Sponsored by Into Bones Like Oil by Kaaron Warren
People come to The Angelsea, a rooming house near the beach, for many reasons. Some come to get some sleep, because here, you sleep like the dead. Dora arrives seeking solitude and escape from reality. Instead, she finds a place haunted by the drowned and desperate, who speak through the sleeping inhabitants. She fears sleep herself, terrified that the ghosts of her daughters will tell her “it’s all your fault we’re dead.” At the same time, she’d give anything to hear them one more time.
Happy Tuesday, shipmates–and happy Halloween-eve-eve! (That’s totally a thing, I swear.) It’s Alex, with some new releases for your perusal, and some fun news… including an exciting paleontology item that was pretty close to home for me.
Thing that made me smile this week: I am so proud of Demon Dad (aka Ted Danson) for getting arrested with GOAT Jane Fonda at a climate change protest.
New Releases
The Light at the Bottom of the World by London Shah – Leyla is a submersible racer in a drowned world, where sea creatures swim through the ruins of once great cities–including her home, London. The Prime Minister has promised that the winner of the annual submersible marathon can have anything they wish, so Leyla decides to compete in the hope of freeing her father, who was arrested under false charges. But the race takes an unexpected turn, and she must face a corrupt government that will do anything to keep its secrets hidden.
Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather – The Order of Saint Rita crosses the galaxy to give help to those in need, traveling in their living ship, Our Lady of Impossible Constellations. When they respond to the distress call of a new colony, they find themselves caught in a web of politics and corruption that runs from both the central government and the church.
A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy – Eva is a descendent of the Queen Raina, a practitioner of dark magic who slew thousands–including her own sister. Eva’s blood thrums with that same dark magic, and she too must kill her own sister if she wishes to ascend to the throne. But when she’s attacked by an assassin weeks before that scheduled, traditional battle, she realizes that there are more people than her sister who would like to see her dead.
Alien: Prototype by Tim Waggoner – Venture, a rival corporation to Weyland-Yutani, is happy to engage in industrial espionage and any other shady behavior to gain an advantage over the competition. Then one of their spies acquires a strange, leathery “egg” and takes it to a testing facility where colonial marine Zula Hendricks is trying to train the staff how to survive hostile environments… (What could possibly go wrong?)
Gravemaidens by Kelly Coon – Kammani dreams of becoming a healer in her home city of Alu, wanting to follow in her father’s footsteps and reclaim her family’s good name. When the ruler of Alu falls ill, Kammani’s sister is chosen to be a gravemaiden, following him into death. Kammani hatches a plan to heal the ruler and save her sister.
News and Views
The 2019 Nommo Award winners were announced! Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater won the Ilube Award for novel.
The case for calling all vampires “Draculas.”
Oh my gosh you have to see this gorgeous new box set of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.
Well, if you’d like some Game of Thrones TV-related hyper yikes, you can read about what Benioff and Weiss had to say at the Austin Film Festival. Because Y I K E S. Though in related but definitely non-yikes news, keep fancasting the books you love.
Daleks spotted at a bridge in Bristol that was supposedly closed for inspection.
The Captain Janeway Bloomington Collective is raising funds for a Captain Janeway monument.
Another really good piece about HBO’s Watchmen: Some Watchmen fans are mad that HBO’s version is political. But Watchmen has always been political.
Scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science have found a massive treasure trove of fossils that illustrate plant and animal life’s recovery after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event at the Corral Bluff Open Space near Colorado Springs. This is even more exciting than the Snowmastodons!
Wired has a great look at photos taken of the surface of the Moon during moon walks.
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.
Wing is a neutral place in Hell where stories never finished by their authors live. Claire is the head librarian of these stories, mostly tasked with hunting down characters who have come to life and begun searching for their writers. But a simple retrieval goes wrong when an angel attacks…
