Give us a few minutes and we’ll get you caught up on the top books in SF/fantasy/horror coming out this week! Please like and subscribe once you are there, to help us keep doing these BookTubes.

GigaNotoSaurus 5/22 Cast of Wonders 5/22 Flash Fiction Online 5/22 May’s GigaNotoSaurus story is “In the Time of the Telperi Flower” by David-Christopher Galhea, which on one level follows the harrowing story of an expedition to see a strange, time-bend­ing flower. The story is framed, however, as an annotated account of that expedition as told by its guide, embellished and published posthumously by an unscrupulous publicist, and annotated by one

Ring of Fire Press, the publishing company founded by the late Eric Flint, is closing down. Flint’s widow Lucille Robbins posted on the press website: Our Fellow Members of the Ring of Fire Press Family, It has taken the staff and the family to both assess and absorb the sad passing of our friend and mentor, Eric Flint. In the wake of his passing, we have looked at the financial

Darling Girl, Liz Michalski (Dutton 978-0-593-18563-6, $26, 352pp, hc) May 2022 I have a confession: I’ve always been a bit creeped out by Peter Pan. Some of this is contextual. I read the original Peter Pan as a child, and it is rife with a type of whimsey I, by nature and culture, found darkly suspicious (to wit, I also found Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland full of subtle horrors). I

R.R. VIRDI is a two-time Dragon Award finalist and a Nebula Award finalist. He is the author of two urban fantasy series, The Grave Report, and The Books of Winter. He was born and raised in Northern Virginia and is a first generation Indian-American with all the baggage that comes with. He’s offended a long list of incalculable ancestors by choosing to drop out of college and not pursue one

Picking up after Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame, the fourth Thor standalone film reunites the God of Thunder (Chris Hemsworth) with his scientist ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), his rock-alien-monster friend Korg (director Taika Waititi), and the fresh king of New Asgard, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). After a stint of adventuring with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor is shocked to discover that normal Earth mortal Jane has somehow reassembled —

Bacon, Eugen: An Earnest Blackness (Raw Dog Screaming/Anti-Oedipus , $18.95, 124pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, August 15, 2022) Non-fiction collection of 12 critical essays, four new, looking at speculative fiction’s potential for dealing with blackness, Afrofuturism, colonialism, and more. Individual essays include references.   Dawn, Randee: Tune in Tomorrow (Rebellion/Solaris US 978-1-78618-630-0, $16.99, 464pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, August 16, 2022) Humorous fantasy novel, subtitled “The Curious, Calamitous, Cockamamie Story

The Book Eaters, Sunyi Dean (Tor 978-1-25081-018-2, $26.99, 304pp, hc) August 2022. In my distant youth, one of my favorite poets was Mark Strand, and one of his most widely reprinted poems began, ‘‘Ink runs from the corners of my mouth./There is no happiness like mine./I have been eating poetry.’’ It was a sur­real and somewhat whimsical take on the idea of literature as consumer goods, but even at the

Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses and other works of genre interest, was stabbed Friday, August 12, 2022, just before giving a lecture in upstate New York. Rushdie, 75, is still hospitalized with serious injuries, including a damaged liver, severed nerves in an arm, a seriously damaged eye he might lose. He was taken off a ventilator over the weekend and is “on the road to recovery,” according

Winners for the Splatterpunk Awards, “honoring superior achievement for works published in 2021 in the sub-genres of Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror,” were will be presented at the 2022 KillerCon, held August 12-14, 2022 in Austin TX. Awards co-founder Brian Keene posted the winners to Twitter. Best Novel WINNER: The Night Stockers, Kristopher Triana & Ryan Harding (The Evil Cookie)  Don’t Go To Wheelchair Camp, David Irons (Severed) Trench Mouth, Christine Morgan

The 2022 Aurora Awards winners for works by Canadians have been announced. Best Novel WINNER: Jade Legacy, Fonda Lee (Orbit US)  RED X, David Demchuk (Strange Light; Penguin Random House) The Quantum War, Derek Künsken (Solaris) A Broken Darkness, Premee Mohamed (Solaris) Soulstar, C.L. Polk (Tordotcom) Best YA Novel WINNER: Walking in Two Worlds, Wab Kinew (Penguin Teen)  The Serpent’s Fury, Kelley Armstrong (Puffin Canada) The Gold Flame of Senica,

A new DragonLance novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragons of Deceit (Random House Worlds), debuts on two lists.

