Category: Swords and Spaceships

Happy Tuesday, werewolves and swearwolves. It’s Alex, ready to howl out some new releases and book-world news for you! (And wow, what a week for new releases!) Around my town we’re solidly into farmers’ market season, and I hope you’ve got something just as nice to wander around in and find wonderful gems like a Turkish-Mexican fusion food truck with döner tacos.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Libro.fm.

Get three audiobooks for the price of one, with code BR19!

 

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New Releases

The Outside by Ada Hoffman: An autistic scientist whose experimental energy drive destroys the space station it was aboard is given a choice by the AI gods that rule the galaxy: be executed or help hunt down her long-vanished mentor.

Bunny by Mona Awad: Twee college rich girls who call each other “Bunny” have a ritualistic off-campus “workshop” where they magically summon monstrous things.

The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz: A teen guru who wants to advise the galaxy’s one percenters wins a fabulous free dinner at the Sol Majestic… and learns it might financially ruin the restaurant in pursuit of his dream.

A History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff: A mosaic novel about two young Jewish girls who magically meet on the eve of World War I, and how their promise to meet again echoes through their lives and those of their descendants.

Stronger Than a Bronze Dragon by Mary Fan: Anlei is a warrior who protects her village from shadow spirits; it’s for that protection that she sacrifices her freedom and agrees to get married. The day before her wedding, she encounters a young thief and embarks on a journey to the Courts of Hell, searching for the source of the shadow spirits.

The Book of Disappearance: A Novel by Ibtisam Azem Timberlake, translated by Sinan Antoon: A novel that imagines life in Tel Aviv if all Palestinians suddenly disappeared one day.

The Last Supper Before Ragnarok by Cassandra Khaw: The fifth Rupert Wong novel, which asks an important and really worrying question: “Where did the father gods go?”

News and Views

Huge, if kind of inside baseball: Barnes and Noble has been acquired by the same hedge fund that owns Waterstones. My automatic reaction to the words “hedge fund” is to recoil, but with the Waterstones CEO being in charge, I’m cautiously optimistic?

Three super cute animated Star Wars shorts here.

A list of the ten most stylish hats from genre film. As a person with a deep love of hats, this is the kind of content I am here for.

The Good Place will end with its fourth season. While I’ll sure miss the show, I’m glad they’re doing their planned ending and finishing it how they wanted instead of trying to stretch it out endlessly.

Gwyneth Paltrow apparently forgot she was in Spider-man: Homecoming and her being reminded of it is actually really cute. Jon Favreau’s The Chef Show has also provided us with this adorable clip of Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. eating oysters.

As someone who was in high school during the reinvention of emo in the mid-90s, I am highly entertained by this list of 8 books for those still emo in their hearts.

In a Vogue interview, Margot Robbie says Harley Quinn’s outfits in Birds of Prey are going to be less ‘male-gazey’ probably thanks to the female producer, writer, director, and costume designer.

The IAU is is running a campaign in which each participating country will get to name its own star and the exoplanets in that system. Over 100 countries have signed on.

These cannonballs might have been used by Vlad the Impaler.

NASA is opening the ISS to for-profit and marketing activities.

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

Happy Friday to everyone but the jerkface editor of The Atlantic who thinks that only white dudes can write 10K-word cover stories and–sorry, rage-fainted for a second there. Have an equally not-genre-related antidote: a clip of Sutton Foster, Hilary Duff, and Miriam Shor singing a bit of 9 to 5! Anyway, it’s Alex, with some news and general silliness for you, my favorite space unicorns.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Tor Books.

Firstname Lastname is a nobody with nowhere to go. Her name is the result of an unfortunate clerical error, and her destiny to be one of the only humans on an alien space station. That is until she sneaks aboard a ship and joins a band of repomen. Now she’s traveling the galaxy “recovering” ships. What could go wrong?

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News and Views

Congratulations to the winners of the 31st Lambda Literary Awards! The winner for the SFF/horror category was The Breath of the Sun by Isaac R. Fellman (published under Rachel Fellman).

Winners for the 2019 Neukom Awards have also been announced!

io9 has a short story from this month’s Lightspeed for your perusal: Between the Dark and the Dark by Deji Bryce Olukotun

For Pride Month, I’d like to direct your attention to Bogi Takác’s regular QUILTBAG+ Speculative Classics column at Tor.com.

Also for Pride–the LGBT+ Fantasy Storybundle is live. (Full disclosure: There’s a book by me in this one.)

My favorite pride month Twitter joke so far.

A look at the 1972 film The Blood-Splattered Bride and basically you had me at “lesbian vampire.”

A look at a classic sci-fi novel: Frederik Pohl’s Gateway. This is one of the few classics I read as a kid that I still revisit; I feel like it really holds up.

If Ken Loach directed Star Wars.

Bill and Ted will be going on an excellent adventure with their daughters, Thea and Billie (respectively).

