Ian Mond Reviews Hospital by Han Song

Hospital, Han Song (Amazon Crossing 978-1-54203-947-5, $28.99, 414pp, hc) March 2023.

Summarising the plot of Hospital by Chinese author Han Song (translated by Michael Berry) is a near-impossible task, yet I’m willing to give it a crack. The novel begins in the far future with the SS Mahamayuri heading to Mars to find one of the many Buddhas scattered across the Universe. But after landing on the Red Planet, ...Read More

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Rajnar Vajra (1947-2023)

SF writer Rajnar Vajra, 75, died May 16, 2023 in Amherst MA.

David Rajnar Vajra-Loeb was born September 16, 1947 in New York City, where he lived until his family moved to San Diego CA when he was six. He attended Berkeley College in the 1960s, where he formed a band. He later relocated to Massachusetts, where he remained heavily involved in the music scene as a performer, sound designer, ...Read More

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HWA Scholarships Open

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced that the submission window for HWA scholarships, grants, and endowments are open from June 1, 2023 to August 1, 2023. You do not need to be a member of the organization to apply.

Available programs include The Horror Writers Association Scholarship, The Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship, Diversity Grants, The Dark Poetry Scholarship, The Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-fiction, The Dennis Etchison Young ...Read More

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Dark Matter Magazine to Close

Dark Matter Magazine has announced that Issue 018 (11-12/23) will be the final issue of its three-year run. Founder and publisher Rob Carroll says in a note:

These past three years have been a dream come true for me. The joy of creating and editing my own science fiction magazine was an honor and a privilege, and one that I’ll never forget. Helping in a small way to create something ...Read More

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Angela Slatter Reviews Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones

Don’t Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga 978-1-98218-659-3, $27.99, 464pp, hc) February 2023.

“It’s starting again.”

Welcome home, Jade. Well, Jenni­fer – Jade’s not herself right now. Not after several years in the injustice system. That experience has beaten her all out of shape – out of her true self. She’s started to think that safety lies in denying who she was – is – the one with ...Read More

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2023 Glass Bell Award Longlist

The longlist for the seventh annual Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award has been announced. Authors and titles of genre interest include:

  • The Leviathan, Rosie Andrews (Raven)
  • When We Were Birds, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo (Doubleday)
  • Pandora, Susan Stokes-Chapman (Harper Perennial)
  • The Final Strife, Saara El-Arifi (Del Rey)
  • The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley, Sean Lusk (Doubleday)
  • Metronome, Tom Watson (Bloomsbury)
  • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
...Read More Read more

Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Diabolical Plots, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and GigaNotoSaurus

Diabolical Plots 3/23 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/9/23, 3/23/23 GigaNotoSaurus 3/23

Diabolical Plots celebrated March with a special issue on telepathy dubbed Diabolical Thoughts, guest-edited by assistant editor Ziv Wities. All four works in the issue circle influence, mind control, and mental communication. As with The Desert’s Voice is Sweet to Hear” by Carolina Valentine, which finds Zazy moving through a desert that wants to embrace her like an ...Read More

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Dunbar and Jamnia Win Lambda Prizes

The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced the winners of two prizes for LGBTQ writers.

Eboni J. Dunbar won the 2023 Randall Kenan Prize for Black LGBTQ Fiction for “a Black LGBTQ writer whose fiction explores themes of Black LGBTQ life, culture, and/or history.” The award includes a $3,000 cash prize.

Naseem Jamnia is one of two winners of the 2023 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ+ Writers. The ...Read More

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New Books: 6 June 2023

3dtotal Publishing: Sketching from the Imagination: Character Concepts (3dtotal Publishing 9781912843626, $37.00, 320pp, formats: trade paperback, 6/6/2023)

Following the success of previous titles in this popular series, Sketching from the Imagination: Character Concepts showcases the incredible character work of 50 artists and illustrators. Chosen especially for this book, these artists from around the globe take inspiration from folklore, myths, modern stories, and sometimes real life as a basis for their ...Read More

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Cover Reveal: Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology edited by Wole Talabi

Cover Reveal!

Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology is the first book of short stories and novellas set in the secondary world of Sauúti.

Sauúti is filled with wonder, mystery, and magic. The name Sauúti is taken from the word “Sauti” which means “voice” in Swahili. This five-planet system orbits a binary star, and is rooted deeply in a variety of African mythologies, languages, and cultures. Sauúti includes science-fiction elements like artificial ...Read More

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2023 Michael Knost Wings Award Shortlist

The Imaginarium Convention has announced the finalists for the second annual Michael Knost Wings Award, which focuses on “authors of speculative and/or dark fiction, specifically authors who are up-and-coming… or those who have been around a while but do not get the recognition they deserve.”