Winners for the 2022 Sir Julius Vogel Awards have been announced by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ). Best Novel WINNER: Butcherbird, Cassie Hart (Huia)  Gateway to Dark Stars, Kate Haley (self-published) Silent Sorrow, Russell Kirkpatrick (IFWG) The King of Faerie, A.J. Lancaster (Camberion) A Force of Nature, Janna Ruth (self-published) Foxhunt, Rem Wigmore (Queen of Swords) Best Youth Novel WINNER: Fire’s Caress, Lani Wendt Young (One Tree) 

MILESTONES RUDY RUCKER sold his liter­ary archive to the Special Collec­tions of the UCR Library at UC Riverside. “The Rudy Rucker Ar­chive includes marked-up drafts of forty books, story drafts, letters, videos, audio, scientific papers, rare ’zines, and email.” Henry Wessells of James Cummins Bookseller ne­gotiated the deal with Cherry Wil­liams and Andrew Lippert of UCR. AWARDS JESMYN WARD will receive the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction

The Book of Living Secrets, Madeleine Roux (Quill Tree Books 978-0-06-294142-8, $17.99, 400pp, hc) March 2022. If you are looking for a YA take on Lovecraftian horror, then Madeleine Roux’s The Book of Liv­ing Secrets is here to fulfill your needs. The title doesn’t start out as a date with Cthulhu however, as Adelle and Connie present themselves as two typical teenagers growing up in Boston with a shared obses­sion

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Silvia More­no-Garcia (Del Rey 978-0-59335-533-6, $28.00, 320pp, hc) July 2022. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is not a prequel or sequel to H.G. Wells’s classic short novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. It’s a reboot. And like all good reboots, Moreno-Garcia takes the key ingredients – Moreau’s “study of the plas­ticity of living forms,” his alcoholic assistant Montgomery, an isolated environment, and, most

Clarkesworld 5/22 The Sunday Morning Transport 5/22 Future Tense 4/22 Two of my favorite stories in Clarkesworld for May are translated. “The Possibly Brief Life of Guang Hansheng” by Liang Qingsan (translated by Andy Dudak) features a rather melancholy narrator who becomes obsessed with an early science fiction author, Guang Hansheng, after seeing a snippet of his work in a museum. He begins a course of obsessive research, haunting the

Online magazine Daily Science Fiction, which also delivers stories to subscribers via email every weekday, is going on hiatus after 12 years. Editors Michele-Lee Barasso and Jonathan Laden wrote to subscribers on August 11, 2022: Hi. Many of you have noted that we’ve been closed for story submissions for a bit. Many more of you (our most loyal supporters–Thank you!) noticed that today we just canceled automatic renewals for the

Chicon 8 has partnered with author Tamora Pierce to bring children and teenagers to Worldcon in a program called Tamora’s Legends: Ms. Pierce is sponsoring VIP ACCESS for 20 kids and teens ages 10-17 to Chicon 8: The 80th World Science Fiction Convention for the weekend of September 3rd-4th 2022! Half the sponsored VIPs will be chosen from a local Chicago community organization, and half via online application and lottery.