Wonder Woman 1984 has an AWESOME poster.

Writer dropped from a Doctor Who anthology because of his transphobic remarks.

The Halo series wants to have a similar scope and scale to Game of Thrones. I mean, if you’ve played Halo: Reach, they can plainly achieve the body count, too.

George R.R. Martin has joined Meow Wolf as its Chief World Builder.

Robert Downey Jr. continues to be Tony Stark, but this time IRL.

NASA’s deep space habitat prototype has completed ground testing.

Dinosaur bones! In Australia!! That were turned to opal!!! And are from a new species!!!!

Free Association Friday

Today in history, the city of New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville. 122 years later, in a completely unrelated event, the Great Natchez Tornado hit Natchez, Mississippi and killed 317 people. That makes it the second deadliest tornado in US History (the deadliest was the Tri-State Tornado that hit on March 18, 1925 and tore across Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana). Weather is scary (and cool, when it’s not coming after your city), which has me thinking about New Orleans again and the way it got hit so hard by Hurricane Katrina. Which takes me to climate change, and one of the predicted effects being more extreme weather.

When it comes to climate change fiction that looks at extreme weather, there’s plenty to choose from. Carrie Vaughn’s Bannerless imagines what society will be like after everything has been wrecked by super storms. Apparently there’s a dystopian twist coming later in the series, though I (weirdly?) didn’t find the first book blatantly dystopian; it’s more a nice sci-fi murder mystery. American War by Omar El Akkad is more post-apocalyptic, imagining an America flattened by extreme climate and plagues–and a second civil war. Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning is an urban fantasy take on that sort of after-apocalypse… with the twist being that it’s a new beginning for a people who already had their apocalypse well before the collapse of the US.

In my (admittedly limited because I am a human being who must sleep and hasn’t read everything) experience, science fiction tends to more focus on the aftermath of the extreme weather, the climate destruction. With fantasy, you get a little bit more of the discrete events themselves, storms as portents and inciting incidents. (Need we mention The Wizard of Oz?) The power of storms gets magically siphoned into orbs in Maria V. Snyder’s Storm Glass. In Ill Wind by Rachel Caine, weather mages keep unsuspecting non-magical people safe from devastating storms… with the help of captive djinn. There’s a plot-related extreme weather event in Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds in the Sky, which shall not be spoiled here. N.K. Jemisin has a great story about storms in How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? (Cloud Dragon Skies)–also a story I love about alternate history steampunk New Orleans that has nothing to do with inclement weather (The Effluent Engine).

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

It’s the most wonderful day of the weeeeeek: Tuesday! That’s right, it’s new book day! Can you smell the fresh paper on the wind? Hear the pages rustling as they wing their way toward us. Get out your nets, me hearties, and let’s see what we can catch. It’s Alex, with new book releases and nerdy news!

[Editor’s note: This newsletter contains a major spoiler for Game of Thrones, so if you haven’t watched it, skip today’s News & Views section!]

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This newsletter is brought to you by Tor Books, proud publisher of An Illusion of Thieves by Cate Glass.

In Cantagna, being a sorcerer is a death sentence. When a plot to overthrow the Shadow Lord and incite civil war is uncovered, only Romy knows how to stop it. To do so, she’ll have to rely on newfound allies—a swordmaster, a silversmith, and her own thieving brother—to pull off an elaborate heist. And they’ll need the very thing that could condemn them all: magic.

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New Releases

Unraveling by Karen Lord – A serial killer chasing a myth that might lead them to immortality haunts the City. A forensic therapist named Dr. Miranda Ecouvo is put on the track to find this killer by Chance and Trickster, brothers she meets during a near-death experience.

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams – An anthology of variably created wastelands, with new stories by Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Tobias S. Buckell, Veronica Roth, and others.

Five Midnights Ann Dávila Cardinal – This tagline is amazing: “Five friends cursed. Five deadly fates. Five nights of retribución.” A thriller based on the legend of el Cuco.

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey – Reluctant detective Ivy Gamble, who was born without magic and definitely doesn’t mind that fact, has to solve a murder at a school for mages and reclaim her gifted sister in the process. (Full disclosure: I have the same agent as Sarah Gailey.)

Fire Opal Mechanism by Fran Wilde – Sequel to the gorgeous and heart-breaking The Jewel and Her Lapidary.

The Soul of Power by Callie Bates – A girl who was never supposed to rule finds the crown upon her head and must navigate a political maze she should never have been dropped into.

News and Views

Tor.com has collected livetweets from two really cool panels at BookCon, in case we weren’t envious enough about not being there: Worldbuilding and Rebecca Roanhorse and N.K. Jemisin talk about writing themselves in speculative fiction.

Since Aladdin is upon us, here’s a list of 7 books about djinn! (And while it involves daiva rather than djinn, I’d add that Empire of Sand might hit an adjacent sweet spot.)

First trailer for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is out and it looks utterly gorgeous. Puppets and trauma for everyone!

