The National Book Awards Translated Literature 10-title longlist has been announced, including works of genre interest: Waiting for the Waters to Rise, Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox (World Editions) On the Origin of Species and Other Stories, Bo-Young Kim, translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort & Sora Kim-Russell (Kaya) When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamín Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West (Pushkin) Rabbit Island, Elvira Navarro, translated by

Jack Four, Neal Asher (Tor UK 978-1529049978, £20.00, 448pp, hc) June 2021. Cover by Steve Stone. One of Neal Asher’s specialties is monsters (though not of the cute sort), and the new Polity novel, Jack Four, is all monsters, all the time. It starts with brutal mercenaries and their alien customers and works its way up through nearly indestructible mutated alien warriors and their transformed sort-of-human shock troops, to natural

Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley (FSG) is the winner of the $1,000 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award, which recognizes “a published translation of poetry from any language into English that shows literary excellence.” The 2021 judge was Indran Amirthanayagam. For more information, see the official website. While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader

Fix, Grist‘s “solutions lab,” has announced three winners for their Imagine 2200 Short Story Contest. The contest aimed “to envision a clean, just future… [and] create stories of life in that future.” The theme was “Climate fiction for future ancestors.” Winners are: First Place: “Afterglow”, Lindsey Brodeck Second Place: “The Cloud Weaver’s Song”, Saul Tanpepper Third Place: “Tidings”, Rich Larson Other finalists were: “When It’s Time to Harvest”, Renan Bernardo

Hatfield House in Philadelphia PA has announced a new exhibit by Afrofuturist group Black Quantum Futurism. The exhibit “Ancestors returning again / this time only to themselves” was created by Rasheeda Phillips and Camae Ayewa, with nods to artists who influenced Afrofuturism, including Octavia E. Butler and Sun Ra. It includes the debut of video and sound installation Write No History: Write No History features found and archival footage of The

Time has named author N.K. Jemisin as one of the 100 most influential people of 2021 in the “Artists” category. Jemisin is the award-winning author of The City We Became, the Broken Earth trilogy, the Inheritance Trilogy, and more. For the full list and more details, see the Time article. While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced the recipients of its 2021 scholarships and diversity grants. Eugen M. Bacon, Jonathan Kincade, Tonya Liburd, Somto Ihezue Onyedikachi, and Juan Manuel Pérez are winners of the $500 Diversity Grants, given to “underrepresented, diverse people who have an interest in the horror writing genre, including, but not limited to writers, editors, reviewers, and library workers.” Shannon DeAnne Lawrence won the $2,500 Horror Writers Association

The National Book Awards Young People’s Literature 10-title longlist has been announced, including titles of genre interest: A Snake Falls to Earth, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido) Home Is Not a County, Safia Elhillo (Make Me A World) Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Malinda Lo (Dutton BFYR) Too Bright to See, Kyle Lukoff (Dial) The Mirror Season, Anna-Marie McLemore (Feiwel and Friends) The judges are Pablo Cartaya (presenter), Traci

The Ladies of Horror Fiction (LOHF) have announced the winners of their annual Writers Grant: T. L. Bodine Ariell Cacciola Chelsea Davis Jules Gachs (writes as J.V. Gachs) Marissa James Naching T. Kassa Nicole Givens Kurtz Catherine Lundoff Caitlin Marceau Antonija Mežnarić Eva Roslin Sumiko Saulson Christina Sng Katalina Watt Stephanie M. Wytovich Each will receive $100. The grants are “inclusive to all women who have reasonably demonstrated a commitment

Billingsley, Franny: The Robber Girl (Candlewick Press 978-0-7636-6956-0, $18.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 14, 2021) Middle-grade fantasy/mystery novel about a girl who relies on her knife, but needs her wits when magical dolls give her three tasks.   Boyle, T.C.: Talk to Me (HarperCollins/Ecco 978-0-06-305285-7, $27.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, September 14, 2021) An animal behaviorist, his young chimp who speaks sign language, and enthusiastic undergraduate Aimee

