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Happy Friday, shipmates! We made it to the first Friday in March, 2021, which is a surreal feeling. It’s Alex, with some news links and a trip back in the ol’ time machine. I’ve been having a rough time focusing this week, I think because the weather on the Colorado Front Range has been so completely gorgeous… though my brain might also be out to lunch because we’re coming up on the one year anniversary. My housemate decided to celebrate with a smoked turkey leg; there are definitely worse ways to do it. Stay safe out there, and I’ll see you on Tuesday!
Fun thing for the week: this absolutely amazing thread about classical music in cartoons
Let’s make 2021 better than 2020. Jackson, Mississippi is going on three weeks without many of its residents having access to clean water. ShowerPower, Yellowhammer Fund, and the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund are all working hard to get clean water to people right now.
News and Views
Jéhan Òsanyìn is adapting and directing N.K. Jemisin’s story The Effluent Engine
Congratulations to Nghi Vo for winning the Crawford Award for The Empress of Salt and Fortune!
Seduced by the Ruler’s Gaze: An Indian Perspective on Seth Dickinson’s Masquerade
Darcie Little Badger reads her short story Story for a Bottle, found in Love After the End
A short fiction round up from Jeff Xilon
C.S. Lewis, the Four Loves, and The Magician’s Nephew
What WandaVision and Doctor Strange say about magical gender roles
Thunder Force is finally coming in April and I am VERY EXCITED.
More actors joining the D&D film. This is going to be a glorious train wreck.
Wesley Chu’s War Arts Saga series has been optioned for TV
On Book Riot
6 of the darkest SFF reads coming in 2021
Dangerous girls: 7 witchy reads for WandaVision fans
10 innovative sci-fi novels about robots and AI
This week’s SFF Yeah! podcast is about shared world stories
This month you can enter to win a $250 gift card at Barnes & Noble, your own library cart, a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books, and/or a Kindle Oasis.
Free Association Friday: SFF 30 Years Ago
As is wont to happen, someone on Twitter with way too many followers had a Bad Opinion(TM); in this case, it was that books should automatically fall out of copyright after 30 years. I’m not here to subtweet (sub-newsletter?) about this, but it made me wonder… what SFF books were published in 1991 (yes, that was thirty years ago, and I hate it, too) that you might have heard of? (Or alternatively, if you hadn’t heard of them, maybe they’re worth checking out?)
As a note, because I’m cruising through a fairly limited selection of books, this list is unfortunately not as diverse as I’d like. Publishing has at least improved a little in the last thirty years, if not nearly enough.
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Azaro is a spirit child, constantly harassed by spirits from another world who want him to rejoin them in the land of spirits. Azaro refuses out of love for his parents. Around him, the city he lives in undergoes political turmoil as his family tries to better their condition.
Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
The story of how Cordelia Vorkosigan went from being the dismissed, foreign wife of the Regent of Barrayar to one of the most feared and respected women in the empire by way of defeating a coup and saving her infant son.
He, She, and It by Marge Piercy
Shira Shipman returns to Tikva, the Jewish free town in which she grew up, after her marriage falls apart and a corporation takes her young son from her. Her brilliant adopted grandmother welcomes her home with open arms and introduces her to a cyborg that has intelligence and emotions… and is very capable of killing.
A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason
A crew of human explorers arrives at a planet circling Sigma Draconis determined to not disturb or influence the life on that world. But an internal conflict on the ship begins to influence the ground crew in unexpected ways, endangering their goal of observing without touching this world that is not theirs.
The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge
This is actually the sequel to The Snow Queen but I had to include it because I love the covers on these books SO MUCH. This book spans thousands of years on the world of Tiamat, where its dolphin-like native people are harvested to make a serum that prolongs youth. Under its capital, a forgotten technology continues to influence the data bank that the universe runs on. And the ruler of Tiamat, the Summer Queen, will create a new future for her people, no matter the cost.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Maybe you’ve heard of it?
See you, space pirates. 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.