BayCon 2022 was held July 1-4 in person at the San Mateo Marriott San Francisco Airport. Steven Barnes, Galen Dara, and Jean Batt were guests of honor; Tananarive Due was a featured guest and Bonnie Gordon was toast­master. Over 700 memberships were sold, including 17 VIP memberships, with ~400-500 warm bodies. Programming offered 160 genre panels, 213 items total including gaming, maker’s workshops, and more. Panels covered topics such as

The Damage Done, Michael Landweber (Crooked Lane Books 978-1643859477, $27.99, 352pp, hc) March 2022. Cover by Patrick Sullivan. Michael Landweber’s The Damage Done is a gripping mosaic novel that explores the way violence towards each other seems to be part of our DNA and what would happen to the world if we suddenly found ourselves unable to be violent to one another. At once a narrative about many lives that

Dragon Con has announced the ballot for the 2022 Dragon Awards. Best Science Fiction Novel Leviathan Falls, James S.A. Corey (Orbit) Goliath: A Novel, Tochi Onyebuchi (Tordotcom) You Sexy Thing, Cat Rambo (Tor) The Kaiju Preservation Society, John Scalzi (Tor) Shards of Earth, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit) Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) Age of Ash, Daniel Abraham (Orbit) Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki (Tor) Book of Night, Holly Black (Tor)

The Merciless Ones, Namina Forna (Delacorte 978-1-9848-4872-7, 464pp, $17.99, hc) May 2022. Former outcasts turned warriors and liberators, Deka and her friends are back on the battlefield in The Merciless Ones, sequel to The Gilded Ones (reviewed here May 2021), this time to free the rest of the goddesses and women in Otera. As the Nuru, or only full-blooded daughter of the goddesses, Deka is the strongest of her friends

Publisher, entrepreneur, and showman Robert “Bob” Self, 55, died August 3, 2022, as the result of an accident at Mono Lake in California. Born August 5, 1966, Bob had a background in the entertainment industry and worked behind-the-scenes with a number of magicians, comedians, and illusionists. In 2003 he and his wife Rani — a professional costume designer for various TV series including The Orville — formed Baby Tattoo, Inc.,

Writing app ProWritingAid is running a free online event, Science Fiction Writers’ Week, August 29 – September 2, 2022. The event will include: Over 30 free training workshops for writers Interviews with best-selling authors like Andy Weir (The Martian) Workshops to improve writing, editing and marketing Software demos for popular writing programs Networking events to share work and meet other authors Speakers include authors Samit Basu, Emmi Itäranta, T.R. Napper,

Samovar 4/22 Strange Horizons 4/18/22, 5/2/22, 5/9/22 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 5/5/22, 5/19/22 April also saw the release of a new issue of Samo­var, the sibling publication to Strange Horizons that specializes in speculative stories and poetry in translation. Among the works in the issue, Azrin Fauzi (translated by Ali Aiman Mazwin) captures a weird and compelling journey of three people on the island of Malaysia in “Panorama People”. Indra is

Cover Reveal! Check out this cool cover reveal from Potentia Press: a stunningly futuristic cover of Hamlet, Prince of Robots by M. Darusha Wehm. Love the neon skull!   Praise for the Book: “Like Succession meets Blade Runner … an extremely compelling and satisfying read that allowed me to investigate my own place in our time of communion and interdependence with machines.” —Pip Adam, author of Acorn Prize winner The New Animals “I

Tell us about your debut novel, The Book Eaters — the world where it takes place, and the characters who live in that world. The Book Eaters is set in an alternate 2000s Britain, where book-consuming creatures live in gothic manors at the fringes of modern human society. The main character is a single mother on the run from her book eater family, with her mind-eating child in tow, and

Adlakha, Sarah: Midnight on the Marne (Tor/Forge 978-1-250-77459-0, $26.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 9, 2022) Alternate history/time loop fantasy novel. A soldier’s action changes the outcome of WWI, and he gets a chance to go back and set things right.   Chu, Wesley: The Art of Prophecy (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0-593-23763-2, $28.99, 544pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 9, 2022) Fantasy novel, the first book in the

Gallant, V.E. Schwab (Greenwillow 978-0-06-283577-2, $18.99, 352pp, hc) March 2022. Cover by David Curtis. Victoria Schwab’s Gallant is a dark confection, a tale that shares tropes with gothic classics (a curse, ghosts, a house of faded glamour that is shrouded in mystery) and pins its hope for a happy ending on a tortured heroine who is haunted by the secrets of a past she never knew. There is a terrible