Next time I’m in Tokyo, I have to go to this sci-fi themed bar.

Four “nonfiction” ebooks about the world of Harry Potter are coming.

Ikea recreated some famous living rooms with their own furniture, including the one from Stranger Things.

New Steven Universe storybook is coming our way: The Tale of Steven.

Ready for another Hidden Figures moment? Here’s an awesome Twitter thread about the only woman who was inside the control room during the Apollo 11 launch.

Robert Pattinson will be the next Batman. This has got to be my favorite tweet about it.

Whether you did or didn’t like the King Bran thing, it’s apparently GRRM’s fault?

The 2019 Eugie Award Finalists have been announced; check it out for a list of some good short fiction to try.

Yeah, we regret you didn’t make The Dark Tower movie horror, too, Ron Howard.

Good Omens easter eggs according to the cast and crew.

Baskin Robbins has some Stranger Things-themed treats.

This Feels Like it Should Be in a Science Fiction Novel Corner

This fascinating review of Underland is here to remind us that our planet can be more fantastic than fiction.

The title: Sonic black holes produce “Hawking radiation,” may confirm famous theory. It just gets cooler from there.

NASA picks three commercial companies to attempt moon landings.

From the department of “I smelled the sour milk so now I’m going to make you smell it too so we can all suffer together, plus holy wow is this some dystopian stuff so silly I don’t think anyone’s ever put it in a novel”: The Department of Energy did a press release that called natural gas “freedom gas” and “molecules of U.S. freedom.”

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

We made it to space port, me hearties–happy Friday! The rainbow nebula that is Pride Month is just on the horizon and coming in fast, so prepare the glitter canons. (And if you want something heartwarming, there’s this ad about a dad showing his trans son how to shave.) It’s Captain Alex, with at-least-peripherally-book-related news and whatever random thing from Wikipedia makes me feel like going off on a science fantasy tangent.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Tor Books, publisher of A Chain Across the Dawn by Drew Williams.

Esa and her fellow agent Jane Kamali have been travelling across the known universe, searching for children who share Esa’s supernatural gifts, but they are not alone. A mysterious being with impossible powers will stop at nothing to get his hands on the very children Esa and Jane are trying to save.

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News and Views

There’s a Good Omens-themed escape room? And David Tennant and Michael Sheen showed up?

SYFY Wire also has a super cute post with pictures of tattered copies of Good Omens and fans talking about how they met their beloved book.

For your heart punch of the day, Terry Pratchett’s hat and scarf had their own seat at the show’s world premiere.

A cover reveal and an excerpt from The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis.

Tor.com has an excerpt fromThe Iron Dragon’s Mother, which is the sequel to this gritty, diesel-punky with fairies book called The Iron Dragon’s Daughter. I mostly mention this because it is a blast from my person past. The Iron Dragon’s Daughter was originally published in 1997, the year before I graduated high school. So… wow.

Ever wonder what Myers-Briggs type various Star Wars characters might be? We’ve got you covered.

Okay, I normally leave comic book news to one of our other newsletters but Dynamite is going to have a miniseries where Bettie Page fights chthonic elder beings.

Tor.com has a round up of genre short fiction from May for you to read.

For the next 20 days or so, you can get the Science Fiction and Fantasy Satire Bundle (curated by Nick Mamatas) and the Afrofuturism Bundle (curated by Tenea D. Johnson) has a bit less than a week left. You can choose to donate 10% of your purchase to charities selected by the curators.

A gentle look at fans being overly possessive of media properties: “Not my Batman” is no way to go through life.

First reviews are in for the third season of The Handmaid’s Tale. 

On the sisterhood of Arya and Sansa Stark.

Fans built a full-sized Atlantis Stargate.

The crowd-funded Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary is coming to US and Canadian theaters soon.

Astronomical fun: The merger of two white dwarf stars that might turn into a neutron star. And neutron stars might give us some clues about quarks.

Free Association Friday

May 31, 1223 was the Battle of Kalka River, during the Mongolian invasion of the Cumans. And 70 years later, Kublai Khan headed out to invade Java because King Kertanegara refused to pay tribute.

I’m sorry to say that my Google skills have failed mightily and I haven’t dug up any science fiction or fantasy by Mongolian authors for you. I actually haven’t even had much luck finding any literature or poetry in translation, other than this newsletter that’s got a little bit of poetry in it. In penance, I offer this badass music video by Mongolian metal band The Hu, which is guaranteed to make you want to get on a horse and go tearing across the nearest picturesque, steppe-like piece of land you can find. (Or on a motorcycle.)

