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Niall Harrison Reviews Miracles & Marvels: Stories by Tim Pratt

November 5, 2019October 22, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Niall Harrison

Miracles & Marvels: Stories, Tim Pratt (The Merry Blacksmith Press, 978-1-69571-634-6, $14.95, 289pp, pb) November 2019.

Patreon fiction is the dark matter of our field: it’s hard to tell how much there is, and how substantial it is. Many writers have established Patreons, and many of them offer regular original stories to their supporters; and since that counts as first publication, many or most of those stories never make ...Read More

Books Reviews

Tim Pratt Reviews The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

November 5, 2019August 29, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Tim Pratt

The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling (Harper Voyager 978-0-06-284690-7, $16.99, 415pp, tp) April 2019.

One of my favorite movies is Neil Marshall’s The Descent (2006), about a group of women who enter an unexplored cave system and discover unspeakable subterranean horrors – so when I say Caitlin Starling’s The Luminous Dead is like a science fiction version of The Descent, but even more claustrophobic and harrowing, recognize it as ...Read More

Awards News

2019 Prix Utopiales Winners

November 4, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

Winners of the 2019 Prix Utopiales Awards were announced at the Nantes International Science Fiction Festival, held October 31 – November 4, 2019 at the Nantes Convention Center in Nantes, France.

Prix Utopiales

WINNER: Helstrid, Christian Léourier (Le Béllial)

BonheurTM, Jean Baret (Le Bélial)
Colonies, Laurent Genefort (Le Bélial)
Les derniers jours du Nouveau-Paris, China Miéville (Au diable vauvert)
Dans la toile du temps, Adrian

...Read More Read more

News Publishing

Wolfe to Acquire for Subterranean

November 4, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

Subterranean Press has announced that Navah Wolfe will acquire and edit novellas for release in 2021 and beyond. Wolfe says, “I’ve admired the work Subterranean Press has been doing for years, so it’s an honor to get to work with them to publish original fiction. I’m really looking forward to publishing great novellas in Subterranean’s famously gorgeous editions.” She will be open to agented submissions and will also be soliciting ...Read More

Commentary Cory Doctorow Features Slider

Cory Doctorow: Jeannette Ng Was Right: John W. Campbell Was a Fascist

November 4, 2019November 7, 2019 locusmag 19 Comments Commentary, Cory Doctorow

[All opinions expressed by commentators, guest bloggers, reviewers, and interviewees are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Locus magazine or its staff.]

At the Hugo Awards ceremony at this summer’s Dublin Worldcon, Jeannette Ng was presented with the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Ng gave an outstanding and brave acceptance speech in which she called Campbell – the award’s namesake and one of ...Read More

Books Reviews

Katharine Coldiron Reviews Internment by Samira Ahmed

November 4, 2019September 4, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Katharine Coldiron

Internment, Samira Ahmed (Little, Brown 978-0-31652-269-4, $17.99, 400pp, hc) March 2019.

Internment is a breathless novel of our political moment. In that vein, it succeeds completely: it spools out the logical conclusion to the fearmongering and intolerance that currently gathers at rallies and shouts on Twitter, and it posits, with no small amount of real-life proof, that only the people who are teenagers right now have the capacity to ...Read More

Awards News

2019 World Fantasy Awards Winners

November 3, 2019November 3, 2019 locusmag 2 Comments

The World Fantasy Awards winners for works published in 2018 have been announced. The awards were presented November 3, 2019 during World Fantasy 2019 (WFC) at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel in Los Angeles CA.

The Lifetime Achievement Awards, presented annually to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding service to the fantasy field, went to Hayao Miyazaki and Jack Zipes.

The World Fantasy Awards winners are:

Best Novel

WINNER: Witchmark

...Read More Read more

News Publishing

Vesuvian Acquires Black Spot

November 3, 2019October 23, 2019 locusmag 1 Comment

Multimedia company Vesuvian Media Group has acquired Black Spot Books, a small SF publisher that has produced a dozen titles so far. Its founder, Lindy Ryan, will continue to run the imprint. The parent company’s Vesuvian Books imprint has released around 50 adult, YA, and middle-grade books, and its Vesuvian Entertainment division has a first-look arrangement with Boilermaker Entertainment. CEO Italia Gandolfo says, “As we grow, the importance of acquiring ...Read More

Books Reviews

Ian Mond Reviews Outside the Gates by Molly Gloss

November 3, 2019September 4, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Ian Mond

Outside the Gates, Molly Gloss (Atheneum 0-689-31275-X, $11.95, 120pp, hc) September 1986. (Saga Press 978-1-534-41498-3, $24.99, 128pp, hc) January 2019.

