Category: Swords and Spaceships

Happy Friday, vampires and Venusians! As we recover from our candy-overload doldrums, let’s talk about horror short stories, D&D monsters, magical reads, sci-fi and fantasy art, and more.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

In a palace of illusions, nothing is what it seems. One girl must compete to become the next empress while keeping her keeping her identity and forbidden magic a secret in this Ancient Japan-inspired standalone fantasy.

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It is too early for this yet in my opinion — we’ve still got two whole months to go! — but PW has released their Best of 2018 and here’s the SF/F/Horror list.

It’s aliiiiiiiiiiive! Our SFF Yeah! book club on Rosewater by Tade Thompson was a blast to record, and I hope it’s at least half as much fun to listen to.

Here’s hoping you had the exact right level of spooky for your Halloween! If you’re still craving more, we’ve got nine short horror stories for you.

Calling all photoshop wizards: here’s a chance to design your own D&D monster, sanctioned by Wizards of the Coast!

I have finally finished watching Netflix’s The Dragon Prince and as such extremely cosign this wish for expanded universe options.

Just want to get away from it all? This list of magical reads from Frolic is a good start.

Feeeeeeelingggssss: This personal essay on A Wizard of Earthsea gave me some.

If you’re trying to convince a reader to give fantasy a shot, Sharifah and I recommend two gateway novels in particular.

I’m not sure how long this deal is good for, but the entirety of Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series, a.k.a. Lilith’s Brood, is available for $3.99!

Spotlight: SF/F Artists

Many of us judge books by their covers, and I think we can all agree that pictures are indeed worth (at least) a thousand words. So when a feature about Killian Eng’s work showed up in my feed, it sent me down a wonderful SF/F art rabbithole that I am delighted to share with you.

Killian Eng: Whether he’s doing Star Wars, commissioned, or original work, his attention to detail and eye for composition slay me. And those colors!! A+ would plaster half a room in my apartment with these.

Fiona Staples: You may know her as the artist behind Saga, but you should also know she draws a mean elf. Staples is one of my all-time favorite working artists, and I live for the day when she has a print shop.

Rola Jungshan Chang: Chang is newly on my radar, thanks to the gorgeous covers she’s doing for R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War series. The brush work, the spare use of color, all of it rings all my visual bells. But it works for more than badass warriors — for example, this Deep Space 9 piece!

Wendy Xu: I first came across Xu’s work on the comic Mooncakes and then fell in love with Pigeon Boyfriend. (In point of fact, I have a Pigeon Boyfriend postcard taped to my monitor as I type this.) The whimsy! The blend of realism and the fantastical! I love it.

Chris Moore: I love the cover art for Yoon Ha Lee’s Ninefox Gambit as much as I love the book, which is saying something. Moore’s style is much more realistic than the other artists I’ve been featuring; some of them look like they could be photographs! I’m not sure whether or not I want to go to those worlds, but I deeply enjoy looking at them.

Afua Richardson: If you haven’t heard of Afua Richardson, you’re not paying attention to comics. She’s a rising star, and her work on World of Wakanda influenced the CG team on Black Panther. I’m over here in love with her mermaids.

Victo Ngai: I found Ngai’s work through her cover for J.Y. Yang’s Waiting on a Bright Moon (Tor.com novella mention, take a shot), only to discover she’d also done the cover for Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, as well as stamps for the UN.  The flowing lines of her work and the layering of colors and textures leave me in absolute awe. I mean. Just LOOK at these!

I’ll stop there (for now), but if you’re inclined to share your own favorite SF/F artists with me, hit reply and I’ll do a round-up in a future newsletter.

That’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

May the Force be with you,
Jenn

Hello and happy Tuesday, harpies and Harkonnens. Let’s talk about the NOMMO awards, magical board games, sequels, a horror adaptation, and Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen!

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This newsletter is sponsored by Wolf of the Tesseract by Christopher D. Schmitz.

Everything in Claire’s life seemed perfectly normal, albeit charmed: an engagement to her high-school sweetheart, friends visiting from college, and an idyllic life in the sleepy northland. All of that changes when she is abducted by a shapeshifting hobo and whisked through a dimensional gate. The stranger claims nothing is what it seems, and that a powerful sorcerer believes she is the key to summoning his dark god. Will she run from her destiny forever, or can she claim the weapons of the mythic Architect King, and end the sorcerer’s reign of terror?

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First, some book news:

If you loved The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty and you’re an excerpt reader, we’ve got one for the sequel, The Kingdom of Copper! I am not an excerpt reader but I am still EXCITED for this book.

We’re getting a longer version of the story that inspired The Thing! The original is called “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, which you can read online if you poke around enough.

The 2018 NOMMO winners have been announced, and congratulations go to Tochi Onyebuchi and Tade Thompson who won for Novel and Novella, respectively! The NOMMOs are a great place to find African speculative writers (all y’all looking for Black Panther follow-ups, get thee to their site).

