Category: Swords and Spaceships

Greetings, fellow Earthlings!

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by St. Martin’s Griffin.

Mara is used to the extraordinary. Roaming from place to place with Gideon Davorin’s Traveling Carnival, she longs for an ordinary life where no one has the ability to levitate or predict the future. She gets her chance when the struggling sideshow sets up camp in a small town, where she meets a gorgeous guy named Gabe. But then Mara realizes there’s a dark presence in the town that’s threatening her friends. She has seven days to take control of a power she didn’t know she had in order to save everyone she cares about—and change the future forever.

Let’s have some good news, shall we?

In perhaps the most welcome and exciting press release I’ve had the pleasure to receive, Orbit Books has announced a new three-book deal with NK Jemisin (tired of hearing me talk about her? TOO BAD.). The first in the series is also Jemisin’s first novel set in our world and will deal with “themes of race and power in New York City,” due out in April of 2019. No one who’s read Jemisin’s work will be surprised by this description; she frequently deals with themes of race and power. But ever since I read her short story “Non-Zero Probabilities” I have been yearning for an urban fantasy from her, and now we’re getting one. I look forward to looking forward to that for the next two years.

LitHub recently published a selection of letters from Alice B. Sheldon as James Tiptree Jr. to Joanna Russ, and I am fascinated. Not least because I love the work of both authors, but because it gives us a look at the charade Sheldon maintained and her reasons for it. My first encounter with Tiptree’s work was “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” likely via The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 — well worth a read if you haven’t already. As near as I can tell, the letters quoted are from this collection (which does not appear to be digitized, alas).

Did you watch the first episode of Emerald City last Friday? I did! And I definitely plan to keep watching. I knew it would be visually lush since Tarsem Singh is involved, and I was excited about having a Latina lead; beyond that, I had no idea what to expect. I wasn’t disappointed: it’s gorgeous to watch, Adria Arjona is beautiful and really good at looking creeped out, Vincent D’Onofrio is perfectly obnoxious as The Wizard, and while it is not without problems there was plenty of plot to intrigue me. (Tor.com agrees.) It also made me want to read the Oz books, as I have heard from friends that Tip’s character is a particularly exciting inclusion (I know, how have I not read them?). Our very own Annika has contemplated the magical systems of both the show and the books (spoilers if you haven’t read the books). This is just one of a plethora of sci-fi/fantasy shows hitting the channels this year; io9 has a guide for you, if you’re interested in adding some screen-time to your 2017.

If you’re looking to add some representation to your TBR, Nicole Brinkley put together a list of Seven Fantasies with Asexual Leads for Book Riot and I want to read all of them. (Except for maybe Jughead; I am just not an Archie fan, y’all.)

Will everyone please report to the bridge? An exact replica of the original Star Trek bridge exists in Ticonderoga, NY, and you can visit it. It’s currently closed, but you can buy gift tickets now; might be a good Valentine’s Day gift for the Trekkie you love, I am just saying. Special tours with the original Chekov, Walter Koenig, (RIP Anton Yelchin) will go on sale in February.

And now: books!

Galactic Empires, edited by Neil Clarke
Empires, so hot right now! You’ll forgive me for not having read all of this 600+ page anthology yet, as I’ve been cherry-picking. Personal favorites Ann Leckie, Aliette de Bodard, Yoon Ha Lee, and Naomi Novik all have pieces here-in, and all are worth your time. If you’ve missed the Raadchai, Leckie’s brief tale of interspace espionage will scratch that itch (and if you’re unfamiliar with her Ancillary series, welcome aboard). De Bodard expands on the world of the Dai Viet (On a Red Station Drifting should be required reading for all space-opera fans, in my opinion) and offers a truly unsettling look at sentience and culture clash. Yoon Ha Lee gives us origami-inspired warships and moral ambiguity. I am here for all of it! You can see the full Table of Contents here to check if your favorites are included (I bet at least a few are).

Nine of Stars, Laura Bickle
I am a die-hard fan of the Dresden Files, the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, and of Walt Longmire, so the publicity for Nine of Stars had me curious. “Weird West” is a tricky thing to pull off (and I’m not qualified to comment on the inclusion of Native American elements aside from to say that at least Bickle has honored the original Navajo definition of a skinwalker, unlike a bunch of other writers I could mention), but I enjoyed this installment a great deal. This is the third book in the Dark Alchemy series and I haven’t read the first two, but I didn’t have any trouble following the action or feeling attached to the main protagonists, reluctant alchemist Petra Dee and her love-interest the supernaturally-inclined Gabriel. While Dee and Gabriel are far less grumpy than Harry Dresden or Kate Daniels, it’s still a good comp for those series; Nine of Stars has some nicely escalating villainy, an intriguing supporting cast, and a well-imagined rural West setting. I’ll be going back to read the first two, and recommend them to anyone looking for a good distraction and/or escapist contemporary fantasy.