As far as I can tell (from a quick skim of the Internet Science Fiction Database), Molly Gloss’s debut, Outside the Gates, was never reviewed by Locus when it came out in 1986. This might be because the novella, initially published by Atheneum, was pitched at a younger ...Read More

Announcements News

Hour of the Wolf Off the Air

November 2, 2019October 22, 2019 locusmag 1 Comment

Jim Freund’s venerable SF radio call-in show Hour of the Wolf has gone off the air after nearly 50 years. The show aired on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York, but on October 8, 2019, the station’s owner Pacifica Across America canceled all local programming and replaced it with shows from other stations due to “financial losses.” The closure came without warning, and station employees and volunteers vowed to take ...Read More

Books Reviews

Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Dollmaker by Nina Allan

November 2, 2019August 6, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Gary K. Wolfe

The Dollmaker, Nina Allan (riverrun 978-1-787-47255-6, £14.99, 416pp, tp) April 2019. (Other Press 978-1590519936, $16.99, 416pp, tp) October 2019.

One of the questions Nina Allan’s fiction consistently raises is whether the idea of genre is even useful anymore. Her stories tend to burrow in and out of each other like enthusiastic metafictional badgers, borrowing and repurposing themes and even characters in an ongoing celebration of the fluidity of story; ...Read More

Features

SF in Israel: The Elephant Slowly Disappearing from the Room, by Ehud Maimon

November 1, 2019October 23, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

The last two decades have been a very good time for genre writing in Israel. We see more and more writers and more and more works – from Weird Fiction to hardcore SF and everything in between. One thing, however, is obviously missing, at least for me as a reader and an editor: the Jewish heritage. The Bible (the Old Testament), the Talmud and other Rabbinical sources, all the way ...Read More

Books Reviews

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro Reviews Lost Transmissions, Edited by Desirina Boskovich

November 1, 2019October 23, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Desirina Boskovich, ed. (Harry N. Abrams 978-1419734656, $29.99, 288pp, hc) September 2019.

Desirina Boskovich, who with Jeff VanderMeer previously authored the informative and visually sumptuous The Steampunk User’s Manual (2014), here brings us a delightful potpourri of 80 essays and interviews on all manner of things imaginary, with dazzling complementary illustrations. The book’s subtitle, “The Secret History of Science ...Read More

Reviews Short Fiction

Rich Horton Reviews Short Fiction: Tin House, LCRW, and The CSZ

November 1, 2019July 31, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Rich Horton

Tin House Summer ’19 Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet Summer ’19 The Cascadia Subduction Zone Vol 9 No 2

Sadly, the Summer issue of Tin House is its last – they are closing up shop after 80 issues – a full 20 years of really first-rate fiction, essays, poetry and reviews. They were very hospitable to fantastika, and this holds true in this final outing. “The Gondoliers” by Karen ...Read More

Issues

Issue 706 Table of Contents, November 2019

November 1, 2019October 30, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

The November 2019 issue of Locus magazine has interviews with Robert McCammon and L.X. Beckett. Main stories include the renaming of the Tiptree Award, Nobel wins for Tokarczuk and Handke, British Fantasy, Aurora, Booker Prize, Sunburst, and Sidewise winners, Link & Grant‘s new bookstore, King‘s house as a museum, the cancellation of Hour of the Wolf after almost 50 years on the ...Read More

Books Reviews

Carolyn Cushman Reviews The Unkindest Tide by Seanan McGuire and Witch Hat Atelier 2 by Kamome Shirahama

October 31, 2019August 6, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Carolyn Cushman

Seanan McGuire, The Unkindest Tide (DAW 978-0-7564-1507-5, $26.00, 354pp, hc) September 2019. Cover by Chris McGrath.