Related: the very special SFF Yeah! book club episode for Rosewater by Tade Thompson goes live tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Resist: Tales from a Future Worth Fighting Against, edited by Gary Whitta, Hugh Howey, and Christa Yant, is out as of today and the author-lineup on this is bonkers good! Bonus: You can get it as part of this incredibly good Humble Bundle, proceeds of which go to the ACLU. (Related: are you all set to vote?)

Adaptations, ahoy:

The Bird Box movie adaptation finally has a trailer! Cue a thousand readers going “I read this BEFORE they made A Quiet Place!” I haven’t read Bird Box for reasons of being a scaredy-cat, but it made the rounds of BR and I’ve heard from reliable sources that it appears (from the trailer, so who really knows) they’ve changed a fair amount.

In non-screen adaptation news, Osprey Games is making a Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell board game! Did someone read my diary!?! Do they need beta-test players?! CALL ME, OSPREY.

New releases to add to your overflowing TBR:

The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (sequel to The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which I reviewed previously)

The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition by Ursula K. Le Guin, illustrated by Charles Vess

Last Shot: A Han and Lando Story by Daniel José Older (in audio)

Reminder! Our custom book stamp giveaway closes on Wednesday, so if you haven’t already entered, get on that.

And now in reviews, here’s a wacky Secret Agent In Space story!

Waypoint Kangaroo (Kangaroo #1) by Curtis C. Chen

How does the idea of a locked-room murder mystery on a cruise ship in outer space featuring a super-powered secret agent appeal to you? Working in the fine tradition of comedic sci-fi, Chen delivers a whole lot of mayhem and some really endearing characters in this first installment of a series I will definitely be following.

Kangaroo, our narrator and secret agent, bungled his most recent mission (mid-bungle is right where the book starts off) and is being sent away on …. vacation? His covert-ops department is under scrutiny and his boss just wants him out of the way, and what better way to sideline an agent than on a cruise ship to Mars? Of course, Kangaroo has zero experience being a civilian, much less a relaxed cruise-going one, and starts seeing nefarious potential plots around every corner. Then a family turns up murdered, a crew member knows his call-sign, and his paranoia suddenly seems completely justified. Oh and by the way, Kangaroo also happens to be the only super-powered agent in the galaxy; his talent is that he has access to a pocket universe that he can stash things in and retrieve as necessary.

A man-hunt, a romance, and interstellar political intrigue complete with space-walks, space-battles, and spaceship-ventilation-shaft crawls, make this an action-packed, quick-paced, thoroughly enjoyable romp of a space opera. My one caveat is that it occasionally gets a little heavy-handed with technical jargon and explanations; but a more science-minded reader might enjoy that, and the rest of us can just wave our hands and move on. In the meantime, I need my own pocket universe STAT. (Mostly for ice cream.)

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

Nanu nanu,
Jenn

Hello space invaders and incubi! We made it to Friday. I’ve got linky goodness in the form of podcasts, a fairytale quiz, monsters, women in space, and more, and instead of a single review we’re talking trans/nonbinary/genderqueer authors for your shelf.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Fierce Reads and Renegades by Marissa Meyer.

The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies—humans with extraordinary abilities—who emerged from the ruins of a crumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone . . . except the villains they once overthrew. Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice—and in Nova. But Nova’s allegiance is to the villains who have the power to end them both.

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By no particular design, the most recent two episodes of Recommended are very SF/F focused — Ep #7 features RF Kuang, author of The Poppy War, alongside John Jennings talking about Octavia Butler, and Ep #8 has both Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Moon) and Sonia Faruqi (The Oyster Thief)!

On this week’s SFF Yeah!, Sharifah and I got excited about novellas.

What fairytale should you read next? Here’s the quiz, you know what to do.

Creature feature: Frolic has a list of paranormal books featuring various monsters, and it’s a good one.

Women in spaaaaaaace — space comics, that is. These are on my TBR for sure.

Every time I think I’ve read all the post-apocalypse novels there are, someone goes and makes a list like this one. Back to the TBR…

If you need something to help you believe in the world again, here’s a piece from the eight-year-old girl who pulled a sword from a lake and surely will one day be queen of us all (or a vet).

Related, this high school dance troupe did a Harry Potter-inspired routine and I am in awe.

Trans and genderqueer rights continue to be attacked, and if you’re looking for a way to push back and support the community, here are some great books to pick up by trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer authors in SF/F.

The Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee

Content warnings: compulsion, rape, suicide

Set in an intergalactic empire where torture has been institutionalized and a war is on, this trilogy follows Kel Cheris, a soldier who finds herself unexpectedly promoted into a position she’s not likely to survive, and Jedao, the ghost (really) of a psychopathic genius tactician. The world-building is stunning and original, the plot is a head-spinner, and Lee is a masterful plotter.

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Outsiders Patricia, born with witchy powers, and Laurence, a technological genius, help each other through bullying at school, only to lose contact and be reunited many years later when the fate of the world is at stake. This novel is funny, snappy, and a great meld of the best tropes from science fiction and fantasy, and the ending had me cheering from my couch.