 

Live long and prosper (at the very least, until the next newsletter).

Hello on these final days of 2016! The future is basically tomorrow.

We’re giving away a $250 Barnes & Noble shopping spree. Go here to enter.

 

My goal with this week’s newsletter is to explode your TBRs for 2017 — sorry not sorry. You all got gift cards to bookstores, surely? (If not, please join me in bombarding my library with hold requests.) To that end, we’re starting off with the top five posts, plus one, from Book Riot’s science fiction and fantasy coverage in 2016:

100 Must-Read SF/F Books by Female Authors
100 Must-Read Strange and Unusual Novels
7 Stand-Alone Novels for Fantasy Lovers
7 Stand-Alone Novels for Science Fiction Lovers
10 Fantasy Books with Excellent Feminist Heroines
Bonus: Your Middle-Earth Race Based On Your Hogwarts House

Those are, of course, all books you can get/read now. I am happy to report that the Gods of Future Books have smiled upon us as well; here are 14 of the most anticipated sci-fi/fantasy/related books coming in 2017, selected by yours truly and my fellow Book Riot contributors. (All descriptions taken from publisher copy.) Time to limber up your pre-ordering muscles, folks.

The Cold Eye (The Devil’s West #2) by Laura Anne Gilman, January 10 2017 (Saga Press)
Picked by: Liberty Hardy
In the anticipated sequel to Silver on the Road, Isobel is riding circuit through the Territory as the Devil’s Left Hand. But when she responds to a natural disaster, she learns the limits of her power and the growing danger of something mysterious that is threatening not just her life, but the whole Territory.

Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza, February 7 2017 (Razorbill)
Picked by: Angel Cruz
Rhee, also known as Crown Princess Rhiannon Ta’an, is the sole surviving heir to a powerful dynasty. She’ll stop at nothing to avenge her family and claim her throne.
Aly has risen above his war refugee origins to find fame as the dashing star of a DroneVision show. But when he’s falsely accused of killing Rhee, he’s forced to prove his innocence to save his reputation – and his life.
With planets on the brink of war, Rhee and Aly are thrown together to confront a ruthless evil that threatens the fate of the entire galaxy.
A saga of vengeance, warfare, and the true meaning of legacy.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, February 7 2017 (W.W. Norton)
Picked by: Keri Crist-Wagner and Martin Cahill
In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin’s son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki, son of a giant, blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.
Through Gaiman’s deft and witty prose emerge these gods with their fiercely competitive natures, their susceptibility to being duped and to duping others, and their tendency to let passion ignite their actions, making these long-ago myths breathe pungent life again.

Wintersong by S. Jae Jones, February 7 2017 (Thomas Dunne)
Picked by: Jenn Northington
All her life, nineteen-year-old Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, mysterious Goblin King. He is the Lord of Mischief, the Ruler Underground, and the muse around which her music is composed. Yet, as Liesl helps shoulder the burden of running her family’s inn, her dreams of composition and childish fancies about the Goblin King must be set aside in favor of more practical concerns.
But when her sister Käthe is taken by the goblins, Liesl journeys to their realm to rescue her sister and return her to the world above. The Goblin King agrees to let Käthe go—for a price. The life of a maiden must be given to the land, in accordance with the old laws. A life for a life, he says. Without sacrifice, nothing good can grow. Without death, there can be no rebirth. In exchange for her sister’s freedom, Liesl offers her hand in marriage to the Goblin King. He accepts.
Down in the Underground, Liesl discovers that the Goblin King still inspires her—musically, physically, emotionally. Yet even as her talent blossoms, Liesl’s life is slowly fading away, the price she paid for becoming the Goblin King’s bride. As the two of them grow closer, they must learn just what it is they are each willing to sacrifice: her life, her music, or the end of the world.

