Andrea Hairston was born July 9, 1952, in Pittsburgh PA, and lived there until she moved to Massachusetts to attend Smith College at 18, where she studied physics and math before switching to theater. She did graduate work at Brown, and has taught theater in the US and Germany. She is currently the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Africana Studies at Smith College, and the Artistic Director ...Read More
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Baffling 10/20 Weird Horror Fall ’20 Fantasy 11/20
Fall 2020 brought a new online magazine, a new print periodical, and the return of a digital magazine.
Baffling launched October 1, 2020 with four “unapologetically queer and unashamedly weird” stories of under 1,200 words. (Going forward they will publish one flash story a month on Patreon, compile the offerings quarterly, then publish that for free online.) Baffling #1 offers a welcome ...Read More
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PS Publishing has announced that it will take over publication of Interzone magazine from TTA Press, which also produces the Black Static and Crimewave magazines. Ian Whates of NewCon Press will replace Andy Cox as editor.
PS co-founder Peter Crowther said, “The call came on the Saturday before Christmas Day, from Andy Cox, Main Man of Interzone magazine who wanted to know if I fancied taking on IZ’s production reins, ...Read More
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The Association of Authors’ Representatives (the professional organization for literary agents) has changed its name to the Association of American Literary Agents. They say the new name “better reflects the membership and aligns the organization with its core mission of empowering and educating literary agents.” They’re updating their website to reflect the new branding and to “offer deeper resources for members and writers.” They’ve added a non-profit division, Literary Agents ...Read More
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Art of Gary Gianni for George R.R. Martin’s Seven Kingdoms, Gary Gianni (Flesk Publications 978-1-64041-022-0, $49.95, 303pp, hc) March 2020. Cover by Gary Gianni.
It’s easy to get lost in the expressive, romantic linework and painting of master artist Gary Gianni’s illustrations for George R.R. Martin’s Seven Kingdoms. Somehow the heroes and heroines of A Song of Ice and Fire look more heroic, the villains more dastardly, and the ...Read More
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Yesterday’s Tomorrows: The Story of Classic British Science Fiction in 100 Books, Mike Ashley (British Library Published 978-0712353717, £15.00, 320pp, trade paperback) October 2020 (US edition titled Yesterday’s Tomorrows: The Story of Science Fiction in 100 Books, May 2021).
The British Library wants to share their wealth. Realizing that many of their 25 million books have undeservedly faded from current memory and attention, the BL has embarked on ...Read More
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The litigation between Chooseco (which holds the trademark for “Choose Your Own Adventure” books) and Netflix regarding the latter’s interactive movie Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has ended. The two companies informed their judge in November 2020 that they’d reached a settlement, though terms were not disclosed. Chooseco argued that Netflix appropriated their protected imagery and terminology without permission.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a ...Read More
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Middle-earth Journeys in Myth and Legend, Donato Giancola (Dark Horse 978-1-50671-086-0, $29.99, 199pp, hc) April 2019. Cover by Donato Giancola.
Much-awarded and acclaimed classical realist artist Donato Giancola has such technical mastery that he is able to depict powerful, memorable images in both SF and fantasy throughout his career. From spacesuits to hobbits, he can and has done it all. Here he takes a deep, delicious dive into all ...Read More
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German SF looks back upon a history found in many other European countries: 17th and 18th-century proto-SF (such as Somnium [The Dream] by astronomer Johannes Kepler), a first novel meeting modern SF criteria published at the beginning of the 19th century (Ini. Ein Roman aus dem ein und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert [Ini. A Novel from the Twenty-First Century] by Julius von Voss in 1810 – eight years before Shelley’s Frankenstein ...Read More
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The Evidence, Christopher Priest (Gollancz 978-1-473231375, £20.00, 320pp, hc) October 2020.