Dreadnought by April Daniels

Content warnings: transphobia, family abuse

Teenager Danny Tozer is hiding behind a mall when a superhero crash-lands and dies next to her. As the dying superhero’s mantle is passed on, it remakes Danny’s male body. Along with super strength and super speed, Danny also is now finally, visibly, a young woman. But as we know, with great power comes great responsibility, and Danny has to figure out how to handle her super powers and the varied and conflicting expectations of those around her — plus there’s a cyborg villain on the loose.

The Tensorate series by JY Yang

While you can read the novellas in this series as stand-alones, I love how they build on each other. Welcome to a world in which magic is called the Slack, a corrupt government is suppressing a resistance that includes the grown children of its highest official, strange beasts lurk in the deserts, and matters of the heart intersect with those of the wider world. Yang continues to expand this world in exciting ways, playing with science, fantasy, and human nature, and I can’t wait to see where they take us next.

Hunger Makes the Wolf by Alex Wells

My short pitch for this book is “motorcycle gang in space!” It’s also got train heists, miner strikes, gun battles, covert operations, backstabbing, murder, and mayhem, along with a hefty dose of magic. If you’re craving an inclusive found family story that’s also an outer-space Western, and/or a new read in the vein of Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer series, you need this on your shelf.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Content warnings: physical and sexual violence

Aster, is a self-taught healer onboard the generation ship Matilda, which has been traveling through space in search of a new home planet. The beautiful upper decks are populated entirely by white people, while on the lower decks the darker-skinned inhabitants of the ship are enslaved, rationed, and patrolled and abused by armed guards. A religious dictatorship enforces class and race order across levels. Aster, a lower-decker, doesn’t have any plans to be a revolutionary — but circumstances have a way of forcing your hand.

Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers, edited by Cat Fitzpatrick and Casey Plett
This collection is on my TBR, and I’m so excited to get to it. Twenty-five transgender writers come together to imagine a huge range of different worlds, and here’s the review from Bitch Media that originally piqued my interest.

Bonus: Across the full LGBTQIA spectrum, the Queers Destroy series includes SF, Horror, and Fantasy and is well worth your time.

And if you’re looking to go beyond literary activism, Bustle has excellent suggestions on concrete actions you can take.

That’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

Hold tight,
Jenn

Hello and happy Tuesday, Transformers and terraformers! Today we’ve got lots of sequel news, some exciting adaptations, seasonally appropriate ebook sales, and a review of An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Vault Comics.

Billy Bane is a prophet who got it all wrong, and the galaxy has been burning ever since. All he wants is to waste away in the darkest corner of space with his best pal Dust, a supercharged Fuq bot. But when a new prophet comes calling, Billy is summoned to save the galaxy he’s at least partially responsible for destroying.

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Let’s start with the specifically-books news:

We have a cover reveal for R.F. Kuang’s The Dragon Republic, sequel to previously-reviewed The Poppy War! I love this illustration style and the single pop of color; these are gonna look amazing on the shelf next to each other.

Are you on the Tea Dragon train? I love Katie O’Neill’s webcomic, which is also available as a beautiful collection, and I’ve spent a happy afternoon or two playing the card game, so I’m very happy to fire the confetti canons for a sequel, The Tea Dragon Festival!

We’re getting a nonfiction book from sci-fi author extraordinaire Nnedi Okorafor! The novella-length book, Broken Places and Outer Spaces (June 2019)  will include elements of memoir and a look the creative process, and my body is ready.

And now for some screen news:

There’s an update on the adaptation of Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties — FX has picked it up and it’s in development for a TV series.

We’re getting a modern-day Sword in the Stone movie, called The Kid Who Would Be King, and this trailer is ev. ery. thing. Enemies to friends! Diverse casting! School jokes! Here for it.

The BBC and Netflix are making a Dracula mini-series and it will be a period piece. (Which I’m confused about the need to make a point of, aren’t all adaptations of the book period pieces?! Anyway.)

Ryan Coogler got a deal to write AND direct Black Panther 2! Wakanda forever! Now might be a good time to catch up on the comics, which Ta-Nehisi Coates has been writing — you can start with Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book 1.

How about some new releases? I’ve got my eye on:

Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7) by Sarah J. Maas,

Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson (who is going to be on Recommended tomorrow, so keep an ear out),

Kat Howard’s short story collection, A Cathedral of Myth and Bone,

And Dragons in a Bag, written by Zetta Elliott and Geneva B, which looks ADORABLE.

Also, here are some cheap e-books:

Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1), $2.99

Seasonally appropriate: A Secret History of Witches by Louisa Morgan, $2.99, The Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz, $2.99, and Akata Witch (Akata Witch #2) by Nnedi Okorafor $2.99

Heartstone by Elle Katharine White, $1.99 (which is Pride & Prejudice with dragons)

And now, a review of another addition to the weird Western/Historicals category:

An Easy Death (Gunnie Rose #1) by Charlaine Harris 

Content warning: rape

There have been several great additions to “weird Westerns” and/or “weird historicals” lately — Trail of Lightning, The Black God’s Drums, Dread Nation, River of Teeth — and I’m here for it. An Easy Death is for those who are ready for the next one, as well as fans awaiting the next book from Harris.

