Author: Jenn Northington

Greetings, Earthlings and galactic visitors! There is absolutely no space-related gossip in today’s newsletter; this time, we’ve got our feet on the ground.

I have a burning question for you all: Do you follow authors across genres? This is on my mind because China Mieville has written a political history of Russia and it comes out next month. He’s already a bit of a genre-hopper, with fantasy, hard sci-fi, and more wibbly-wobbly-genre-bendey works like The City and the City under his belt, but nonfiction is much farther afield. It’s not particularly surprising if you know his political leanings and background, but it’s also not quite the same as grabbing, say, an Atwood essay collection. What do you think? Is your interest piqued?

Waaaaay back in our very first ever Swords and Spaceships, I noted that Guy Ritchie’s forthcoming King Arthur movie looks like a glorious mess. The latest trailer just confirms it; I can’t decide if it’s weirder that the elephants from Lord of the Rings movies have shown up, or that the sword apparently gives Arthur powers!? Did Vortigern summon the elephants from Middle Earth with his ill-gotten powers? Did someone enchant the sword? I have questions that can only be answered by seeing it in the theater, because I am a hopeless Arthurian junkie.

We talked about the Hugos, now let’s talk about the Nommo Awards! These are newly on my radar, and I am preetttty excited about them for two reasons: one is that these are mostly authors I’m not already hip to and I cannot wait to start reading them, and the second is that A. Igoni Barrett is on there and I adored his short story collection Love Is Power, Or Something Like That (which is not speculative in nature, but excellent regardless).

What do we talk about when we talk about dragons? Jessica has some thoughts. I have narrowed down my own first dragons to Smaug and/or Eustace (spoiler) from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which made Kazul from Dealing With Dragons an absolute delight.

And, for your regularly scheduled whimsy: Sci-fi mugs! I cannot decide which I need the most, which just means I need all of them. Right?

Let’s talk about your TBR pile; if it doesn’t have these two books on it, please reconsider immediately.

The Regional Office Is Under Attack! by Manuel Gonzales

Happy paperback publication week to The Regional Office; what better way to celebrate than to remind you that if you haven’t read this book yet, it is now cheaper to acquire!

I love this book a lot, not least because it meshes robotics and magic and there is just not enough of that in my life. On the one hand we have Rose, a teenage assassin with powers who has been recruited by a conspiracy within the Regional Office. She is a one-woman army and she is coming for the Director. Except that Sarah, a dedicated employee who may also be a cyborg, is standing in her way.

If you were to mash up an episode of Buffy with Die Hard (there are a lot of crawl-spaces in this book, y’all), you’d get something close to the plot. What you wouldn’t get is Gonzales’ delightfully wry and episodic style — in between stellar action sequences, he doles out background story bit by tantalizing bit. It’s an ass-kicking, action-packed novel, with a punch in the feels for good measure.

 

Tender by Sofia Samatar

Welcome to the Sofia Samatar Fan Club! I am your local chapter president Jenn Northington and I am delighted to tell you that her new short story collection is SO GREAT!

I am unsurprised; her novels A Stranger in Olondria and Winged Histories are two of my favorite fantasies of the past few years. And this collection is full of gems. Some have a scholarly feel, like “An Account of the Land of Witches” or “Ogres of East Africa”, in which Samatar is cataloguing wonders previously unseen. Some are funny and heartbreaking, like “Walkdog.” All of them are bursting at the seams with magic, and with Samatar’s deliberate and precise use of language. Her style is a moving target — sometimes ornate and sometimes spare, some times casual and sometimes formal — but it’s always deployed with purpose, and the results are spell-binding.

Like I said: president of the fan club, over here. Get this collection on your shelf and into your brain.

Note: The pub date is technically Monday, April 17, but physical copies are available now!

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This newsletter is sponsored by Defy The Stars by Claudia Gray.

She’s a soldier.
He’s a machine.
Enemies in an interstellar war, they are forced to work together as they embark on a daring journey through the stars. Their efforts would end the fighting for good, but they’re not without sacrifice. The stakes are even higher than either of them first realized, and the more time they spend together, the more they’re forced to question everything they’d been taught was true.

