Writer and artist Diana G. Gallagher, 75, died December 2, 2021 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Gallagher wrote space opera The Alien Dark (1990), but was best known for her tie-in work for properties including Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and Star Trek. She was active in fandom as an artist, winning a Best Fan Artist Hugo in 1989 (as Diana Gallagher Wu). She was also a prolific filk
Brandon Sanderson’s Cytonic (Delacorte), third book in his Skyward series, debuts on two lists.
DisCon III, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held December 15-19, 2021 in Washington DC, has announced that author Andrea Hairston will join Sheree Renée Thomas as co-host of the 2021 Hugo Awards Ceremony. Hairston replaces special guest Malka Older, who “had originally been scheduled to co-host, but because her children are too young to be vaccinated, she made the difficult decision to withdraw from in-person events.” Her
Talk a bit about the process of Kickstarting and printing Villarrte Sketchbook Vol. 1, a Locus Recommended Reading List title. What was the experience like? Highlights and hindsights? My wife and I were extremely nervous about launching the Kickstarter during the pandemic. Too many uncertainties. So there were a lot of doubts about whether this was going to be a success. One of the highlights, though, was going through with
People from My Neighbourhood, Hiromi Kawakami (Granta Books 978-1-84627-699-6, £7.99, 121pp, tp) August 2020; as People from My Neighborhood (Soft Skull 978-1-59376-711-2, $15.95, 176pp, tp) November 2021. Hiro Kawakami’s new collection, People from My Neighborhood, isn’t my first exposure to her work. Several years back, I read Kawakami’s Akutagawa Prize-winning collection Record of a Night Too Brief. The three novelettes that comprise that book introduced me to Kawakami’s appreciation for
UK publisher The Folio Society has announced the sale of its company to its employees for £10 million. The sale gives the employees 100% ownership of the company. CEO Joanna Reynolds, leading the buyout for employees, says of the sale: The Folio Leadership Team is very excited about the move to an EOT. It is a progressive, innovative, industry-leading approach that reflects our values and will position the business strongly
Time has selected their 100 must-read books of 2021, selecting titles that “shifted our perspectives, uncovered essential truths and encouraged us forward.” Works of genre interest include: 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, Ai Weiwei (Crown) The Book of Form and Emptiness, Ruth Ozeki (Viking) The Chosen and the Beautiful, Nghi Vo (Tordotcom) Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Wole Soyinka (Pantheon) Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony
Blood Like Magic, Liselle Sambury (McElderry Books 978-1-53446-528-2, $19.99, 496pp, hc) June 2021. Cover by Thea Harvey. In an intoxicating blend of science fiction and fantasy, author Liselle Sambury has written in Blood Like Magic a novel that embraces technological advances while wholly immersing the text with magic. Set in Toronto in the year 2049, teenager Voya Thomas has at last experienced her Calling – the moment when one of
The BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) longlist nominations are open for works published in 2021. The process includes an “informal crowdsourced suggestion sheet” which is open to anyone, and a nomination form which is open exclusively to BSFA members. For more information, see the BSFA website. 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
C.L. Clark has resigned as editor for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) blog, as of November 30, 2021. Clark held the role for just over a year. Thank you so much for your trust and support in me as the SFWA Blog Editor for the past year. It’s been my absolute pleasure to usher in new essays, guides, and analyses of the industry and I hope
Asimov’s 9-10/21 Uncanny 9-10/21 On Spec 6/21, 9/21 Greg Egan’s “Sleep and the Soul” (Asimov’s 9-10/21) is an intriguing piece presented as an alternate history where the Jonbar point is a biological change, not a historical one. Humans in this world do not need to sleep and, at least in the 19th-century US in which the story is set, sleep is regarded with horror because the loss of consciousness is
Japanese science fiction website VirtualGorillaPlus (VG+) has announced the winners of its 2021 Kaguya Sci-Fi Contest, judged by Terrie Hashimoto, Kanata Inoue, Katsuya Okumura, and Kaoru Sakasak: Grand Prize: “Toward the Open Sea”, Shunichiro Yoshimi Readers’ Prize: “Boundaryless, Flexible”, Makura Kareki Judge’s Special Prize: “Heat and Light”, Yoh Ikkaidoh Winners were chosen from 381 entries on the theme of “Colors of the Future.” The grand prize story was translated into