The Coming Storm, Regina M. Hansen (Atheneum 978-1-5344-8244-9, $17.99, 272pp, hc) June 2021. Cover by Tran Nguyen. Regina Hansen’s darkly charming novel, The Coming Storm, is a historic fantasy heavily steeped in folklore and place. Set in 1949 among the Scottish-Canadian community of Prince Edward Island, it tells a story of mythological monsters and music that calls to mind stories like Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks, albeit for ad­venture

The Omega Sci-Fi Awards have announced the creation of the Feminist Futures Award. The Feminist Futures Award will be co-presented by Artemis Journal, and “will be awarded to a distinct winner for an outstanding feminist sci-fi story.” This award recognizes a science fiction story that embraces feminist themes. Top entries will exemplify excellence in feminist storytelling. We encourage stories that capture the complexities and other aspects of identity, as well

The six-title shortlist for the 2021 Booker Prize has been announced, and includes Bewilderment by Richard Powers (Norton). The £50,000 prize is “open to works by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.” This year’s judges are Horatia Harrod, Maya Jasanoff (chair), Natascha McElhone, Chigozie Obioma, Rowan Williams. Shortlisted authors receive £2,500 and a “specially bound edition of their book.” Winners will be

The shortlists for the 2021 Polari Prizes have been announced, and the Polari Book Prize includes the following titles of genre interest: Dragman, Steven Appleby (Metropolitan) What Girls Do in the Dark, Rosie Garland (Nine Arches) The Polari Book Prize is given to writers born or based in the UK and Ireland who are “emerging and established LGBTQ+ literary talent.” The award is sponsored by DHH Literary Agency, and the

Ernest R. Dickerson, Gemma Files, Brian Keene, John Edward Lawson, and Sheree Renée Thomas have been announced as the StokerCon 2022 Guests of Honor. The event will be held May 12-15, 2022 at the Curtis Hotel in Denver CO, and will include the Bram Stoker Awards banquet. For more information, see the official website. While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring

Uncanny 5-6/21 Apex #124 Uncanny #40 is full of good fiction. Fran Wilde‘s novelette “Unseelie Brothers, Ltd.” leads off. Gowns made by the legendary Unseelie Brothers atelier have brought everyone in Sera Sebastian’s life together: her Aunt Vanessa and her husband, her father and her mother (who vanished not long after Sera’s birth). The shop, which disappears for periods of time and then appears at varying locations, pops up just

My novels have been characterized as being “Afrofuturistic,” but to be honest I never thought of the subgenre while writing them. When I write I generally don’t think of any subgenre before I sit down to create the work. My thinking when writing is usually concentrated more on story and narrative construction, not on the genre. Mostly all that is happening is that I have a story to tell, I

The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA) has opened submissions for the 12th Annual Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award for “emerging authors who use science fiction to address issues of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination” until November 1, 2021. Applicants must send a “200-word statement with background & goals in writing SF” and a “4,000-word maximum writing sample addressing Indigenous perspectives” to Professor Grace L. Dillon at dillong@pdx.edu. For

A new volume by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Carl F. Hostetter, The Nature of Middle-earth (Mariner Books), debuts on two lists.

Goblin, Josh Malerman (Earthling 978-0-9962118-5-7, $50.00, 376pp, hc) October 2017. (Del Rey 978-0-593-23780-3, $28.00, 416pp, hc) May 2021. Cover by Deena Warner. With Goblin, Josh Malerman joins the select group of authors who have given readers a memo­rable fictional town that will forever mark a spot in the literary map of our minds. Like Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo or Stephen King’s Castle Rock, Malerman’s Goblin feels like a real place,

LAVIE TIDHAR was born November 16, 1976 and raised on a kibbutz in Israel. He has traveled extensively since he was a teenager, living in South Africa, the UK, Laos, and the small island nation of Vanuatu. Tidhar began publishing with a poetry collection in Hebrew in 1998, but soon moved to fiction, becoming a prolific author of short stories early in the 21st century. Story “Temporal Spiders, Spatial Webs”

The spread of the delta variant of COVID-19 has slowed the momentum among publishers to return to working in the office. Hachette Book Group has postponed its plans to reopen in September, with CEO Michael Pietsch explaining, “We have not set a new reopening schedule at this time. When we decide it is safe to proceed with reopening, we will provide a minimum of four weeks’ notice before we proceed.”

