Month: October 2020

Awards News 

2020 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize Shortlist

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This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga) and The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes (Saga) are on the six-title shortlist for the 2020 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. The finalists were selected from 110 works nominated by Brooklyn librarians. Linda E. Johnson, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library, says,

From speculative fiction to reportage, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Katharine Coldiron Reviews The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke

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The Scapegracers, Hannah Abigail Clarke (Erewhon 978-1-64566-000-2, $17.95, 400pp, hc) September 2020.

As an adult woman two decades out from my teenage years, I found The Scapegracers frankly irritating. It so perfectly captures the labile emo­tional textures and bad judgment calls of being a teen girl that it made me cringe, again and again, like that Chrissy Teigen GIF on an infinite loop. However, if you happen to be ...Read More

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Awards News 

Sturgeon Award Winner

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Results for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction of 2019 have been announced by the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction. The award is normally presented during the annual Campbell Conference Awards, but was instead announced online.

  • WINNER: “Waterlines“, Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s 7-8/19)
  • Second place: This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga)
  • Third place: “The
...Read More Read more
Awards News 

2020 BSFS Amateur Writing Contest Winners

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Winners of the 2020 Baltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) Amateur Writing Contest were announced during Capclave, held online October 17-18, 2020.

  • 1st Place: “The Dragon Who Refused to Fly”, Mary Harrigan
  • 2nd Place: “Starling”, Alexander Dzwonchyk
  • 3rd Place: “A Tale from the Harmonium”, Miguel O. Mitchell

The contest is open to non-professional writers residing or attending school in Maryland. The first place winner receives $250, second place receives $100, and

...Read More Read more
Books Reviews Short Fiction 

Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Settling the World: Selected Stories 1970-2020 by M. John Harrison

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Settling the World: Selected Stories 1970-2020, M. John Harrison (Comma Press 978-1912697281, £9.99, 288pp, tp) August 2020.

Harrison’s acute and sometimes merciless fasci­nation with couples who don’t quite know what they’re doing also shows up in two of the most memorable stories in Settling the World: Selected Stories 1969-2019, his first real retrospective collection since Things That Never Happen back in 2003. “The Gift” describes the parallel stories ...Read More

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Announcements Legal News Publishing 

Harlan and Susan Ellison Trust

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J. Michael Straczynski announced that he was appointed executor of the Harlan and Susan Ellison Trust. He says,

Looking after all this, and seeing to Harlan and Susan’s wishes, is something I will likely be doing for the rest of my life.

Everything that Harlan ever owned, did or wrote will be fiercely protected. Steps are being taken to certify Ellison Wonderland as a cultural landmark, ensuring that it will ...Read More

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Awards News 

2020 Neukom Award Event

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The Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth College will host an online event on October 21, 2020 at 2 p.m. Eastern time, celebrating the winners of the 2020 Neukom Literary Awards.

The event is free and open to the public, and will include a panel discussion with winners Ted Chiang and Cadwell Turnbull, 2020 judge Sam J. Miller, and awards director Dan Rockmore. An author Q&A will follow.

For ...Read More

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Announcements News Publishing 

Spectrum 28 Submissions Delayed

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Submissions for Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art #28 have been delayed until 2021, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cathy & Arnie Fenner, who recently replaced John Fleskes as directors of the Spectrum Fantastic Art competi­tion and editors of the annual art book, said,

We believe the responsible thing for us to do is to delay opening Spectrum 28 for submissions until after the first of the ...Read More

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Features Interviews 

Naomi Kritzer: CatNet

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Naomi Katherine Kritzer was born April 23, 1973 in North Carolina and lived in Indiana and Texas before age five; she grew up in Madison WI and lived in London for a year at 13. She moved to Minnesota to attend Carleton College and remained there after graduating in 1995, settling in St. Paul. She is married with two children.

Kritzer’s first SF story was “Faust’s SASE” (1999), and she ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Colleen Mondor Reviews Burn by Patrick Ness

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Burn, Patrick Ness (Harper Teen 978-0-06-286951-7, $18.99, 384pp, hc) June 2020.