Finney and Gwen (Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw) are siblings in 1978 Colorado. Finney is a shy boy who wants to be tougher than he is, including wishing he had the nerve to get between his tougher younger sister and their physically and mentally abusive alcoholic father. The kids have to navigate their relationship to each other while dealing with bullies at school and the potential psychic abilities Gwen seems

VICTORIA AVEYARD is an author and screenwriter, born and raised in a small town in Western Massachusetts. She has a BFA in Writing for Film & Television from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling and USA Today bestselling series, Red Queen, and #1 New York Times bestsellers Realm Breaker and Blade Breaker. For readers who haven’t had

PulpFest has announced the winner for the 2022 Munsey Award, given “to an individual or institution that has bettered the pulp community.” WINNER: Rick Lai Airship 27 Productions John Betancourt Richard Bleiler Gene Christie Henry G. Franke III Chris Kalb William Patrick Maynard Gary Phillips Sheila Vanderbeek Howard Wright Dan Zimmer Nominees were selected by the general pulp community, with the winner selected by a vote of past Lamont, Munsey,

A young-adult Star Wars novel by Kiersten White, Padawan (Disney Lucasfilm), debuts on three lists, ranking #1 on the New York Times‘s Young Adult Hardcover list.

Tom Doherty Associates, a division of Macmillan, is rebranding as Tor Publishing Group, effective immediately. President and publisher Devi Pillai said, “Although the Tor name has always been associated with science fiction and fantasy, our list has included titles beyond that genre since our inception. With this name change and continued growth, the Tor name will now stand for quality in various types of genre publishing, with each imprint representing

Leslye Penelope James Reaves, who writes as L. Penelope and Leslye Penelope, was born April 18, 1978 in the Bronx in New York. Her family moved around when she was young, living in Washington DC and New Jersey before settling in Maryland when she was nine. She attended Howard University in Washington DC, where she studied film and computer science, and went to graduate school at Cal State Hayward (now

The Embroidered Book, Kate Heartfield (Harp­erVoyager 978-0-00838-059-5, $28.99, 672pp, hc) May 2022. After reading Kate Heartfield’s thoroughly engrossing The Embroidered Book, with its account of the secret role of magic in European politics around the time of the French Revolution, I made the mistake of checking out what Wikipedia had to say about such topics as ‘‘secret history’’ or ‘‘historical fantasy.’’ Not too surprisingly, the depth and consistency of the

Finalists for the 2022 Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) Small Press Award for Short Fiction have been announced: “Space Pirate Queen of the Ten Billion Utopias”, Elly Bangs (Lightspeed 11/21) “Eight Mile and the City”, Steven Harper (When Worlds Collide) “Standing Orders”, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller (Derelicts) “The Birdsong Fossil”, DK Mok (Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures) “Laughter Among the Trees”, Suzan Palumbo (The Dark 2/21) “Dress of Ash”,

Omenana 4/22 Samovar 4/22 Analog 5-6/22 In its 21st issue, Omenana continues to bring a fascinating mix of fantasy, science fiction, and horror from African writers. “Madam Aisirhiowen’s Greatest Invention” by Amadin Ogbewe is an interesting story of a woman who transformed herself into a cyborg ruler. When we meet her she is deposed and staying with her great-granddaughter, build­ing something with her minions. It’s pretty ominous, but we only

Hokuloa Road, Elizabeth Hand (Mulholland 978-0316542043, hardcover, 368pp, $28.00) July 2022. In days of yore, when the actual internet was merely science fiction, curious fans found out scarce biographical tidbits about their favorite authors in whatever manner they could: from fanzines, or dustjacket flaps, or occasional media articles and even the rare autobiographical essay. Heinlein lived on a walled estate in Colorado Springs. Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert and Jack Vance