Shadowbahn by Steve Erickson, February 14 2017 (Blue Rider Press)
Picked by: Jan Rosenberg
When the Twin Towers suddenly reappear in the Badlands of South Dakota twenty years after their fall, nobody can explain their return. To the hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands drawn to the American Stonehenge including Parker and Zema, siblings on their way from L.A. to visit their mother in Michigan the Towers seem to sing, even as everybody hears a different song. A rumor overtakes the throng that someone can be seen in the high windows of the southern structure.
On the ninety-third floor, Jesse Presley the stillborn twin of the most famous singer who ever lived suddenly awakes, driven mad over the hours and days to come by a voice in his head that sounds like his but isn’t, and by the memory of a country where he survived in his brother’s place. Meanwhile, Parker and Zema cross a possessed landscape by a mysterious detour no one knows, charted on a map that no one has seen.

Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez, March 14 2017 (Nobrow Press)
Picked by: Ardo Omer
Every night, tiny stars appear out of the darkness in little Sandy’s bedroom. She catches them and creates wonderful creatures to play with until she falls asleep, and in the morning brings them back to life in the whimsical drawings that cover her room.
One day, Morpie, a mysterious pale girl, appears at school. And she knows all about Sandy’s drawings…Nightlights is a beautiful story about fear, insecurity, and creativity, from the enchanting imagination of Lorena Alvarez.

Borne by Jeff Vandermeer, April 25 2017 (MCD)
Picked by: Martin Cahill
In Borne, the epic new novel from Jeff VanderMeer, author of the acclaimed, bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined, dangerous city of the near future. The city is littered with discarded experiments from the Company—a bio-tech firm now seemingly derelict—and punished by the unpredictable attacks of a giant bear. From one of her scavenging missions, Rachel brings home Borne, who is little more than a green lump—plant or animal?—but exudes a strange charisma. Rachel feels a growing attachment to Borne, a protectiveness that she can ill-afford. It’s exactly the kind of vulnerability that will upend her precarious existence, unnerving her partner, Wick, and upsetting the delicate balance of their unforgiving city—possibly forever. And yet, little as she understands what or who Borne may be, she cannot give him up, even as Borne grows and changes . . .

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson, May 2 2017 (WW Norton)
Picked by: Jenn Northington
While waiting for your morning coffee to brew, or while waiting for the bus, the train, or the plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.

Beren and Lúthien by JRR Tolkien, May 4, 2017 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Picked by: Kristen McQuinn
Painstakingly restored from Tolkien’s manuscripts and presented for the first time as a fully continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of Beren and Lúthien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded; but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father’s own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.

Radiate (Lightless #3) by C. A. Higgins, May 23 2017 (Del Rey)
Picked by: Liberty Hardy
In the follow-up to Lightless and Supernova, C. A. Higgins again fuses science fiction, suspense, and drama to tell the story of a most unlikely heroine: Ananke, once a military spacecraft, now a sentient artificial intelligence. Ananke may have the powers of a god, but she is consumed by a very human longing: to know her creators.

The Refrigerator Monologues by Cat Valente, illustrated by Annie Wu, June 6 2017 (Saga Press)
Picked by: Martin Cahill
From the New York Times bestselling author Catherynne Valente comes a series of linked stories from the points of view of the wives and girlfriends of superheroes, female heroes, and anyone who’s ever been “refrigerated”: comic book women who are killed, raped, brainwashed, driven mad, disabled, or had their powers taken so that a male superhero’s storyline will progress.
In an entirely new and original superhero universe, Valente subversively explores these ideas and themes in the superhero genre, treating them with the same love, gravity, and humor as her fairy tales. After all, superheroes are our new fairy tales and these six women have their own stories to share.

The Raven Stratagem (The Machineries of Empire #2) by Yoon Ha Lee, June 13 2017 (Solaris)
Picked by: Martin Cahill
Shuos Jedao is unleashed. The long-dead general, preserved with exotic technologies and resurrected by the hexarchate to put down a heretical insurrection, has possessed the body of gifted young captain Kel Cheris.
Now, General Kel Khiruev’s fleet, racing to the Severed March to stop a fresh incursion by the enemy Hafn, has fallen under Jedao’s sway. Only Khiruev’s aide, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, appears able to shake off the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao.
The rogue general seems intent on defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev – or Brezan – trust him? For that matter, can they trust Kel Command, or will their own rulers wipe out the whole swarm to destroy one man?

The Stone Sky (Broken Earth #3) by NK Jemisin, August 15 2017 (Orbit)
Picked by: Jenn Northington
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.
Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.
For Nassun, her mother’s mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.
The remarkable conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed trilogy that began with the multi-award-nominated The Fifth Season.

