The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky, John Hornor Jacobs (Harper Voyager $3.99 127pp, eb) Oc­tober 2018. John Hornor Jacobs’s The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky is an excellently written, Lovecraft-inflected novella concerned with the history of an invented South American nation and the life of its most famous poet. It begins in Malaga, Spain, in 1987, with Isabel, the first-person narrator, noticing an older man wearing an eye

Hedge fund Man Group will no longer sponsor the Booker Prize, effective after the 2019 prizes are presented. The Man Group has contributed £25 million to the prize since its sponsorship began in 2002, including £1.6 million for the 2019 prize. The Booker Foundation said, “The Trustees are in discussion with a new sponsor and are confident that new funding will be in place for 2020. In the meantime the

» NY Times Book Review: Ben H. Winters asks What Do the Make-Believe Bureaucracies of Sci-Fi Novels Say About Us? » NY Times: The Moral Clarity of ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ at 50 by Kevin Powers » Guardian: Eric Brown reviews Ann Leckie, Tade Thompson, Helen Marshall, Stephen Palmer, Temi Oh » The Verge: Arizona State University released a free sci-fi anthology about the future of solar power » Scott Edelman dines with

Faerie Knitting, Alice & Lisa Hoffman; Janu­ary LaVoy, narrator (Simon & Schuster Audio/Blackstone Audio 978-150827645-6, $21.99, CD, 1.5 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) September 2018. Somewhere I have a half-finished article that I always intended to submit to a knitting maga­zine, concerning the strong parallels between SF geekery and knitting geekery. Both involve a certain intensity of focus on the topic, utilize a specialized vocabulary, hold conventions

The Bookseller has announced the shortlists for the 2019 British Book Awards, including several titles of genre interest. Début Book of the Year The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock, Imogen Hermes Gowar (HarperCollins; Harvill Secker) The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton (Bloomsbury; Raven) Children’s Book of the Year Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt; Macmillan) The House with Chicken Legs, Sophie Anderson (Scholastic; Usborne) Fiction Book

The Speculative Literature Foundation’s inaugural A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Literature is open for submissions until March 31, 2019. The grant provides $1,000 to “a South Asian / South Asian diaspora writer developing speculative fiction.” The SLF also offers the Older Writers Grant, the Working Class Writers Grant, and more. For details or to apply, visit the Speculative Literature Foundation website.

Raw Dog Screaming Press won the Horror Writers Association (HWA) Specialty Press Award, recognizing “the accomplishments of a noteworthy small press or presses” and given to “an outstanding publisher of horror, dark fantasy, and weird fiction.” The awards will be presented during StokerCon 2019, May 9-12, 2019 at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids MI. As previously announced, Graham Masterton will also receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. For

Unholy Land, Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon Publica­tions 978-1616963040, $15.95, 288pp, tp) October 2018. In 1938 (or possibly 1939) there was a plan to settle European Jews facing rising anti-semitism in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It never eventuated. More than a century prior, and a good 80 years before the establishment of modern-day Zionism, Mordechai Manuel Noah attempted to establish a Jewish State, called Ararat, in Grand Island NY. He

Jane Crowley and Kate Dollarhyde are stepping down as editors-in-chief of Strange Horizons, with Vanessa Rose Phin taking over the role. Crowley and Dollarhyde said: Friends and fellow readers, we come bearing bittersweet news: the time has come for us to move along. We’re stepping down from our positions as editors-in-chief and passing the torch to Vanessa Rose Phin, who’s served the magazine ably in several capacities during vees long

Finalists for the 2019 Colorado Book Awards include the following titles of genre interest: Science Fiction/Fantasy Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures, Alex Acks (Queen of Swords) While Gods Sleep, L.D. Colter (Tam Lin) Denver Moon: The Minds of Mars, Warren Hammond & Joshua Viola (Hex) General Nonfiction Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded, Jason Heller (Melville House) Juvenile Literature The Lighthouse Between

Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch (Del Rey 1/19) In the concluding volume of the Winternight Trilogy, following The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower, a young witch named Vasilisa Petrovna and Morozko the winter-king battle evil forces in order to save a magical 14th-century Russia.   Josiah Bancroft, The Hod King (Orbit 1/19) Third in the Books of Babel quartet in which a man