Echo, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor Nightfire 978-1-250-75955-9, $29.99, 416pp, hc) February 2022. Reviewing the work of Thomas Olde Heuvelt is no easy task, and Echo, his latest, is no different. Translated from the Dutch by Moshe Gilula, this is a complex, creepy, atmospheric, labyrinthine monster that comes in at more than 400 pages. Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt is a novel about many things; grief, trauma, unconditional love, murder, creatures

The first Trigon Awards were announced by Spiral Tower Press, honoring “the past, present, and future of science fiction, fantasy, and horror” in three categories. Literary Achievement: David C. Smith for sword-and-sorcery writing. Scholarly Achievement: Bobby Derie for Lovecraft scholarship. Special Achievement: The Cromcast, a podcast about Robert E. Howard. The awards were presented July 30, 2022 at SpiralCon 1 in Newport News VA. Awardees were selected by the organizing committee

The Locus Awards took place online on June 22-25, 2022, in its third year as a virtual-only event. Connie Willis emceed the awards ceremony, with editor-in-chief of Locus Liza Trombi co-hosting. There were over 150 registrations, and full members received a Locus Awards t-shirt or gift book, and the awards pro­gram. There was also a sliding scale, attendance-only membership rate. A mini-convention, the online events had eight reading sessions, scheduled

The Girl Who Outgrew the World, Zoje Stage (Lethe 978-1-59021-523-4, $15.00, 180pp, tp) May 2022. Eleven-year-old Lilly is having a growth spurt. Only this is no ordinary, normal march towards adolescence. In Zoje Stage’s new novella, The Girl Who Outgrew the World, the title itself reveals the scale and pace of Lilly’s development, a mysterious, monstrous, and inexplicable surge that baffles and frightens her father, her friends, her town, and

Spend a few minutes with us and find out about all of the SF/F/H books hitting shelves this week. Our latest New Books video is up!   We’ve got cats in space, more baking weirdness, horror, alien archeological digs, non-fiction about fantasy, and more! Give us a few minutes and we’ll catch you up on the top books that are slated to hit bookstore (and Amazon) shelves for August 2,

The twenty-one winning titles for the PEN Translates awards have been announced, including the following titles and authors of genre interest: The Clock and the Guest, Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright(Comma) The Heart Sutra, Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas (Chatto & Windus) You, Bleeding Childhood, Michele Mari, translated by Brian Robert Moore (And Other Stories) Egypt + 100: Stories from a Century After the Revolution (Comma Press) With support from Arts

The Doloriad, Missouri Williams (MCD x FSG Originals 978-0-37460-508-7, $17.00, 240pp, tp) March 2022. Missouri Williams’s debut novel, The Doloriad, comes close to pipping Mónica Ojeda’s Jawbone as the most disturbing book I’ve read this year (note, I said close; Jawbone still holds the crown). It’s a post-apocalyptic story where an unknown cataclysm, possibly environmental (though it’s never made clear) has wiped out humanity. Well, almost. In a deserted city

Cover Reveal! Today’s cover reveal is from CamCat Books: a gorgeous and mystical cover for Brandon Ying Kit Boey’s debut novel Karma of the Sun.   Praise for the Book “A hero’s journey for the end of the world, Karma of the Sun is a must-read for anyone reckoning with where we are now and where we will go next.” —Erin Swan, author of Walk the Vanished Earth “With silken prose and atmospheric grandeur,

The lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice to stop the proposed merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster has gone to trial this week. Publishers Weekly has been covering the case: Monday featured opening arguments and testimony by Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch for the government, giving an overview of the book business and discussing how the merger would have a deleterious effect on competition. Tuesday’s proceedings

Lakelore, Anna-Marie McLemore (Feiwel and Friends 978-1-250-62414-7, $18.99, 304pp, hc) March 2022. Cover by Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor. The delicate contemporary fantasy Lakelore uses author Anna-Marie McLemore’s fa­miliar lush language to describe a strange and beautiful world beneath a lake and the two teenagers who explore it. The magic elements are subtle and largely expressed through the papier-mâché construction of alebrije, Mexican folk art sculptures of imaginary creature which come to

