The Kingdom of Liars blends the taut crime drama of The Wire with the epic worldbuilding of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time in what Brandon Sanderson calls “an excellent fantasy debut.” Savage Legion captures what lies at the heart of epic fantasy—sweeping journeys, brutal battles, and impossible odds—but with true diversity that defies the status quo. Fans of Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver and RF Kuang’s The Poppy War will love The Vanished Queen, a timely fantasy novel about a country held in the thrall to a vicious king, and one woman’s fight to take him down.
This has been another incredibly difficult week, shipmates. It’s Alex, and I wish I could write a cheery intro for you right now, but I can’t. I spent every spare minute of my day doomscrolling Twitter, looking at the news out of Kenosha. I promise the end of the newsletter gets much sillier, and I did find some fun links if you need the distraction. Take care of yourselves, be safe, and solidarity with protestors and strikers.
If you’re as angry and upset as I am right now, here’s a place you can help: Milwaukee Freedom Fund
New Releases That I Cannot Believe I Missed on Tuesday
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger – Elatsoe is a Lipan Apache girl who lives in an America a little different from our own, one that has been shaped by magic, monsters, and legends. After her beloved cousin is murdered, she has to venture into a town that very much does not want her to pry beneath its picture-perfect facade and unearth its horrifying secrets. But she has magic of her own: the ability to raise the ghosts of dead animals, a gift passed down through her family. And she will use every skill, every trick, all of her wits, and help from her friends to protect her family.
Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley – Honestly, I’m not that much of a Beowulf stan (or that much into epic poetry) but the more I hear about this translation, the more I feel like I must read it (like translating “Hwæt!” as “Bro!”).
News and Views
Worlds Without End has reproduced (with permission) Nisi Shawl’s Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction
Nisi Shawl on music, spirituality, and the creative process
You can stream PBS’s documentary about Ursula K LeGuin for free until August 30.
Arkham Board of Health Feedback on Miskatonic University’s Draft Plan for a Safe Campus Reopening
You can explore the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Klingon
Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers is getting closer to being on TV.
An online exhibit celebrating Ray Bradbury
A new short story from Malka Older: Tear Tracks
Look, Idris Elba has been in enough science fiction films that he totally counts as SFF news even if he’s launching a boxing school.
On Book Riot
10 books that explore the multiverse
5 eco-dystopian novels that explore environmental worst-case scenarios
8 writers discuss how fairy tales can disrupt the status quo
This week’s SFF Yeah! podcast is about diving into fanfiction
This month you can enter to win $50 at your favorite indie bookstore and a 1-year Kindle Unlimited subscription.
Free Association Friday: Gothic Archetype Edition
I mentioned on Tuesday that I finished Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, but I didn’t really have the space to expound upon my love for it. Which is to say, I read that book in less than 24 hours. Just shotgunned it. I haven’t mainlined a book that fast since Catching Fire. And it’s even more impressive when you consider I’m a giant weenie and there’s a non-zero amount of spooky stuff in this book, and I was finishing it up at approximately 2 in the morning, right before bed.
My favorite part, though? The book is tonally perfect for a gothic novel, and it’s set in the 1950s. I will cop to not being the most widely read in the gothic genre (it is a place of prose that crosses over from lush and into impenetrable, in my opinion), but it’s one that normally lends itself to being a bit further back in history, perhaps to aide the requisite “lady in a very large dress running from a spooky house.” And of course the required decaying mansion often feels displaced in time, a moldering corpse that died several decades back and hasn’t yet gotten the memo. Mexican Gothic is pitch-perfect in all these senses, and it’s got eminently readable prose, and it’s got all sort of crunchy issues in it that I can’t get into without spoiling it.
But I can tell you what gothic archetypes you will meet, in a non-spoilery way—and the fact that these all exist in pitch-perfect harmony in this book is a delight that tells me Silvia Moreno-Garcia knows her genre inside and out and loves it enough to just have fun with it by playing with the tropes. In this book, you will meet:
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- The plucky, beautiful heroine who is in over her head.
- The woman of the house who is fanatically strict about extremely arcane rules for no apparent reason.
- The Faceless Lady Ghost.
- The hot but extremely creepy guy who thinks manipulating women makes him even hotter.
- The rotting patriarch who stands as a god over his moldering domain and reminisces over his alcohol of choice about how great Empire was.
- The female invalid who everyone is trying to keep hidden and no one will actually admit why.
- Eerie servants.
- The regretful sad sack destined to be played by Tom Hiddleston in the movie version.
I cannot wait for the television show of this. In the meantime, maybe I’ll just rewatch Crimson Peak or give We Have Always Lived in the Castle another read.
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.