Happy Friday, geek friends and nerd pals! I have been scouring the interwebs for interesting tidbits, and boy did I find some.

First and foremost: The Hugo Finalists are heeeeeeere! You will notice some repeats from the Nebulas, which is neither unusual nor unexpected in these cases (Obelisk Gate and All the Birds in the Sky, what what!). If you want a look at how the rules changes from last year may have affected this year’s nominations, our own Alex is happy to oblige.

There are always trend pieces making the rounds, but I happened to see three in a row. Things what are Hot Right Now: dystopias, space opera, and killer flus. (Not mutually exclusive, let us note.) Dystopias always seem to be on-trend to me, but I welcome additions to the ranks. Space opera, on the other hand, does seem to be having its day in the Sun (heh); Wired and I have a lot of the same favorites, which means you should definitely read them. And killer flus are like little black dresses — perennial and inescapable. If that’s all a little heavy for you, have some talking cats too.

Speaking of space opera! There’s a gorgeous new cover for Ann Leckie’s forthcoming Provenance, which we will not get until October, argh. If you haven’t read the Ancillary trilogy, never fear: this is a new story, so you can jump right in. But you have several months between now and October, so you definitely could read them, I am just saying.

And last but not least, here is a sci-fi short film that I found delightful and eery as all get-out, plus it is only five minutes long: Strange Beasts.

 

Now for recommendations! Here’s something brand new and something old (because in publishing, 2015 was like a decade ago).

The Wanderers by Meg Howrey

Ambiguous near-future astronaut stories are also hot right now! We just talked about Spaceman of Bohemia, which I read back to back with The Wanderers. Whereas Spaceman goes unabashedly surreal, Wanderers sticks hard to the science-possible. Three astronauts from around the world are hired by a private space-exploration company called Prime Space (it’s all very Elon Musk) and sent into a seventeen-month-long simulation to prove that not only is a landed mission to Mars possible, but they’re the right crew. As the story — told skillfully from multiple points of view — develops, astronauts Helen, Sergei, and Yoshi each develop a different view of what is actually going on.

There are comps to be made with The Martian; Howrey gives us technical action, company politics, and pencil-pushers as well as problem-solving and astronaut body-humor. But she also delves deeply into the emotional fault-lines of her characters, which gives us some of the funniest and most moving moments (occasionally at the same time!). Helen’s grown daughter Meeps, a struggling actress, absolutely steals every scene she is in, as does Yoshi’s wife Madoka. And Sergei’s sons, oof! My heart breaks. So, to wrap this up, my short recommendation is: come for the Hijinks Involving Space, stay for the incredible characters.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro excels at writing books that are not at all about what they seem to be about, as you know if you’ve read Let Me Go. That one appears to be about boarding school and is actually about, ahem, medical ethics (I am resisting the urge to spoil it for you, you’re welcome). The Buried Giant does not actually have a giant in it — ogres yes, pixies yes, knights yes, dragons yes!, but not a giant to be found. For a while you’re pretty sure it’s just about two olde time British people who can’t remember anything, then it’s about King Arthur, and then you get to the ending and it’s about — Well, I don’t want to spoil it, but it wasn’t what I thought.

And yet despite all of this confusion and ambiguity (which ultimately does have a point), I couldn’t put it down. The Buried Giant is a dreamy walk through an ancient England that barely knows itself from one day to the next, and that contains surprises both wondrous and horrible around every turn. From the troubled relationship between the Saxons and the Britons, the role of the early Catholic church, the long-deferred quest of Sir Gawain (who I could not help picturing as a Monty Python-era John Cleese), to the perils facing an aging couple in a harsh world, Ishiguro balances a ton of depth with a deceptively simple style. A slow burn of a novel, this one is for Ishiguro fans, readers who enjoy open-ended plots, and my fellow Arthurian completists.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Macmillan Teen.

We have a YA Science Fiction & Fantasy prize pack to give away! Click here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the image below:

Salutations and felicitations, my fellow SF/F fans!