Shimmer 11/18 Clarkesworld 11/18 Lightspeed 12/18 As we say goodbye to 2018 we also bid a fond farewell to Shimmer, as their 46th issue is their last. After 13 years of pub­lication they go out in style with a 12-story triple issue that showcases the wide range of genre fic­tion that found a home between their covers over the years. It starts strongly with “Rotkäppchen” by Emily McCosh, and you

Philip Pullman won the 2019 J.M. Barrie Award, given annually by the Action for Children’s Arts (ACA) “to a children’s arts practitioner or organisation in recognition of a lifetime’s achievement in delighting children.” ACA chair Vicky Ireland said: The Trustees selected Sir Philip Pullman as the winner of the ACA JM Barrie Award 2019, for his outstanding talent as a storyteller who appeals to all ages, especially to the young.

Uncommon Miracles, Julie C. Day (PS 978-1-786363-34-3, £20.00, 234pp, hc) October 2018. Well, aren’t we about overdue for the bunny apoc­alypse? That seems to be the question Julie C. Day raises in “Everyone Gets a Happy Ending”, the lead story in her first collection Uncommon Miracles, and it’s not quite as whimsical as it sounds. It follows the familiar pattern of end-of-days tales, with two friends making their way from

I owe a lot to Doctor Who, but not my enduring affection for the time travel story. In my formative years, the Time Lords had grounded the Doctor, the Tardis confined to a corner of the laboratory while an endless parade of monsters kept trying to invade or blow up nineteen-seventies Earth. What did it for me—what opened my mind to the imaginative possibilities of time travel—was HG Wells. Not

A war journalist, warrior priest, war against the machines, war on the moon, interstellar war, and Game of Thrones leadership secrets on this week’s list of 13 new books! New titles this week are by K. Ancrum, Bruce Craven, David Dalglish, Cory Doctorow, K.A. Doore, Sarah Beth Durst, M.T. Hill, Kameron Hurley, Ian McDonald, Sarah Pinsker, Sarah Porter, Alastair Reynolds, and Jack Skillingstead.

The Carnegie Medal shortlist for best children’s book has been announced. Titles of genre interest follow. The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo (Electric Monkey) The House with Chicken Legs, Sophie Anderson (Usborne) A Skinful of Shadows, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children’s) The Land of Neverendings, Kate Saunders (Faber & Faber) The award is presented by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). The winner will be announced June 18, 2019 in a

Murmur by Will Eaves (Bellevue) and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin) are on the six-title shortlist for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize. The £30,000 prize “rewards exceptional works of literature that illuminate the many ways that health, medicine and illness touch our lives.” Judges for 2019 are Jon Day, Rick Edwards, Kevin Fong, Viv Groskop, and Elif Shafak (chair). The winner will be announced on

Winners of the 2019 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award have been announced. Grand Prize: “Burners”, Matt McHugh First runner-up: “Acid Test”, Gustavo Bondoni Second runner-up: “Dangerous Orbit”, M.T. Reiten The Grand Prize winning story will be featured on the Baen website in June 2019. The author will be given a trophy and paid a professional rate. Grand Prize, second, and third place winners each receive free admission into the

Foundryside, Robert Jackson Bennett; Tara Sands, narrator (Random House Audio, $32.95, digital download, 19.5 hr., unabridged) August 2018. The city of Tevanne runs on magitech: “Scrivings,” writings based on the relics of an ancient magical civilization, are used to power vehicles and all manner of technologi­cal innovations. But only the wealthy merchant guilds and their employees benefit from these, or indeed, from any public services at all. The guild­less are

Winners have been announced for the inaugural “Favorite SF in Translation” award, given to non-Anglophone speculative fiction that has been translated into English and published between January 1 and December 31, 2018. The winners were chosen by a readers’ survey. Novel WINNER: The Bottom of the Sky, Rodrigo Fresan, translated by Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter) First Runner-up: Condomnauts, Yoss, translated by David Frye (Restless) Second Runner-up: Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami,

Several award winners were announced at the 40th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA), held March 13-16, 2019 at the Orlando Airport Marriott in Orlando FL. Mark Bould received the IAFA Distinguished Scholarship Award, given for “distinguished contributions to the scholarship and criticism of the fantastic.” Gary K. Wolfe received the Robert A. Collins Service Award, “presented to an officer, board member, or division head for outstanding

A new YA Star Wars novel by E.K. Johnston, Queen’s Shadow (Disney) debuts on four lists.

Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction, Sunyung Park & Sang Joon Park, eds. (Kaya Press 978-1-885030-57-3, $24.95, 434pp, tp) March 2019. With Chinese SF gaining such prominence lately, and Japanese SF having been more or less familiar to Western readers for decades (I reviewed the first English-language study of Japanese SF way back in 1992!), it’s reasonable to be curious about what else is going on

SHANNON CHAKRABORTY was born December 7, 1985 in New Jersey. She studied international relations and Middle Eastern history at American University before moving to Brooklyn to work in a medical office. While working in healthcare, she joined the Brooklyn Speculative Fictions Writers group and began developing her craft with early stories set in the world that would become the Daevabad trilogy, an epic political fantasy inspired by medieval Islamic history.

I Am the River, T.E. Grau (Lethe Press 978-1590214459, $15.00, 220pp, tp) October 2018. The decision of the Man Booker judges to award Anna Burns’s stream of conscious­ness novel Milkman with the top prize for 2018 triggered a fresh bout of navel-gazing amongst reviewers and critics about the accessibil­ity of literary fiction. In a fantastic, erudite article for The Guardian (“Pretentious, impenetrable, hard work… better? Why we need difficult books”)

Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks ((John Joseph Adams 978-1-328-56645-4, $24, 304pp, hardcover, February 2019) Arguably, we live in a golden age for ghost stories, of an excellence and profusion on a par with the Victorian era classics. Writers such as Mike Carey, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Tim Powers, and Paul Tremblay are working in this mode at the top of their game. As an article in

Bluecrowne, Kate Milford (Clarion Books 978-1328-466884, $17.99, 255pp, hc) October 2018. In this prequel to The Left-Handed Fate and her popular books about Greenglass House, author Kate Milford ties together elements from across her sprawling literary landscape to show how, basically, a whole lot of things hap­pened for the first time. It is unnecessary to read any of her other books to enjoy Bluecrowne, however, although new readers will likely

Winners of the 2019 Darrell Awards were announced March 16, 2019 during MidSouthCon 37 at the Hilton Memphis in Memphis TN. Best Midsouth Novel WINNER: Every Wind of Change, Frank Tuttle (self-published) First Runner-Up: In the Service of Luna, John E. Siers (Stonewall) Best Midsouth Novella WINNER: “Find the Lady”, Kevin Andrew Murphy (Mississippi Roll) First Runner-Up: The Hairy Man, William Alan Webb (Dingbat) Best Midsouth Short Story  Winner: Knob Hill

The People’s Republic of Everything, Nick Mamatas (Tachyon 978-1-61696-300-2, $15.95, 336pp, tp) September 2018. Nick Mamatas is one of my favorite story writers, mostly because I never know what I’m going to encounter under his byline: satirical SF, black-hearted noir, sly his­torical reimaginings, clear-eyed twists on the Lovecraft mythos, open calls for revolution, left­ist politics (and critiques thereof), and weirder things. His latest collection, The People’s Republic of Everything, contains

“Writing a novel is as if you are going off on a journey across a valley. The valley is full of mist, but you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there. And with any luck you can see the other side of the valley. But you cannot see down into the mist. Nevertheless, you head for the first tree.” — Terry

As usual, I mostly read short horror fiction, but among the novels I read I found several good ones to recom­mend: Unbury Carol by Josh Maler­man (Del Rey) is a weird, deeply dark western about the eponymous woman, who has suffered from a condition since childhood – she periodically falls into a deep coma-like state during which she appears dead. Only a few people know, and one – her husband

The Mere Wife, Maria Dahvana Head­ley; Susan Bennett, narrator (Macmillan Audio 978-1-42729783-9, $44.99, CD, 9 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital down­load]) July 2018. Maria Dahvana Headley transforms Beowulf into a modern, vicious, and lyrical story about racial, class, and gender divides, and the messy legacy of gentrification. Dana Mills was an African-American marine fighting a desert war when the enemy slaughtered her team, kidnapped her, faked her execution,

