The Last Human, Zack Jordan (Del Rey 978-0451499813, $27.00 448pp, hardcover) March 2020.
Zack Jordan’s debut novel is a highly accomplished postmodern space opera that manages to adroitly blend the SF humor of Robert Sheckley and Douglas Adams with the pathos of Simon Jimenez (The Vanished Birds) and the state-of-the-art high-tech speculative ambiance of Peter Hamilton and Alistair Reynolds. Additionally, it resonates with that great SF novum ...Read More
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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) announced the winners of the 2019 Nebula Awards at the 55th Annual Nebula Banquet on Saturday, May 30, 2020 at a virtual ceremony.
Novel
Uncle Hugo’s, the oldest independent science fiction and fantasy bookstore in the US founded in 1974, burned down during the recent riots protesting police brutality and racism in the wake of the shocking death of George Floyd during a police arrest in Minneapolis. As of May 30, at least 250 businesses across the Twin Cities had been damaged or destroyed. Some, including Uncle Hugo’s, were destroyed completely by fire or ...Read More
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Gods & Lies: Season 1, Elizabeth Vail; Cary Hite & Sarah Mollo-Christensen, narrators (Serial Box, $9.99, 7 episodes, digital download, 5.5 hr., unabridged) November-December 2019.
Serial Box continues to fuel my love for SF/F buddy-cop dramas with this slightly predictable yet incredibly adorable romantic mystery mini-series.
Set in a modern city in an alternate world where the gods take an active role among mortals, Justix Iris Tharro, priestess and ...Read More
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The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has announced the top ten finalists in each category of the 2020 Locus Awards.
Winners will be announced June 27, 2020 at the virtual Locus Awards Weekend; Connie Willis will MC the awards ceremony. Additional weekend events include planned author readings and panels with leading authors. Supporting/virtual memberships are available and come with a Locus t-shirt.
SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL
SF Scholar Marshall B. Tymn, 82, died May 24, 2020 of pneumonia. Tymn was an essential figure in the field in the ’70s and ’80s, and did much to further the study of SF in academia. He won a Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions from the Science Fiction Research Association in 1990, and the Robert A. Collins Service Award from the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts in ...Read More
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Sensational, Jodie Lynn Zdrok (Tor Teen 978-0-7653-9971-7, $17.99, 336pp, hc) February 2020.
Jodie Lynn Zdrok concludes the adventures of late-19th-century teen reporter Nathalie Baudin with her second book, Sensational. As readers of the first book, Spectacle, will recall, Nathalie has a powerful ability to see the last moments of a murder (courtesy a bit of mad scientist intervention involving her parents before she was born). She has ...Read More
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Penguin Classics plans to “celebrate science fiction as the essential genre of modern times” with a new series of science fiction classics. Titles launching in August include Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Flatland by Edwin Abbott, and Ten Thousand Light-years from Home by James Tiptree, Jr. Penguin also plans to publish well-known international science fiction translated into English, such as The Hair Carpet Weavers by Andreas Eschbach (Doryl Jensen, translator) ...Read More
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Jonathan Karp has been named president and CEO of Simon & Schuster, taking over after former president Carolyn Reidy died unexpectedly of a heart attack on May 12. He was promoted from president of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, where he oversaw key books like What Happened by Hillary Clinton, Fear by Bob Woodward, and Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. He plans to “continue to build on the strong foundation ...Read More
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Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Press 978-1-984-87935-6, $18.99, 272pp, hc) April 2019.
Vesta Gul (pronounced “like the ocean bird”) is walking her dog, Charlie, through the woods when she finds a note on the ground. The note reads:
Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.
Except there is no body, “no bloodstain. No tangle of ...Read More
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The Fire Starters by Jan Carson (Black Swan Ireland) is on the shortlist for the €20,000 Novel of the Year category in the inaugural Dalkey Literary Awards, given by the Dalkey Book Festival. There are also finalists in the €10,000 Emerging Writer category. Winners will be announced June 20, 2020 at a digital awards ceremony.
For more information, including the complete shortlists, see the Dalkey Literary Awards website.
While you ...Read More
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The Lambda Literary Board of Trustees has awarded the 2020 Visionary Award to playwright and author Jane Wagner. The Visionary Award “honors those who, through their achievements and passionate commitment, have contributed to the LGBTQ literary community in significant and tangible ways.” Wagner’s work of genre interest includes The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1986).
The members of the 2020 Lambda Literary Board of Trustees are ...Read More
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Max Barry, Providence (Putnam 3/20) Barry mingles classic SF ideas, touches of satire, and deeply drawn characters in this entertaining SF thriller of war with aliens, a four-man mission sent to fight them, and the realization that their ship – and the people who sent them – are unreliable.
Elizabeth Bear, The Best of Elizabeth Bear (Subterranean 1/20) Bear’s wide-ranging skill is displayed in this collection of 27 stories, ...Read More
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Analog 3-4/20 Asimov’s 3-4/20 Pulp Literature Winter ’20 Uncanny 3-4/20
Analog offers several impressive stories in its March-April issue. Andy Dudak can be counted on for wild ideas, and “Midstrathe Exploding” delivers on that account. Ciaran is a pickpocket in Midstrathe City, which seems mainly known for the weirdly time-shifted explosion that engulfed it 200 years before and is still expanding with its victims frozen inside it. He ...Read More
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Finalists for the 2019 Australian Shadows Awards have been announced. The award is given by the Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) for “the finest in horror and dark fiction published by an Australasian within the calendar year.”