Version Zero, David Yoon (Putnam 9-780-59319035-7, $27.00, 368pp, hc) May 2021. David Yoon – husband to the bestselling writer Nicola Yoon and bestseller himself for Frankly in Love – makes a compelling case for burning the entire internet down in Version Zero. #Jok­ingNotJoking Yoon has created a here-and-now that is just slightly askew from our own here and now. Main character Max is working in Silicon Valley for Wren, a

Clarkesworld 6/21 Anathema 5/21 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 5/20/21, 6/3/21 The June Clarkesworld leads off with “Little Animals” by Nancy Kress. Elena is our point-of-view character, a woman who is “borderline depressive.” She’s part of a research team that is using quantum effects to be able to “receive” the mental impressions of people who lived in the past. This is as much an art as a science, and Elena’s abrasive partner

The #DisneyMustPay Task Force, created by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and dedicated to making media giant Disney honor its author contracts, has expanded its focus. The task force is now ‘‘reaching out to all comic book and graphic novel creators who may be missing royalty statements and payments from Disney and its companies.’’ Mary Robinette Kowal, chair of the task force, says, ‘‘Writers, artists, illustrators, letterers,

Longtime fan Genevieve DiModica, 73, known to friends as Gene or Genie, died of natural causes over the weekend of August 28, 2021 at her summer home in Beach Haven NJ. Genie was born in Middletown CT on January 7, 1948. She attended Carnegie Mellon University (then Carnegie Tech) in Pittsburgh PA, where she first became a part of the science fiction community. There, in the late ’60s, she (together

Karen Tei Yamashita will receive the National Book Foundation‘s 2021 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, to be presented during the annual National Book Award ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on November 17. David Steinberger, chair of the NBF Board of Directors, said, A bold and groundbreaking writer, Yamashita’s deeply creative body of work has made an enduring impact on our literary landscape. Whether it’s an evocative exploration of

The Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the 2021 Dwarf Stars Award winners. First Place: “Yes, Antimatter is Real”, Holly Lyn Walrath (Analog 9-10/20) Second Place: “The Softness of Impossible Fossils”, Robert Borski (Asimov’s 7-8/20) Third Place: “Frozen Hurricanes”, Herb Kauderer (Minimalism: A Handbook of Minimalist Genre Poetic Forms) The Dwarf Stars Award is given by the SFPA to recognize the best speculative poem of one to ten lines

F&SF 7-8/21 Fusion Fragment 5/21 A new story by Yukimi Ogawa is some­thing I look forward to, and I was very happy with her latest, “Her Garden, the Size of Her Palm“, from the July-August F&SF. A young woman learns that the money her late mother saved for her college education has been squandered by her father, so she gets a job. She is sent via wormhole to a cozy

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury) is the winner of the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction, chosen from a shortlist of six titles. The Women’s Prize for Fiction celebrates “excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world.” The winner receives £30,000 and a bronze “Bessie” trophy. The 2021 judges were Elizabeth Day, Bernardine Evaristo (chair), Vick Hope, Nesrine Malik, and Sarah-Jane Mee. For more information, including the complete

Juniper Wiles, Charles de Lint (Triskell Press 978-1-989741-01-6, $14.99, 191pp, tp) April 2021 Charles de Lint returns to the familiar urban fantasy environs of Newford with this new mystery, Juniper Wiles. While the title character is surrounded by characters longtime fans will recognize (Jilly Coppercorn prominent among them), Juniper Wiles’s story is fresh and decidedly modern. Although she is 30, older teens will likely find this book quite appealing, as