The editors of The New York Times Book Review selected their ten best books of the year, including The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (HarperCollins) and How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue (Random House). They also listed 100 Notable Books of 2020, including the following titles of genre interest: Appleseed, Matt Bell (Custom House) Bewilderment, Richard Powers (Norton) Build Your House Around My Body, Violet
C. Dale Brittain, The Sapphire Ring (Daimbert Publishing 979-8-7211-2328-3, $14.95, 293pp, tp) April 2021. The third volume in the Starlight Raven series in the Yurt universe finds Antonia no longer the only girl at the wizards’ school run by her father. Still, she’s concerned about the remaining divide between women’s magic and men’s. Then she gets kidnapped by a strange group of women, members of the magic-using Sisterhood, but with
Asphyxia: The Words in My Hands (Annick Press 978-1-77321-529-7, $19.95, 388pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, November 30, 2021) Young-adult near-future SF novel about “what it’s like to be Deaf” in a world of shortages, environmental collapse, and corruption. Beharrie, Therese: And They Lived Happily Ever After (Kensington/Zebra 978-1-4201-5338-5, $15.95, 320pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, November 30, 2021) Humorous paranormal romance novel. A romance author starts sharing dreams with her best
AudioFile has announced its list of the best science fiction & fantasy audiobooks for 2021: Black Water Sister, Zen Cho (Recorded Books) Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir (Audible Studios) Remote Control , Nnedi Okorafor (Macmillan Audio) Rule of Cool , Matthew Siege (Podium) The Sandman: Act II, Neil Gaiman & Dirk Maggs (Audible Originals) The Bezoar of Kings, Magdalene Visaggio (GraphicAudio) For more, see the AudioFile website. [Via File 770]
The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess, Andy Marino (Redhook Books 978-0316-62948-5, $16.99, 352pp, tp) September 2021. Andy Marino’s The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is a creepy, tense narrative that exists somewhere between violent psychological thriller and supernatural horror novel. However, while most of the elements of those two subgenres are present here, the novel also delves deep into serious topics like guilt, substance abuse, and mental health. The result
Who’s the best fictional leader? Optimus Prime? Jean-Luc Picard? Captain America? I’m willing to wager that all three of those iconic characters would be among the most popular contenders if the question were asked in a general poll, and for understandable reasons. When I was ten years old, sitting in front of a television set on a Saturday morning, Peter Cullen’s voice as Optimus Prime ordering, “Autobots, roll
Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock (Morrow) debuts on two lists, ranking #10 on the Los Angeles Times list, #22 at USA Today. Note that Publishers Weekly skips an issue this week.
Shortlists for the 2021 Costa Book Awards, for books “by writers resident in the UK and Ireland,” have been announced. The Stranding by Kate Sawyer (Coronet) is on the four-title Costa First Novel Award shortlist. The High House by Jessie Greengrass (Swift) made the Novel Award shortlist. Anna Goodall’s Maggie Blue and the Dark World (Guppy) and Ross Montgomery’s The Midnight Guardians (Walker) are both finalists in the Children’s Book
Dream Foundry, a “non-profit dedicated to bolstering the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts,” has announced the finalists for its 2021 contests. Writing Contest Shinjini Dey Sigrid Marianne Gayangosm Brienne D. Hayes Amy Johnson Kay Orchison Kellye McBride Robin Sebolino Cat T. Jarred Thompson C. Bradley White Art Contest Yue Feng Ellen He Mikoto Albokhari Mohamed Nair Nascimento Alex Pernau Vinnia Kemala Putri Julia Quandt Mols Slom
Editor and publisher Jeremy G. Byrne, 57, died November 25, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia after a long illness. Byrne co-founded Eidolon Publications in 1990 and co-edited all 30 issues of Eidolon: The Journal of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy until its closure in 2000. He was an integral part of publishing Terry Dowling’s The Mars You Have in Me, Storm Constantine’s The Thorn Boy, Robin Pen’s The Secret Life of Rubbersuit Monsters, and Howard Waldrop’s Going
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 Vol. 91 Nos. 11 & 12, November/December 2021 $7.99, bimonthly, 208pp, 15 x
The Last Graduate, Naomi Novik (Del Rey 978-0-593-12886-2, $28.00, 400pp, hc) September 2021. Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education introduced us to the Scholomance, a magical high school for wizards that kills the better part of each incoming class by the time they are seniors. The school is not driven by pure malice (although it does seem to take a certain glee in making its students miserable) but by hope. These
Paladin’s Hope, T. Kingfisher (Red Wombat Studio 978-1-61450-551-8, $34.95, 270pp, hc) October 2021. Paladin’s Hope is the third book in T. Kingfisher’s (AKA Ursula Vernon’s) Saint of Steel series. Like Paladin’s Grace and Paladin’s Strength before it, Paladin’s Hope is a fantasy romance at its core. There are gods and clerics and gnoles set against a medieval-esque city and countryside. The two main characters are destined for each other but