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera, October 3 2017 (Tor Books)
Picked by: Angel Cruz
The Hokkaran empire has conquered every land within their bold reach―but failed to notice a lurking darkness festering within the people. Now, their border walls begin to crumble, and villages fall to demons swarming out of the forests.
Away on the silver steppes, the remaining tribes of nomadic Qorin retreat and protect their own, having bartered a treaty with the empire, exchanging inheritance through the dynasties. It is up to two young warriors, raised together across borders since their prophesied birth, to save the world from the encroaching demons.
This is the story of an infamous Qorin warrior, Barsalayaa Shefali, a spoiled divine warrior empress, O-Shizuka, and a power that can reach through time and space to save a land from a truly insidious evil.

 

See you in the New Year!

Hello nerdfriends and geek pals!

We’re giving away a 12-month Audible membership. Go here to enter.

 

As promised, I’ve got gift suggestions galore. But so many of you were interested in last time’s link to the Guardian’s Best Of list for 2016 science fiction and fantasy that I decided to include a round-up of a few others! You’ll see some overlap, so here’s a TL;DR list of the most-repeated titles:

Infomocracy, Malka Older
All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders
The Devourers, Indra Das
The Obelisk Gate, NK Jemisin
Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee
Death’s End, Cixin Liu
Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer

The lists themselves:

– Book Riot’s own Best Of 2016 is here and you can sort by genre.
– The Washington Post‘s Nancy Hightower picked five.
– Barnes & Noble’s list is delightfully long and includes a bonus 12 honorable mentions.
– Omnivoracious picked eight.
– Tor.com asked 11 contributors to pick three each.
– Publishers Weekly picked six.

And now, onto my Gift Guide for Procrastinating Nerds.

Let’s Start With Books

Staff (and personal) favorite Lauren Beukes got stellar new covers for her mind-bending older books, Moxyland and Zoo City. Get both for the dedicated Beukes fan or either to introduce them to the wonders of her imagination!
Price range: less than $20 each

We are happily not short on geeky coloring books. Pick your fandom: Game of Thrones; D&D’s Monsters and Heroes of the Realm; there’s a whole line of Harry Potter ones; the rabbit-hole goes on and on. For a nice pairing and starter-kit, add a set of Pop of Color pencils.
Price range: less than $20 each

For the nerd who has everything OR doesn’t know where to start, I recommend Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016, edited by Karen Joy Fowler and including favorites Sofia Samatar, Kelly Link, Charlie Jane Anders, and Ted Chiang.
Price range: $20ish

For the nerd who loves art, you cannot do better than Shaun Tan’s beautiful and epic The Singing Bones (there’s a great review on Tor.com).
Price range: $20ish 

For the classics-inclined geek, these new Penguin Galaxy covers are drool-worthy. They’ve got a cornucopia of standards, including Dune, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Once and Future King.
Price range: $20ish 

This book was all the rage when it came out in hardcover a couple years back (to the point where it was on backorder for actual months), but I bet we don’t all own Philip Pullman’s Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm AND WE SHOULD.
Price range: $20ish in paperback

If you’re looking to introduce someone to NK Jemisin’s work (or help out a completist), the Dreamblood Duology has a lovely new omnibus edition. (Bonus: we’re doing a giveaway of her Broken Earth books right now!)
Price range: $20ish 

What about a gift that keeps on giving? Here’s a genre-focused subscription box that’ll send a selection of themed books every other month!
Price range: $30+ per box

How about something for the armchair traveler and those looking for magic in our own world? Let me introduce you to Atlas Obscura.
Price range: $30+

For the Le Guin completist, while we’re all awaiting the illustrated Earthsea: have a beautiful boxed set of her short stories and novellas (which I can verify are well worth owning).
Price range: $50+

If the Penguin Galaxy covers appeal to you but are not quite fancy enough, The Folio Society has you covered (that illustrated Voyage of the Argo, though.)
Price range: $50+

Who doesn’t need a new Star Trek Encyclopedia, I ask you.
Price range: $100+

Now For Some Things Which Are Not Books

For the wickedest witch in your life: a Bellatrix enamel pin.
Price range: less than $20

For the gaming/Adventure Time enthusiast in your life: a BMO Light-Up journal.
Price range: $20ish 

For fans of The Martian: a “Science The Shit Out Of It” shirt!
Price range: $20ish