Winners for the 2021 Deutsche Science Fiction Preis, presented by Science Fiction Club Deutschland (SFCD), have been announced. Best German Language Short Story WINNER: “Wagners Stimme”, Carsten Schmitt (Wie künstlich ist Intelligenz?) “Stromsperre”, Stephan Becher (Rebellion in Sirius City) “Die letzte Jungfrau”, T. Elling (Nova 29) “Angereichert”, Karsten Kruschel (Spektrum der Wissenschaft) “Die Sapiens-Integrale”, Michael Marrak (Wie künstlich ist Intelligenz?) Best German Language Novel WINNER: Die Sprache der Blumen, Sven

Home Is Not a Country, Safia Elhillo (Make Me a World/ Random House Children’s 978-0-593-17705-1, $17.99, 224pp, hc) March 2021. Cover by Shaylin Wallace. “What if?” is the question that guides Nima’s journey across time and borders. What if her mother had stayed in Sudan, rather than living in a country where their language is feared and hated? What if Nima was a graceful girl, who spoke Arabic gracefully and

brown, adrienne maree: Grievers (AK Press 978-1-84935-452-3, $15, 206pp, formats: trade paperback, September 7, 2021) Fantasy novella, the first in the Black Dawn series. A woman investigates the cause of a mysterious plague in Detroit that leaves victims in a permanent non-responsive state.     Hall, Coy: Grimoire of the Four Impostors (Nosetouch Press 978-1944286293, $28, 250pp, formats:  hardcover, trade paperback, audio, September 7, 2021) Gothic horror novel told in

The winner of the inaugural Mike Resnick Memorial Award for Short Fiction has been announced: WINNER: “The Measure of a Mother’s Love”, Z.T. Bright 2nd Place: “Hive at the Dead Star”, Lucas Carroll-Garrett 3rd Place: “Echoes of Gelise”, Christopher Henckel Other finalists were: “Feel”, Torion Oey “Times, Needles, and Gravity”, Shirley Song The annual award — sponsored by Galaxy’s Edge, Arc Manor, and Dragon Con — is given to the

Dragon Con has announced the winners for the 2021 Dragon Awards. Best Science Fiction Novel WINNER: Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir (Ballantine) Machine, Elizabeth Bear (Saga) Ready Player Two, Ernest Cline (Ballantine) Attack Surface, Cory Doctorow (Tor) A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine (Tor) Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga) The Ministry of the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit) Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal) WINNER: Battle Ground, Jim Butcher (Ace) Once

The winner of the 2021 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction has been announced: WINNER: “The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter“, Elaine Cuyegkeng (Black Cranes) “The Bone-Stag Walks“, KT Bryski (Lightspeed 8/20) “The Sycamore and the Sybil“, Alix E. Harrow (Uncanny 3-4/20) “City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat“, Usman T. Malik (Tor.com 10/21/20) “Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law“, Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com 11/11/20) The winner received a plaque and

The winner for the eighth annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award has been announced: WINNER: “Echoes of Meridian”, M. Elizabeth Ticknor 2nd place: “Absinthe & the Alchemist”, Stephanie Kraner 3rd place: “The Codes of Binding”, C. Jonah Abbott “Shadows of the Children”, Jacob Barlow “The First”, Dale Cozort “Soulshifters”, Charles Dib “The Teardrop Harvest”, J.D. Lars “Reverse the Clock”, Ari Officer “Blood and Ashes”, Grant Riddell “War Painting”, Elise Stephens The

“Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Dominion) won the 2020 Otherwise Award (formerly the James Tiptree, Jr. Award), given annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that explore and expand gender roles. Ekpeki will receive $1,000, original artwork, and chocolate. The award jury released an “honor list” recognizing other noteworthy works: City of a Thousand Feelings, Anya Johanna DeNiro (Aqueduct) “Helicopter Story”, Isabel Fall (Clarkesworld 1/20)