Random House publisher Susan Kamil announced the closure of imprint Spiegel & Grau: I am very sorry to announce that with the reorganization of our Group, Cindy Speigel and Julie Grau will be leaving the company, and the Spiegel & Grau imprint, which they have led for the past thirteen years, will be discontinued. The imprint was launched at Doubleday in 2007 and joined Random House in 2008, and published

» NY Times Book Review: Alec Nevala-Lee reviews John Lancheseter’s The Wall » Also in NYTBR, Jennifer Hubert Swan reviews Y.A. crossover fantasy by Berry, LaFevers, Ahmed, and Chokshi » Next week’s NYTBR: Zambian novelist Namwali Serpell on When Science Fiction Comes True » PRI podcast: The sci-fi of another language, about Liu Cixin and Ken Liu » Scott Edelman dines with Michael J. Walsh

Cross Her Heart, Sarah Pinborough (HarperCol­lins UK 978-0008132019, £12.99, 384pp, hc) May 2018. (Morrow 9780062856791 $26.99, 352pp, hc) September 2018. As was the case with Behind Her Eyes, Sarah Pinborough’s previous bestseller, there’s a sig­nificant plot twist in Cross Her Heart, her new novel. The difference is, this crook in the narra­tive arrives at roughly its halfway point and is only the first of several which accelerate the plot. The

As ever, the exercise of trying to infer grand themes from a year’s books (or, more exactly, a year’s read­ing) is a bit of a lottery. If nothing else, writing and publishing lead-times mean that very few books were a direct verdict on the year in which they were published. But I’d note two themes that struck me. Firstly, it felt like a year when there were more than the

Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue, translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen (Yale University Press) and Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell (Oneworld) are on the 13-title longlist for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. The award is given “annually for a single work of fiction, translated into English and published in the UK.” The £50,000 prize is divided equally among the author and translator(s).

Katherine Paterson won the $10,000 E.B. White Award for achievement in children’s literature, given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Paterson’s genre work includes Bridge to Terabithia, for which she won the Newbery Medal in 1978. Judges for the E.B. White Award were Judy Blume and Alison Lurie. The award will be presented in May 2019 at the Academy’s annual ceremony in New York NY. For more information,

The Locus Bestsellers for March include top titles Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, and Firefly: Big Damn Hero by James Lovegrove. HARDCOVERS Months on list Last month 1) Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 2 1 2) How Long ’til Black Future Month?, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) 1 – 3) The Consuming Fire,

Strange Horizons 10/18 Samovar 9/18 Giganotosaurus 11/18 Big Echo 8/18 Liminal Stories 8/18 Red Sun #3 Fall brings expanded coverage from Strange Ho­rizons as their successful annual fundraiser “un­locked” extra stories in October. “The Fortunate Death of Jonathan Sandelson” by Margaret Killjoy is one such story, a cyber-punkish tale of left wing activists using doxxing/IT/hacking tools to go after abusive corporate and government powers. Jeje has been following and harassing

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor 978-0-7653-7996-2, $26.99, 368pp, hardcover, February 2019) Charlie Jane Anders’s debut novel from 2016, All the Birds in the Sky, marked the emergence of a truly distinctive voice. In her tale of battling magicians and scientists, she managed to gainfully conflate a touching love story with a scary apocalypse, yoking the quotidian with the cosmic, the comic with

The Spanish Inquisition in Granada. An alien invasion in Nigeria. A starport in Chicago. Here are 11 new science fiction and fantasy books out this week! New titles this week are by Asja Bakic, Zen Cho, Kate Hope Day, Patrick Edwards, George R.R. Martin & Raya Golden, Farah Mendlesohn, K.K. Pérez, Nisi Shawl, Dan Stout, Tade Thompson, and G. Willow Wilson.