The first half of Patrick Hess’s thrilling alt-history, Burn, is set in a small rural Washington State town in 1957. Sarah Dewhurst and her father are barely holding their farm together, still mourning the recent death of Sarah’s mother and struggling to find a way to be a family without her. Gareth Dewhurst cannot af­ford the men ...Read More

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Awards News 

Honigman Wins 2020 WSFA Small Press Award

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“The Partisan and the Witch” by Charlotte Honigman (Skull and Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga) is the winner of the 2020 Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) Small Press Award for Short Fiction. Other finalists were:

  • “The Blighted Godling of Company Town H”, Beth Cato (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 1/3/19)
  • “The Weight of Mountains”, L. Deni Colter (DreamForge 6/19)
  • “The Sound of Distant Stars”, Judi Fleming (Footprints in
...Read More Read more
Awards News 

Ignyte Awards Winners

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The winners of the inaugural Ignyte Awards, which “seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre,” were announced during FIYAHCON on October 17, 2020.

Best Novel — Adult

  • WINNER: Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
  • Kingdom of Copper, S.A. Chakraborty
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Books Reviews Short Fiction 

Paul Di Filippo Reviews My Favorites by Ben Bova

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My Favorites, Ben Bova (Blackstone 978-1094000923, 352pp, $24.99, hardcover) October 2020

Ben Bova turns 88 in November of 2020. He also just published a new novel, Uranus, a few months ago. Two statements of this general import are not usually compatible. Writers who continue to maintain their productivity—and personal standards of quality—so late in life form a small elite. In our field, we note such towering figures as ...Read More

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Blinks 

Blinks: NYT, Guardian reviews; Cory Doctorow; Andrew Liptak

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» NY Times: Amal El-Mohtar reviews C.L. Polk, V.E. Schwab, Susanna Clarke

» Slate: Cory Doctorow: The Dangers of Cynical Sci-Fi Disaster Stories: I’m changing how I write fiction—for the benefit of the real world.

» Guardian: Eric Brown reviews Andrzei Sapkowski, Tony Ballantyne, Peter F. Hamilton, Kate Elliott, Graham Masterton

» Polygon: Andrew Liptak selects 15 recent sci-fi books that forever shaped the genre and other articles in its ...Read More

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Awards News 

QueerSciFi.com Flash Fiction Contest Winners

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QueerSciFi.com has announced the winners of their annual flash fiction contest, with 300-word stories inspired by a one-word theme (2020’s theme was “Innovation”). The top three winners are Devon Widmer (first place), E.M. Hamill (second), and K.A. Masters (third), and the top 120 stories were published in the Innovation anthology. For more: <www.queerscifi.com>.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. ...Read More

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News Publishing 

New PS Imprint: Absinthe Books

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UK small press PS Publishing has launched a new imprint, Absinthe Books, with author/editor Marie O’Regan serving as managing editor. The imprint’s “remit is to publish a wide range of authors and material, predominantly but not exclusively new to PS Publishing.”

The first titles are novellas Mr. Sandman by S.J.I. Holliday, Broken Things: A Tale of Durstan by George Mann, and On the Shoulders of Otava by Laura Mauro, launching ...Read More

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Announcements Bookstores News 

Barnes & Noble Cyberattack

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Barnes & Noble warned customers via email to be “on high alert” following an October 10 data breach.

While we do not know if any personal information was exposed as a result of the attack, we do retain in the impacted systems your billing and shipping addresses, your email address and your telephone number if you have supplied these… It is possible that your email address was exposed and, as ...Read More

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Conventions Features 

The Outer Dark Report

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The Outer Dark Symposium on the Greater Weird was held online August 14-16, 2020 for 232 registered attendees, organized by Anya Martin, co-producer of The Outer Dark podcast hosted by This Is Horror.

Scheduled programming featured 12 reading sessions with Mike Allen, Gregory Norman Bossert, Gabriela Damián Miravete, and others. Panels included “From Yellow Wallpaper to Spectral Hues: Color in Weird Fiction” with Daniel Braum, Craig Laurance Gidney, Brian ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Ian Mond Reviews Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

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Tender Is the Flesh, Agustina Bazterrica (Scribner 978-1-982-15092-1, $16.00, 224pp, tp) August 2020.

Tender Is the Flesh, by Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica (and wonderfully translated from the Spanish by Sarah Moses), is not for the faint of heart. The novel is set sometime in the future, when animals across the world have been infected by a virus that’s made them poisonous to eat. In response, governments cull their ...Read More

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Announcements News 

Time‘s 100 Best Fantasy Books

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Time magazine has released a list of the “100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time“, curated by Time editors and a panel of authors consisting of Tomi Adeyemi, Cassandra Clare, Diana Gabaldon, Neil Gaiman, N.K. Jemisin, Marlon James, George R.R. Martin, and Sabaa Tahir.