Winners for the This Is Horror Awards 2020 have been announced: Novel of the Year WINNER: The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga) Runner-up: Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey) The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix (Quirk) The Invention of Sound, Chuck Palahniuk (Grand Central) The Sun Down Motel, Simone St. James (Berkley) Novella of the Year WINNER: Crossroads, Laurel Hightower (Off Limits) Runner-up: Ring

Revelator, Daryl Gregory (Knopf 978-0-525-65738-5, $27.00, 352pp, hc) August 2021. As he demonstrated again earlier this year with The Album of Dr. Moreau, Daryl Gregory is among our most inventive and eclectic writers, but there are a few themes that recur often enough that they begin to seem like preoccupations, if not quite obsessions. One is that families are weird, and dealing with them can be especially trying if you

Your debut novel Mort(e) came out in 2015 and launched the War with No Name Series. Tell us about that book and the world it introduced. The sales team likes to call it either “Animal Farm on steroids” or “Animal Farm with machine guns.” In short, the series is about a war between humans and sentient animals. In this world, a hyperintelligent queen of a globe-spanning ant colony has vowed

Readercon 31 was held online August 13-15, 2021. Guests of honor were Jeffrey Ford and Ursula Vernon; Vonda N. McIntyre was the memorial guest of honor. Of 556 individuals registered, 528 people attended. Merryl Gross, head of registration, reported that while most members were from the US and Canada, ‘‘This year saw a larger contingent from Great Britain, the European Union, Mexico and South Africa.’’ The focus of Readercon is

Two titles by Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (Ecco trade paperback; first published in 2012) and Circe (Back Bay trade paperback; first published in 2018), previously untracked here, are added this week. The Song of Achilles is notable for ranking #1 on this week’s LA Times paperback list (and ranking on three other lists), not because a film or TV version is imminent, but apparently, according to Wikipedia, due

For the Wolf, Hannah Whitten (Orbit 978-0-356516363, £8.99, 480pp, tp) June 2021. Hannah Whitten’s debut novel, For the Wolf, is one of those books I could wish I had enjoyed more. It almost certainly does not need my approbation, for it has all of the traits of a novel that should find broad-based success: a young, headstrong protagonist; a hand­some, self-sacrificing, broody male love interest; an easy-to-read, relatively compelling voice;

When I was a baby writer, I obsessively collected career advice from established writers, reading books and essays and attending panels on ‘‘How I broke in’’ featuring established pros. It’s a testament to the irrational, burning desire to publish that I continued to do this long after it became apparent that there was nothing of contemporary applicability in these discussions. I mean, it was entertaining to hear a writer describe

Folklorn, Angela Mi Young Hur (Erewhon 978-1645660163, $26.95, 416pp, hc) April 2021. It’s rare that I finish a book and find myself at a loss as to how to review it, but here we are with Angela Mi Young Hur’s sophomore novel Folk­lorn. Ostensibly, it is a novel about the daughter of immigrants trying to solve the mystery of what happened to her sister, but it is so much more

Author Carol Carr, 82, died September 1, 2021 of lung cancer. Carr was the author of several short stories, widow of author and editor Terry Carr, and wife of author Robert Lichtman, who survives her. Carr began publishing short fiction with “Look, You Think You’ve Got Troubles” in Orbit 5 (1969), and her work also appeared in F&SF and Omni. She collaborated with Terry Carr on “Some Are Born Cats”

DisCon III has announced Marguerite Smith and Lauren Raye Snow as Vice Chairs. Lauren is “the first Latinx to serve as a Vice Chair.” Marguerite is returning to the team, having served as a DisCon III Deputy Division Head in early 2021. DisCon III will be held December 15-19, 2021 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC. For more information, see the convention’s website. While you are here, please

Uncanny Magazine has announced three new staff members: Meg Elison is the new Nonfiction Editor, taking over from Elsa Sjunneson. Naomi Day is moving from Assistant Editor to the newly created position of Senior Assistant Editor. Monte Lin will be assuming Naomi’s former role as Assistant Editor. For more information, see the official announcement. While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring

The Angels of L19, Jonathan Walker (Weather­glass Books 978-1-838-01813-9, £10.99, 240pp, tp) August 2021. Jonathan Walker’s The Angels of L19 is the second offering from newly established small press Weatherglass Books. Founded by Da­mian Lanigan and Neil Griffiths, Weatherglass is part of the vanguard of micro- and small publishers, including Galley Beggar Press, Sublunary Edi­tions, Tramp Press, Fitzcarraldo Editions, Boiler House Press, and Influx Press, breathing life into a publishing

The Locus Selected Books by Author list has been updated on our Forthcoming Books page, with information from the September 2021 issue covering upcoming titles from genre houses slated through June 2022. Find out about your favorite authors’ upcoming books! For the complete list of books by publisher, subscribe to our print magazine or purchase the September issue in print or digital editions, available September 1, 2021. While you are

The finalists for the 2019 and 2020 Sidewise Awards for Alternate History have been announced. 2020 Finalists Long Form The Good German, Dennis Bock (Patrick Crean Editions) The Cold Last Swim, Junior Burke (Gibson House) The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor) The Day Lincoln Lost, Charles Rosenberg (Hanover Square) The Doors of Eden, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US/Tor UK) Short Form “1827: Napoleon in Australia”, Andrew J. Harvey (Alternate Australias)

What Big Teeth, Rose Szabo (Farrar, Straus, Gi­roux Books for Young Readers 978-0374314309, 400 pp, $18.99, tp) February 2021. Cover by Aurora Parlagreco. Eleanor Zarrin’s family is a weird and violent bunch. They read fortunes in the guts of birds, go running in the woods just for the hell of it, and also don’t have any table manners, among other quirks. But, they’re the only people that Eleanor can turn

The Infinity Courts, Akemi Dawn Bowman (Simon & Schuster 978-1534-456495, $19.99, 465pp, hc) January 2021. Cover by Casey Wel­don. It is not a spoiler to say that the protagonist of Akemi Dawn Bowman’s The Infinity Courts spends most of the novel dead. Nami Miyamoto is shot and killed by an armed robber in a con­venience store by page 18 of the narrative. From that moment, she spends her time in

Becker, Elayne Audrey: Forestborn (Tor Teen 978-1-250-75216-1, $17.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, August 31, 2021) A young, orphaned shapeshifter in a world that fears magic must risk everything if she hopes to save her only friend.   Brenchley, Chaz: Everything in All the Wrong Order: The Best of Chaz Brenchley (Subterranean Press 978-1-64524-011-2, $45, 427pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, August 31, 2021) Collection of 31 stories. Hardcover is a signed,

Author L. Neil Smith, 75, died on August 27, 2021 in Fort Collins, CO. Lester Neil Smith III was born May 12, 1946 in Denver, CO. He was a former state candidate for the US Libertarian Party, ex-police reserve officer, and a gunsmith. Smith created the Prometheus Awards in 1979 to honor libertarian science fiction. Smith began publishing science fiction with “Grimm’s Law” for Stellar 5 (1980). He wrote 31

No Gods, No Monsters, Cadwell Turnbull (Blackstone 978-1-9826-0372-4, $23.99, 330pp, hc) September 2021. I have to confess that I’m probably losing track of all the monsters. There was a time, before even I was born, when Universal Studios effectively created the first multi-movie franchise by teaching a generation that monsters consisted of some very specific properties – Dracula, Frankenstein’s creature, mummies, werewolves, invisible men, all the way up to Creature

Bouchercon announced winners for the 2021 Anthony Awards honoring the best in crime fiction. Categories with winning works of genre interest include: Best Hardcover Novel WINNER: Blacktop Wasteland, S.A. Cosby (Flatiron) What You Don’t See, Tracy Clark (Kensington) The First to Lie, Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge) Best Short Story WINNER: “90 Miles”, Alex Segura (Both Sides: Stories From the Border) “Dear Emily Etiquette”, Barb Goffman (Ellery Queen 9-10/20) Best Juvenile/Young