Long before the notion of worldbuilding became catnip for writer’s workshops and convention panels, Christopher Priest was finding new ways to explore and exploit his massive Dream Archipelago, a string of thousands of islands on a world in which the two major countries on a massive continent waged an endless war, mostly through a frozen south polar wasteland ...Read More
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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 9/24/20 Omenana 8/20
Beneath Ceaseless Skies has so many excuses to celebrate! There are the big round number celebrations, like issue number 300 back in March, as well as September’s calendar anniversary. All the more opportunity to appreciate a venue that has steadfastly brought us excellent fiction from a broad range of writers, always expanding the remit of “literary adventure fantasy” in secondary world settings. September brings ...Read More
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Rise of the Red Hand, Olivia Chadha (Erewhon 978-1645660101, $18.95, 384pp, hardcover) January 2021.
Olivia Chadha’s heartfelt, adroit, brisk and thoughtful debut novel proves that everything old is new again. While its “Clutian Real Year” (i.e., the headspace and zeitgeist that birthed it and which provided its themes) is definitely 2020, its soul and blood and sinews are somewhere back in 1985, with the nascent Neuromancer. It’s nth-generation ...Read More
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The Extraordinaries, TJ Klune (Tor Teen, 978-1-250-20365-6, $18.99, 399pp, hc) May 2020.
TJ Klune follows up The House in the Cerulean Sea with another compelling human drama that is set in a world like our own, but with a few unexpected fantasy elements. In Cerulean Sea it was people with magical abilities; this time around, in The Extraordinaries, it’s somewhat unconventional superheroes. Teen Nick Bell lives with his ...Read More
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The Endeavour Award committee has announced the suspension of the 2021 award for books published in 2020. In a statement, they said,
Several reasons have led to the suspension. The Covid 19 situation has made it more difficult to run our preliminary judging. In addition to problems stemming from the pandemic, additional problems have contributed to the need to suspend the Award.
We expect to begin collecting books published during ...Read More
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The Washington Science Fiction Association is now accepting nominations of “works published for the first time in the English language in 2020” for its Small Press Award, given annually to an outstanding story of “imaginative literature” (17,500 words or fewer) published in the small press. Authors and small-press publishers are among those eligible to nominate, and need not be members of WSFA. Finalists are selected “by a committee of five ...Read More
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This list of 2020 speculative titles in translation was compiled by Rachel Cordasco, who founded and runs site sfintranslation.com as well as the SF in Translation Award. Corrections may be sent to locus@locusmag.com.
SF IN TRANSLATION 2020
NOVELS
Anthropocene Rag, Alex Irvine (Tor.com Publishing 978-1-250-26927-0, $14.99, 256pp, tp) March 2020.
I’m still not certain what actually happened in Alex Irvine’s Anthropocene Rag – but I do know that this journey into the heart of a transformed-by-nanotech America is a fascinating ride to take. In the end, that may be all that matters.
Irvine’s America is one where the Boom – essentially, programmable bits of tech that are ...Read More
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Underneath the Oversea, Marc Laidlaw (Freestyle, $6.99, eb) October 2020.
Here’s an experiment I wish I could conduct. I would strip all identifying data from Marc Laidlaw’s new fantasy novel, Underneath the Oversea, and then hand the raw text to a number of savvy lovers of fantastika. I’m willing to bet that many of them would react by saying something along these lines: “Wow! This must be some ...Read More
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The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey (Peepal Tree) has won the 2020 Costa Novel award.
The Costa Book Awards recognizes “some of the most enjoyable books of the year, written by authors based in the UK and Ireland.” Each winner in the five individual categories receives £5,000. The Costa Book of the Year, an award accompanied by a £30,000 prize, will be selected from the category winners and ...Read More
Read moreArtist JAEL, 83, died November 17, 2020. Jael’s artistic career spanned six decades, during which she published hundreds of SF book and magazine cover illustrations, in addition to fine arts work and other commissions. Some of her art was collected in Perceptualistics (2002). She was nominated for eight Chesley Awards from 1985-2002.