In the twisted history of An Easy Death, FDR was assassinated and the states, weakened by the loss of the president and the Depression, fractured. Various states have now become allied with or ruled by other countries, including Russia and Great Britain, Mexico is expanding northwards, and the Native population has reclaimed their land. Lizbeth Rose lives in Texoma right near the Mexican border, and is a gunslinger for a crew that runs people back and forth, protecting them from bandits. A job goes horribly wrong, leaving Rose emotionally drained and out of work — and then two Russian wizards show up with an offer of employment that she has no choice but to take. From family secrets to international politics to bandits to magic ambushes, she’s got more than enough on her plate and only so many bullets.

Rose is beautifully voiced; she’s pragmatic almost to the point of flatness, gruff, and isolated — in fact, she reminds me a lot of Magic Bites-era Kate Daniels. She’s also carving her way through a man’s world, and she’s not afraid to kill in the process. I loved reading her, in all her murderous glory, and will definitely be hanging around for the next installment.

As for the world-building, it’s an interesting twist on the alternative US history trope, and Harris avoids the standard Western pitfalls by giving a few positive cameos to Native characters, as well as characters of color. There aren’t too many characters of color that make it to the end of the book aside from Lizbeth herself (who is definitely half-Russian and implied to be half-Latina), but the body count is incredibly high and pretty indiscriminate.

TL;DR: If you like gun battles, magic, and crochety heroines, and/or Charlaine Harris, pick this up.

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Happy Friday, Belters and boggarts! Today I’ve found you a book club, fantasy series, horror, alien babies, a round-up of witchy reads, and more.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Epic Reads.

Monster. Villain. Hero. Which supercreature will they be? It’s been four years since the events of GONE. The dome is down, but the horrors within have spread, and now all of humanity is in danger. An alien virus is creating monsters that walk the cities and countryside, terrorizing all. And the only people who can stop a superpowered villain, are superpowered heroes. Michael Grant returns to the globally bestselling GONE universe in this follow-up novel to the hotly anticipated MONSTER. Old foes return and new ones rise. The fight will be bloody. This isn’t another battle, this is the war to save the human race.

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Our SFF Yeah! podcast is doing its first book club, and you’re invited! Sharifah and I will be discussing Rosewater by Tade Thompson in a special Halloween episode, and you should definitely read along with us. You can catch up with the podcast here, if you’re so inclined.

Need a new fantasy series for your fall/winter reading? We’ve got recommendations. And if that’s not enough, here’s a quiz to help you pick!

This list of horror books for wimps could use more diversity in the picks, but is otherwise solid, and I’m a wimp so I would know. Cosign on Get in Trouble, Mongrels (with warning for LOTS of gore), and The Historian.

I love this list of crimey SF/F; I’ve read all but Silenced and Zero Sum Game and both are now on my TBR.

More Doctor Who reads! This time it’s a list of what the companions are reading, because obviously.

Sharifah and I talked a bunch about the new slew of Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptations on SFF Yeah, and relevant to that conversation is this interview with an Alaska Native about Inuit representation on the show.

If I told you someone did a maternity photo-shoot inspired by the Alien franchise, would you click? Here you go — the choice is yours (but I personally found this DELIGHTFUL).

‘Tis the season to get witchy, tra la la la la, la la la la! Here are six of my favs, in addition to the previously rec’d The Witches of New York:

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova (Brooklyn Brujas #1)
This YA novel follows the adventures of Alex, for whom magic is both everyday and hugely unwanted. Her family, who live in Brooklyn, are part of a magical community and her Deathday Celebration, when she is supposed to come fully into her magic, is approaching. But magic has brought her nothing but pain and terror, and all she wants is to get rid of it. So she decides to do her own spell — a spell to take away her magic.

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco (Bone Witch #1)
Tea is born to a family of witches — but no one is prepared for her to have the power to raise the dead. When her powers manifest, she’s sent off to be trained by the other asha and prepared for a life of service to the crown. But she quickly learns that everyone wants to use her powers, and she has to decide for herself where her loyalties lie.

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
Sisters Gillian and Sally are the latest in the long line of witchy Owens women. Gillian left home early and has jumped from relationship to relationship, job to job, state to state ever since. Sally, who wants nothing more than a regular life, got married, had kids, and thought that she’d finally found her best life. When her husband dies, that shatters, and she moves her family away from their hometown and settles into pretending that Everything Is Fine And Completely Normal, even though it’s far from. When Sally shows up in the middle of the night with her abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, it sets off a string of events that will change how three generations of women — Sally and Gillian, Sally’s daughters, and the aunts — relate to each other and their relationship with the powers that they’ve inherited.