This Thing Between Us, Gus Moreno (MCD x FSG Originals 978-0-37453-923-8, $17.00, 272pp, tp) October 2021. I’ve never owned an Amazon Alexa. I do have a Google Nest sitting beside the TV, but other than my daughter asking the device to play songs from The Greatest Showman soundtrack, the family rarely engages with it. I am, however, aware that both the Alexa and the Nest are always listening, always
White Smoke, Tiffany D. Jackson (Katherine Tegen Books 978-0063029095, $18.99, 384pp, hc) September 2021. After her public collapse and a stint in rehab, Marigold, a Black high school track star, is finally getting a second chance. When her artist mom gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a residency that comes with a free house, Mari, her mother, brother, step-father, and step-sister move from coastal California to a rundown Midwestern town. Though
NPR’s Books We Love (formerly Book Concierge) has an extensive list of Best Books in an assortment of categories, including It’s All Geek to Me and Young Adult, with hundreds of titles recommended by “NPR staff and trusted critics.” The Sci Fi, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction category includes titles by leading authors like Charlie Jane Anders, Becky Chambers, Fonda Lee, Rivers Solomon, Cadwell Turnbull, Jeff VanderMeer, and many others. For the
George R.R. Martin announced the opening of Sky Railway, the renamed and renovated historic short-haul railroad he purchased, with other investors, in 2020. “Mostly what I have been doing is throwing out ideas and writing checks,” Martin said. We had two big old diesel locomotives, so right off we decided we would run two trains: the Wolf and the Dragon. And to paint them, and give each its own character
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) has organized a free workshop “geared towards writers of colour” called Need To Know: Knowing Your Power as an Author of Colour. “This workshop is aimed to help you break down the processes of being published so you know where your power lies.” The event is scheduled for January 15, 2022 and will take place virtually. Workshop leaders are Patrice Lawrence
Shards of Earth: The Final Architecture Book One, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor 978-1-5290-5188-9, $28.00, 549 pp, hc) August 2021. Cover by Steve Stone. Once upon a time I used the term “recombinant SF” to describe stories that whipped multiple ideas and themes and gadgets and speculations and story-patterns into busy, complicated, surprising concoctions: a Chinese AI emperor and Tibetan yak-wranglers on a terraformed Mars; a moon-size ancient alien and clone-soldiers on
Invisible Sun, Charles Stross (Tor 978-1-250-80709-0, $27.99, 285 pp, hc) September 2021. Cover by Neil Lang. Partway into Charles Stross’s Invisible Sun, a harried intelligence/security chief says, ‘‘We’ve got a lot of balls in the air,’’ a condition that might apply as well to a number of his fellow characters and to Stross himself in his authorial role. This ninth and final entry in what is now called The Merchant
The New York Public Library has announced its lists of the best books of 2021 in various categories, including 100 Best Books for Adults, 50 Best Books for Teens, and 145 Best Books for Kids. The Adult category includes numerous genre titles, with Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (Tor), Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Ballantine), and Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor (Tordotcom), plus many more. The Teen
The Financial Times has announced the five best SF books of 2021, as selected by James Lovegrove: The City of Dr Moreau, JS Barnes (Titan) Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kasulke (Hodder/Doubleday) Five Minds, Guy Morpuss (Viper) The Offset, Calder Szewczak (Angry Robot) Skyward Inn, Aliya Whiteley (Solaris) For more, see the Financial Times website. While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or
The 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize has announced its 37-title longlist. The award honors “mid-career authors in fiction,” and the winner receives a $50,000 prize, given by the New Literary Project. Authors of genre interest, along with their most recent titles, include: The Turnout, Megan Abbott (Putnam) Appleseed, Matt Bell (Custom House) How to Wrestle a Girl, Venita Blackburn (MCD) Sleepwalk, Dan Chaon (Henry Holt) The Swank Hotel, Lucy Corin
Kirkus has announced its list of the eight best science fiction and fantasy books of 2021: Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki (Tor) Destroyer of Light, Jennifer Marie Brissett (Tor) Machinehood, S.B. Divya (Saga) The Free Bastards, Jonathan French (Del Rey) Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf) A Radical Act of Free Magic, H.G. Parry (Redhook) No Gods, No Monsters, Cadwell Turnbull (Blackstone) Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir (Ballantine)