The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie, M. Rickert (Undertow 978-1-988964-32-4, $17.99, 248pp, tp), August 2021. Even though her short fiction is consistently brilliant on its own terms, occasionally a story by M. Rickert leaves us with the feeling that there’s a good deal more to learn about these haunted characters or equally haunted settings. Such was the case a few years ago when Rickert’s collection You Have Never Been Here included an

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. Bourbon Penn Erik Secker, ed. Issue No. 24, August 2021 $12.95 print/$2.99 digital/free online, three times a year, 138pp,

First in a new series by Laurell K. Hamilton, A Terrible Fall of Angels (Berkley), debuts this week on two lists.

Whether Change, Scott Gable & C. Dombrowski, eds. (Broken Eye Books 978-1-940372-62-4, $19.99, 180pp, tp) August 2021. Whether Change is a new anthology subtitled ‘‘The Revolution will be Weird’’ – hence, stories about (leftist) radical change; but with a weird component. I thought the best pieces had the weirder ideas – in particular stories from Nick Mamatas and S.B. Divya. Mamatas’s ‘‘The Nth International’’ shows a billionaire (rather obviously modeled

You Sexy Thing, Cat Rambo (Tor 978-1-250-26930-0, $25.99, 304pp, hc) September 2021. You Sexy Thing, Cat Rambo’s first space opera novel, is in fact a romp. If you’re the kind of person who likes Mass Effect, or enjoyed Valerie Valdes’s Chilling Effect and Prime Deceptions, or fell head-over-heels for Tim Pratt’s Axiom trilogy (The Wrong Stars and sequels), then this book is definitely for you. This is a fast, zippy

Appleseed, Matt Bell (Custom House ‎ 978-0063040144, 480pp, $27.99) July 2021. Matt Bell is a writer whose whole oeuvre (a couple of previous novels and several story collections) is plainly steeped in the elements of fantastika; a writer who is manifestly cognizant of all the hardcore tropes of the genre, able to deploy them deftly. But he is published outside the genre fences, and hailed as non-denominational Literature with a

The Final Girl Support Group, Grady Hendrix (Berkley 978-0593201237, $26.00, 352pp, hc) July 2021. With his fiction and non-fiction, Grady Hendrix has spent the last five years analysing and re­defining the tropes that made horror fiction so popular during the ’70s and ’80s. His “Freaky Fridays” column, which he wrote for Tor.com back in 2017, was Hendrix’s hilarious look back at the out-of-print, garish paperbacks that I’m sure many of

Big, Dark Hole, Jeffrey Ford (Small Beer Press 978-1-618-73184-5, $17, 320pp, tp) July 2021. No matter how bizarre a situation is or may rapidly become in a Jeffrey Ford story, the reader feels instantly at home, open and accepting of everything that one should never be open and accepting of. In “The Match”, from new collection Big, Dark Hole, an adjunct professor gets a letter in the mail telling him

The New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) SF/F short story contest is now open to entries from amateur and semi-professional writers. Winners will be selected by a panel of judges and announced at Boskone 59, to be held at the Westin Waterfront Hotel in Boston MA, February 18-20, 2022. Prizes include certificates of achievement, books from NESFA Press, and free membership to a future Boskone convention. Deadline for submissions is

The Cybil Awards are looking for judges in the 2021 awards process. The awards aim to “recognize the children’s and young adult authors and illustrators whose books combine the highest literary merit and popular appeal.” Open categories of genre interest include Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction and YA Speculative fiction. Who’s eligible: Anyone who posts regularly about children’s or young adult books on media such as a blog or vlog, podcast,

Kim Harrison, Million Dollar Demon (Ace 978-0-593-10144-5, $28.00, 464pp, hc) June 2021. Rachel Morgan’s got plenty of problems in this 15th book in the Hollows series. Everyone now knows she’s a demon, the church that was her home and office is in ruins and no contractor will work on it, her efforts to find a new place keep falling through, she’s on the outs with her demon mentor, her rich

Publisher, editor, bookseller, and fan Erle Korshak, 97, died August 26, 2021. Korshak was best known as an early Worldcon organizer and founder of Shasta Publishers, one of the earliest hardcover science fiction small presses. Erle Melvin Korshak was born in October 1923, and became a science fiction fan when he discovered an issue of Astounding in 1934; by the late ’30s he was an active collector and involved in fandom.