The Million, Karl Schroeder (Tor.com) August 2018. People Change, Gwynne Garfinkle (Aqueduct Press) October 2018. Mother of Invention, Rivqa Rafael & Tansy Rayner Roberts, eds. (Twelfth Planet Press) Sep­tember 2019. The Million by Karl Schroeder is a very intrigu­ing novella set in the future of his novel Lockstep, which I have not read. In this future, Earth is in­habited by close to one million people who strictly maintain their population

It is the distant future: 1995. In this 21st installation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the first female-led Marvel movie, Brie Larson plays Vers, a green blue-blooded member of the Kree, a technologically advanced race of aliens who value emotional control. Vers and her mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) lead a Starfleet Starforce secret mission against the Romulans Skrull, a shapeshifting race that has been at war with the Kree

Calendar year 2018 was dominated by the over­whelming success of the movie Black Panther, which drew a whole new audience to cinemas in cit­ies like Nairobi and Lagos. It inspired a sugar-rush of love, a hastily retitled Nol­lywood rip off, and a small mini-backlash from those who rewrote Wakanda’s history to make it more credibly African. Elsewhere in film, the Nigerian short Hello Rain, adapted by CJ Obasi from a

Voting has opened for the 2020 North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC). Ballots are available on the SpikeCon/NASFiC 2019 site. Voting by mail is open until June 29, 2019 to members of NASFiC 2019 who have paid the $35 Advance Supporting Membership fee. Voting at the convention is available July 4-5, 2019. The only qualifying bid on the ballot is Columbus in 2020, to be held August 20-23, 2020 at

Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree debuts on three lists.

LEIGH BARDUGO was born April 6, 1975 in Jerusalem, Israel, and grew up in Southern California. She attended Yale University, graduating with an English degree in 1997, and worked various jobs, including as a copywriter, journalist, and make-up and special effects artist. Her debut YA novel Shadow and Bone, an epic fantasy, appeared in 2012, and began the Shadow and Bone trilogy that continued with Siege and Storm (2013) and

Summerland, Hannu Rajaniemi; Antonia Beamish, narrator (Macmillan Audio, $23.95, digital down­load, 10 hr., unabridged) June 2018. Rajaniemi’s standalone supernatural spy thriller is set in an alternate Cold War during the 1930s. The British have successfully colonized a piece of the af­terlife, which they call Summerland, and the Soviets have built a supercomputer based on a hive mind of the deceased, controlled by the spirit of Lenin. The two sides conduct

New issues of Apex, Aphelion, Aurealis, Clarkesworld, The Dark, Galaxy’s Edge, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Lightspeed, Nightmare, and Uncanny

Confessions of the Fox, Jordy Rosenberg (One World 978-0-399-59227-0, $27.00, 334pp, hc) June 2018. When Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox appeared last summer to some mainstream fanfare, drawing praise from figures as diverse as China Miéville and Kelly Link, it didn’t come to my immediate attention since – at least tech­nically – it’s not quite SF or fantasy. Instead, it concerns a failing professor named Voth who comes across

The top five results of the Uncanny Magazine 2018 Favorite Fiction Reader Poll have been announced. “The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat”, Brooke Bolander “The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society”, T. Kingfisher “How to Swallow the Moon”, Isabel Yap “The Thing About Ghost Stories”, Naomi Kritzer (tie): “The Hydraulic Emperor”, Arkady Martine and “She Still Loves the Dragon”, Elizabeth

“The Old Man and C” by Sheila Finch (1989) has been adapted as a stage play by Jason Trucco & David Jager, with a musical score by Carlos Alomar, and debuted in “semi-public” performances on February 10-13, 2019 in New York. This story and more like it in the March 2019 issue of Locus. While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring

Howdy, listeners! It’s been another year when audio­books seem ever more robust as a medium, plus another year of the inter­minable online argument about whether listening to the audiobook has equal weight with reading the book (hint: yes, yes it does). But, as is my wont at this time of year, I’m using this space to discuss the listening time I spent being unfaithful to audiobooks, and talk about the

February posts at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Tor.com

The Plastic Magician, Charlie N. Holmberg (47North 978-1503951778, $24.95, 225pp, hc) May 2018. Returning to the world of her Paper Magician novels, author Charlie Holmberg takes readers along on the trials and tribulations of Alvie Brechenmacher, as­piring Plastic Magician. There is a journey far from home! Great magical achievements! A smidgeon of romance! A dastardly villain! A battle to save life, limb, and reputation! A robbery! A car! A picnic!