Baron, Mike: Nexus (WordFire Press 978-1-68057-229-2, $24.99, 378pp, formats: trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, November 17, 2021) Superhero SF novel, based on the comic book character created by Baron and Steve Rude. Nexus is the greatest avenger that the galaxy has known, but his power comes from an alien race with its own agenda. Brauning, Kate: The Ballad of Dinah Caldwell (Page Street 978-1-645645673125, $17.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio,
A Lesson in Vengeance, Victoria Lee (Delacorte Press 978-0-593-30584-3, $18.99, 384pp, hc) August 2021. Cover by Maggie Enterrios. From start to startling finish, Victoria Lee’s A Lesson in Vengeance is a dream novel for fans of dark academia. Felicity Morrow has returned to the Dalloway School after receiving intense counseling following the previous year’s tragic death of her classmate/girlfriend, Alex. She will now be back in their former dorm, Godwin
The winners of the 2021 Ditmar Awards for Australian SF were announced November 20, 2021 in an online ceremony. Best Novel WINNER: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, Garth Nix (Allen & Unwin) The Crying Forest, Venero Armanno (IFWG Publishing Australia) Hollow Empire, Sam Hawke (Penguin) The Animals in That Country, Laura Jean McKay (Scribe) Monstrous Heart, Claire McKenna (HarperCollins) Poison & Light, Gillian Polack (Shooting Star) Repo Virtual, Corey J. White
Various editions of Frank Herbert’s Dune and its sequels still occupy 8 spots on today’s chart. Titles and editions by J.K. Rowling: 15.
The Achievement & Assessment Institute (AAI) at the University of Kansas has announced the creation of the Ad Astra Center for Science Fiction and the Speculative Imagination, headed by director Chris McKitterick. The center “brings writers, readers, scholars, educators, and fans of speculative fiction together to study and create work that changes the world.” It will initally offer interdisciplinary workshops, masterclasses, courses, seminars, and other opportunities, using speculative fiction as a
The Nommo Awards, honoring the best in African SF, will be presented at Discon III, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held December 15-19, 2021 in Washington DC. Sheree Renée Thomas will be master of ceremonies. She says, As a reader and a writer who loved the genre, I hoped to see a time when the work of Black writers would be widely embraced in the field, a
The Asociación Española de Fantasía, Ciencia Ficción y Terror (AEFCFT) has announced the Winners for the 2021 Ignotus Awards (the Spanish equivalent of the Hugo Awards). Novela extranjera (Foreign Novel) WINNER: Una órbita cerrada y compartida [A Closed and Common Orbit], Becky Chambers, translated by Alexander Páez & Antonio Rivas (Insólita) Un poco de odio [A Little Hatred], Joe Abercrombie, translated by Manu Viciano (Alianza) Los últimos días [Last Days],
The Future Worlds Prize for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of Colour, formerly the Gollancz and Rivers of London BAME SFF Award, has announced its eight-title shortlist “A Shadow in Chains”, MH Ayinde “The Sawling”, Jordan Collins “Frankincense”, Salma Ibrahim “In the City of Villages”, Franchesca Liauw “Margot, Who Is Beautiful Now”, Bea Pantoja “The Warden”, Madeehah Reza “Contracts Made in Gold”, Aqeelah Seedat “A Box Full of Stories”, Fatima Taqvi The judges are Lloyd Bradley,
What was your introduction to science fiction and fantasy art? What influences drew you in? It’s a genre that has always simply slotted into my life and perspective. When I was 13, I fell in love with the art of Luis Royo and H.R. Giger, discovered after a long seclusion. I was born and lived off the grid for most of my childhood, was homeschooled all my life, and we
The Hood, Lavie Tidhar (Head of Zeus 978-1-838-93131-5, £18.99, 448pp, hc) October 2021. Lavie Tidhar’s ambitious four-novel revisiting of British mythology – which he calls the Anti-Matter of Britain – began with last year’s By Force Alone, a cheerfully anarchic and thoroughly entertaining assault on Arthuriana, and now, with The Hood, it moves forward a few centuries to the 12th-century era of Robin Hood legends. But while Tidhar could safely
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1985, Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre, eds. (PM Press 978-1-62963-883-6, $59.95, 224pp, hc) October 2021. I’m a child of the cyberpunk generation. One of the first genre novels that left an impression on me was William Gibson’s Neuromancer (even if I didn’t entirely understand it). It wasn’t until my late twenties, when I started attending the monthly meetings of the
The Locus Bestsellers for November include top titles Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Ballantine), Dune by Frank Herbert (Ace), The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (Tor), and Starlight Enclave by R.A. Salvatore (Harper Voyager US).
