Locus Online

The Confession of Copeland Cane, Keenan Norris (The Unnamed Press 978-1-951-21325-1, $28.00, 288pp, hc) June 2021.

The Confessions of Copeland Cane poses the question: when is a dystopia not a dystopia? The answer: when there’s no notable difference to a per­son’s lived experience. The America Cope describes is clearly one sliding at break-neck speed toward a fascist police state with a pervasive, all-seeing propa­ganda machine masquerading as a media conglomer­ate. ...Read More

The Jasmine Throne, Tasha Suri (Orbit 978-0-316-53851-0, $16.99, 576 pp, tp) June 2021.

If you’ve heard The Jasmine Throne de­scribed as ‘‘morally grey lesbians setting an empire ablaze,’’ then you already understand the first reason to pick up the first book of the Burning Kingdoms trilogy. Told through sev­eral characters, The Jasmine Throne is an epic Indian-inspired fantasy centering love, thorny relationships, and an empire’s stranglehold on generations.

There ...Read More

On the Origin of Species and Other Stories, Bo-Young Kim (Kaya Press 978-1-885030-71-9, $19.95, 224pp, tp) May 2021.

When I reviewed Kim Bo-Young’s I’m Wait­ing for You and Other Stories last April, the first collection from an author widely regarded as among the most prominent voices in Korean science fiction and fantasy, I found it impressive, but also tantalizing: it consisted only of two pairs of linked stories, leaving ...Read More

Bewilderment , Richard Powers (Norton 978-0393881141, 288pp, $27.95) September 2021.

Since his first book in 1985, Richard Powers has published a dozen novels, with this newest one being his lucky thirteenth. In one way or another, to one degree or another, they have all manifested deep concern with matters of technology and culture, the core remit of SF. Some, such as Galatea 2.2, have been flat-out undeniable science fiction. ...Read More

Near the Bone, Christina Henry (Berkley 978-0-59319-976-6, $17.00, 336pp, tp) April 2021. Cover by Spencer Fuller.

Christina Henry’s Near the Bone is a horror novel that brings together real life horrors and monsters that walk a fine line between the supernatural and the what-if world of cryptozoology. At once a narrative about abuse and survival and a tale of creatures stalking people up on a snow-covered mountain, Near the ...Read More

The Escapement, Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon 978-1-61696-327-9, $16.95, 256pp, tp) September 2021.

In the most exuberant sense of the word, Lavie Tidhar is something of a literary magpie, borrow­ing from – and celebrating – a dizzying variety of narrative traditions. His previous novel, By Force Alone, enlisted everything from Macbeth to Roadside Picnic in the service of radically reinventing Arthurian legends. The Escapement is if anything even more radical. ...Read More

The winner, finalists, and honorable mentions for the 2021 Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction have been announced:

The Salam Award, “a short story award to promote science fiction and related ...Read More

The Nielsen Bestseller Awards have been announced, and include several titles and authors of genre interest. George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake (Jonathan Cape) was a Platinum Bestseller; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton) was a Gold Bestseller; and The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman (Penguin UK & David Fickling) was a Silver Bestseller. Several titles by Matt Haig ...Read More

Joanna Prior has been named the new CEO of Pan Macmillan. Current CEO Anthony Forbes Watson will step down in early 2022, but will continue to advise Stefan von Holtzbrinck and the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. Prior has worked as managing director of Penguin General Books in the UK for 12 years, and has been with Penguin for 23 years, rising in the ranks from publicity and marketing. “The decision to ...Read More

The 25 MacArthur Foundation Fellows have been announced for 2021, and include two creators of genre interest: Daniel Alarcón (author of 2006 fantasy story “Abraham Lincoln Has Been Shot”), and Alex Riveria (a filmmaker whose work includes 2008’s Sleep Dealer).

Each “genius grant” recipient receives a no-strings-attached “stipend of $625,000… paid out in equal quarterly installments over five years.”

Fellows are chosen by “a constantly changing pool of invited ...Read More

Light Bringer Project and Omega Sci-Fi have opened submissions for the Roswell Award for short SF by adults living anywhere, and for the Tomorrow Prize for short SF by Los Angeles County high school students. Two special awards are included: The Green Feather Award recognizing “an outstanding science fiction short story by a teen author [or team of authors] that centers on overcoming today’s environmental challenges,” and The Feminist Futures ...Read More

The City of Good Death by Priyanka Champaneri (Restless Books) and Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith (Random House) are on the seven-title shortlist for the 2021 First Novel Prize, given by the Center for Fiction “to honor the best debut fiction of the year.”