Voodoo Dreams by Jewell Parker Rhodes
First year medical student Marie Levant finds herself relocating to New Orleans, drawn by terrible dreams, only to find that she’s a successor to the infamous Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen. Rhodes brings both modern-day and past New Orleans to life, with generous sprinklings of ghosts, zombies, and other supernatural adventures, and it’s #ownvoices to boot.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (Akata Witch #1)
12-year-old Sunny is having a hard enough time adjusting to life in Nigeria after being born and raised in New York, so getting enmeshed in a quest to stop a supernatural serial killer and learning that she herself has powers is the last thing she needs in her life. But as she learns more about the secret supernatural world, she finds both real friends and starts to learn about her own true self.

Calling on Dragons by Patricia Wrede (The Enchanted Forest Chronicles #3)
I know I raved about The Enchanted Forest Chronicles in a recent newsletter, so this is just a reminder that the third installment is narrated by the unflappable and extremely tidy witch Morwen, owner of a jillion cats, and is fantastic.

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Happy Tuesday, Balrogs and banshees! Today we’re talking about Fortnite books, The Passage trailer, a new vampire series, more witchy reads, and Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Vesuvian Books.

Sixteen-year-old Jaclyn admires her father. A man who once fought for the king, he now teaches Jaclyn how to use her wits—and her sword. But he has a secret. And his secret may have a connection to something Jaclyn is hiding. Hearing “monsters” are terrorizing the villages around Black Mountain, Jaclyn’s father goes to hunt them but doesn’t return. Armed only with her sword and magic beans—a gift from a mysterious old woman—Jaclyn will need to break a centuries old curse to save not only her father but the townspeople the “beasts” plan to lay waste to.

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Let’s talk about adaptations and book announcements!

In the world of video games-turned-novels, Fortnite has a book deal! Not sure what Fortnite is? The New Yorker has a deep dive.

Where my Eragon fans at? Christopher Paolini has a new book of stories set in Alagaësia, The Fork, The Witch, and The Worm, and it will be out on December 31 2018.

I finally got around to watching the trailer for The Passage, and I’m very conflicted. On the one hand, it looks well-acted and well-cast. On the other hand, it contains explicit footage of black people being kidnapped, harmed, and experimented on against their will by white people. While I know the storyline of the books and therefore have some idea where it’s all going, that doesn’t make it less painful to watch — and very possibly triggering for some viewers, so fair warning.

We’re getting a vampire series from Renee Ahdieh!

I went to a Halloween episode screening of Buffy: TVS at a cemetery last weekend, so it seems appropriate to note that the team for BOOM! Studios new comics has been announced: Jordie Bellaire (Pretty Deadly, Hawkeye) and Dan Mora are on board, and I’m delighted that Bellaire will be involved.

Judging by how many of you clicked on The Witches of New York in last week’s newsletter (it’s a record, I do believe), I think you’ll be very interested to hear that Katherine Howe is finally giving us the sequel to The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane called The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs.

This week in new releases I’ve got my eye on:

The Black Khan by Ausma Zehanat Khan (sequel to The Bloodprint)

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi (sequel to The Collapsing Empire)

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 edited by Paula Guran (including Stephen Graham Jones, Aliette de Bodard, and Kai Ashante Wilson!)

And here’s your reminder that we’re doing a book stamp giveaway, because your personal library definitely needs customization.

And now, a review of a fascinating new science fiction anthology!

Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction, edited by Bill Campbell and Francesco Verso

Content warnings:
Suicide, “Grey Noise” and “Proposition 23”
Bestiality, “The International Studbook of the Giant Panda”
Animal and human experimentation, “Creative Surgery”

I love a good anthology, and I have been working on reading more international science fiction, so this collection was meant for me. And, having read it, I think it is also meant for you!

The only author I’d read previously was Ekaterina Sedia, whose collection Moscow But Dreaming I reviewed last October. She’s also the most fabulist author in the collection — the other stories are solidly hard science fiction, playing in particular with technology and the environment. Taken together, these stories span the globe and handily accomplish the collection’s goal: to introduce both writers and new ideas.

It’s a very thoughtfully arranged anthology — “Tongtong’s Summer” by Xia Jia is a gentle look at AI and healthcare, told from a child’s perspective. The next few stories flow from there, all concerned in some regard with family, and edging step by step towards darker material. Things take a hard turn with Tendai Huchu’s all-too-possible “HostBods,” which follows a “bod” for hire as he goes from one virtual possession to the next, in increasingly dire circumstances. Hernandez’s “The International Studbook of the Giant Panda” (about scientists using neurally-linked robotic pandas to teach the bears how to mate) competes with “Creative Surgery” by Clelia Farris, about two genetic scientists creating increasingly bizarre chimeras, for being the ones I found the most unnerving to read — and also the most surprising. Ending with Efe Tokunbo’s excellent novelette “Proposition 23” was exactly the right choice — a story of dys/u-topia and political upheaval, it packs a beautiful final punch.