If short stories are your bag (as I suspect they are, given how many of you clicked that flash fiction link last time), I have excellent news for you: Lightspeed magazine is offering a free three-month trial subscription to new folks, or a free three-month extension to existing subscribers. I’m a fan — their monthly issues regularly feature some of my favorite authors both established and newly minted, and they published the Queers Destroy Science Fiction and Women Destroy Science Fiction special issues. Nota bene: they are a digital-only publication.

We’ve been talking about fairytales on the regular here, so perhaps you will be as delighted with this round-up as I am: fairy- and folk-tale collections other than the Brothers Grimm! I need that “Beauty and the Beast” one ASAP.

I don’t usually have time for convincing people that genre fiction is worth their time (because obviously!?), but this piece of recs for those who think they only like genre-bending lit-fic is excellent. For anyone in your life who has ever wanted “genre but, you know, GOOD.” Assuming you have not already killed them with your brain.

Do you have a minute for outer space? Because scientists would like your help discovering exoplanets! (Side-note: the current administration would like to shut down the DSCOVER program, which could help us identify the climate of exoplanets; how is Elon Musk supposed to save humanity without that info, I would like to know?) (I jest.) (Kind of.)

Moving right along … You may recognize this week’s sci-fi pick as having popped up around the site before; I have fallen hard for this book. And if you have already read my second pick, could you please email back so we can gush about it? K thx.

Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař

In the Czech Republic, a scientist named Jakub Procházka boards a spaceship on a mission to collect and analyze cosmic dust from a mysterious intergalactic phenomenon. The eight-month mission, funded by corporate sponsors and made possible by political wheeling and dealing, is the pride and joy of the country and Procházka is a national hero. So far it sounds 100% plausible, right? Vast chunks of this book are in fact extremely possible, up to and including Jakub’s response to meeting a giant alien spider-thing that may or may not be a figment of his imagination.

Kalfař uses the lens of speculative fiction (magical scientific realism? Could that be a thing?) to dig deep into post-Soviet Union life in the Czech Republic, as well as the mysteries of Life, The Universe, and Everything. (My phrasing, not his, although I suspect Douglas Adams would approve.) Jakub has spent his life trying to atone for his father’s crimes under the Communist regime, and is struggling to understand his relationship with his wife Lenka — and also not die in outer space. He is not an extraordinary person, but rather a person in extraordinary circumstances. Whether he’s fighting for sanity, for survival, or for his marriage, he is deeply compelling. Like all good sci-fi, Spaceman of Bohemia asks big questions and gives us a great story in the process. This one is for lovers of near-future, thoughtful, and/or deeply weird novels.

The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia, edited by Jaymee Goh and Joyce Chng

While the cover is not my favorite (I’m a photo-realism junkie, what can I say), the contents of this anthology are absolutely must-read, especially if you’re a fan of Nisi Shawl’s Everfair. The writers in this collection look not only at steam technology, strange beasties, and the occasional bustle, but at colonialism, empire, and often-overlooked countries.

This is a gorgeous example of what can happen when editors go in search of voices — particularly since, as they say in the introduction, “[O]ur anthology presents a range of authors and characters that is predominantly women, and hella queer.” And what a range of stories these writers produced! All of these pieces stand successfully on their own. I still find myself referencing “The Last Aswang”; “The Unmaking of the Cuadro Amoroso” and “On the Consequence of Sound” both deserve to be read right next to World Fantasy Award-winner The Chimes for their evocation of the power of music. Others are more “hijinks ensue” in style, but none are slight — each of these stories has a strongly-beating heart. Combined, they create a gorgeously textured alternative vision of our world. This collection is one of my favorites from the past year — there’s a story in here for any reader, and quite likely more than one.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Unbound Worlds Cage Match 2017.

Cage Match is back! Unbound Worlds is pitting science fiction characters against fantasy characters in a battle-to-the-death tournament, and you can win a collection of all 32 books featured in the competition. Enter now for your chance to win this library of sci-fi and fantasy titles!

Happy Friday, space cadets and armchair magicians!

