Anderson, Justin Lee: The Bitter Crown (Orbit US 9780316454308, $19.99, 560pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 12/05/2023)
Fantasy novel, the second in the Eidyn Saga series. The fog of war is lifted and the conspiracy at the heart of Eidyn finally exposed. Now that they know the truth, Aranok and his allies must find a way to free a country that doesn’t know it’s held captive.
Armstrong, Jess: The ...Read More
Read more
Edgmon, H.E.: Godly Heathens (St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 9781250853615, $20, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 11/28/2023)
Young-adult fantasy novel, first in the Ouroboros series. Gem, a nonbinary Seminole teen who’s having dreams of magic and violence, doesn’t know how to deal with a strange new girl who knows too much, and then the Goddess of Death attacks.
Elliott, Lauren: Murder in a Cup (Kensington Cozies 9781496739070, $27, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ...Read More
Read more
Adams, Gillian Bronte: Of Sea and Smoke (Enclave Escape 9798886050783, $26.99, 512pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 11/21/2023)
Young-adult fantasy novel, second in The Fireborn Epic series. Rafi Tetrani reluctantly takes on his dead brother’s responsibilities as the empire’s lost heir, and vows to fight the usurper on the throne. A stolen shipload of magical horses he finds may offer just the edge he will need.
Greenberger, Robert: Sand and ...Read More
Read more
Bruno, Rhett C. & Bakutis, T.E.: Mind Burn (Blackstone Publishing 9798200996421, $27.99, 464pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, audio, 11/14/2023)
Near-future SF techno-thriller/mystery novel. Detective Cowan Soto, a trainee with a cybernetic implant, investigates the first successful mass shooting in 12 years — while trying to hide the fact he’s illegally unbound by behavioral modification protocols himself.
Danan, Rosie: Do Your Worst (Penguin Random House/Berkley 9780593437148, $17, 352pp, formats: ...Read More
Read moreFinalists for the 2017 Parsec Awards, honoring excellence in speculative fiction podcasting, have been announced. Winners will be announced during a virtual streaming ceremony in November.
Best Speculative Fiction Comedy/Parody Podcast
Best Podcast about Speculative ...Read More
Read moreThe 2017 Geffen Awards winners have been announced. The awards are presented annually by the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Best Translated Science Fiction Book
Best Translated Fantasy Book
Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner), is one of 24 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellows selected for 2017. Each “genius grant” recipient receives “a stipend of $625,000… paid out in equal quarterly installments over five years.”
Although nominees are reviewed for their achievements, the fellowship is not a lifetime achievement award, but rather an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential. Indeed, the purpose ...Read More
Read more
Tool of War, by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown 978-0-316-22083-5, $17.99, 384pp, hardcover) October 2017
The famously hazy interzone between fiction for adults and fiction for youths totally inverts, evaporates, resubstantiates, and turns into a four-dimensional labyrinth when we consider a novel such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s Tool of War. Demarcations and prohibitions and expectations become meaningless or double-valued, and in the end all one can say is that, no
» Chicago Tribune: Gary K. Wolfe reviews John Crowley, Paolo Bacigalupi, Paul Cornell
» NY Times: Nnedi Okorafor and the Fantasy Genre She Is Helping Redefine
» Quartz: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nobel Prize is a victory for literary weirdness: “In honoring him, the Nobel Committee has helped legitimize speculative fiction — an umbrella term for all fiction containing supernatural, science-fiction, dreamlike, horror, fantasy, or simply impossible elements — within a global ...Read More
Read more
+ Alderman, Naomi : The Power (Little, Brown 978-0-316-54761-1, $26, 400pp, hardcover, October 2017) • Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Oct 2017 • Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780316547659 • Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9781478999904
SF novel in which teenage girls develop the power to cause others agonizing pain and death, triggering an upturning of worldwide order. • The book was first published in the UK in
Author and scientist Yoji Kondo, who wrote SF as Eric Kotani, 84, died October 9, 2017.