If you like weird, brain-bending fiction; if you like short stories; if you love different perspectives; if you like to see authors stretch the bounds of science and technology; if you want to read more in-translation; or all of the above, then get yourself Future Fiction immediately.

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Happy Friday, mech-pilots and poltergiests! Today we’re talking a lot about witches, a bit about vampires, plus some NYCC news, Mech Cadet Yu by Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa, and more.

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This newsletter is sponsored by First Second Books.

Two timelines. Second chances. One love. A ragtag crew travels to the deepest reaches of space, rebuilding beautiful, broken structures to piece the past together. Two girls meet in boarding school and fall deeply in love—only to learn the pain of loss. With interwoven timelines and stunning art, award-winning graphic novelist Tillie Walden creates an inventive world, breathtaking romance, and an epic quest for love.

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This week on SFF Yeah!, Sharifah and I talked about all of the adaptation news (I had some Feelings about Narnia), plus a couple of our favorite witches.

Which witch are you? We’ve got a quiz so you can find out! I got Sally Owens from Practical Magic and I feel very seen right now.

More witchy content: I’m sincerely grateful for the reboot trend that’s bringing us Charmed, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Bewitched. Important clarification: Charmed is not a fully-Latina reboot.

Here’s Tor’s coverage of NYCC 2018 (some of those panels have AMAZING line-ups). You can also get a free e-book from them of Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, which I highly recommend! Only good through tonight (11:59pm Oct 12).

Speaking of NYCC, these pictures of #HijabHeroes are everything.

ICYMI: The first trailer for the Good Omens TV show is A++. (“I don’t even like you!”)

I do believe I’ve shared this before, but there’s no time like the week of Indigenous Peoples’ Day to remind us all about the indigenous authors writing SF/F (extreme cosigns on Stephen Graham Jones, Daniel H. Wilson, and post author Rebecca Roanhorse).

It’s not books, but I adore this Favorite Female Vampires from TV and movies round-up — #TeamKatherine.

Need some Doctor Who read-alikes to celebrate that first episode? Here you go.

In today’s review, I get all worked up about giant robots and teamwork.

Mech Cadet Yu: Vol. 1 by Greg Pak (writer) and Takeshi Miyazawa (illustrator)

If you too have fond memories of the Transformers cartoon from the ’80s and ’90s, and/or love the idea of Rock’em Sock’em Robots plus aliens, and/or have burned through Voltron and need MORE, then I encourage you to get Mech Cadet Yu immediately.

The Sky Corps Academy trains young cadets to be the best robot mech-pilots they can be — but only some will actually get the chance to bond with a robot. Each year for the last sixty years, a few sentient robots return to Earth to choose their humans from the best and brightest cadets; the pairs then train together to keep Earth safe from the alien scourge, the Sharg.

This year when the robots come, things do not go as planned. One mech unit bonds instead with an Academy janitor’s son, passing over a general’s daughter to do so. Yu is over the moon excited, but it’s not going to be easy to prove he has a place amongst the other cadets.

Miyazawa’s art plays beautifully against Pak’s storyline — the palette and style give it the feel of a classic comic but with modern sensibilities. Pak throws parental pressure, a military industrial complex, classism, an immigration story, sentient robots, and teenage drama into a blender — and the result is delicious and heart-warming. The dynamic between mean-girl Park and underdog Yu is just pitch-perfect, and I’m a sucker for “a team of has to come together despite their differences” storylines.

Bonus: you can hear Pak talk about his early influences on our Recommended podcast.

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

Roll out,
Jenn

Happy Tuesday, y’all. Today we’re diving into SF/F screen adaptations in the works, new additions to older franchises (including The Dragonriders of Pern!), new releases, and The Witches of New York by Ami McKay.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep.

Dark forces are at work inside the Bellona royal court. When the crown princess assassinates her mother to take the throne by force, even seventeenth-in-line-for-the-throne Lady Everleigh is in danger. Forced into hiding to survive, she falls in with a gladiator troupe. Though they use their talents to entertain, the gladiators are highly trained warriors. Uncertain of her future Evie begins training with the troupe. But as the bloodthirsty queen exerts her power, Evie’s fate becomes clear: she must become a gladiator . . . and kill the queen.

 

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There is so much adaptation news:

Netflix is going to make a Narnia TV show. I have very mixed feelings about this — the books are an old favorite, but there are so many newer properties that would give opportunities for modern, inclusive storytelling. I guess we’ll see.

Circe by Madeline Miller has been optioned! It’s going to be a TV show, which is potentially literally epic. Start your fan-casting engines and claim your Circe actress now.

The Wheel of Time TV series goes tooooooo …. Amazon.

Who, by the way, have also signed a big deal with Neil Gaiman.

Even Shonda Rhimes (:praise hands:) is getting into the SF/F game, with an adaptation of Recursion by Blake Crouch.

And in new book(ish) developments:

We are getting a comic about Ripley’s daughter! As a die-hard fan of the Alien franchise, I am delighted.

Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams have put together an anthology for the Resistance called A People’s Future of the United States and I am here both for the author list and for the Howard Zinn reference.