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki has been announced as guest of honor for the 44th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA), with Isiah Lavender III announced as guest scholar. ICFA 44, hosted by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA), will take place March 15-18, 2023 at the Marriott Orlando Airport Lakeside in Orlando FL. For more information, see the convention website. While you are here,

Attebery, Brian: Fantasy: How it Works (Oxford University Press 978-0-1928-5623-4, $27.95, 208pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, June 30, 2022) Non-fiction, critical exploration of the genre, its popularity, and its relevance to contemporary experience as “the lie that speaks truth”. Authors covered include Ursula K. Le Guin, C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, and Nnedi Okorafor.   Blair, Melissa: A Broken Blade (Barnes & Noble/Union Square & Co. 9781454947875, $17.99, 448pp, formats: trade paperback,

Horror Spotlight, formerly known as The Ladies of Horror Fiction (LOHF), is open to applications for their fourth annual LOHF Writers Grant. “This will be the last year the grant will be a ‘Ladies of Horror Fiction’ grant.” Fourteen awards of $100 each are available “to all women and non-binary femmes who have reasonably demonstrated a commitment to writing in the horror genre.” Applications are open until 11:59 CST, August

StokerCon 2023 announced on their blog that Wrath James White will join Daniel Kraus and Cynthia Pelayo as Guest of Honor. The event will be held June 15-18, 2023 at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Hotel at Station Square in Pittsburgh PA, and will will include the Bram Stoker Awards banquet. Early registration is $150 until October 1, 2022, when the rate raises to $200. For more information, see the official website.

Kaleidotrope 4/22 Zooscape 4/22 Escape Pod 4/22 Drabblecast 4/22 I’ll start off with the Spring Kaleidotrope, which does a good job keeping to a few the­matic threads throughout the issue. Though the publication often leans into horror, there’s more of a focus on grief and loss with this group of stories and poems, with recurring ideas of alternate dimensions/universes and sacrifices of various kinds. Aimee Ogden opens the issue with

The 2022 longlist for the Diverse Book Awards has been announced. The awards were created “to highlight the best of the diverse voices published in the UK & Ireland during 2021, both traditionally and self-published.” Titles and authors of interest follow. Best Adult Black Water Sister, Zen Cho (Pan Macmillan) This One Sky Day, Leone Ross (Faber) Best Young Adult Skin of The Sea, Natasha Bowen (PRH Children’s) Best Children’s

The Mythopoeic Society announced the 2022 Mythopoeic Awards Winners during Mythcon 52, held July 29th through August 1st 2022, in Albuquerque, NM. Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature WINNER: Or What You Will, Jo Walton (Tor)  The Witness for the Dead, Katherine Addison (Tor) Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki (Tor) A Master of Djinn, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom) Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury) Terciel and Elinor, Garth Nix (Katherine Tegen) Mythopoeic

A new novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (Del Rey), debuts on four lists, ranking as high as #3 on the Los Angeles Times list.

Sistersong by Lucy Holland (Macmillan; Redhook) and Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (Headline; Flatiron) are on the six-title shortlist for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. The award was established in 2017 by independent bookstore Goldsboro Books for novels with “with brilliant characterisation and a distinct voice that is confidently written and assuredly realised.” The winning title will be announced September 8, 2022 and the author will receive £2,000 as well

Actor and author Nichelle Nichols, 89, died July 30, 2022 in Silver City NM of heart failure. Nichols was best known for her portrayal of communications officer Lieutenant Uhura in the original series of Star Trek (1966-69) and subsequent film projects. She was one of the first Black women to have a major role on a network television program, and had a profound influence on US culture. She was also