His Island Worlds series (written with John Maddox Roberts) includes Act of God (1985) The Island Worlds (1987), and Between the Stars (1988). He wrote standalones Delta Pavonis (1990) and Legacy of Prometheus (2000) with Maddox, and Supernova (1991) with Roger MacBride Allen. With Dean Wesley Smith he wrote Star Trek Voyager: Death of ...Read More
Read moreThe Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced the recipients of its 2017 scholarships.
The Horror Writers Association Scholarship went to John C. Mannone. First awarded in 2014 and open to all horror writers, $2,500 is “given annually to a deserving horror writer to assist in his/her professional development.”
The Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship went to A.E. Siraki. Open to female horror writers and first awarded in 2014, $2,500 is given annually ...Read More
Read moreWriter ElizaBeth Gilligan, 55, died October 9, 2017 of cancer. Gilligan’s first story was “Evolution” (1990), and she published several stories in anthologies and magazines. She was best known for the Silken Magic trilogy: Magic’s Silken Snare (2003), The Silken Shroud (2004), and Sovereign Silk (2017). She edited anthology Alterna-Teas (2016), wrote a column for Midnight Zoo in the 1990s, and served as secretary of SFWA from 2002 to 2003. ...Read More
Read more
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 10.15 WP 10.08 LAT 10.08 USAT 10.01 PW 10.09 Amz (10.09) UK: Amz UK (10.09) Canada: Amz.ca (10.09) Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed 30×4 10×2 15×2 150 15×3 100 100 100 Hardcovers Bardugo, The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic ...Read More Read more
The winner of the 2017 Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) Small Press Award for Short Fiction was announced October 7, 2017: “The Tomato Thief”, Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/16).
Finalists included “A Salvaging of Ghosts”, Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/16); “The Mytilenian Delay”, Neil James Hudson (Hyperpowers); “Radio Silence”, Walter H. Hunt (Alien Artifacts); “Foxfire, Foxfire”, Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/16); “Vengeance Sewn
Apex Magazine • Quarterly magazine of SF and horror, since 2005; current editor Jason Sizemore • Format: Online; Ebook formats • Frequency: Monthly • http://apex-magazine.com/
October 2017— Issue 101, cover art by Rubén Castro • This issue has fiction by Dennis Danvers, Lavie Tidhar, Annie Neugebauer, Alethea Kontis, Sheree Renée Thomas, and Kate Ingram. • Nonfiction includes interviews with Dennis Danvers and Rubén Castro, a feature by Ed Grabianowski,
Light Bringer Project and Sci-Fest L.A. 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 Women Hold Up Half the Sky award presented by Artemis Journal and the Hollywood Chapter of the National Organization for Women, and the Green Feather Award presented by Los ...Read More
Read more
British author Kazuo Ishiguro has won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature. In a press release on October 5, 2017, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Sara Danius announced the selection of Ishiguro “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” His genre novels include The Unconsoled (Knopf/Faber & Faber 1995), Never Let Me Go (Knopf/Faber & Faber ...Read More
Read more
Carmen Maria Machado won the 2018 Bard Fiction Prize for Her Body and Other Parties (Graywolf). The prize “is awarded to a promising emerging writer who is an American citizen aged 39 years or younger at the time of application” and includes a $30,000 cash prize. Machado also receives an appointment as a writer-in-residence at Bard College for the Fall 2018 semester.
For more information, see the Bard College website. ...Read More
Read more
The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association (CSFFA) announced three inductees to the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame for 2017: Charles de Lint, Lorna Toolis, and Elisabeth Vonarburg. The induction took place on September 23, 2017 during Hal-Con, held at the World Trade and Convention Centre in Halifax Nova Scotia.
For more information, see the CSFFA website. ...Read More
Read more
Finalists for the National Book Awards (NBA) have been announced. The shortlist for the Fiction category includes Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf), and the shortlist for the Young People’s Literature category includes American Street by Ibi Zoboi (Balzer + Bray).