Finalists are:

  • John F. Allen
  • Anton Cancre
  • Elizabeth Donald
  • Sandy Lender
  • Tommy B. Smith

The winner will be announced on July 15, 2023 at the ...Read More

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2023 Clarke Award Shortlist

The shortlist for the annual Arthur C. Clarke Award, celebrating the best science fiction novel published in the UK, has been announced:

  • Venomous Lumpsucker, Ned Beauman (Sceptre)
  • The Red Scholar’s Wake, Aliette de Bodard (Gollancz)
  • Plutoshine, Lucy Kissick (Gollancz)
  • The Anomaly, Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter (Michael Joseph)
  • The Coral Bones, E.J. Swift (Unsung Stories)
  • Metronome, Tom Watson (Bloomsbury)

The winner will be ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, Roshani Chokshi (Morrow 978-0-06-320650-2, $27.99, hc, 304pp) February 2023. Cover by Elena Masai.

Roshani Chokshi has an exceptional ability to write dramatically different but wonderful books. Her Gilded Wolves series, aimed at older teens, is solidly in ‘‘magical James Bond-ian’’ territory (if such a thing exists) and follows a group of misfit gifted teens who break into places that seem im­possible to ...Read More

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2023 Roswell Award Winners

Winners for the Roswell Award for short science fiction have been announced.

  • First Place: “Philanthropy”, Cecilia Evans
  • Second Place: “First Plantings”, E.E. King
  • Third Place: “Breathing for Two”, Rich Larson

First, second, and third place receive cash prizes of $500, $250, and $100 USD, respectively, and first place receives access to a 10-week or shorter online course sponsored by the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

Other finalists included “The Ripples Spread

...Read More Read more

SFWA 2023 Election Results and Membership Eligibility Changes

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced the results of its election for open Board of Directors positions. Positions for re-election included President, Secretary, and three Director-At-Large positions. New Board members include:

Directors-at-Large:

  • Phoebe Barton
  • Chelsea Mueller

Effective July 1, 2023, they will join continuing Board members Jeffe Kennedy (president), John Murphy (vice president), Jasmine Gower (secretary), and Erin Hartshorn (chief financial officer). Monica Valentinelli, Jordan Kurella, and

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2023 Sturgeon Award Finalists

The finalists for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction story have been announced by the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction.

  • “Ten Steps for Effective Mold Removal”, Derrick Boden (Apex 9/22)
  • “Slow Communication”, Dominique Dickey (Fantasy 2/22)
  • “In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird”, Maria Dong (Lightspeed 1/22)
  • “If We Make It Through This Alive”, A.T. Greenblatt (Slate 1/22)
  • “The City
...Read More Read more

Spotlight on Eli John

Eli John is an illustrator working from a studio in the Pendle Forest, Witch Country, UK. This melancholy landscape is a worthy setting as John works predominantly within the horror genre, inspired by supernatural and weird fiction, ghost stories and gothic literature, creating dark visions of sublime beauty and unsettling psy­chological landscapes. He has worked for renowned publisher’s worldwide, illustrating work by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, M.R. James, ...Read More

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Cover Reveal: Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

Cover Reveal!

NINEFOX GAMBIT RPG is a tabletop roleplaying game of heresy and hard choices set in the tyrannical interstellar empire known as the Hexarchate.

YOU belong to one of the Hexarchate’s six factions.

YOU are entangled with a regime that can change the very laws of physics—at the cost of human sacrifice.

Will you…

CONFRONT your leaders, at the risk of being labeled a heretic and hunted down?

CHANGE ...Read More

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Ward Wins ITW Thriller Award

The 2023 winners for the ITW Thriller Awards were announced June 3, 2023 at ThrillerFest XVIII in New York City, as well as synchronously on Twitter. Winners of genre interest include Sundial by Catriona Ward (Macmillan) for Best Hardcover Novel.

For more information see the ITW website.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We ...Read More

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2022 Aurealis Awards Winners

The 2022 Aurealis Awards winners, recognizing the best in Australian speculative fiction, have been announced.

Best Science Fiction Novel

  • WINNER: 36 Streets, TR Napper (Titan)
  • Hovering, Rhett Davis (Hachette AU)
  • The Stranger, Kathryn Hore (Allen & Unwin)
  • Here Goes Nothing, Steve Toltz (Hamish Hamilton)
  • Bootstrap, Georgina Young (Text)

Best Science Fiction Novella

  • WINNER: Resembling Lepus, Amanda Kool (Grey Matter)
  • “The Goruden-Mairu Job”, TR Napper
...Read More Read more

2023 Sir Julius Vogel Awards Winners

Winners for the 2023 Sir Julius Vogel Awards have been announced by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ).

Best Novel

  • WINNER: A Rake of His Own, A.J. Lancaster (Camberion)
  • Chevalier & Gawayn: The Ballad of the Dreamer, Phillip Mann (Quentin Wilson)
  • Ithaca Bound, Kirsten McKenzie (Squabbling Sparrows)
  • Brightest Star, Andy Southall (Amapur)
  • Tarquin the Honest: The Hand of Glodd, Gareth Ward
...Read More Read more

McCarten and Pulley Shortlisted for Wilbur Smith Prize

The 2023 shortlist for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for Best Published Novel was announced June 1st, 2023. Titles and authors of genre interest include Going Zero by Anthony McCarten (Harper) and The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury). Voting is open from June 1st to August 31st. The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced on October 18th at an awards ceremony in London. ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Under My Skin by K.J. Parker

Under My Skin, K.J. Parker (Subterranean 978-1-64524-079-2, $50.00, 680pp, hc) March 2023.