All Systems Red, Martha Wells; Kevin R. Free, nar­rator (Recorded Books 978-1-5019-7701-5, $11.95, CD, 3.25 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) October 2017. Artificial Condition, Martha Wells; Kevin R. Free, narrator (Recorded Books 978-1-5019-7700-8, $11.95, CD, 3.25 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) May 2018. Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells; Kevin R. Free, narrator (Recorded Books 978-1-5019-7699-5, $11.95, CD, 3.75 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital

The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced finalists for the 31st Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”), celebrating “the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books.” Nominees of genre interest follow. LGBTQ SF/F/Horror Metabolize, If Able, Clay AD (Monster House) In the Vanishers’ Palace, Aliette de Bodard (JABberwocky) Resilience, Fletcher DeLancey (Heartsome) The Breath of the Sun, Isaac R. Fellman (Aqueduct) The Barrow Will Send What it May, Margaret Killjoy (Tor.com

At the beginning of 2018 I had no idea that I would end up reading so much short fiction from so many different venues that I would need a spreadsheet to keep track of it. Since I started reviewing online short fiction for Locus in the August issue (after the sad passing of Gardner Dozois – I very much wish I could read his 2018 year-end column this year) I’ve

Ray Bradbury Park in Waukegan IL will receive Literary Landmark status from the American Library Association’s United for Libraries division in a designation ceremony on March 16, 2019 at 4:51 p.m. The park contains the Waukegan Ravine, featured in Bradbury’s novel Dandelion Wine. The ceremony will include the unveiling of a Literary Landmark plaque, prominent Bradbury speakers, and a special performance of Bradbury’s short play, “The Whole Town’s Sleeping” by

Baen Books has released the list of ten finalists for the 2019 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award: Gustavo Bondoni C Stuart Hardwick Harry Lang Jeffrey Lyman Matt McHugh Wendy Nikel M.T. Reiten Benjamin Tyler Smith Tiffany Smith Marie Vibbert The Grand Prize winning story will be featured on the Baen website. The author will be given a trophy and paid a professional rate. Grand Prize, second, and third place

Through Fiery Trials, David Weber (Tor Books 978-0765325594, $28.99, 752pp, hc) January 2019. I’m not so much looking forward to what David Weber does next. Reading his work has become something of an ordeal. And yet it remains an ordeal to which I’ve willingly subjected myself many times over – at least ten times, in the case of his Safehold series, of which the most recent instalment is Through Fiery

The Plotters by Un-su Kim ((Doubleday 978-0385544382, $25.95, 304pp, hardcover, January 2019) The theme of secret conspiracies running our mundane world has sunk deep roots into the genre of fantastika. Although quite often such books exhibit no supernatural or SFnal apparatus, they still manage to evoke speculative or weird effects that resonate with the genre, since they demand a kind of cognitive estrangement: everything you know is wrong. John Crowley

Shadow Captain, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz 978-0575090637, 432pp, £18.99, hc) January 2019. Alastair Reynolds’ Shadow Captain, the sequel to Revenger (2016) moves from the YA-ish space-operatic pirate adventure of the first book to something considerably less light-hearted – not that there weren’t indications in Revenger, starting with the title and extending to the villain, whose comprehensive cruelty was not ignored or minimized. But now the growing-up thematics are behind us, and

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. The award will be presented during the Campbell Conference Awards reception on June 21, 2019. “Freezing Rain, A Chance of Falling”, L.X. Beckett (F&SF 7-8/18) The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing) “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth

20 new science fiction and fantasy books released this week! New titles this week are by Andrew Bannister, Elizabeth Bear, Laura Bickle, Anne Bishop, K. Chess, Brian Lee Durfee, Jenna Glass, Kevin Hearne/Lila Bowen/Chuck Wendig, Kate Heartfield, John Lanchester, Tim Maughan, Seanan McGuire, Rati Mehrotra, Dan Moren, Helen Oyeyemi, Tim Powers, John Ringo & Gary Poole, Amber Royer, Martin L. Shoemaker, and Travis S. Taylor & Jody Lynn Nye.