Toby’s all at sea in this uneven 13th novel in the October Daye series, which centers on an old bargain the Luidaeg (sea witch) made to undo a great wrong. Her children and descendants, the Roane, were mostly slaughtered by people who stole their magic skins. The Luidaeg turned the murderers’ children into Selkies, ...Read More

Contests News

Dream Foundry Writing Contest Finalists

October 30, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

Dream Foundry, a “non-profit dedicated to bolstering the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts,” has announced the finalists for its inaugural writing contest which “was open to anyone with a completed short story who had not yet been professionally paid for their work”:

Jamie Adams
Steven Berger
S Rain Lawrence
Samantha Lynne Sargent
Andrew J. Savage
Tiffany Smith
Sam Tovey
Rose Wachowski
Claire Whitmore
Douglas Wu

The

...Read More Read more

Awards News

Waterstones Book of the Year 2019 Shortlist

October 30, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Vintage), The Binding by Bridget Collins (HarperCollins), and Lanny by Max Porter (Faber) are on the 11-title shortlist for the 2019 Waterstones Book of the Year award. Shortlisted titles are nominated by Waterstones booksellers. The 2019 winner will be chosen be a panel headed by James Daunt and announced on November 27, 2019. Previous winners include La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume 1 ...Read More

Books Reviews Short Fiction

Paula Guran Reviews This House of Wounds by Georgina Bruce

October 30, 2019July 30, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Paula Guran

This House of Wounds, Georgina Bruce (Undertow Publications 978-1-988964-09-6, $27.99, 248pp, hc) June 2019. Cover by Catrin Welz-Stein.

Georgina Bruce’s searing debut collection contains 16 superbly written, often surreal stories of misogyny, blood, anger, agony, and abuse. Bruce’s stygian tales are technically accomplished, but also powered by a profound depth of feeling. They often compel and overwhelm at the same time. Like the cover art by Catrin Welz-Stein, This ...Read More

Awards News

Atwood Honored by Queen

October 29, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

Margaret Atwood was named a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, “a special award granted to those who have made a major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government lasting over a long period of time.” Non-British nationals, including Commonwealth citizens, can be honorary members. Queen Elizabeth presented the award at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on October 25, 2019.

While you are here, please ...Read More

Books Reviews

Liz Bourke Reviews The Ascent to Godhood by JY Yang

October 29, 2019July 30, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Liz Bourke

The Ascent to Godhood, JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing 978-1-250-16587-9, $12.99, 120pp, tp) July 2019. Cover by Yuko Shimizu.

JY Yang’s Tensorate novellas have always been inventive and ambitious, an ambition and a sense of verve and innovation that’s been recognised by several award nominations. All three of those novellas to date have stood more or less alone, but with the fourth, this year’s The Ascent to Godhood, Yang ...Read More

Awards News

2019 Foyles Books of the Year Shortlists

October 28, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

Shortlists for the Foyles Books of the Year awards have been announced, including several titles of genre interest in the following categories:

Fiction

The Binding, Bridget Collins (William Morrow)
Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James (Riverhead)
Lanny, Max Porter (Graywolf)

Children’s & Young Adult

Crossfire, Malorie Blackman (Penguin)
The Deathless Girls, Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Orion)
The Iron Man, Ted Hughes, illustrated by Chris Mould

...Read More Read more

Awards News

2019 Xingyun Awards Winners

October 28, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

The tenth annual Xingyun awards for Chinese science fiction were presented by the World Chinese Science Fiction Association on October 27, 2019 in Chongqing, China.

Best Novel

WINNER: The Azure Tragedy, Hui Hu

Life Upgrade, Tianjiang Longxia
The Dead, Han Song
The Orphans of Red Planet, Liu Yang

Best Novella

WINNER: Flowers on the Other Side, A Que

The Wings of Earth, Jiang Bo

...Read More Read more

Announcements News Publishing

Wolfe Leaves Saga

October 28, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

Navah Wolfe has left Saga Press, and her senior editor position has been eliminated. Wolfe co-founded Saga in 2013 with Joe Monti as an imprint of the Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division and was named senior editor in 2017. Before that she was a children’s book editor for seven years at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, focusing on SF and fantasy. In 2019, Saga became an imprint ...Read More

Milestones News

Martin Inducted into New Jersey Hall of Fame

October 28, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

George R.R. Martin was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in a ceremony held October 27, 2019 at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park NJ. Inductees are recommended by New Jersey residents, and final selections are made by public vote. Martin, who currently lives in New Mexico, grew up in Bayonne NJ.

Peter Benchley was inducted posthumously.