We’re getting a new installment in the Dragonriders of Pern series, penned by Anne McCaffrey’s daughter Gigi (but not a TV show anytime soon, don’t let that headline fool you). I’d like to join Team Piemur, and will be curious to see how her addition holds up to the earlier books.

New release-wise, here are some to keep an eye out for this week:

Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria (on the top of my TBR)

The Future Is Female!: 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, edited by Lisa Yaszek (do want)

The Phoenix Empress by K. Arsenault Rivera (sequel to The Tiger’s Daughter!)

And now, for a very witchy review.

The Witches of New York by Ami McKay

Trigger warning: violence against women, suicide

I recently went on a quest for what I’m calling “science witches.” In my head it looks something like, witches doing witchcraft the way that Marie Curie discovered radium. (Side note: was Marie Curie a witch? Someone write me that book.) Perhaps joining up technology to witchcraft a la Willow and Jenny Carpenter? And while The Witches of New York is not that, it is one of my favorite recent witchy reads.

A scientifically minded young woman named Beatrice Dunn sets out to get a job in a New York City tea shop run by a soothsayer and an herbalist with one goal: to find out if magic is real. Adelaide and Eleanor, the proprietors, are delighted by their new apprentice but have troubles of their own. Eleanor is recently heartbroken after an affair with a now-married woman; Adelaide is restless and wants something bigger and better in her life, but doesn’t know where to look for it. Meanwhile, a local preacher has recently decided that he is on a holy mission to rid New York of witches and their devilish ways, and a possibly-supernatural obelisk is on its way to Central Park.

McKay takes the actual history of Cleopatra’s Needle and 1880s NYC, adds a hefty dose of magic that feels more real than fictional, and creates a beautifully immersive historical fiction. Alternating POV between the characters gives us lots to love in Eleanor, Adelaide, and Beatrice, and lots to hate with the Reverend Townsend. If I were going to try to comp it, I’d say it was Practical Magic meets Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (no footnotes!), or perhaps a kissing cousin to Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Jinni. Ghosts, murder, revenge, curses, blessings, prophecies, pixies, a possessed raven, an enchanted obelisk, religious fundamentalism, and actual fire and brimstone; The Witches of New York has all of this and more. But most of all, it’s the story of a found family of women holding space for and supporting each other — and now is the perfect time to remember that we’re stronger together.

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda, or on Twitter as jennIRL.

Your fellow booknerd,
Jenn

Happy Friday, alchemists and astronauts! For those of you attending NYCC, I wish you hearty immune systems and minimal train issues (no 7 train, WHY); for those of you nerding it up at home, I’ll wish you the same because why not. Today we’re talking about Norse myths, escapism, dinosaurs, fantastical playlists, and Kiersten White’s The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

In fifteenth-century France, the convent of St. Mortain provides sanctuary to girls seeking refuge from the cruelty of the outside world. But sanctuary comes at a price—and each of Death’s Handmaids pay it in blood. Grave Mercy, Dark Triumph, and Mortal Heart make up the New York Times bestselling His Fair Assassins trilogy: where romance, magic, and political intrigue collide. Fans of Marie Lu’s The Young Elites and Kiersten White’s And I Darken will love this seductive dark fantasy collection.

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April Genevieve Tucholke picked five books with ties to Norse mythology, and I’d like to add Daughters of the Storm by Kim Wilkins to the stack.

This list of fantasy novels (YA specifically) by women of color is GREAT, so many good books to choose from!

If October is anything like September, we’re going to need some escapist reads. Thankfully, Swapna has us covered.

Feelings alert: this personal essay on elder care, dementia, and fantasy worlds had me reaching for my tissues.

Quiz time: Which Greek hero are you? Build a Tinder profile to find out. (My result, Jason, made me actually LOL.) You can also find out which Wicked & Divine god you are, and which lady of Westeros (I got Daenerys, you may now address me as Mother of Dragons).

Scientists have discovered a new dinosaur, a giant one, and that has nothing to do with books but I bet I am not the only one pretty excited about it.

Need a Harry Potter playlist? Here are some suggestions for the songs you should put on it.

Remember that new Robin Hood movie that mashes up our favorite medieval thief with Oceans Eleven? The final trailer has been released, and this is the kind of fun nonsense I’m here for.

Giveaway alert! Enter our giveaway for a custom book stamp for your personal library right here.

Today in reviews, we’ve got a retelling of Frankenstein that I fell for, and hard.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

Who are we, if we’ve spent our lives being what someone else wanted us to be? How do we find our voices? Who will tell our stories? Kiersten White uses Elizabeth Lavenza and Justine Moritz, the two central women in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to explore these questions in an insightful and action-packed YA novel.