These days I don’t read much horror other than short fiction. It’s not what I turn to for pleasure-reading fiction. So my “year-in-review” article does not specifically discuss the dark side. Maybe not surprisingly, though, many of my favorite reads have more than a thin stream of the tenebrous trickling through them. Outside of personal inclination, this may be an indication of what seems to be becoming more of a

The Overstory by Richard Powers (Norton) is a finalist for the 2019 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The prize “honors the best published works of fiction by American citizens in a calendar year.” This year’s judges are Percival Everett, Ernesto Quiñonez, and Joy Williams. The winner will receive $15,000 and finalists will each receive $5,000. The winner will be announced on April 29, 2019 and honored at an award ceremony on

The Audio Publishers Association announced the winners of the 2019 Audie Awards, recognizing excellence in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment, at an awards ceremony on March 4, 2019 at Guastavino’s in New York City. Winners of genre interest follow. Science Fiction WINNER: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Hexagonal Phase, Eoin Colfer & Douglas Adams, read by John Lloyd, Simon Jones, Geoff McGivern, and a full cast (Penguin Random House

Author Janet Asimov, 92, died February 25, 2019. Her first book was SF novel The Second Experiment (1974, as by Janet Jeppson). Other works under the Jeppson name include The Last Immortal (1980) and collection The Mysterious Cure, and Other Stories of Pshrinks Anonymous (1985). SF novel Mind Transfer (1988) was bylined Janet Jeppson Asimov, and Murder at the Galactic Writers’ Society (1994), an installment of the Isaac’s Universe series,

The Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) announced the winners for the 2019 Romantic Novel Awards in a ceremony at the Gladstone Library in London. The Fantasy Romantic Novel Award WINNER: Living in the Past, Jane Lovering (Choc Lit) Eve of Man, Giovanna & Tom Fletcher (Michael Joseph) Daughter of Light and Shadows, Anna McKerrow (Bookouture) For more information, including complete winners, see the RNA website. While you are here, please take

Finalists for the 2018 Kitschies, awarded to “the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining science fiction,” have been announced. The Red Tentacle (Novel) Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager) The Smoke, Simon Ings (Titan) Circe, Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury) Rosewater, Tade Thompson (Orbit) Unholy Land, Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon) The Golden Tentacle (Debut) Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt) Semiosis, Sue Burke (Harper Voyager) The Poppy

Lies Sleeping, Ben Aaronovitch (DAW 978-0-7564-1513-6, $26.00, 304 pp, hc) November 2018. Ben Aaronovitch’s Lies Sleeping is not the book to start with if you’re looking to get up to speed on his Rivers of London oeuvre. In Lies Sleep­ing, the media is way beyond res and there is too much to catch up on, which Aaronovitch’s main character Peter Grant acknowledges near this book’s start. [FSW] stands for Fellow

There are several titles of genre interest on the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist: The Pisces, Melissa Broder (Hogarth) Freshwater, Akwaeke Emezi (Grove) Circe, Madeline Miller (Little, Brown) Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss (FSG) The Women’s Prize for Fiction celebrates “excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world.” The shortlist will be announced on April 29, 2019 and the winner on June 5. The winner will receive

Finalists for the 2018 Sara Douglass Book Series Award, for series ending between January 2015 and December 2017, have been announced: Electric Empire: The Diabolical Miss Hyde (2015), The Devious Dr. Jekyll (2015), The Dastardly Miss Lizzie (2017), Viola Carr (HarperCollins) The Fire Sermon: The Fire Sermon (2015), The Map of Bones (2016), The Forever Ship (2017), Francesca Haig (HarperCollins) Blackthorn & Grim: Dreamer’s Pool (2014), Tower of Thorns (2015),

“When We Were Starless” by Simone Heller was named Best Story in the annual Clarkesworld readers’ poll. “The Storkfriars” by Sean Murray, from the June 2018 issue, won Best Cover Art. For more, including finalists, see the Clarkesworld site.       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

Charlie Jane Anders’ The City in the Middle of the Night ranks on this week’s Los Angeles Times list.

In 1660, John Locke published his Two Treatises of Government, where he set out to resolve the seeming conflict between individual property rights (which he valorized) and the Bible (ditto), which set out the principle that God had created the Earth and its bounty for all of humanity. How could a Christian claim to own something personally when God had intended for everyone to share in His creation? Locke’s answer

Kingdom of Needle and Bone, Mira Grant (Subterranean Press 978-1-59606-8711, $40, 125pp, hc) December 2018. Cover by Julie Dillon. In Kingdom of Needle and Bone, Mira Grant has written a classic SF tale: it would have been right at home in Gernsback’s Amazing Stories. It’s a medical thriller with some twists, about a variant strain of measles that affects people’s immune response system so that vac­cines no longer work on