For more information, including a complete list of inductees, see the ...Read More

Awards News

Publishers Weekly Best Books 2019

October 28, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

Publishers Weekly has announced its list of the best books of 2019, including “100 best adult titles and 50 for children and teens.”

The best books in the SF/Fantasy/Horror category are:

The Light Brigade, Kameron Hurley (Saga)
The Institute, Stephen King (Scribner)
A People’s Future of the United States, Victor LaValle & John Joseph Adams, eds. (One World)
Middlegame, Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
The Luminous Dead

...Read More Read more

News Obituaries

Michael Blumlein (1948-2019)

October 28, 2019November 13, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

SF writer and doctor Michael Blumlein, 71, died October 24, 2019 of lung cancer.

His debut novel The Movement of Mountains appeared in 1987, and was followed by X,Y (1993; adapted as a feature film in 2004), and The Healer (2005). His first SF story, “Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: A Case Report” (1984) appeared in Interzone. Other notable stories include World Fantasy Award finalist “The Brains of Rats”(1986), Stoker ...Read More

Features Interviews Slider

Phenderson Djèlí Clark: Wonderful Things to Behold

October 28, 2019October 2, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Interviews

Phenderson Djèlí Clark is the pen name of Dexter Gabriel, born June 11, 1971 in Queens NY to immigrant parents from Trinidad and Tobago. His family sent him to live in Trinidad with his grandparents when he was a baby, and he returned to the US when he was eight. He lived in Staten Island and Brooklyn until moving to Houston TX when he was 12. He got his BA ...Read More

Books Reviews

Ian Mond and Gary K. Wolfe Review Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

October 28, 2019July 30, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Gary K. Wolfe, Ian Mond

Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey 978-0-525-62075-4, $26.00, 350pp, hc) August 2019.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s fourth novel, Gods of Jade and Shadow, is a rip-roaring adventure set in 1920s Mexico, featuring duelling Mayan Death Gods, a secondary cast of ghosts, spirits, and warlocks and, caught in the middle of it all, an 18-year-old who peers longingly at the stars and constellations she’s named after. When we ...Read More

Books Reviews

Karen Haber Reviews Don Punchatz: A Retrospective

October 27, 2019October 29, 2019 locusmag 2 Comments Karen Haber

Don Punchatz: A Retrospective, Don Punchatz (Centipede Press 978-1-61347-196-8, $50.00, 240pp, hc) March 2019. Cover by Don Punchatz.

Don Punchatz: A Retrospective is a long overdue and richly deserved retrospective of this master surrealist’s illustration work. A limited edition hardcover from Centipede Press’s Artist Series, the book punches well above its size and weight class.

Jam packed with art from its cover flaps to its endpapers, it is a ...Read More

Reviews Short Fiction

Karen Burnham Reviews Short Fiction: Lightspeed, New York Times, Tor.com, Big Echo, and Terraform

October 27, 2019July 30, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments Karen Burnham

Lightspeed 7/19 New York Times 5/27/19 Tor.com 6/5/19 Big Echo 1/19 Terraform 5/13/19

The science fiction stories in July’s Lightspeed catch characters at very different phases of their lives. “The Null Space Conundrum” by Violet Allen is an over-the-top story of Aria, a supercool (and very self-conscious about that coolness) cosmic cyborg entity helping the living song entity Kantikle on a mission to save the Universe from a ...Read More

Conventions News

Book Expo Changes

October 26, 2019September 25, 2019 locusmag 0 Comments

Publishing trade conference Book Expo is going back to its old schedule for the 2020 event, with one day of “programming and education” on May 27, and two days of trade show exhibitions on the 28th and 29th. For the past two years the show had some exhibition space open on the first day of the event “to give everyone additional time on the floor to discover and connect,” according ...Read More

Features Interviews

Theodora Goss: Monstrous Voices

June 18, 2018 locusmag 0

Theodora Goss was born Teodóra Eszter Muszbek, September 30, 1968 in Budapest, Hungary. She left with her mother and brother at age five, and lived in Italy and Belgium before immigrating to the US when she was seven. They lived in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland before settling in Virginia. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1990 with an English degree, then attended Harvard Law School and worked ...Read More

Features Interviews

Rebecca Roanhorse: From Legend to Fantasy

September 17, 2018 locusmag 0

Features Interviews

Tim Pratt: Closing Doors

April 24, 2016 admin 0