Roundtable on 2015 Releases

Being close to the end of the year, it occurs to me it might be interesting to talk about some of the books we’re most looking forward to in 2015, and why. I will mention three to get the ball rolling. Daryl Gregory’s Harrison Squared (March 24, 2015). I love Daryl’s writing, and this Lovecraftian teen story promises to be dark, comical and poignant all in one. Kit Reed’s Where ...Read More

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Five Golden Things — Eileen Gunn

Five SF stories about Linotype machines

We don’t see much science-fiction about Linotype machines any more, and it’s easy to forget how radically those big, noisy heffalumps changed the world. Their invention in 1886 spawned publishing’s industrial revolution, and the machines remained pretty much the same over the entire 20th century, even as they were being superseded, first by phototypesetting and then by digital type.

The Linotype and its operators ...Read More

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Five Golden Things — Seanan McGuire

The Five Best… …genre stories about creepy telepathic kids.

Everybody loves a mind-reader, right?

The telepath or mentalist has been a part of the genre landscape since the days of vaudeville and traveling carnival sideshows, where “mind-readers” trained in observation would use shills and accomplices to wow the crowd with amazing displays of their supposed psychic powers.  It was understandable that these figures would loom large in the science fiction, ...Read More

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Five Golden Things – Jim C. Hines

Five Books/Series That Should Totally Be Adapted With Puppets

Many of us, fans and authors alike, play the dream casting game where we imagine who should star in film or television adaptations of our favorite books. But not all stories were meant for live-action, or even animation. Some stories require the warmth, creativity, and downright fun of puppetry.

  • The Discworld Series, by Terry Pratchett. I’m assuming you’re all familiar
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Five Golden Things – Cat Rambo

Five Animal Stories that Manage Not to Be Twee

Animal stories have a certain quality that really lets writers play with emotions. There’s a reason White Fang and Black Beauty are classics. And plenty of speculative fiction writers have advantaged themselves of the approach. And OMG sometimes the twee factor runs far too high in this. It’s very easy to do in an animal story.

But we do it nonetheless. ...Read More

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Five Golden Things – Ian Sales

5 sf books worth reading I wouldn’t otherwise have discovered if I hadn’t been reading for SF Mistressworks

I’d always considered myself well-read within the genre, but when people started talking about the poor representation of women sf writers in late 2010/early 2011, I discovered that my own reading was chiefly of books by male writers. And this was despite the fact that through the years my favourite writers had ...Read More

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Locus Recommended Short Fiction Links

As a complement to the overall Locus Recommended Reading List, I like to collect all the short fiction that’s easily available online here. Please let me know if any other stories are or become available, and I’ll update the list as soon as possible.

Novellas

  • “In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s 1/12)
  • “Twenty Lights to ‘The Land of Snow’“, Michael Bishop (Going Interstellar
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Five Golden Things – Andy Duncan

Teachable Science Fiction and Fantasy

For the past decade, in the Honors College of the University of Alabama, I have taught a weekly interdisciplinary seminar on 21st-century science fiction and fantasy: science fiction in the fall, fantasy in the spring. In fact, it’s generally more limited even than the 21st century; my rule is to include no text on the syllabus older than five years. I break the rule occasionally, ...Read More

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Roundtable on All-Centuries Novel Polling

Per popular request, I asked our Locus Roundtable panel of experts to cast votes in the same categories as the recent Locus All-Centuries Poll for Novels. I told them that I would weigh their responses by rank, but I lied. Instead I compiled all the votes equally and have now produced results based on any works which were mentioned by more than one person. Don’t worry–below you will be able ...Read More

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Five Golden Things–Karen Burnham

In the wake of the recent Locus All-Centuries Poll results, there’s been a lot of conversation about lists. It seems like there are more lists out there than you can list: Best of the Year, Award Winners, Award Nominees, Best I Read Last Year, Most Popular, etc. Now that we’ve wrapped up a popular voted-on list, I thought that I’d make some space here for quirky lists curated by specific ...Read More

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Locus Recommended Online Fiction

Here is a selection from this year’s Locus Recommended Reading List with links to online content. If you spot anything that I’ve left off, please contact me and I’ll add it in.

Novella

  • “Kiss Me Twice“, Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s)
  • “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary“, Ken Liu (Panverse Three)
  • Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)

Novelette

  • ‘‘The Silver Wind’’, Nina Allan (Interzone 3-4/11)
...Read More Read more

Counting heads

Mathematical sf isn’t very common, but it can be very good indeed – as I was reminded when I recently read Vandana Singh’s “Infinities” in the Hartwell/Cramer Year’s Best SF 15. There are a couple of theme anthologies on the subject – Rudy Rucker’s Mathenauts (1987) and Clifton Fadiman’s Fantasia Mathematica (1958) and The Mathematical Magpie (1962). Since the Rucker book, several writers have emerged who write around mathematical themes ...Read More

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The Best Year in Science Fiction – Books

I see over at io9 there is a poll for the the best year in science fiction, with several candidate years listed with their qualifications… the qualifications being, in almost all cases, movies.

Suppose we decided based on books? Say…

1950 Ray Bradbury, THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES Isaac Asimov, I, ROBOT A.E. van Vogt, THE VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE Jack Vance, THE DYING EARTH Hal Clement, NEEDLE

1953 Arthur C. ...Read More

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