Each finalist will receive a prize of $1,000, a medal, and a citation; each of the four category winners will receive $10,000 and a ...Read More
Read more
N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season (Orbit) has won the 2015/2016 Sputnik Award.
The Sputniks were formed in May 2016 by Jo Lindsay Walton as a response to nomination problems within the Hugo Awards. Nominations for the Sputnik Awards were open to everyone, with finalists selected via a tournament process called the Dungeons of Democracy. Jemisin wins a one-year subscription to Interzone.
For a full list of nominees, selection rules, and ...Read More
Read more
* Aryan, Stephen : Mageborn (Orbit 978-0-316-55478-7, $16.99, 432pp, trade paperback, October 2017) • Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 Oct 2017 • Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780316554794 • Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9781478923183 • Age of Dread #1
Fantasy novel, first in a new series set in the aftermath of the author’s “Age of Darkness” trilogy, about a minority population with magical abilities in a society
KulturForum Europa (KFE) has awarded composer, conductor, and science fiction writer Somtow Sucharitkul its 2017 European Award for Cultural Achievement. Somtow will receive the award “for his services (and also in the spirit of international diversity) — as cultural ambassador between East and West, overcoming national borders and cultural-historical barriers from and to Europe, and establishing meaningful collaborative connections in Thailand and Europe.” The award will be given at a ...Read More
Read more
The British Fantasy Society announced the winners of the 2017 British Fantasy Awards on October 1, 2017 during an awards ceremony held at Fantasycon 2017 at the Bull Hotel in Peterborough UK. The winners are:
Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 10.08 WP 10.01 LAT 10.01 USAT 09.24 PW 10.02 Amz (10.02) UK: Amz UK (10.02) Canada: Amz.ca (10.02) Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed 30×4 10×2 15×2 150 15×3 100 100 100 Hardcovers Bardugo, Wonder Woman: Warbringer 09.11.17 / ...Read More Read more
Beneath Ceaseless Skies • Literary adventure fantasy, since 2008; publisher and editor-in-chief Scott H. Andrews • Format: Online; PDF and ebook formats • Frequency: biweekly • http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/
September 2017— Issue 234-235, cover art by Veli Nystrom • Issue 235, the 9th anniversary double-sized issue, posted September 28th, has stories by Richard Parks, Kameron Hurley, Rebecca Campbell, and T.S. McAdams, with an archive story by K.J. Parker. • Issue 234,
The winner, finalists, and honorable mentions for the inaugural Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction have been announced:
Winner
Finalists
Honorable Mentions
The American Library Association (ALA) has announced the longlist for the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence for “the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year.” Several titles of genre interest appear on the list:
Fiction
Black Static • British fantasy and horror magazine, debuting 2007 (formerly The Third Alternative), edited by Andy Cox • Format: Print • Frequency: Bimonthly • http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/
Sep-Oct 2017— Issue 60, £5.99, 96pp, cover art by Ben Baldwin • Stories in this issue are by Carole Johnstone, Tim Lees, Ray Cluley, and Stephen Hargadon. • Columns are by Lynda E. Rucker, Ralph Robert Moore, Peter Tennant (book reviews, including an
» NY Times Book Review: Andrew O’Hehir on The 21st-Century Fantasy Trilogy That Changed the Game, reviewing N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Sky
» New York Review of SF Readings present Gardner Dozois and Michael Swanwick, October 3 ...Read More
Read more» NY Times: Is Climate-Themed Fiction All Too Real? We Asked the Experts, with discussion of works by Bacigalupi, VanderMeer, Robinson, and others ...Read More
Read more 
Every contribution helps pay our writers, editors, and artists, sustain the magazine and website, and allows us to continue to share our content without a paywall. Even a small contribution goes a long way toward keeping Locus going and keeping you up to date with new exciting books and in the know about the SFF world. Thank you for your help!