Bitter, Akwaeke Emezi (Knopf Books for Young Readers 978-0593309032, 272pp, $17.99, hc) February 2022. Cover by Shyama Golden. Content warning: sexual violence, anti-Black racism. I would be amiss to not begin with the words that Akwaeke Emezi writes in their dedication of Bitter: ‘‘Still and always, for Toyin Salau. You deserved a better world.’’ Toyin was raped and murdered by an older man who assaulted her after offering her a

Suzanne Palmer was born in 1968, just outside Boston MA. She studied at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, earning a Bach­elor of Fine Arts in studio art focused on sculpture. She began writing fiction seriously in 2001, and attended the Viable Paradise workshop in 2005. She began publishing SF with “The Ins and Outs of Intergalactic Diplomacy” (2005). “The Secret Life of Bots” (2017) is a Hugo Award winner,

The Moonday Letters, Emmi Itäranta (Titan 978-1803360447, trade paperback, 368pp, $15.95) July 2022. One of John Campbell’s prescriptions for the kind of science fiction he wanted to see was to say, paraphrased, “Give me a story which could legitimately be presented as contemporary fiction in a magazine of the year 2100.” In other words, a story narrated out of a deep and implicit and shared set of assumptions about what

The Path of Thorns, A.G. Slatter (Titan Books 978-1-78909-437-4, $15.95, 384pp, tp) June 2022. Over the last decade, beginning with the collec­tion Sourdough and Other Stories, A.G. Slatter has steadily built a lush and deeply imagined sec­ondary world inspired by European fairy tales, myths, and legends. Last year she published the first novel set in this universe, the fabulous gothic fantasy, All The Murmuring Bones (one of my favourite books

Ymir, Rich Larson (Orbit 978-0316416580, trade paperback, 416pp, $17.99) July 2022. If one tried to engineer a young writer who would embody all the core values, tactics, and ambiance of Classic SF while still conveying ultra-contemporary attitudes, ambiance, and affect, one could hardly produce a better candidate than Rich Larson. Just turned thirty years old, he’s already delivered over a hundred fine stories and now brings us his third novel,

Face, Joma West (Tordotcom 978-1-25081-029-8, $26.99, 272pp, hc) August 2022. We already live in a world where, for many, looks are currency, identity is performative, and status is a game. There’s no shortage of opinion on the effects of social media on culture, research on how phones have – literally – changed our posture and vision, and speculation on how replacing online communication either enhances or erodes human connection. Joma

Amazon has stopped selling Kindle ebook readers in China, and will stop sell­ing ebooks there in June 2023. The Kindle app will be removed from Chinese app stores in 2024, and readers who previously purchased Kindle ebooks will no longer be able to access their libraries. Customers who bought a Kindle reader this year may receive refunds. Amazon is reportedly “ad­justing the strategic focus of its operations,” and will continue

Give us ten minutes, we’ll tell you about everything SFFH you need to know about hitting shelves this week! Don’t forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE!

Iris Compiet has been announced as the artist guest of honor for the 2022 World Fantasy Convention, with Brandon O’Brien joining as an author special guest, and Nisi Shawl as the featured guest. All three will join the previously announced guests Ginjer Buchanan, Andrei Codrescu, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Victor LaValle, Jo Walton, and Toastmaster Ursula Vernon. The convention will be held November 3-6, 2022 in New Orleans LA at the

Finalists for the second annual Mike Resnick Memorial Award for Short Fiction have been announced: “It Matches the Color of Your Eye”, Matt Broomfield “Parallels”, Akshayarka Alammyan Deka “What Would You Pay for a Second Chance?”, Chris Kulp “Seedpod”, Ellen Parent “On the Left”, Sandra Sigienski The award — sponsored by Galaxy’s Edge, Arc Manor, and Dragon Con — is given to the best unpublished science fiction short story by

This Wicked Fate, Kalynn Bayron (Bloomsbury YA 978-1-54760-920-8, $18.99, 320pp, hc) August 2022. Kalynn Bayron concludes her riveting This Poison Heart duology with This Wicked Fate. Briseis Greene begins the novel still reeling from the revelation that her family is descended from Greek gods. She is desperate to save her mother from her untimely death. With her family and friends at her back (and with her god-given gifts to make