The list is presented in chronological order, starting with 9th-century The Arabian Nights and ending with Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez (Page Street), released January ...Read More

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Awards News 

Goldsmiths Prize 2020 Shortlist

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The six-title shortlist for the 2020 Goldsmiths Prize has been announced, including the following titles of genre interest:

  • The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, M. John Harrison (Gollancz)
  • Meanwhile in Dopamine City, DBC Pierre (Faber)
  • The Mermaid of Black Conch, Monique Roffey (Peepal Tree)

The £10,000 is given for a book by a British or Irish author that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of

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Announcements Milestones News Publishing 

People & Publishing Roundup, October 2020

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MILESTONES

HOWARD V. HENDRIX‘s home near Shaver Lake CA was destroyed in the Creek Fire in September 2020, shortly after the area received an evacuation order. He and his wife are “displaced persons staying in a motel in Fresno.” He wrote about the experience for the San Francisco Chronicle: <www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Disaster-hits-home-for-volunteer-firefighter-in-15567282.php>.

FRAN WILDE is the Fall 2020 Pearl S. Buck Writer in (remote) Residence at Randolph College, beginning in October. ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Karen Burnham Reviews Short Fiction: Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and BCS

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Clarkesworld 7/20 Lightspeed 8/20 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7/2/20, 7/16/20

July’s Clarkesworld starts with a straightfor­wardly science fictional Michael Swanwick story. In “Artificial People” Raphael is an android turned on and off repeatedly as an entrepreneurial roboticist struggles to come up with a commercially successful product. Raphael loves, loses, goes to war, gets rich, and has to make some interesting decisions with the power that his later days have ...Read More

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Films 

Sometimes You Get the Bear: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss The New Mutants

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A fresh batch of young mutants has arrived, but don’t call them X-Men just yet, and don’t call them superheroes, either. After surviving a freak storm that kills every person on her reservation, including both of her parents, Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt) finds herself in a nearly abandoned hospital occupied by four other teenagers — Rahne (Maisie Williams), Illyana (Anya Taylor-Joy), Roberto (Henry Zaga), and Sam (Charlie Heaton) — and ...Read More

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News Publishing 

Random House Launches New Children’s/YA Imprint

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Random House Children’s Books has announced a new middle grade and YA imprint, Labyrinth Road, with a focus on contemporary fantasy and realistic literary novels. Liesa Abrams will serve as vice president and editor-in-chief of the imprint, effective November 9, 2020. Abrams was most recently vice-president, editor-at-large at Simon & Schuster. In a statement, she says,

Labyrinth Road is a home for books about epic journeys—both fantastical and emotional—that give ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Katharine Coldiron Reviews Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

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Drowned Country, Emily Tesh (Tor.com Pub­lishing 978-1-25075-660-2, $13.99, 160pp, tp) August 2020.

This time last year, I reviewed Emily Tesh’s debut novella, Silver in the Wood. It was an enchanting little book, full of love and darkness and the flutter of green leaves against one’s cheek. It can only be good news that this year we have a second Emily Tesh novella, con­tinuing the story of Silver in ...Read More

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Conventions News 

WFC Addresses Programming and Discrimination Issues

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The World Fantasy Convention 2020 committee has revised its program descriptions after facing public criticism and attendee withdrawals from members of the industry. According to a press release,

WFC Chair Ginny Smith engaged the help of three well-respected members of the fantasy community, two people of color and a well-regarded writer and sensitivity advisor, to review the offensive and insensitive programming language. They have completed their review and the revised ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Rich Horton Reviews Short Fiction: F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog, LCRW, and Galaxy’s Edge

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F&SF 9-10/20 Asimov’s 7-8/20 Analog 7-8/20 Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 6/20 Galaxy’s Edge 7/20

Leah Cypess returns with another strong fairy tale-derived story in the latest F&SF. Like her previous F&SF story, “Stepsister”, “Of Them All” is sharply focused on the moral effects of fairy magic – or, rather, on human choices that may or may not be at­tributable to fairy gifts. The protagonist’s gift is that she ...Read More

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