The shortlist for the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, given by The Orwell Foundation to novels and short story collections published in the UK which explore major political and social themes through a fictional lens, includes at least two titles of genre interest:
The judges for 2022 are Dennis Duncan, Sana Goyal, Adam Roberts (chair ...Read More
Clarkesworld 2/22 Analog 3-4/2022 The Sunday Morning Transport 1/23/2022
The first three stories in February’s Clarkesworld all feature an aspect of human life that I’ve long felt gets short shrift in science fiction in particular, but also in fantasy – parenting. I was complaining once (after I became a parent myself, naturally) that I just did not see many folks with kids in these stories, and someone (childless, I believe) ...Read More
Fire Becomes Her, Rosiee Thor (Scholastic 978-1-33867-911-3, $18.99, 368pp, hc) February 2022.
In Rosiee Thor’s Fire Becomes Her, Candesce, a nation similar to the United States in the 1920s, is on the cusp of an historic presidential election. Gwendolyn Brooks, a former entertainer, is challenging Senator Holt, an excessively wealthy man everyone believes is a shoe-in. When she was a child, Ingrid Ellis’s father was thrown in jail ...Read More
The Paradox Hotel, Rob Hart (Ballantine 978-1-98482-064-8, 324pp, $28, hc) February 2022.
Rob Hart’s The Paradox Hotel sums its own energy up with one line of dialog: ‘‘We’re at DEFCON Level Holy Shit.’’ Hart not only starts in media res, he puts us on the rollercoaster that is the Paradox Hotel just as it is tipping down the first big hill. The pace never really lets up until the ...Read More
Sea of Tranquility, Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf 978-0-59332-144-7, $25.00, 272pp, hc) April 2022.
There is this wink-to-the-audience moment about halfway through Sea of Tranquility where Olive Llewellyn, bestselling author of Marienbad, is asked what it’s like to have written such a successful book.
Oh. It’s surreal, actually. I wrote three books that no one noticed, no distribution beyond the moon colonies… when I published Marienbad, I ...Read More
The Temperature of Me and You, Brian Zepka (Disney-Hyperion 978-1-36806-471-2, $17.99, hc, 416 pp) January 2022.
Author Brian Zepka set out to blend a sweet romance with high school drama and a major science fiction twist in The Temperature of Me and You, a novel involving the teen victim of a lab accident/experiment that has left him literally burning from the inside out. I’ll be honest; I’m a ...Read More
Masters of Science Fiction: Robert Sheckley, Robert Sheckley (Centipede Press 978-1-61347-311-5, hardcover, 728pp, $65 February 2022.
There have been four previous volumes in Centipede Press’s gorgeous series Masters of Science Fiction. (Lordy, how splendidly assembled and adorned these books are!) The dedicatees are: James Patrick Kelly, Fritz Leiber, Richard Wilson, and Kate Wilhelm. I endorse these selections wholeheartedly. (I even did the introduction to the Wilson volume.) True ...Read More
The British Fantasy Society (BFS) is looking for judges for the British Fantasy Awards. “For each category, 3-5 jurors read/watch/examine every entry on the final shortlist (4-6 titles) & then agree between themselves on the final winner.”
The BFA constitution calls for “at least one non-member of the Society” to be on the jury. Interested individuals may apply through the webform, which is scheduled to close May 29, 2022.
For ...Read More
The 2022 Indie Book Awards Shortlist has been announced, with several titles and authors of genre interest:
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Children’s Fiction
Author ROBERT C. CORNETT, 69, died April 1, 2022 at home in Albuquerque NM. Cornett was a prolific author of SF, military, and adventure fiction.
His work of genre interest includes the Time Mercenaries series with Kevin D. Randle: Remember the Alamo! (1980), Remember Gettysburg! (1988), and Remember the Little Bighorn! (1990), and the Fifty Million Years War series, also written with Randle: Seeds of War (1986), The Aldebaran ...Read More
Horror author JOHN SKIPP, 64, has announced his retirement from writing and publishing fiction; his final title is collection Don’t Push the Button (Clash Books). Going forward he will focus on music and film. He has two new albums, The Antidote to Fear and Cry Me a Rainbow, out via his own Fungasm Records label. He also wrote, produced, directed, and scored short film Doppelbanger, which premiered ...Read More
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the winners for the 2021 Bram Stoker Awards.
Superior Achievement in a Novel
Superior Achievement in a
The 45th Williamson Lectureship, held April 7-9, 2022 in Portales NM, was a smaller event after two years of COVID, but those who attended were happy to see each other. “I’m so glad we’re in-person this year,” Connie Willis said at Friday’s luncheon. “It’s so nice to see people’s faces, whether masked or not. I am so pleased we’re here today, and not on Zoom.”
“Speculative Fiction: Never the Same ...Read More
The winners of the 2022 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, honoring the best SF/F work published in France in 2021, have been announced.