The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) is looking for jurors to read applications for the Working Class Writers’ Grant, which aims to “assist writers of speculative literature to working class, blue-collar, poor, and homeless writers who have been historically underrepresented in speculative fiction, due to the financial barriers which have made it much harder for them to have access to the writing world.” SLF is a non-profit arts foundation, focused on

Notes from the Burning Age, Claire North (Orbit 978-0-316-4988-49883-8, $14.99, 448pp, tp) July 2021. Having garnered a World Fantasy and a Campbell Award under her Claire North pseudonym, it prob­ably shouldn’t be surprising that the prolific English writer Catherine Webb should turn her unique vi­sion to climate fiction. As others have discovered before her, however, the generations-long trashing of our planet is, by itself, pretty unwieldy as a plot device.

Joan Lubin has been chosen as the 2021 Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellow. The $2,000 fellowship, sponsored by the University of Oregon Libraries Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), is awarded “to encourage research within collections in the area of feminist science fiction.” SCUA houses the papers of Suzette Haden Elgin, Kate Elliot, Sally Miller Gearhart, Molly Gloss, Damon Knight, Ursula K. Le Guin, Laurie Marks, Joanna Russ, Jessica

Kalynn Bayron, This Poison Heart (Bloomsbury US & UK 6/21) Black girl magic and Greek myth infuse this young-adult contemporary fantasy novel about Briseis, an adopted teen with a power over plants that she hopes to learn to control when an unexpected inheritance gives her an estate full of deadly plants and secrets about her birth family.   J.S. Breukelaar, The Bridge (Meerkat Press 6/21) Meera, a part-human Made created

Clarkesworld 5/21 Lightspeed 5/21 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 4/22/21, 5/6/21 In May Clarkesworld starts off with a new David D. Levine story, always a treat. “Best Laid Plans” is a charming story about a mod­est space station run by a small university. Dr. Chelle Yan is studying how genetically modified mice (not allowed on Earth) transmit knowledge, but all that’s interrupted when the station starts leaking air, no one can find

The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts (JFA) is now accepting applications for a “diverse Editorial Collective” to serve as editors-in-chief for the journal, “a volunteer scholarly position.” JFA is an interdisciplinary journal established in 1988, and publishes analyses of fantastic work in every medium. It is the official publication for the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA). The Editorial Collective will be responsible for ensuring

Long-running bestselling titles by Matt Haig, V.E. Schwab, and Andy Weir rise on several lists this week, presumably after more transient titles have appeared on lists and dropped away. (Note that “#wks on any list” counts below are incomplete, as this page was not posted from late April to mid June of this year.)

The Girl from Shadow Springs, Ellie Cypher (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 978-1-534-46569-5, $19.99, 311pp, hc) February 2021. Cover by Lente Scura. In the extremely gritty survival story, The Girl from Shadow Springs, 17-year old Jorie and her sister Brenna carve out a sad living in the frozen wasteland surrounding the barely there town of the title. Jorie finds the corpses of treasure hunters out on the “Flats”

Results of the 2020 Asimov’s Readers’ Awards have been announced. Best Novella WINNER: “Take a Look at the Five and Ten”, Connie Willis (11-12/20) “Semper Augustus“, Nancy Kress (3-4/20) “Tool Use by the Humans of Danzhai County“, Derek Künsken (7-8/20) “Nic and Viv’s Compulsory Courtship“, Will McIntosh (7-8/20) “Maelstrom“, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (9-10/20) Best Novelette WINNER: “The Hind“, Kevin J. Anderson & Rick Wilber (11-12/20) “Tunnels”, Eleanor Arnason (5-6/20) “The