The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust has announced the shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, an inaugural $25,000 cash prize given to “a single book-length work of imaginative fiction.” The shortlist is as follows: A Snake Falls to Earth, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido) The House of Rust, Khadija Abdalla Bajaber (Graywolf) Appleseed, Matt Bell (Custom) Summer in the City of Roses, Michelle Ruiz Keil

Locklands, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey 978-1-984-82067-9, $28.99, 506pp, hc) June 2022. Locklands is the third and final volume in the Founders trilogy by Robert Jack­son Bennett, begun with Shorefall and Foundryside. It’s hard to talk about the last book in a trilogy without spoiling the first two, so consider yourself warned. The central magical conceit of the series is scriving, inscribing objects with a magical script that alters their

This list covers new SF/F/H print, online, and electronic periodicals (including regularly updated websites) seen by Locus magazine, focusing on those that publish fiction or reviews and criticism. To submit titles for listing on these pages, please send to Locus Publications, 655 13th St. #100, Oakland CA 94612 or email locus@locusmag.com. Analog Science Fiction and Fact Trevor Quachri, ed. Vol. 92 Nos. 7 & 8, July/August 2022 $8.99, bimonthly, 208pp,

Needle, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island 978-1-937197-40-7, $19.00, 356pp, tp) July 2022. Cover by Sarah Anne Langton. Decades ago, my imagination of the far, far future of humankind was formed by Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men and Star Maker: melancholy, long-lens scenarios that lack individual characters and conventional plot-lines but whose visions of the possible range of thinking beings and civilizations and deep time were simultaneously breathtaking and sobering. Relatively

The Clarion West Summer Workshop has announced its 2023 instructors: Samit Basu, N.K. Jemisin, Karen Lord, Mary Anne Mohanraj & Benjamin Rosenbaum, Cat Rambo, and Arley Sorg. The six-week summer workshop will be held June 25 – August 5, 2023 in Seattle WA, with applications opening in December 2022. For more information, see the Clarion West website. While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a

The North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation (NCSFF) has announced the winner for the 2022 Manly Wade Wellman Award. The award recognizes “outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy novels written by North Carolina authors.” WINNER: The Actual Star, Monica Byrne (Harper Voyager)  A Song with Teeth, T. Frohock (Harper Voyager) Sounding Dark, Jo Graham (Candlemark & Gleam) Blind Tiger, Jordan L. Hawk (Widdershins) Bacchanal, Veronica Henry (47North) Water Horse, Melissa

Chosen Spirits, Samit Basu (Simon & Schuster India 978-9386797810, ₹499.00, 243pp, hc) April 2020. (Self-published, $3.99, eb) April 2020. As The City Inside, Samit Basu (Tordotcom 978-1-25082-748-7, $25.99, 256pp, hc) June 2022. Samit Basu’s The City Inside appeared in India a couple of years ago under the title Chosen Spir­its, and was reviewed in this magazine (August 2020) by Ian Mond, who, while noting parallels between Basu’s grim near-future Delhi

Finalists for the 2022 Prix Utopiales Jeunesse for Best French SF for Young Adults have been announced. Prix Utopiales Jeunesse LX18, Kamel Benaouda (Gallimard Jeunesse) Sable bleu, Yves Grevet (Syros) Le jardin des chimères, Johan Heliot (ScriNéo) Le troisième exode, Daniel Mat (ScriNéo) L’île, Vincent Villeminot (PKJ) The prize will be presented at Les Utopiales, Festival International De Science-Fiction hosted October 22 – November 1, 2022. While you are here,

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, translated by Helene Bützow (WSOY), won the 2022 Tähtifantasia Award, presented by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society for the best Finnish fantasy book published in the previous year. The 2022 jurors were Jukka Halme, Aleksi Kuutio, Osmo Määttä, and Niina Tolonen. [via File 770] 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