In case you missed it amongst all the other headlines, two much-beloved authors are releasing much-belated sequels. Neil Gaiman has not only announced a sequel to Neverwhere, but also announced its title: The Seven Sisters. Gaiman was inspired to write the sequel by his work with refugees in past years, which sounds hugely promising to this reader. And Philip Pullman has more things to say about Dust! He’s not just writing a continuation, but a full companion trilogy for His Dark Materials. Called The Book of Dust, the trilogy will start with baby Lyra (!) and extend to a decade past The Amber Spyglass. While Gaiman is only a few chapters into Seven Sisters, the new Pullman is supposed to hit bookshelves in October of this year.

The much-anticipated Girl With All The Gifts is now available on your TV screen. Anyone watched it yet? I’m currently neck-deep in an X-Men re-watch before I go see Logan (which is the best worst idea I’ve had in a while), but the reviews have me curious. (Don’t click any of those if you don’t want spoilers!)

Eleven excellent authors wrote flash fiction inspired by the words “Nevertheless, she persisted” for International Women’s Day on Tor.com, and that line-up is all killer, no filler.

I don’t know about y’all, but it has been a pretty intense winter. So I was delighted to see not one, but two, highly entertaining just-for-funsies posts come across my dash. For your enjoyment, I give you:
– The best action figure photography in the history of ever, probably, courtesy of Instagram’s hotkenobi.
– 10 sci-fi curse words, so you can get around those pesky censors. (Seriously though, I am on board with Make Frak Happen 2017.)

And how about a freebie to top things off? There’s a give-away running for Rin Chupeco’s Bone Witch, and today is the very last day. Get thee to the entry form!

And now, for two very different books:

Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett

I was recently reminded by Nisi Shawl’s post that Elysium is essential reading for sci-fi fans, and so I’m adding my voice to hers to tell you to read it ASAP.

With its experimental structure, this is a novel that rewards readers who go along for the journey. It jumps characters and time frames, and puts its protagonists through life after life, apocalypse after apocalypse. Through this repetition, we start to see the world of Elysium take shape, and the struggles of humanity to survive and protect their loved ones at any cost.

Brissett’s genius is in pulling off the complex structure and by investing us wholely in the characters. We see them in different forms, different genders, different emotional configurations, but their personalities shine through in each chapter and keep us rooting for them, and desperate to know what happens next. It’s also a book I wanted to start over again as soon as I finished it, which is a rare book indeed. Elysium is a truly monumental book, especially when one considers that it’s a first novel. Give it your time and attention, and you will not be sorry.

Wintersong by S. Jae Jones

If you have been craving a fairytale that includes elements of Labyrinth’s Goblin King, Goethe’s Der Erlkönig, and the story of Orpheus, all while telling a gorgeous story about sisterhood and the power of creativity, then you are going to love S. Jae Jones’ debut novel.

Liesl is a brilliant composer, but it doesn’t matter — she’s far too busy keeping her family together, running their inn, and supporting her younger brother’s budding career as a virtuoso violinist. She’s also a young woman in a time (I’m guesstimating 1800s) when women’s contributions to the arts were largely overlooked or disregarded. And, perhaps most importantly, she’s the target of a Goblin King who is looking for a new bride.

As the plot unfolds, Liesl must weave her way through a maze of obstacles to get at the heart of the Goblin King’s challenge, which is also the heart of her own story. Capricious and captivating by turns, the Erlking is both her tormentor and her best ally in unleashing the talents that Liesl has been suppressing. Jae-Jones packs so much story between the opening and closing pages of Wintersong that I felt like I had read at least two books by the time I was done, and was gripped by every page.

A reading suggestion: have some Mozart close to hand, at the very least. This book will make you want to listen to all the classical music, and made me wish I knew much more about it than I do!

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This newsletter is sponsored by Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar.

Raised in the Czech countryside, Jakub Procházka has gone from small-time scientist to premier national astronaut. When a dangerous solo mission to Venus offers him a chance at heroism, he takes it, leaving behind his devoted wife Lenka, whose love, Jakub realizes too late, he has sacrificed.

