Author: locusmag

Books Reviews Short Fiction 

Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Sense of Wonder: Short Fiction Reviews (2009-2017) by Gardner Dozois

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Sense of Wonder: Short Fiction Reviews (2009-2017), Gardner Dozois (Advent/ReAni­mus Press 978-1718795051, $19.99, 444+60pp, tp) May 2018.

A good example of what we’ll be missing – in this magazine in particular – can be found in Dozois’s Sense of Wonder: Short Fiction Reviews 2009-2017, which collects the first nine years of the Gardnerspace columns he wrote for Locus (in his introduction, Dozois makes it clear this title was foisted upon ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

John Langan Reviews glass slipper dreams, shattered by Doungjai Gam

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glass slipper dreams, shattered, Doungjai Gam (Apokrupha 9781721770724 $7.99 74pp, tp) September 2018.

Many of the most famous examples of horror fiction are brief, from such campfire classics as “The Hook” to Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”. (Even Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” falls on the shorter end of the spectrum.) Despite this, writing a truly effective short horror story, let alone one at flash fiction length, is a rock upon which ...Read More

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Features 

Speculative Fiction in Translation: Novels, Collections, and Short Stories 2018

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This list of 2018 speculative titles in translation was compiled by Rachel Cordasco, who founded and runs site sfintranslation.com as well as the SF in Translation Award which can be voted on here until March 1, 2019. Corrections may be sent to locus@locusmag.com.

SF IN TRANSLATION OUT IN 2018

Total books/collections/anthologies: 79

Top 3 languages:
Japanese (19%)
French (16.5%)
Spanish (8.9%)

Top 3 publishers:
Black Coat Press (13.9%)
Haikasoru (6.3%) ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Colleen Mondor Reviews Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

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Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt 978-1-250-17097-2, $18.99, 448pp, hc) March 2018.

Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone was released with a deafening boom in March, arriving on the heels of a near-seven figure film deal on top of the seven-figure publishing contract for the trilogy. This is big book in every way: big story, big pay­check and, at nearly 400 pages, it’s a physically big ...Read More

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Awards News 

2018 Cybils Awards Finalists

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Finalists for the 2018 Children’s and Young Adults Bloggers’ Literary Awards (Cybils) have been announced. Books of genre interest are listed below:

Young Adult Speculative Fiction

  • Pitch Dark, Courtney Alameda (Feiwel & Friends)
  • Mirage, Somaiya Daud (Flatiron)
  • Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman (Random House)
  • Dread Nation, Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)
  • Summer of Salt, Katrina Leno (HarperTeen)
  • Not Even Bones, Rebecca Schaeffer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  • This Mortal Coil, Emily
...Read More
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Awards News 

New Year’s Honours 2019

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Several writers of genre interest are on the 2019 New Year’s Honours list which “recognises the achievements and service of extraordinary people across the United Kingdom.”

For services to literature, Margaret Atwood was named a Companion of Honour, Julia Donaldson was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and Philip Pullman was knighted. Chris Riddell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) ...Read More

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Awards News 

SF in Translation Award

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Rachel Cordasco, founder of SFinTranslation.com, has launched the inaugural “Favorite SF in Translation” poll for non-Anglophone speculative fiction that has been translated into English and published between January 1 and December 31, 2018. Winners will be chosen by a readers’ survey, open for voting until March 1, 2019.

Cordasco said, “Hopefully this will encourage more readers to learn about non-Anglophone speculative fiction, and thus, the global trends in a genre ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Liz Bourke Reviews Static Ruin by Corey J. White

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Static Ruin, Corey J. White (Tor.com Publishing 978-1250195548, $15.99, 224pp, tp) November 2018. Cover by Tommy Arnold.

Corey J. White’s Static Ruin is the third – and for now final – volume in his Voidwitch Saga series of novellas. Static Ruin follows on from Void Black Shadow, and it’s much less of a hectic hot mess than that volume, and it serves up a decent helping of cathartic resolution – ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee

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Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Alec Nevala-Lee (Dey Street/William Morrow 978-0-06-257194-6, $28.99, 528pp, hc) October 2018.

In the acknowledgements to Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Hein­lein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Alec Nevala-Lee quotes the late Algis Budrys arguing that “we need a long, objec­tive look at John ...Read More

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Issues 

Issue 696 Table of Contents, January 2019

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The January issue features interviews with Charles Vess and Kathleen Jennings; Gaylactic Spectrum and Parsecs awards winners; Barnes and Noble and The New Yorker Best of the Year lists; a column by Cory Doctorow; photo stories on Nnedi Okorafor, Manchess Exhibition, and SF Writers in China; the Locus Holiday Party; Locus Looks at Art spotlights; an obituary for Thomas P. Dunn; and reviews of short fiction and books by Charlie ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Carolyn Cushman Reviews The Way of the Shield by Marshall Ryan Maresca and Séances Are for Suckers by Tamara Berry

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Marshall Ryan Maresca, The Way of the Shield (DAW 978-0-7564-1479-5, $7.99, 354pp, pb) October 2018. Cover by Paul Young.