I can say there’s been a lot of really great Asian-inspired fantasy lately that definitely has not forgotten the Mongolians–and goes beyond the simple and problematic “barbarian horde” trope. The Tiger’s Daughter (and its sequel The Phoenix Empress) by K. Arsenault Rivera’s got to be one of my favorites; the world feels real and lived-in and like it has a history, and the beating heart of the story are lesbian soulmates. Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings is more concerned by civil war, but by the time we get to Wall of Storms, there’s someone knocking at Dara’s door. Elizabeth Bear’s Eternal Sky trilogy starts with the grandson of the Great Khan walking off a battlefield where he was left for dead in Range of Ghosts and proceeds apace. Kate Elliot’s Jaran is set in a sci-fi world with some very Steppe-like features, while her Crown of Stars series is fantasy with a rather Mongolian-esque culture.

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday! In this corner, we have new releases, facing off with our every-newsletter feature of news and views! Whose cuisine will reign supreme? It’s Alex, with some horribly muddled pop culture references, books, and news–so much news!

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This newsletter is sponsored by Alfred A. Knopf, publisher of Exhalation by Ted Chiang.

From the acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others—the basis for the film Arrival—comes a groundbreaking short fiction collection, tackling some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only Ted Chiang could imagine.

A portal through time forces a fabric seller in Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. An alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with universal ramifications. The ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radical examination of choice and free will. Including all-new stories as well as classic uncollected works, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic, and revelatory.

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New Releases

Five Unicorn Flush by TJ Berry – Sequel to Space Unicorn Blues, where interstellar travel is powered by unicorn horns; as you can imagine, it sucks to be a unicorn.

The Red-Stained Wings by Elizabeth Bear – sequel to The Stone in the Skull.

Longer by Michael Blumlein – In a universe where the wealthy can reboot themselves to a younger age twice–but not three times–married research scientists Gunjita and Cav have a problem. One of them is on their second and final reboot; one of them is not.

Lent by Jo Walton – Girolamo Savanarola seems to always be miraculously at the right place at the right time to change the course of history.

Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky – An astronaut has been separated from his expedition in a freak accident, and is now lost and alone in an alien artifact.

The Gameshouse by Claire North – The Gameshouse is a place where any game can be played… at any stakes. Including at the scale of empires.

The Quanderhorn Xperimentations by Rob Grand and Andrew Marshall – I think this bit of the back cover copy says it all: “England, 1952. A time of peace, regeneration and hope. A Golden Age. Unfortunately, it’s been 1952 for the past 65 years.”

The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg – The Kingdom is an immersive fantasy theme park created by bioengineering and technology; Ana is one the park’s creations, a perfect princess. She falls in love with a park employee… and then is accused of his murder.

News and Views

Happy belated Towel Day! Ever wondered what Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy character you’re most like? We’ve got a quiz for that.

Stranger Things has an absolutely gorgeous new art book coming out, and io9 has some images.

On the dubious origins of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp.” And on the topic of fairy tales, an argument that Ever After is one of the best adaptations out there.

More Hidden Figures: Two women programmers and the birth of chaos theory.

Scientists think they may have found extraterrestrial organic matter from carbon-rich meteorites mixed with spinels in a 3.3 billion-year-old sedimentary layer.

Also in cool science news: An Iron-age shield made out of bark has been found.

Speaking of wood, this chemically-altered wood may have some exciting applications for fighting climate change.

A deeper look at what star ratings on Amazon actually mean.

Taika Waititi is going to be directing the live-action Akira movie? (On one hand, he has earned my trust. On the other hand, that’s… real different from all of his other work I’ve seen.)

Tor.com collected a list of 13 optimistic fantasy novels.

James D. Nicoll writes about the inevitable trend of older SF books being forgotten.

An fascinating examination of Game of Thrones and the real historical conflicts that it mirrors.

Oh, and George R.R. Martin has at least jokingly indicated a timeline for The Winds of Winter.

Some scientists have attempted to model the tectonic history of Westeros and Essos.

One more Game of Thrones thing because this made me laugh. During filming, Jon Snow was the subject of some hilarious script directions.

Celebrating Alien‘s 40th anniversary with a Lego sculpture.

Inspector Gadget as a refutation of transhumanism.

Director Xavier Dolan called out the film industry for marking films as “gay” like it’s a distinct genre, and not heterosexual. Applies to book world too, I feel like.

On the hotness of beards.

Book Riot roundup of fashion at the Nebula Awards.

Rotten Tomatoes is making it harder for whiny manbabies to manipulate movie ratings.

If you feel like being punched in the heart, here’s a bit about the incorporation of Carrie Fisher into The Rise of Skywalker.

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

Happy Friday, friends both Seelie and Unseelie. It’s Alex, with your news and some free association for this Friday. Since I’m a human being with a smart phone and a Twitter account, I will say this about Game of Thrones: If you were pleased with the finale, I’m happy for you; if you were upset, I’m really sorry to hear that; and as someone without a dog in the fight, I just want to say damn that was still one heck of an achievement, and here’s hoping that more awesome fantasy series get to ride onto the airwaves.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Kingsbane by Claire Legrand.

The sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller Furyborn! Rielle Dardenne has been anointed Sun Queen, but her trials are far from over. The Gate keeping the angels at bay is falling. To repair it, Rielle must collect the seven hidden castings of the saints. Centuries later, Eliana Ferracora grapples with her new reality: She is the Sun Queen, humanity’s long-awaited savior. But fear of corruption—fear of becoming another Rielle—keeps Eliana’s power dangerous and unpredictable. Hunted by all, racing against time to save her dying friend Navi, Eliana must decide how to wear a crown she never wanted—by embracing her mother’s power, or rejecting it forever.

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Belated New Releases

There are actually a couple of books I should have mentioned on Tuesday that I missed (shame! shame!), so I wanted to get them in front of your eyeballs now.

Do Not Go Quietly edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner – An anthology of sci-fi/fantasy short stories and poetry about resistance, and the people who resist.

The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas – As you might guess from the title, it’s not fiction. It sounds really relevant to our interests at Book Riot, however; it’s an examination of race in some popular sci-fi/fantasy YA works–and the power of fanfiction.

(Non-Thrones) News and Views

An interview with Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy about queering King Arthur in Once & Future.

The first reviews for the Good Omens miniseries are coming in.

At Tor.com, a fun list of SFF duos that bring out the best and worst in each other.

If you ever wanted to know how many Lord of the Rings-themed wall calendars there have been, there’s a website for that.

Coca-Cola is reviving “New Coke” for Stranger Things.

NASA has put together a plan for returning to the moon after Vice President Pence kind of… sprang it on them. But this caught my eye because I just started reading The Fated Sky (an alternate history in which we’re on the moon in the 60s because Mary Robinette Kowal dropped an extinction-level event meteorite on the Earth in The Calculating Stars). Related, Wired has an interesting article about what an SOB lunar dust is to deal with.

Game of Thrones Stuff!

A video comprised of one second from every episode of the series.

Syfy Wire has a curated list of hot takes, if that’s your thing. And a selection from the Brienne the blogger meme.

Book Riot’s got a good wish list of what fantasy series deserve to get adapted for TV next. And a list of books for people who didn’t watch.

The final Gay of Thrones.

An oral history of Game of Thrones, told by its extras.

We all know who should really be on the Iron Throne.

Free Association Friday

I’m sorry if you’re already Eurovisioned out, but I found out that the first Eurovision was held on May 24, 1956, in Lugano, Switzerland. It’s probably due to my own ignorance as someone who’s only ever witnessed this event from the distance of “what the heck is even happening on Twitter?” that I didn’t realize it’s been going on almost long enough to qualify for Medicare. (Except it wouldn’t need Medicare, because Europe’s got it covered.)

Obviously, when we’re talking Eurovision, the first sci-fi that’s going to spring to mind is Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente, because that’s literally Eurovision in space. Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey also springs instantly to mind; in that book, people mine the crystals that basically power everything by singing to them. (There’s also a lot of singing in her Dragonriders of Pern series.) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is about keeping music (and other art) alive in a post-apocalypse dystopia. In Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, there’s a former ship who sings quite a bit… even if she doesn’t have the voice for it. In a direct crossover from song, Rivers Solomon’s forthcoming novella The Deep flows from a clipping. song of the same name.

Sci-fi has had a close relationship with certain kinds of music from about the 60s onwards. Here’s an interesting look at what prog-rock owes to the genre.  The BN blog did a cool list of songs that are basically sci-fi novels. Jimi Hendrix was apparently really into scifi and inspired by it. And then there’s this awesome non-fiction book by Jason Heller: Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded.

Though there’s a lot about science fiction and rock, rap and hip-hop are there, too! Jaenelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer film is nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form this year. Splendor & Misery by clipping. was nominated in the same category in 2017. And here’s a little overview from Vice about hip-hop’s relationship with Science fiction, as well as a Pop Matters list of 10 hip-hop artists who have made forays into the genre to add to your listen list.

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

Happy Tuesday, space bards and airship pilots! It’s Alex, and today I’m excited about the Nebula Awards (they happened this past weekend) and a slew of new releases.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Westside by W.M. Akers.

Gilda Carr is a young detective who specializes in tiny mysteries: the impossible puzzles that keep us awake at night. The tiny cases that distract Gilda from her grief, and the impossible question she knows she can’t answer: “How did my father die?” It’s 1921, and a thirteen-mile fence running the length of Broadway splits Manhattan, separating the prosperous Eastside from the Westside – an overgrown wasteland whose hostility to modern technology gives it the flavor of old New York. Only the poor and desperate remain, and it’s here that Gilda’s tiny mysteries end in blood.

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Nebula Awards

The Nebula Awards are given out by the Science Fiction Writers of America–full disclosure, I’m a member–and are right up there with the Hugos when it comes to prestige and how long they’ve been running. (Since 1966 for the Nebulas.) Huge congratulations to the 2019 winners!