Under My Skin is the third major collection from K.J. Parker, and like Academic Exercises in 2014 and The Father of Lies in 2018, it’s a hefty one. This is mostly because Parker tends to favor novella and novelette-length stories, and four of the 13 stories here – ‘‘Mightier Than the Sword’’, ‘‘My Beautiful Life’’, ‘‘Prosper’s Demon’’, and ...Read More

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Karen Burnham Reviews: Analog and Asimov’s

Analog 3-4/23 Asimov’s 3-4/23

The lead novella in the March/April Ana­log is ‘‘The Tinker and the Timestream’’ by Carolyn Ives Gilman. Rustem is a young man learning to be the tinker of his colony, which is tenuously living under the threat of a solar eruption wiping them out at any minute. Interstellar travelers arrive, travel­ing in a fascinatingly complex way involving time currents and bubbles of slow ...Read More

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Gabino Iglesias Reviews Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez (Granta 978-1-78378-673-2, £18.99, 736pp, hc) October 2022. (Hogarth US 978-0-45149-514-3, $28.99, 608pp, hc) February 2023. Cover by Debbie Glasserman.

Once in a while a novel comes along that makes you think it was written just for you. That’s how I felt about Mariana Enriquez’s Our Share of Night, a superb novel beautifully translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell. A sprawling epic ...Read More

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Intergalactic, Planetary: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

The usual suspects assemble for another adventure: Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), Nebula (Karen Gillan), and Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) are hanging out in their space pirate cove within the hollowed-out skull of a dead celestial being. Everything’s been going great lately. They’ve redecorated, they’re enjoying music, and they’ve made a bunch of new friends including a telekinetic Soviet ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews H’ard Starts: The Early Waldrop by Howard Wal­drop

H’ard Starts: The Early Waldrop, Howard Wal­drop (Subterranean 978-1-64524-117-1, $50.00, 370pp, hc) June 2023. Cover by Doug Potter.

I suppose there’s a nugget of irony in the fact that Howard Waldrop’s first professional sale, a story called “Lunchbox”, was also one of the very last stories that John W. Campbell, Jr. accepted for Analog. As Waldrop remembers it, Campbell ac­cepted the story in October of 1970 and dropped dead ...Read More

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37th Annual Asimov’s Readers’ Award Winners

The winners for the 37th annual Asimov’s Readers’ Awards have been announced.

BEST NOVELLA

  • WINNER: “The Court Martial of the Renegat Renegades” (Part 1 and Part 2), Kristine Kathryn Rusch (9-10/22; 11-12/22)
  • “Blimpies“, Rick Wilber (3-4/22)
  • “Goldie“, Sean Monaghan (1-2/22)
  • “Snowflake“, Nick Wolven (1-2/22)
  • “The Goose“, Rick Wilber (7-8/22)

BEST NOVELETTE

  • WINNER: “Falling Off the Edge of the World“, Suzanne Palmer (11-12/22)
  • “Things to Do in Deimos When You’re Dead“,
...Read More Read more

2022 Analog AnLab Winners

Results of the 2022 Analog Analytical Laboratory (AnLab) Awards have been announced, with many finalists available to read online.

BEST NOVELLA

  • 1st place: ”Communion”, Jay Werkheiser & Frank Wu (1-2/22)
  • 2nd place: ”Burning the Ladder”, Adam-Troy Castro (5-6/22)
  • 3rd place: ”Kingsbury 1944”, Michael Cassutt (9-10/22)

BEST NOVELETTE

  • 1st place: ”Shepherd Moons”, Jerry Oltion (9-10/22)
  • 2nd place: ”The Journeyman: at the Bluffs of Sinjin Trell”, Michael F. Flynn (3-4/22)
  • 3rd place
...Read More Read more

Liz Bourke Reviews The Iron Princess by Barbara Hambly

The Iron Princess, Barbara Hambly (Open Road Media 978-1-50408-132-0, $34.99, 360pp, hc; 978-1-50407-902-0, $18.99, 360pp, tp) February 2023. Cover by Amanda Shaffer.

Barbara Hambly’s early career was defined by her fantasy novels, and for many read­ers in the 1980s – and indeed, a number of writers – books like The Ladies of Mandrigyn and Dragonsbane proved influential, even for­mative. But for the last decade and a half, she’s been ...Read More

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Dispatches from Dragonhold: 1982 Letter from Anne McCaffrey

Greetings from beyond the paywall! We have been posting new content monthly on our Patreon Archive Feed – scans of vintage Locus and audio clips from author interviews and more – and wanted to share a little of what that feed looks like by making some of our earlier posts public. Check out this post featuring a letter from Anne McCaffrey.

In addition to all the benefits of lower tiers, ...Read More

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