Indigo has announced its top-10 list of the best books of 2021. Titles and authors of genre interest include: The Strangers by Katherena Vermette (Hamish Hamilton) The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield (Mulholland) One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (Griffin) She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (Tor) Bewilderment by Richard Powers (Norton) For more information, including the complete list, see the Indigo website. While you are here, please
The National Pastime 2021 Edition Alternate Plains, Darren Ridgley & Adam Petrash, eds. (Great Plains Publications) October 2021. The Adventure of the Golden Woman, Cynthia Ward (Aqueduct Press) September 2021. Here’s an unexpected source of some SF: the 2021 issue of The National Pastime, published by the Society for American Baseball Research. This issue is about “the future according to baseball,” and it’s edited by Cecilia M. Tan & Marty
Winners of the National Book Awards (NBA) in the Fiction and Young People’s Literature categories were announced November 17, 2021 in a virtual ceremony. Hell of a Book by Jason Mott (Dutton) won the Fiction category, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo (Dutton Books for Young Readers) won the Young People’s Literature category. Winners for non-fiction, translated literature, and poetry were also announced. A total of
The Washington Post has published a piece on the best SF, fantasy, and horror of 2021, selected by writers Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar. Books mentioned include: Unity, Elly Bangs (Tachyon) His Name Was Death, Rafael Bernal (New Directions) Inscape, Louise Carey (Gollancz) Goddess of Filth, V. Castro (Creature) Philosophy Through Science Fiction, Helen De Cruz, Johon De Smedt & Eric Schwitzgebel, eds. (Bloomsbury Academic) A Dowry of Blood, S.T. Gibson
The Board of Directors of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and newly named Grand Master Mercedes Lackey have responded to the issue of earlier comments made by Lackey about writing trans characters. SFWA sent a statement to their membership on November 17, 2021, that reads: After we announced Mercedes Lackey as SFWA’s next Grand Master on 11/4, stances that Ms. Lackey had taken on writing trans characters
Tor.com 8/4/21, 8/18/21, 8/25/21 Fiyah Summer ’21 Clarkesworld 8/21 To start off this month, I’d like to highlight two stories that use abstract mathematics in interesting ways. The August Clarkesworld features “The Serpentine Band” by Congyun ‘Mu Ming’ Gu (translated by Tian Huang) which tips over into novella territory at 18,500 words. It is a beautiful story of a bureaucrat in historical China. We learn about the life of the
The Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature has announced the 10-title shortlist for the Nyabola Prize. The award recognizes science fiction written in the Kiswahili language by authors age 18-35. The finalists are: “Dunia ya Pili” by Sofi Binsari “Pigo Zito” by Twihuvila Gillah “Afriti Hasitiki” by Hussna Mohamed Hassan “Dubwasha” by Stallone Joyfully “Sayari Ya Wanawake” by Emmanuel Kimeu “Mashine” by Hassan Omar Mambosasa “Ustaarabu Wa Sayari Ya Sadiza”
The Complete Short Fiction of Peter Straub: Volume 1: Stories, Peter Straub (Borderlands Press, $120.00, 477pp, hc) October 2021. The Complete Short Fiction of Peter Straub: Volume 2: Novellas, Peter Straub (Borderlands Press, $120.00, 477pp, hc) October 2021. Whenever Peter Straub’s name shows up on social media or in critical discussions of horror, it’s increasingly accompanied by encomiums like “icon” or “living legend” (he even has an award with that
Weird Tales and Blackstone Publishing have announced a major new partnership, with Blackstone planning to publish 50 new books in five years under the banner “Weird Tales Presents.” Titles will include “original novels and anthologies, compilations, and more, penned by some of the biggest names in horror and dark fiction, while also introducing new voices,” with print, e-book, and audiobook editions planned. Blackstone will also distribute the digital and audio version
Anders, Charlie Jane: Even Greater Mistakes (Tor 978-1-250-76650-2, $27.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, November 16, 2021) Collection of 19 stories, all previously published. Anders has wisely avoided the temptation to assemble a “greatest hits” album in favor of showing us the shape of her career as she views it. It’s a very interesting shape, more complex than might be expected by readers familiar only with her novels. —Gary K.