Best Novel: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal (And I will note, the audiobook, which is narrated by the author, is an absolute delight.)

Best Novella: The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

Best Novelette: The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

Best Short Story: “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by Phenderson Djèlí Clark

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

New Releases

Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water by Vylar Kaftan – A telepath who cannot remember her supposed crimes is held on a prison planet with only one other prisoner, who assures her of her guilt. Until one day, she hears the voice of another telepath…

An Illusion of Thieves by Cate Glass – “A ragtag crew with forbidden magic must pull off an elaborate heist and stop a civil war.” Sounds like a fun pitch to me!

Starship Repo by Patrick S. Tomlinson – Repomen traveling the galaxy to repossess spaceships, and the main character is named Firstname Lastname… due to a clerical error.

Mischief and Mayhem by S.D. Nicholson – A long-slumbering darkness awakens and invades the land of the Faers. Ophelia Maplewood and the Woodland Scouts try to prevent the chaos from spreading.

Girl Gone Viral by Arvin Ahmadi – Seventeen-year-old coder Opal Hopper commits a small data hack in order to win a contest that will allow her to meet a billionaire entrepreneur who just might have murdered her father.

The Bone Charmer by Breeana Shields – An argument with her Bone Charmer mother causes causes seventeen-year-old Saskia’s future to split in half, and she begins to live both halves simultaneously.

News and Views

If you’re looking for some good shorter sci-fi to read, the Analog AnLab and Asimov’s Reader’s Awards have been announced.

Sady Doyle wrote a humdinger of an essay about the way men fear powerful women as it relates to the Game of Thrones books and show. TW for discussions of sexual violence, because, you know, Game of Thrones.

TIL that Fender has made Game of Thrones-themed guitars. And you can watch Tom Morello and some other guitar gods shred the show theme out on them here.

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King is being adapted by Hulu.

New teaser for HBO’s adaptation of His Dark Materials.

At Book Riot, we’ve got a list of unlikeable female characters in YA fantasy. Also, the 10 most feminist YA fantasy books of this year.

The Mary Sue has a list of books with asexual representation; there are a couple genre titles.

Bless these Dutch scientists who are using physics to combat tea pot spout dribbling.

Tor.com is offering a downloadable sampler of selections from its 2019 debut novels.

Vulture’s got it right. When I watched the Nancy Drew trailer, my first thought was that it looked like it’s taking place in the same universe as Riverdale… and then there’s a ghost?

The Netherlands wins Eurovision and some other bits about the results. (Still relevant because of Space Opera.)

Data has started coming in from New Horizons’s time in the Kuiper Belt.

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

Happy Friday to Maleficent and only Maleficent. It’s Alex with a 1500-word ode to Angelina Jolie’s faerie-queen cheekbones because she can cut me with them any time… I MEAN. With your news for the week, most of which has nothing to do with Game of Thrones, and some free association on today in history.

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Sponsored by Flatiron Books

Welcome to Finale, the final book in Stephanie Garber’s #1 New York Times bestselling Caraval series! It’s been two months since the Fates were freed from a deck of cards, two months since Legend claimed the throne for his own, and two months since Tella discovered the boy she fell in love with doesn’t really exist. Tella must decide if she’s going to trust Legend. After uncovering a secret, Scarlett will need to do the impossible. And Legend has a choice to make that will forever change him. Caraval is over, but perhaps the greatest game of all has begun.

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News and Views

Book Riot’s got a list of 10 great YA fantasy stand alones. Also 7 YA novels with heroines disguised as boys.

Ooh, a deleted scene from Brooke Bolander’s Hugo-nominated The Only Harmless Great Thing.

An important scene from Good Omens almost didn’t get filmed for the TV adaptation; good thing Neil Gaiman was on it. (How’s the excitement levels on the TV series? I’m still a little *unsure face* about Crowley’s hair…)

The 2019 Nommo Awards Shortlist has been announced! (The Nommo Awards are given by the African Speculative Fiction Society, if you’re unfamiliar.)

How about a list of queer sf/f novels starring queer women that are coming at us soon?

You can read the first three chapters of Max Gladstone’s Empress of Forever.

Tor.com has also revealed the cover for K.M. Szpara’s Docile, which included a list of AO3 tags.

Star Wars engineering nerds rejoice! The TIE Fighter Owners’ Workshop Manual is coming, and it’s got some cool bits in it about the Empire and the First Order.

All I’m going to say about Game of Thrones (the TV show version) is that people are sure having a lot of feelings about it. io9 has suggestions for 10 female fantasy writers you should read after the series is over. Because no, GRRM still hasn’t finished it.

There’s a bioreactor being developed to provide food and water during space travel! Not quite at The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet levels yet, but it’s a first step! Also, let’s talk about space crap.

An examination of queer friendship in (Hugo-nominated) Artificial Condition by Martha Wells.

The Redemption of Time added a fourth book to the Three-Body Problem trilogy… and started as fanfiction.

