Delacorte 978-1-5247-0186-4, $17.99, 272pp, hc) October 2017.
Author Hillary Monahan takes readers into the world of the Romany people in this brutal blending of realistic fiction and fantasy. Set at some point of the Welsh past (there are no mentions of electronic devices or cars), The Hollow Girl follows the story of Bethan and her grandmother, Drina, the clan’s revered and fearsome wise woman. While ...Read More
Origamy, by Rachel Armstrong (NewCon Press 978-1910935781, $14.99, 256pp, trade paperback) April 2018
When she is not wearing her fiction-writer hat and offering us her debut SF novel, Dr. Rachel Armstrong is performing her duties as Professor of Experimental Architecture at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, University of Newcastle, and, like some character out of an early William Gibson novel, lecturing via TED Talks about “living buildings” ...Read More
“A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad was named Best Story in the annual Clarkesworld readers’ poll. “Sea Change” by Matt Dixon, from the June 2017 issue, won Best Cover Art.
For more, including finalists, see the Clarkesworld site.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and ...Read More
Tender, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer) April 2017.
Analog 1/18
Asimov’s 1-2/18
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 1/4/18
Uncanny 1-2/18
Slate 1/17/18
New Haven Noir, Amy Bloom, ed. (Akashic) June 2017.
I am continuing to catch up on some 2017 stuff I missed. For example, Sofia Samatar‘s collection Tender is one of the best collections I’ve seen in some time. This exceptional debut collection includes two new stories, “An Account of the Land ...Read More
Semiosis, Sue Burke (Tor 978-0-7653-9135-3, $25.99, 336pp, hc) February 2018.
Beyond all else, Sue Burke’s Semiosis is a book about biochemistry and about the subtle dance that all living things perform to get the chemical building blocks they need to survive.
On this planet and in our actual reality, humans have the brains to think through how to get what they need. We’re experts at exploiting our environment, which is, ...Read More