French Novel
Foreign Novel
The finalists for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction story have been announced by the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction.
Flash Fiction Online 2/22 Fireside 2/22 Strange Horizons 2/7/22, 2/14/22
At Flash Fiction Online, February is often dedicated to stories about love, and new editor Emma Munro keeps that tradition going. A small note for full disclosure that this issue contains a reprint of my own story, “A Lumberjack’s Guide to Dryad Spotting” (the story also appears as a reprint in Xenocultivars, which I’m also reviewing in this column). Some ...Read More
The winners of the 91st Annual California Book Awards, presented by the Commonwealth Club of California, have been announced.
Home Is Not A Country by Safia Elhillo (Make Me a World) won the gold medal in the Young Adult category, while Refractive Africa by Will Alexander (New Directions) won the gold medal in the Poetry category.
The awards honor “the writers who have come to define California to the world.” ...Read More
Kazuo Ishiguro has won the Tähtivaeltaja Award for Klara ja aurinko [Klara and the Sun], translated into Finnish by Helene Bützow (Tammi).
The award is sponsored by Helsingin Science Fiction seura. The judging panel includes Hannu Blommila, Toni Jerrman, Elli Leppä, and Kaisa Ranta. For more information, see the announcement.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely
Light Years from Home, Mike Chen (MIRA 978-0-7783-1173-7, $28.00, 353 pp, hc) January 2022.
The American painter, Conrad Marca-Relli, was known best for his abstract depictions of the body. He often relied on cut paper forms to build his work, famously stating, ‘‘You get a linear quality from collage that is more rapid than the swiftest drawn line.’’
While Mike Chen’s newest novel, Light Years from Home, is ...Read More
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced that Neil Gaiman and Connie Willis will be Toastmasters at the 2021 SFWA Nebula Awards, to be presented in an online ceremony on May 21, 2022.
President Jeffe Kennedy says, “I’m delighted that Connie and Neil have so graciously taken time from their busy schedules to lend their voices and dynamic presences to the Nebula Awards ceremony. I’ve caught a ...Read More
The Atlas Six, Olivie Blake (Self-published 978-1-679-91099-9, 383pp, tp) January 2020. (Tor 978-1-25085-451-3, 536pp, $25.99, hc) March 2022.
I am late to the Olivie Blake (AKA Alexene Farol Follmuth) party because I can’t commit to TikTok, which is where The Atlas Six first caught the imaginations of thousands of readers. This Tor edition is an expanded and revised edit of the version of the book that made the rounds ...Read More
Under Fortunate Stars, Ren Hutchings (Rebellion/Solaris 978-1-78618-592-1, $24.99, 480pp, hc) May 2022
It takes less than ten pages to understand the deep love Ren Hutchings has for space operas. Classic ones, modern ones. Movies, series, adaptations. From Firefly to The Forever War, the homages run deep in Under Fortunate Stars. But this is no cookie-cutter hack or half-baked collage. Under Fortunate Stars manages to tease out the ...Read More
Author Patricia A. McKillip, 74, died May 6, 2022. She was best known for her fantasy novels for children and young adults, including the Riddle-Master trilogy.
Patricia Anne McKillip was born February 29, 1948 in Salem OR. She attended the College of Notre Dame, Belmont, and San Jose State University in California, receiving a BA in 1971 and an MA in English in 1972.
Her first publications were short children’s ...Read More
The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen (NY Review) won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in the Fiction category. 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 judges called the winner a “A mordant, linguistically deft historical novel about the ambiguities of the Jewish-American experience, presenting ideas and disputes as volatile as ...Read More
Susie Haynes of Fantast Three has announced her retirement from bookselling, and will end operations in mid-summer. She specialized in importing and distributing magazines to the UK, and was for a long time the British subscription agent for Locus.
Haynes set up Fantast Three in 2008 following the death of her father Ken Slater, the well-known fan and bookseller since the 1940s, who ran Operation Fantast & Fantast (Medway) Ltd. ...Read More
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has announced the results of its election for open Board of Directors positions.
Vice President:
Chief Financial Officer:
Directors-at-Large (through 2024)
They will join continuing Board members José Pablo Iriarte, Jeffe Kennedy (president), Remy Nakamura, Adam Rakunas (secretary), and Christine Taylor-Butler. Monica Valentinelli will continue as director-at-large for another two years. Nathan Lowell (CFO),
Tor.com 2/26/22, 2/9/22, 1/26/22, 1/12/22 PodCastle 1/18/22, 2/8/22 Uncanny 1-2/22
If you’ve read the three previous Judge Dee stories by Lavie Tidhar, you are sure to enjoy the new one, “Seven Vampires: A Judge Dee Mystery” (Tor.com 2/26/22). You can enjoy it even if you haven’t chanced upon the series previously, but since the three earlier tales are easily found online, you have no excuse not catch ...Read More