Best Novel
Best Short Fiction
George R.R. Martin (and two other investors) have purchased 18 miles of abandoned railway connecting the historic depot in Lamy NM with Santa Fe. He plans to restore the line as a tourist attraction and film shooting venue by 2022.
For more, see Martin’s announcement.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to ...Read More
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New books this week are by Trudi Canavan, Mark Clifton, Meg Elison, Jeffrey Ford, Nancy Kress, Emily B. Martin, P.W. Singer & August Cole, and Sheree Renée Thomas. ...Read More
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Patricia Briggs, Smoke Bitten (Ace 978-0-440-00155-3, $28.00, 342pp, hc) March 2020. Cover by Daniel Dos Santos.
A new foe with a really nasty bite and some creepy magic keeps Mercy busy trying protect friends and family. At the same time, she’s really worried about her mate. Alpha werewolf Adam hasn’t really recovered emotionally from the last big battle, retreating inside himself so far he’s even shut down their mage bond. ...Read More
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Finna, Nino Cipri (Tor.com 978-1-250-24573-1, $14.99, 138pp, tp) February 2020.
I suppose the giant retail emporium has served as a portal into shadowy realms at least since John Collier’s “Evening Primrose” almost eighty years ago, but the deliberately labyrinthine layout of IKEA stores seems almost designed for creepy stories – something that Nino Cipri enthusiastically takes advantage of in their novella Finna, which is partly a testy workplace ...Read More
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Beyond the Outposts: Essays on SF and Fantasy 1955-1996, Algis Budrys (Ansible Editions/Lulu.com, 978-0-244-56705-7, $22.50, 378pp, trade paperback) 2020.
The field of fantastika could never have reached its current flourishing condition, nor hope to continue forcefully, without the efforts of the small presses. These firms throughout the history of the genre and into the present have preserved many older works from oblivion and also offered homes to worthy living ...Read More
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King of the Dogs, Queen of the Cats, James Patrick Kelly; Stefan Rudnicki, narrator (Skyboat Media 978-1-09413898-5, $12.22, digital download, 2.25 hr., unabridged) January 2020.
Veteran narrator Stefan Rudnicki’s deep, nasal, almost lugubrious, voice (last appearing in this column in connection with Adam-Troy Castro’s short-story collection My Wife Hates Time Travel, and Other Stories) anchors the more absurd aspects of this novella, in which a circus serves as ...Read More
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Numerous authors, editors, and publishers are offering free material for readers stuck in isolation, including several of genre interest.
J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Audible, Overdrive, Pottermore, and Scholastic launched the “Harry Potter at Home” initiative, making the ebook and audiobook of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone free, and issuing a general read-aloud license for teachers so they can read from the book on video. There are also special activities for ...Read More
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An Orc on the Wild Side, Tom Holt; Ray Sawyer, narrator (Hachette Audio 978-1-47898841-0, $24.98, digital download, 14 hr., unabridged) September 2019.
Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, K.J. Parker; Ray Sawyer, narrator (Hachette Audio 978-1-54915698-4, $24.98, digital download, 13.25 hr., unabridged) December 2019.
In the late 1980s, I fell in love with Tom Holt’s first novel, Expecting Someone Taller, an amusing work that took the ...Read More
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The Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth College has awarded the $5,000 2020 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting to Drive by Deborah Yarchun.
A second-place prize, with a $750 honorarium, was awarded to Override by Elizabeth Keel.
The Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards program was established in 2017 as an open competition to honor and support creative works around speculative fiction. The playwriting award is offered to ...Read More
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The International Board on Books for Young People awarded the 2020 Hans Christian Anderson Award to author Jacqueline Woodson. Awarded biyearly, the Hans Christian Anderson Awards “recognize lifelong achievement and are given to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important, lasting contribution to children’s literature.” Woodson’s work of genre interest includes Harbor Me (2018) and “The Other Half of Me” in Tomorrowland: Ten Stories about ...Read More
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Romance Writers of America is retiring its RITA Awards and introducing a new award called The Vivian. Named after RWA founder Vivian Stephens, the new award “recognizes excellence in romance writing and showcases author talent and creativity. We celebrate the power of the romance genre with its central message of hope–because happily ever afters are for everyone.” A task force will present a proposed format for the Vivian at the ...Read More
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Fiyah Winter ’20 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 1/30/20, 2/13/20 Strange Horizons 2/3/20, 2/10/20 That We May Live: Speculative Chinese Fiction, Sarah Coolidge, ed. (Two Lines) March 2020.
The 13th issue of Fiyah is unthemed, letting the stories come unfettered and showcasing several very new authors. The lead is “All That the Storm Took” by Yah Yah Scholfield, a harrowing tale of surviving hurricane Katrina. The structure is ...Read More
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The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom, Volume One: The 1930s, David Ritter & Daniel Ritter (First Fandom Experience 978-1-7332964-4-1, $150.00, 516pp, hc) February 2020.
Fandom may be a billion-dollar industry these days, and the field of fandom studies has drawn enough scholarly attention that it even has its own academic journal, so old-time SF fans might be excused a degree of smugness while claiming – not unreasonably – ...Read More
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The British Book Awards, or Nibbies, will hold a virtual awards ceremony on June 29, 2020. The original award ceremony, planned for May 18, 2020, was postponed due to disruption caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.
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 would like to ...Read More
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The shortlist for the 2020 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 three titles of genre interest.
The judges for 2020