Jael Ashton was born October 31, 1937, and grew up in Utah. She worked as a professional ...Read More
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Public voting is now open for the Analog Science Fiction and Fact Analytical Laboratory (AnLab) and Asimov’s Science Fiction Readers’ Awards, covering works published in their 2020 issues. Readers can select three favorite choices from each magazine in novella, novelette, short story, poem, and cover categories, as well as a “Best Science Fact” article from Analog. The deadline to vote is February 1, 2021.
For more information, see the Analog ...Read More
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Finalists for the 2020 Children’s and Young Adults Bloggers’ Literary Awards (Cybils) have been announced. Books of genre interest follow.
Young Adult Speculative Fiction
Writer Anton Strout, 50, died unexpected on December 30, 2020. Strout was an author of urban fantasy, best known for his Simon Canderous series. He was also the host of the Once and Future Podcast, where he interviewed authors beginning in 2014, producing more than 200 episodes. He worked in publishing as well, as a longtime sales rep for Penguin Random House.
Anton Strout was born January 24, 1970 in ...Read More
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As I write this in mid-November 2020, there’s quite a stir over the new version of Apple’s Mac OS, the operating system that runs on its laptops. For more than a year, Apple has engaged in a covert, global surveillance of its users through its operating system, which automatically sent information about which apps you were running to Apple, and which gave Apple a remote veto over whether that program ...Read More
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Rest and Be Thankful, Emma Glass (Bloomsbury 978-1-526-60107-0, £12.99, 144pp, hc) March 2020.
While I know it’s odd to say anything remotely positive about 2020, I found this to be an incredible year for fiction and especially sophomore novels from some of the UK’s brightest authors, including Daisy Johnson, Sophie Mackintosh, Megan Hunter, and now Emma Glass. Peach, Glass’s debut novel published in 2018, was an ambitious, if ...Read More
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Amazon Publishing may shift their longstanding stance against allowing libraries to lend their ebooks. The company is said to be in “active discussions” with the Digital Public Library of America to alter its policies. Amazon is reportedly “testing a number of different models” and may lend books as early as 2021, with a spokesperson saying, “We believe libraries serve a critical purpose in communities across the country, and our priority ...Read More
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The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde: An Illuminated Edition, Oscar Wilde & Yuko Shimizu (Beehive Books 979-1-948886-01-7, $100.00, 140pp, hc) April 2020. Cover by Yuko Shimuzu.
Historically, small presses have been the refuge of non-mainstream writers and artists, whose work they have nurtured and promoted. In the SFnal field they have provided an important home for many award-winning writers (I’m looking at you, Tachyon). In addition to Tachyon Publications ...Read More
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Knopf Random House Canada is splitting apart: beginning in 2021, Knopf Canada and Random House Canada will operate independently again (they were combined in 2009). Publisher Anne Collins will become executive editor and vice-president of Random House Canada on January 4, 2021. CEO Kristin Cochrane says, “I believe the time is right to have space for each to build on its past successes and pave the way for the future. ...Read More
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Leonardo 2, Stéphane Levallois (NBM/Louvre éditions 978-1-681122-64-9, $29.99, 96pp, hc) October 2020. Cover by Stéphane Levallois.
If we ever needed art, we need it now. Discussing art books in a time of plague may seem frivolous, but there’s an argument to be made that any distraction becomes precious during times of extreme stress. Also valuable is the reminder of the sublime and ingenious ways humans can transmute powerful emotions ...Read More
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Entanglements: Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends, Sheila Williams, ed. (MIT Press 978-0-26253-925-8, 240pp, $19.95, tp) September 2020.
Artificial intelligence, genome tampering (eugenics), sex bots, and other forms of technology descend upon the middle class in Entanglements, an anthology from Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov’s. Originally launched in 2011 by MIT Technology Review, Twelve Tomorrows is an annual anthology series that explores the role of technology in near and ...Read More
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