Alone in space, Jakub finds a companion in a possibly imaginary alien spider. Over a series of philosophical conversations, the pair form an intense emotional bond. But will it be enough to see Jakub through a clash with secret Russian rivals and return him safely to Earth for a second chance with Lenka?

Happy Friday, nerd-friends and geek-pals.

First things first:
– A correction is called for; despite it being on the cover image and everything, I had Lara Elena Donnelly’s name wrong last issue. Mea culpa!
– And a MUPPET ARMS! The Nebula has announced the 2016 nominees and I cannot stand how excited I am about the list for Novel. I have read all but Borderline (must get on that) and could not agree more with their nominations! I am trying to ration exclamation marks but it’s not working!?!

For today’s issue, I have a book listicle spectacular for you. Ready, set, TBR:

I have no real feelings about 50 Shades of Grey but I do love this post about eight sci-fi/fantasy books sexier than it.

Here is a list of Middle-Eastern inspired SF/F and while it’s light on authors actually from the Middle East, I extremely cosign their recommendation of Alif the Unseen. Before she was the pen behind Ms. Marvel, G. Willow Wilson wrote a killer tech-punk action novel, plus genies! It’s also one of the few books out there that plays equally with technology and fantasy.

Want some comics that scratch the fantasy itch? Christine has five recs for you. Points of interest: Mike Carey is the same writer as M.R. Carey (The Girl With All The Gifts) and Marjorie Liu is the author of the Hunter Kiss urban fantasy series as well as Monstress. Multi-tasking!

Japanese speculative fiction in translation! I’ve been a fan of Japanese noir for some time, but haven’t delved much into speculative fiction yet, so this is exciting. I have my eye on Mr. Turtle in particular, as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were very important in my formative years.

And finally, how about some color on the silver screen? Jessica has a wish-list of diverse fantasies she’d love to see adapted.

Speaking of things I’d love to be adapted…

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

Wow, you guys. SERIOUSLY WOW. This space opera belongs on your shelf next to the works of China Mieville, Iain M. Banks, and Cixin Liu. The sequel The Raven Stratagem comes out in June and I will be counting down the days. (Bonus: just listed for the Nebula Award for 2016 Novel!)

Captain Kel Cheris has kept her head down and worked her way quietly through the ranks, but a battle with heretics that goes sideways draws the attention of the higher-ups to her mathematical talent. Her skills get her assigned to a mission that is all risk and little reward, and which requires her to be pseudo-possessed by the centuries-old ghost of a brilliant and insane tactician. (And this is me simplifying the plot!)

Lee has built an empire in space in which the mechanics of calendars are all-important, heresy not only disrupts governance but changes the way the universe works, and everyone’s motives are inscrutable and suspect. The action sequences are intense, the plotting is top-notch, the conspiracies are shocking, and the characters are fantastic. Truly, I do not have superlatives enough to tell you how much I enjoyed Ninefox Gambit.

 

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

This one made the rounds of favorites when it came out in 2015, but I recently ran into someone who hadn’t read it yet and it reminded me that some of you might need a push! Naomi Novik is best-known for the Temeraire series, which just recently came to an end (long live fussy dragons during the Napoleonic wars!), but this stand-alone novel is gorgeous.

Inspired by a Polish folktale, Uprooted follows a young woman named Agnieszka as, against all expectations, she is chosen by a wizard to be his … housekeeper? Kind of? In exchange for a village girl every ten years, the Dragon (title, not literal dragon) protects the village from the ravages of the very-angry forest on its borders. Agnieszka is not expecting to be taken since she’s neither the most beautiful nor graceful nor bravest nor, well, you get the idea. But what she has in spades is moxie, and is thus the perfect person to star in an epic adventure.

There are a bunch of twists and turns to this fairytale rewrite, which always makes me happy. Novik knows the tropes well and isn’t afraid to spin them around until they lead off in unexpected directions. Evil forest, terrifying wizard, plucky young heroine, royalty in peril: all are there, but none are what they seem. And while the ending is satisfying, I hope someday that I get to return to Agnieszka’s world. Maybe now that Novik is done with historical dragons, we’ll get a sequel?

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