Maresca keeps adding new series set in the city of Maradaine, all running more-or-less concurrently, each focusing on a different facet of the city. This first volume in the Maradaine Elite series follows a young man trying to join an archaic military order, one of two surviving orders from the past, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Paul Di Filippo Reviews Tell Me Like You Done Before: And Other Stories Written on the Shoulders of Giants by Scott Edelman

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Tell Me Like You Done Before: And Other Stories Written on the Shoulders of Giants, Scott Edelman (Lethe Press 978-1-59021-544-9, $20, 332pp, trade paperback, December 2018)

As a writer who labors meticulously and intensively and slowly at his craft of short fiction, and as one who has publicly proclaimed that he has no interest in writing novels, Scott Edelman accumulates published work at a relatively slow rate—at least compared to ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Liz Bourke Reviews The Adventure of the Dux Bellorum by Cynthia Ward

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The Adventure of the Dux Bellorum, Cynthia Ward (Aqueduct Press 978-1-61976-154-4, $12.00, 128pp, tp) October 2018.

This story follows on from the events of The Adventure of the Incognita Countess, in which Lucy Harker, half-vampire (dhampir) daughter of Mina Harker and Dracula and current agent for the British secret service, encountered the vampire Carmilla (famed in history, now reformed from murder and known as Clarimal) and found a deep attraction ...Read More

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News Publishing 

Publishing News

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Hachette Book Group is reor­ganizing. The Hachette Books non-fiction line will be folded into Perseus Books with the departure of founder Mauro DiPreta. Da Capo Press, a Per­seus imprint, is in turn becoming part of Hachette Books, with Da Capo publisher John Radziewicz retiring. Susan Weinberg will be acting publisher until a new publisher is chosen. “Several positions” are being eliminated as part of the consolidation.

Dark Horse Comics CEO ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson

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Red Moon, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit 978-0-316-26237-8, $27.00, 480pp, hc) October 2018.

As far as I know, Kim Stanley Robinson hasn’t bothered to develop a consistent fu­ture history in the manner of Heinlein and others, and it’s just as well: why be constrained by a future concocted years or decades earlier, when everything that’s happened in the interim could alter that future radically? (Robinson recognized this when he updated the ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Colleen Mondor Reviews The Agony House Cherie Priest

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The Agony House, Cherie Priest (Scholastic/Levine 978-0-545-93435-0 $18.99 272pp, hc) September 2018. Cover by Tara O’Connor.

Cherie Priest takes a pause from adult fiction with this second foray into YA after the cyberthriller I Am Princess X. This time she goes full creepy with a haunted house story set in New Orleans that also manages to throw in a hefty dose of the history of comic books and some thoughtful ...Read More

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Announcements News 

Audible Best of 2018

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Audible.com has announced their Best of 2018 lists, selected by their editorial team. Titles of genre interest include:

Science Fiction

  • Rosewater, Tade Thompson (Hachette)

Fantasy

  • Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Random House)

Fiction

  • Circe, Madeline Miller (Hachette)

Young Adult

  • Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Macmillan)

Customer Favorite

  • The Land: Raiders: A LitRPG Saga, Aleron Kong (Tamori)

For more information, including complete winners and runners-up, see Audible.com.

While you are ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Liz Bourke Reviews Hidden Sun by Jaine Fenn

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Hidden Sun, Jaine Fenn (Angry Robot 978-0857668011, $12.99, 448pp, tp) September 2018. Cover by Andreas Rocha.

Jaine Fenn is probably best known for her Hidden Empire science fiction series, begun in 2008 with Principles of Angels, the last entry for which was Queen of Nowhere in 2013. Hidden Sun is her first novel-length publication in five years, and her first fantasy novel.

Well. For certain values of fantasy. It’s set ...Read More

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New & Notable New Titles & Bestsellers 

New & Notable Books, December 2018

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Dale Bailey, In the Night Wood (John Joseph Adams 10/18) This tale of literary horror concerns Erin, the descendant of a famous children’s book author, who inherits the family estate. In mourning with her husband over the loss of their daughter, things get worse when they begin to see a grim figure from her ancestor’s book. “The prose is genuinely good, the setting is genuinely creepy, and the hints of ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Rosewater by Tade Thompson

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Rosewater, Tade Thompson (Apex 978-1-937009-29-8, $16.95, 360pp, tp) November 2016. (Orbit 978-0-316-44905-2, $15.99, 394pp, tp) September 2018.

I missed Tade Thompson’s Rosewater when it first appeared from Apex a couple of years ago and subsequently won the inaugural Nommo award and became a Campbell Award finalist. Since then, it’s generated quite a bit of discussion, not only for its inventive and ambitious plot, but because it seemed to represent yet ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Ian Mond Reviews Chercher La Femme by L. Timmel Duchamp

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Chercher La Femme, L. Timmel Duchamp (Aq­ueduct Press 978-1619761476, $19.00, 320pp, tp) August 2018.

L. Timmel Duchamp’s eighth novel, Cher­cher La Femme, might have been more than 20 years in the making, involving numerous re-writes and multiple critiques, but I can report that the final product justifies the effort.