Clownado is a thing?

It’s definitely not fiction, but I need everyone to know that Bill Nye Has Had Enough.

Free Association Friday

Did you know, 301 years ago, the world’s first machine gun was patented by a lawyer in London named James Puckle? (Insert joke here about how of course a weapon of mass misery and death was created by a British lawyer. My apologies to any lawyers reading this.) Happy 301st birthday, you deadly tool of mass carnage and destruction who also, nearly three centuries later, gave us Barret Wallace in FFVII with his machine gun arm. (If you missed it, a few days ago, Square Enix dropped its teaser for the FFVII remake. It’s very pretty.)

Of course, this is also how we ended up with that amazing melding of magic and bullets called gunpowder fantasy. My number one favorite in that sub-genre is Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, which starts with His Majesty’s Dragon. Which if you ever read Master and Commander and found yourself thinking, “well, that’s nice, but this really needs more dragons,” then there you go. The Thousand Names by Django Wexler and The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells also fit the bill, but with more outright magic and fewer dragons. Go a bit steampunk and you can have something like P. Djèlí Clark’s (Hugo-nominated) The Black God’s Drums. Head a little further ahead in (alternate) history and you get things like Mercedes Lackey’s WWI-era Phoenix and Ashes.

Guns are definitely a staple of urban fantasy or weird west, which is no surprise. Stephen King’s The Gunslinger springs instantly to mind, as does Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning. Trying to exhaustively list urban fantasy where there’s magic and shooting would have us here all day, but I must mention the anthology A Girl’s Guide to Guns and Monsters.

I also ran across this fun blog post looking at how guns might change a classic fantasy setting. Though I’d argue if you already have dragons, particularly the classic fire-breathing type, your castles were probably already decorative.

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

Bookachu, I choose you! Yes, that’s right, it’s Tuesday, and I’m Pokeémon Trainer Alex, fresh off of seeing how freaking adorable the bulbasaurs were in Detective Pikachu. Ready your poké balls, we’ve got some new book releases to catch.

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Sponsored by Dynamite Entertainment

Takeshi Kovacs was a member of the Envoy Corps, ultra-lethal adepts in switching bodies across the stars. While he served, he was known by a variety of names–Mamba Lev, One Hand Rending, the Icepick–all testament to his capacity for rapid response and extreme violence in whatever flesh he wore. Now he’s out of the service and trying to live a different life. But the Protectorate hasn’t changed its spots, no matter what world Kovacs drifts to, and with that old combat rage still burning deep inside him, will he ever really be able to walk away?

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New Releases

The Undefeated by Una McCormack – A retired journalist just wants a nice visit back to her home planet, but humanity’s newest enemy has other ideas.

Mythic Journeys: Retold Myths and Legends edited by Paula Guran – A short story collection of retold legends with an absolutely jaw-dropping TOC that includes Neil Gaiman, Aliette de Bodard, Nisi Shawl, Darcie Little Badger, Sofia Samatar, Catherynne M. Valente, and many more.

A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay – I trust Guy Gavriel Kay to write absolutely gorgeous historical fantasy, and it sounds like he’s done it again, this time in a world based on Renaissance Italy.

Pariah by W. Michael Gear – Third book of the Donovan series, and there’s a “corporate assassin.” I’m intrigued.

Children of Ruin by Adrian Tschaikovsky – Sequel to Children of Time. An ancient terraforming attempt went awry long ago, and is just about to be rediscovered.

The Buying of Lot 37 and Who’s a Good Boy? by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor – Volumes 3 and 4 respectively of Welcome to Nightvale episodes, with added illustrations and commentary.

Department of Bits from Books

Over at Book Riot, we have an exclusive excerpt from Orpheus Girl by Brynne Rebele-Henry.

io9 has an excerpt from Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee.

Tor.com wants you to have this deleted scene from Sam J. Miller’s Blackfish City.

News and Views

Modern Library is launching a new series that features classics by women writers, including The Heads of Cerberus by Francis Stevens.

SYFY Wire has some sci-fi/fantasy romances to try out for May.

I am super excited about all the Star Trek: Discovery tie-in fiction we’re going to get. Particularly The Way to the Stars by Una McCormack because Tilly is SUCH A GOOD.

SYFY Wire cast all 151 original pokémon with Hollywood stars.

Bill Nighy now loves Pokémon after acting in Detective Pikachu and it’s basically the purest thing I read all week.

The Game of Thrones Live Concert will be touring through 20 more American cities as the series ends.

EUROVISION IS UPON US. And if just looking at some of the costumes isn’t sci-fi enough for you, read Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente.

There’s a new documentary series on Amazon Prime about the artists who imagined how 1970s space colonies would look.

A new exhibit at the Manhattan-based Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Kerkrade (Netherlands)-based Cube Design Museum radically re-imagines how humanity can co-exist with nature.