Amazon has published its yearly array of lists to promote the best books of 2021, with editors’ selections in various categories. Titles and authors of genre interest follow, in ranked order. Science Fiction and Fantasy Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir (Ballantine) A Court of Silver Flames, Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury US) The Crown of Gilded Bones, Jennifer L. Armentrout (Blue Box) Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf) The Last
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced author Jennifer McMahon as StokerCon2022’s sixth guest of honor, joining previously announced guests Ernest Roscoe Dickerson A.S.C., Gemma Files, Brian Keene, John Edward Lawson, and Sheree Renée Thomas. StokerCon2022 will be held May 12-15, 2022 in Denver CO For more see their website. While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on
Kirkus has announced its list of the 12 best books of 2021. Titles and authors of genre interest include: The Sentence, Louise Erdrich (Harper) The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper) Bewilderment, Richard Powers (Norton) The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles (Viking) Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead (Doubleday) For more information, including the complete list, see the Kirkus website. While you are here, please take a moment to support
Midnight, Water City, Chris McKinney (Soho Crime 978-1-64129-240-5, $27.95, 312pp, hc) July 2021. Cover by Vlado Krizan and Janine Agro. What would happen if the world was turned upside-down and submerged in the ocean? That’s the first guiding question in Chris McKinney’s Midnight, Water City, an SF novel with one foot in whodunits and the other one in classic noir. There are more questions, of course, but that first one
Various editions of Frank Herbert’s Dune and its sequels occupy 10 spots on today’s chart.
Anne Wattel’s story “Les Yeuses de Noire-Épine” won the sixth annual Prix Joël-Champetier , given to a non-Canadian author who writes SF or fantasy in French. Wattel will receive €1,000 and publication in Solaris #221 (Winter 2022). The award is named in honor of the late editor of Solaris, with winners chosen by jury; this year’s jurors were Iseult Bacon-Marcaurelle of Alire Editions, author Francine Pelletier, Solaris literary director Pascal Raud,
Angela Yuriko Smith is the winner of the Speculative Literature Foundation’s (SLF) 2021 Older Writers Grant, which gives $1,000 to writers “fifty years of age or older at the time of grant application, and is intended to assist such writers who are just starting to work at a professional level.” Applications for the Older Writers Grant are considered from January 1 to March 31, annually. For more information, see the
sf-Lit.de has announced that Gestohlene Erinnerung by Blake Crouch (Goldmann) won the 2021 sf-Lit Award 2021. The award is open to any book published in German in 2020, regardless of the author’s country of origin or the language of the first publication. Other finalists were: Eroberung, Laurent Binet (Rowohlt) Qube, Tom Hillenbrand (KiWi) Was Preema nicht weiß, Sameena Jehanzeb (SP) Tales from the Loop, Simon Stålenhag, (Fischer Tor) For more information,
NPR books editor Petra Mayer, 46, died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism November 3, 2021 at Holy Cross Hospital in Maryland. Mayer was the books editor for National Public Radio’s cultural desk, where she was a tireless advocate for science fiction and fantasy literature and comics, and often hired SF authors to write reviews. She also covered genre events for the radio, including Comic-Con. Mayer was born in 1974 and
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7/15/21, 7/29/21, 8/12/21, 8/26/21 Lightspeed 8/21, 9/21 Strange Horizons 7/21 I had fallen behind on Beneath Ceaseless Skies since reading two issues a month is not quite enough to keep up with a once-every-two weeks publishing schedule. It’s always a pleasure to catch up with this particular magazine, since you never know quite where it will take you. Issue #334 has two stories of people displaced from
MILESTONES Librarian MISHA STONE of the Seattle Public Library won the Librarian of the Year Award from the Greater Seattle Romance Writers Association. Stone is a Clarion West board member. AWARDS Composer JOHN WILLIAMS received the Forry Award for lifetime achievement in the SF field, presented by The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society at their October 9, 2021 meeting. URSULA VERNON writing as T. KINGFISHER’s “Metal Like Blood in the
