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Happy Tuesday and I hope you’re ready for some new releases! It’s Alex, coming in fast on the delivery barge, and I’ve got some news besides. A bunch of fun interview stuff this week, for some reason.
In non-SFF news, this thread on cat coat genetics gave me some serious galaxy brain. Sort of related: what happens when you give a clouded leopard a Christmas tree.
New Releases
Burn the Dark by S.A. Hunt – A viral YouTube fiction series about a witch hunter is, unbeknownst to the millions who follow it, nonfiction. The creator of the series, Robin, is out for revenge on a coven of rural witches that wronged her mother long ago.
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez – Nia is the captain of a spaceship, adrift in time because she ages more slowly than any family or friends she’s ever had thanks to relativistic travel. She meets a mysterious, scarred boy who communicates only by playing music on a wooden flute and decides to welcome him into her crew–and family. But there are dangerous forces who want the boy for his gifts…
A Longer Fall by Charlaine Harris – Lizbeth Rose is hired onto a crew to protect a crate that’s going the last place on Earth she wants to be: Dixie. But what should have been a cake walk turns deadly quickly, with the rest of the crew massacred and the crate stolen. Lizbeth has no choice but to go undercover and call in old favors if she wants to finish the job.
The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde, translated by Diane Oatley – In 2019, a seventy-year-old woman sets sail on a dangerous voyage, haunted by memories of her past. Twenty-two years later, a man and his daughter flee from a southern Europe that has been ravaged by drought and wars… and find a sailboat miles away from the nearest body of water.
A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen – In a post-plague world that has disintegrated into self-governing cities and wasteland gangs, a former pop star tries to create a new identity for herself so she can escape her domineering father. Her fate becomes intertwined with that of an event planner who just wants a fresh start and a father trying to keep custody of his daughter–and then a new outbreak of the plague begins.
Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore – In the summer of 1518, a mysterious sickness sweeps through Strasbourg, causing women ill with a burning fever to dance in the streets–some until they fall over, dead. A young woman and her family fall under suspicion of witchcraft. Five hundred years later, another young woman encounters a pair of red shoes that force her to dance uncontrollably. Her only chance of survival is solving a mystery that’s lain dormant for five centuries.
News and Views
SL Huang wrote this heart-rending thread about her short story As the Last I May Know. Both are worth your time to read.
A profile of Maurice Broaddus, author of Pimp My Airship.
The Guardian interview with William Gibson: “I was losing a sense of how weird the real world was.”
Tor.com made a cool graphic that shows where a bunch of fantasy second worlds sit on the axes Seanan McGuire created for her Wayward Children series.
Sir Ian McKellen has shared his production blogs from The Lord of the Rings.
A fun interview with William Jackson Harper, in which he uses Chidi to analyze Josh (the character he played in Midsommar).
Filed under “Video gamers are good, actually.”
I am extremely excited about the new Birds of Prey trailer.
I enjoy a good take-down perhaps far more than I should, especially when it involves something helmed by Steven Moffat: On the Profound Awfulness of Netflix’s Dracula
I’ve been not mentioning the continuing meltdown at Romance Writers of America because it’s not really our lane at this newsletter, but Hugo-nominated writer and Space Raptor Butt Invasion king Chuck Tingle got dragged into it by the now-ex-President, and he made a beautiful thing.
On Book Riot
15 Science Fiction Short Stories to Take You Out of This World
7 Amazing Illustrated Editions of Neil Gaiman’s Novels
5 Comics and Graphic Novels to Read if You Enjoyed The Witcher
See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.