A Minor News-Related Rant

The Russo Brothers are pulling a JK Rowling and want us to know someone is totally already secretly gay in the MCU. Just think, a whole character with an actual name and everything, and we just don’t know it yet. I was already feeling pretty aggravated by the expectation of butt-patting the Russos were broadcasting for the nameless (white, cis) gay man in Endgame, and this has done the opposite of soothing my queer ire. Marvel forced Taika Waititi to cut the scene that confirmed Valkyrie was bi. Florence Kasumba said that the scene where her character flirted with Okoye in Black Panther was cut. But hey everyone, it’s okay, because it still totally counts as representation even when the character has been stuffed so far into the closet by Kevin Feige that they’re doing an accidental crossover event and having tea with Mr. Tumnus. We’re reaching for some Supernatural-esque levels of queerbaiting and I am through being anything but irate in this, the 19th year of the 21st century. Don’t tease the gays, Marvel. We bite.

As a cure for my absolutely desiccating levels of salt, here’s a really beautiful twitter thread by a muslim lady about a plot point that carries from Iron Man all the way through to Endgame.

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.

It’s Friday, ye salty dogs and sugary cats! (Are sugary cats a thing? They should be a thing.) It’s Alex, here to bring you the news and whatever random thing squeezes out of my brain when I cruise through today in history.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Stranger Things from Dark Horse Comics and Netflix.

See The Other Side of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things in this original comic series, now collected in trade paperback! Find out what happens to young Will Byers after he is trapped in a dark dimension all alone… with a terrifying monster. Will must use his wits, courage, and heart to survive the monster and escape the Upside Down.

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Awards Season Continues Apace

The Aurealis Awards have announced their 2018 winners! I recommend a browse through the shortlist to get your hands on some excellent Australian genre fiction.

The shortlist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award as been announced: Semiosis by Sue Burke, Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee, Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag, Rosewater by Tade Thompson, and The Loosening Skin by Aliya Whiteley. Look, it’s an exciting list.

The Locus Awards Finalists have also been announced!

News and Views

Here’s a really cool post on Tor.com about Terry Pratchett and logic in the Discworld books. (Full confession: I took just enough logic in university to become utterly insufferable.)

In D&D news for the week, there’s a documentary coming up about the art of the game. You can see an exclusive clip at io9.

A look into an older piece of New Zealand fantasy kidlit that’s pretty bananas.

Bethesda might have plagiarized a D&D adventure in Elder Scrolls Elsewyr.

I admit this is only barely in the remit of the newsletter, but I live for genre and comics writer Genevieve Valentine’s red carpet rundowns, and the one she did for the Met Gala was something else.

Seanan McGuire talks about writing Middlegame.

There’s going to be a Nancy Drew series on the CW? I think my brain just cramped.

Book Riot contributor Alison Doherty on how teaching 6th grade made her love Twilight.

On the May 8 episode of the SFF Yeah! podcast, Sharifah and Liberty talk pirates!

You can now watch The Wandering Earth on Netflix; it’s based on Liu Cixin’s novella of the same name. And so far, it’s the third highest-grossing film of 2019.

Free Association Friday

Well, it’s actually John Scalzi’s birthday–happy birthday, Scalzi! My favorites of his lately have been Lock In and Head On. They’re fun detective stories and I wish to draw more attention to the fact that there are two versions of the audiobooks, one narrated by Wil Wheaton and one narrated by Amber Benson.

Don’t worry, I’m not free associating on Scalzi. It’s also worth noting that apparently on this day in 1962, Marvel published its first issue of The Incredible Hulk.

But instead, let’s talk about how in 28 BCE, Chinese astronomers observed a sunspot. It’s one of the earliest dated observations for China, but of course people have been observing sunspots for as long as there have been people who just really wanted to look at the Sun and figured out you could get away with it when there was fog or clouds or the Sun was at the horizon (NOTE: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. IT’S STILL BAD FOR YOUR EYES.) Sunspots are temporary cool (and therefore dark) areas on the surface of the Sun that result from magnetic field flux, which makes them a great way of tracking solar activity.

Rosarium publishing’s put together a two-volume collection of 100 short stories in fantasy, science fiction, and horror from around the world for its fifth anniversary. I mention this because they’re called Sunspot Jungle volume 1 and volume 2.

I also can’t help but think of Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem, not because it’s about sunspots, but because part of the plot is about a world with three suns, viewed through a virtual reality game.

Sunspots are markers of solar activity, which over the last 1,150 years–until 1975, note–tracked pretty well to Earth’s climate so that more activity tended to match higher global temperatures. It does make sense in that more sunspots equals more activity equals a slightly brighter Sun. (But no, we can’t blame the current warming on solar activity no matter how much some people would like to. It’s all us.) And if we’re talking climate, I’ll just say I hope everyone’s read The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin and Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. The last of those really freaked me out with its prescience on multiple axes.

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 on the (Hugo-nominated!!!) Skiffy and Fanty Podcast or over at my personal site.