The book’s premise is simple enough. A rescue mission is sent from Earth to the far-off world of La Femme to ...Read More

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Awards News 

Australian Shadow Awards Open

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The 2018 Australian Shadow Awards are now open for entries through February 28, 2019. The Shadow Awards are given by the Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) for “the finest in horror and dark fiction published by an Australasian within the calendar year.” Winners in each category will receive a trophy and will be announced at Continuum 15, to be held July 7-10, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia.

For more information, including ...Read More

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Awards News 

Taylor Wins Eccles British Library Writer’s Award

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Sara Taylor won the 2019 Eccles British Library Writer’s Award, given annually to one fiction and one non-fiction writer. Winners receive £20,000 and a one-year residency at the British Library’s North America collections “to develop a current writing project.”

The judges for 2019 were Mercedes Aguirre, Sarah Churchwell, Catherine Eccles, Phil Hatfield, and Erica Wagner. For more information, see the British Library website.

While you are here, please take a ...Read More

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News Obituaries 

Jane Langton (1922-2018)

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Writer Jane Langton, 95, died December 22, 2018. Best known for her mystery novels for adults, her SF/F work includes the Grace Jones, Hall Family, and Homer Kelly series for young readers, and novel Paper Chains (1977). Langton was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) in 2017. Her work was nominated for several Edgar awards and won a Nero Wolfe award in 1984. The Fledgling (1980) was ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Rich Horton Reviews Short Fiction: Asimov’s, Analog, On Spec, and Amazing Stories

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Asimov’s 9-10/18
Analog 9-10/18
On Spec #108
Amazing Stories Fall ’18

As usual, there is a certain focus on Halloween-themed stories in the Sep­tember-October Asimov’s. The cover novella comes from a writer one hardly expects to be working in that mode, but Greg Egan‘s “3-adica” does open in a foggy Victorian Lon­don of sorts, and Sagreda and her lover Mathis do encounter dangerous vampires. It’s quickly clear we’re in an ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Paul Di Filippo Reviews Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates

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Hazards of Time Travel Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco 978-0-06-231959-3, $26.99, 336pp, hardcover, November 2018)

Joyce Carol Oates turned eighty this year, and her fabled productivity seems undiminished. Given that she began her career at age nineteen by winning a short story contest sponsored by Mademoiselle, she has passed sixty years of unceasing and exemplary creativity. Moreover, she continues to delve into areas outside her familiar remits of mimetic fiction, crime ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Colleen Mondor Reviews A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney

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A Blade So Black, L.L. McKinney (Macmillan/Imprint 978-1-250-15390-6 $18.99, 352pp, tp) September 2018.

Author L.L. McKinney is not coy about what she has to offer with her debut novel A Blade So Black. The protagonist is named Alice, her mentor is named Addison Hatta (a “punk Prince Charming” who strolls onto the page in a t-shirt reading “We’re All Mad Here”), and a couple of her pals are a snarky ...Read More

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Announcements News 

Reading and Fiction Sales Down

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Ac­cording to report from the National Endowment for the Arts, “US Trends in Arts Attendance and Literary Reading: 2002-2017”, the number of adults reading for plea­sure dropped by a small amount be­tween 2002 and 2017. The number of people over 18 who read a book not for work or school was 52.7%, down from 54.6% in 2012, 54.3% in 2008, and 56.6% in 2002. The survey is conducted every five ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Liz Bourke Reviews Salvation’s Fire by Justina Robson

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Salvation’s Fire, Justina Robson (Solaris 978-1781086087, £7.99, 432pp, pb) September 2018.

Salvation’s Fire is Leeds-native Justina Robson’s twelfth novel. Robson’s previous works have been finalists for the Arthur C. Clarke Award (Silver Screen, Mappa Mundi, Living Next Door to the God of Love) and the Philip K. Dick Award (Silver Screen, Natural History, Living Next Door to the God of Love), among others, but although she’s combined fantasy and science ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Liz Bourke Reviews Vigilance by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Vigilance, Robert Jackson Bennett (Tor.com 978-1250209443, $14.99, 448pp, hc) January 2019.

People keep telling me I should read Robert Jackson Bennett’s work, and I keep meaning to. But his 196-page-long novella from Tor. com Publishing, is the first of his work I’ve actually managed to read so far, and, on the evidence, Bennett can pack a hell of a punch.

Vigilance is less a story than an intensely distilled mood, ...Read More

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Features 

Forbidden Planet Halloween Signing

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Forbidden Planet in London hosted a multi-author signing for The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories and The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women (both edited by Stephen Jones) on October 27, 2018.

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 keep the site paywall ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Amy Goldschlager Reviews Julia Unbound Audiobook by Catherine Egan

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Julia Unbound, Catherine Egan; Erin Spencer, narrator (Listening Library, $32.95, digital download, 11.5 hr., un­abridged). August 2018.

The final installment of The Witch’s Child trilogy is a real race against time that practically explodes with plot. Julia’s brother Dek has been captured by the sinister Casimir and implanted with a sac of poison that will kill him in a couple of weeks. To save her brother, Julia has accepted Casimir’s ...Read More

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