ELIZABETH ROSALIND WOLLHEIM was born December 5, 1951 in New York, the daughter of legendary editor Donald A. Wollheim and Elsie B. Wollheim, and was closely involved with professional SF from an early age. She attended Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1969, then transferred to Clark University in Massachusetts. She studied English at Clark while simultaneously studying art at the Worcester Art Museum School. After graduation in 1973 she lived
Back when work on this year’s ICon started, it really did look that we might be going back to the way things used to be, and we would have an in-person convention. The plan was not to let all the work done over the past year and a half go to waste, but have a convention that would be two in-person days and a third virtual day. This plan sadly
Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner (Peninsula) won the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize, given for a book by a British or Irish author “that is deemed genuinely novel and which embodies the spirit of invention that characterizes the genre at its best.” This year’s judges were Fred D’Aguiar, Kamila Shamsie, Nell Stevens, and Johanna Thomas-Corr. For more information, see the Goldsmiths website. While you are here, please take a moment to
Far from the Light of Heaven, Tade Thompson (Orbit 978-0-75955-791-8, $17.99, 384pp, tp) October 2021. If you’ve been reading my column for the last three years (has it really been that long?), you’ll know that, along with Lavie Tidhar, Tade Thompson is one of my favourite contemporary writers. It was a pleasure, back in 2019, to review books two and three of the Rosewater trilogy for Locus.It’s an incredibly entertaining
The 2021 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation shortlist has been announced. The 8-title shortlist includes Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge, translated by Jeremy Tiang (Tilted Axis). Inaugurated in 2017, the annual prize goes to “the best eligible work of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction, work of fiction for children or young adults, or graphic novel, written by a woman, translated into English by a translator (or translators) of
The 16-title longlist for the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize has been announced, including titles and authors of genre interest: What Strange Paradise, Omar El Akkad (Knopf) The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper Collins) Hell of a Book, Jason Mott (Dutton, Penguin Random House) Bewilderment, Richard Powers (W.W. Norton) Finalists will be announced February 23, 2022, and the winner will be announced April 21, 2022.
Widowland, C.J. Carey (Quercus 978-1-529-41199-7, £14.99, 436pp, hc) June 2021. Widowland by C.J. Carey would be a very intense, engaging, and horrifying book if we didn’t live in a world that has 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Brave New World already in it. Carey – the pseudonym of historical fiction writer Jane Thynne – has created an alternate history of 1950s Britain, one where the Prime Minister capitulated to Hitler
SF writer Robert Thurston, 84, died October 20, 2021 in Ridgefield Park NJ. Thurston attended the first Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop in 1968, and his debut SF story, “Stop Me Before I Tell More”, appeared in Orbit 9 (1971). His final story was “Nobody Like Josh” in Asimov’s (2016). First novel Alicia II appeared in 1978. Other SF novels include Set of Wheels (1983, expanded from 1971 story “Wheels”),
The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the Governor General’s Literary Awards finalists. There are seven categories, in both English and French: Fiction, Literary Non-fiction, Poetry, Drama, Young People’s Literature – Text, Young People’s Literature – Illustrated Books, and Translation. Several authors and titles of genre interest made the list. Fiction Second Place, Rachel Cusk (Harper Perennial) Young People’s Literature – Text Blood Like Magic, Liselle Sambury, (Margaret K.
In July 2021, the National Library of New Zealand (NLNZ) made the controversial announcement that it would donate more than 400,000 books to the Internet Archive “so they can be digitised and preserved, ensuring future access for New Zealanders and global researchers.” The books are those being culled from the library system’s Overseas Published Collections “so we can make room to continue to grow our Māori, Pacific and New Zealand
The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) announced that S. Qiouyi Lu has won the 2021 Diverse Writers Grant for “Razing Babel”, and Elena Pavlova the 2021 Diverse Worlds Grant for “The Life and Adventures of Hillmeria Cat”. The Diverse Writers Grant is “intended to support new and emerging writers from underrepresented and underprivileged groups, such as writers of color, women, queer writers, disabled writers, working-class writers, etc. — those whose marginalized