The shortlist and winners are chosen by “a committee of distinguished American writers.” The winner will be announced during the Center’s Annual ...Read More

Grave Reservations, Cherie Priest (Atria Books 978-1982-16889-6, $26.00, 304pp, hc) October 2021.

My first introduction to Cherie Priest was her amazing debut Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which is about ghosts and the South and is mesmerizing. I’ve drifted in and out of this Locus award-winning (and Nebula and Hugo nominated) writer’s work since then. Even though I loved Boneshaker and am convinced I Am Princess X deserved a ...Read More

Comfort Me With Apples, Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom 978-1-250-81621-4, $17.99, 112pp, hc) October 2021.

Catherynne M. Valente’s love affair with language is well known, so it’s not surprising that the Song of Solomon, with its sensuous lyricism, should not only provide the title of her new novella Comfort Me With Apples, but also be echoed in her own prose (not to mention chapter titles that are all varieties ...Read More

A Thousand Li: The Second Sect by Tao Wong (Starlit) is on the five-title shortlist for the 2021 Kindle Storyteller Award. The award, launched in 2017, includes a £20,000 prize and “is open to writers publishing in English in any genre, who publish their work through Kindle Direct Publishing” on Amazon.co.uk.

The winner will be announced in October after the shortlist is judged by a jury panel.

For more information, ...Read More

CatStone Books is currently accepting applications for their inaugural Samuel R. Delany Fellowship, which will provide a $10,000 stipend for “one author from a community that has traditionally been marginalized in speculative fiction. This can include authors of color, LGBT+ authors, female authors, authors with disabilities, and authors living an immigrant experience.”

Applications are due October 31, 2021. The shortlist will be announced November 15, and the winner on December ...Read More

DOMINICA PHETTEPLACE has been chosen for the Bookshop Santa Cruz Writing Residency. She will spend two weeks writ­ing at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, working on her novel Robot Country, “a dystopian sci­ence fiction novel which imagines robots as the agents of the next wave of American colonization and forced resettlement.” For details see the website.

Writers LAUREN DIXON & DALLAS TAYLOR were married July 31, 2021. ...Read More

The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, Brian Even­son (Coffee House Press 978-1-56689-611-5, $16.95, 248pp, tp) August 2021.

I first came across Brian Evenson’s work more than a decade ago when I read his unconventional, hard-boiled detective novel Last Days. With its noir-inflect­ed prose and its deeply weird story about a religious cult devoted to the holy act of amputation, the book left an indelible impression. And yet, despite ...Read More

The Animals in that Country by Laura Jean McKay (Scribe) won the 35th Arthur C. Clarke Award. McKay receives a check for £2,021 and an engraved bookend.

Other finalists were:

The 2021 judges were Phoenix Alexander, Nicole ...Read More

A Spindle Splintered, Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom 978-1-250-76335-2, $17.99, 128pp, hc) October 2021.

There are two reasons why fairytale retellings and adaptations have remained consistently popular for centuries: one is that these old tales are deeply beloved, and the other is that they aren’t – or that they could use some serious fixing. Alix E. Harrow, or at least the narrator of her novella A Spindle Splintered, evidently ...Read More

The Readercon board has announced that Readercon will not be held in 2022. Readercon 32 will instead take place July 13–16, 2023 at the Marriott Boston Quincy hotel in Quincy MA.

The announcement says

We just need some time to recharge and get our house in order.

The last two years have been a doozy for everyone. We all need some rest. And Readercon as an organization needs an opportunity ...Read More

The British Fantasy Society has announced the winners for the 2021 British Fantasy Awards:

Mexicona, the first Mexican virtual convention of speculative fiction, presented the Premio Imaginación y Futuro (Imagination and Future Award) “to celebrate, recognize and uplift speculative works created by people of Mexican origin” and to “strengthen and build a more diverse and vibrant SFF community in Mexico and Latin America.” The winners were announced September 24, 2021.

Imago by Rakel Hoyos won the Short Story Collection Prize. Entre las grietas by ...Read More

Assassin’s Orbit, John Appel (Solaris 978-1-781089156, £8.99, 430pp, pb) July 2021. Cover by Amazing15.

John Appel’s Assassin’s Orbit is another debut. This one suited me much better than For the Wolf, but then women in their sixties kicking arses and taking names while having complicated interpersonal interactions is pretty much my jam. Appel handles a diverse cast with future versions of religious faiths (Islam, and I think – ...Read More

The Scholars of Night, John M. Ford (Tor 978-1250269171, 256pp, $18.99) September 2021.

While we all eagerly await the heretofore-unseen last novel by John M. Ford, Aspects, due in April of next year, we will have to quench our desires for all things Fordian with the various reprints that are tilling the soil for that harvest. We earlier got The Dragon Waiting (my review here) which had gone ...Read More