In the original, Elizabeth Lavenza is the beautiful, saintly orphan Victor Frankenstein grew up with and marries; Justine Moritz is the nanny wrongly accused of his young brother William’s murder. In Dark Descent, Elizabeth is indeed an orphan but far from saintly. Trapped in an abusive home life, she’s given the chance to escape when the Frankensteins come looking for a companion to their strange young son. She makes the most of her chance, turning herself into the perfect friend for Victor and making herself essential to the family by whatever means possible. Justine, a fellow orphan, and Henry are her only other friends — but Elizabeth manipulates them too, however and whenever she needs to to keep her place in the Frankenstein household.

When the novel opens, Victor has been gone for months and she’s terrified that his father will turn her out of the house if she can’t bring him home. She and Justine set off to find Victor, and Elizabeth finds far more than she bargained for. As she starts to realize that the young man she has spent her life appeasing, the man she hopes to marry, is far more of a monster than she knew, she also has to reckon with who she has turned herself into.

White gives Elizabeth a new ending and a beautifully realized voice, recasting the creature-horror of the original Frankenstein alongside the psychological horror of a woman trapped in an untenable situation, looking for escape. Dark Descent has beautiful moments of friendship, blood-chilling moments of confrontation, and a careful balance of character and plot that kept me turning the pages, and is an ideal spooky read for your Fall.

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

It’s aliiiiiiiiiive!,
Jenn

Happy Tuesday, goblins and Gorgons! Today I’m recommending P. Djèlí Clark’s The Black God’s Drums, and there are a slew of screen-to-book adaptations in the works, an exciting new novel announcement, new releases galore, and more.

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This newsletter is sponsored by Vampires Like it Hot by Lynsay Sands.

Vampires are real. Jess would’ve never believed it until she saw them with her own eyes. She knows she has to get off the island, and her gallant rescuer has offered to help. There’s something about Raffaele that’s unlike any man she has ever met, and his touch sends pleasure through her that is beyond all imagining. But when Jess discovers who he really is, will she risk life as she knows it for a chance of forever by his side?

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Adaptation news:

Guillermo del Toro and … wait for it … Cornelia Funke are writing a novelization of Pan’s Labyrinth together. I do not know how to feel about this? (Novelizations make me nervous, but Funke is awesome, and so was the movie, so … ???)

And speaking of screen-to-book, you can read the first chapter of the Stranger Things novel, Suspicious Minds, on EW.

And we’re getting an Alien novel! I’m a die-hard fan of the franchise, and Mira Grant (a.k.a. Seanan Maguire) is writing it, it’s YA, and the synopsis sounds great.

Dark Phoenix is back in a new trailer. I rewatched all of the X-Men movies last year in the build-up to Logan (ALL OF THEM), and I still feel like my favorite comics team gets my least favorite movies. Here’s hoping this one will turn the tide a bit?

Sarah Gailey (author of personal favorite American Hippo) has a novel coming out called Magic for Liars and you can consider me interested, magical PIs are my jam.

Not books, but: MST3K‘s new season will start on Thursday, November 22! I somehow did not realize that MST3K had been chugging along all these years (I think the last episode I saw was a Mike one); perhaps I will use this opportunity to grab some popcorn and pull up a seat.

New releases I have my eye on:

A Blade So Black by LL McKinney

The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

Rock Manning Goes for Broke by Charlie Jane Anders

An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris

Exit Strategy (Murderbot #4) by Martha Wells

Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

Need some cheap reads to bolster your TBR?

The Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz, $2.99, because witching season is upon us!

The Door in the Hedge: And Other Stories by Robin McKinley, $1.99, because Robin McKinley, always.

Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles, #1) by Robin Hobb, $1.99, because environmentalism plus dragons.

The Merry Spinster: Tales of Every Day Horror by Daniel Mallory Ortberg (as Mallory Ortberg), $2.99, because these tales will creep you right out.

Giveaway alert! Enter our giveaway for a custom book stamp for your personal library right here.

Here’s an alternate-history steampunk novella to put on your shelf next to Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation and Nisi Shawl’s Everfair.

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark

I’ve been a fan of Clark’s since I read his novelette “A Dead Djinn in Cairo,” and am delighted to tell you that this new novella is fantastic.

Set in an alternate 1880s United States, in which the Civil War ended in a truce and Louisiana is a neutral free-state, The Black God’s Drums follows whip-smart adolescent street urchin Creeper, who also happens to be carrying the goddess Oya around in her head. Creeper overhears a secret plot to sell Haiti’s greatest weapon to an unknown bidder and knows quality intel when she finds it; now she just has to find the right buyer. Creeper takes us on a whirling tour of a vivid and vibrant alternate New Orleans, complete with political wheelings and dealings, houses of ill-repute, some very surprising nuns, airships, and a battle for the soul of a city.

The ever-present struggle with good novellas is that, even when the plot is done right and is perfectly self-contained, the world-building leaves you wanting more story. The Black God’s Drums does both, but also leaves me torn. As much as I want to see what else might happen in this setting, when I consider the breadth of Clark’s work to date, I can only hope he continues to create strange and exciting new worlds like it’s easy as pie. I’ll be here eagerly awaiting whatever comes next.

And that’s a wrap! You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

Never give up, never surrender,
Jenn