Beam us up, Scotty: an ugly sweater Star Trek-style!
Price range: $40ish

Listen, y’all, I own a cuddly Hulk from this seller and it is the best “late night lying in bed lurking on Tumblr” purchase I have ever made: get your own Nerd Plush.
Price range: $40+ 

For geek couture: I don’t know what to be more excited about from Elhoffer Designs, the Galactic vest and armwarmers or those Hogwarts sweaters.
Price range: $50+

For those strong in the Force: BB8 now has a Force Band!
Price range: $80 – $200

For the well-heeled gear-head: High-end gear gear.
Price range: $125+

But wait, there’s more! We’ve got a few Book Fetish posts that speak to your needs as well. For example, this one is entirely composed of Game of Thrones lingerie options. And for your comics-loving friends and relatives, a special edition.

 

Happy holidays, and may the shopping odds be ever in your favor!

Greetings, nerd-friends and geek-fellows!

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by us!

No need to mince words here: we are giving one lucky Book Riot reader $250 to blow at Amazon. Overstuff those stockings or get a jump on your New Year reading pile–up to you. Go here to enter.

There’s a lot of geeky movie/TV news in the offing, but before we dive into that I invite you to explode your to-read lists along with me thanks to this piece from The Guardian on 2016’s best SF/F. Obviously big fan of Jemisin and Chiang over here, and I adored Zen Cho’s book. There are several titles mentioned in that piece I’ve had on my TBR for ages (time to bump ’em up) plus a few I hadn’t heard of at all — always a delightful moment!

And now, to the screens.

– Anyone seen Arrival yet? There are linguists at USCD and Gizmodo who have thoughts. (If you haven’t seen it, their general thoughts about the role of linguistics vs. their very spoilery thoughts about plot are clearly marked, so you’re safe!)

– Anne Rice is planning a Game of Thrones-level TV adaptation of The Vampire Chronicles. While I have many qualms about her personally, I can’t help but think that if it actually happens this could make for some really good (or so-bad-it’s-good) binge-watching.

– In further Tolkien news, J.R.R. himself is getting a movie! A biopic, to be precise. Here I thought I knew a lot about the man (I once memorably won an argument with my 6th grade teacher about whether or not “philologist” was an actual word), but I learned four new things about him from this announcement alone, so I’m on board.

– Apparently Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame is a huge Patrick Rothfuss fan!? And is going to be the creative producer for both a Kingkiller Chronicles feature film and a TV series?! And maybe even a stage play!!? Is this the real life?!? (I can’t tell if this is better or worse for my dream that someone will someday adapt Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Legacy series for the screen.)

– I was going to save Michelle Yeoh’s Star Trek: Discovery casting news as “best for last,” but then I saw that while she is playing a captain she is not playing the captain. I have big love for the Kelvin-verse movie franchise (well, at least the first and third installments), but I haven’t watched Star Trek on TV since Voyager. I’m psyched that Yeoh will have some role, but until we get some actual news about the major players, I will remain skeptical.

– Parker Posey to is going to play Dr. Smith in Netflix’s Lost In Space remake, LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS. Because I come from a long line of nerds whose only compatible interests are nerd-things, we went to see the 1998 Gary Oldman/Matt LeBlanc remake in the theaters. (Yes, there were other people in that movie. No, I don’t remember anything about their performances.) In both the original TV series and the movie remake, Smith is a saboteur stuck in outer space with a sometimes obnoxiously good-natured family of scientists and a robot that shouts DANGER! The original concept is already a remake of the Swiss Family Robinson concept (another childhood favorite). So what I am saying is, I was already here for this. And now we’ve got a female saboteur with stellar comic timing, which leads me to believe that Netflix intends for this to retain at least some of the light-heartedness of the original. Put me down officially as “REALLY EXCITED.”

It’s almost like I planned a “space” theme; let’s not waste this segue and go to our first recommendation.

Radiance by Catherynne Valente
Recently out in paperback, Valente’s latest is an intergalactic opus and a love letter to cinema. Set in an alternate universe in which the Solar System was colonized via space cannon starting in the late 1800s (think A Journey to the Moon) and silent film retained a hold on the film industry well into the 20th century, it’s both incredibly elaborate and very simple.

The plot is the simple part: a young woman named Severin Unck, daughter of a famous filmmaker and documentarian in her own right, goes to shoot a vanished town on Venus. She disappears, is presumed dead. The elaborate part is the prose and structure of the novel. The book talks to you the reader and/or you the viewer, interweaves transcripts and script excerpts and diary entries and monologues. It is profoundly performative, and not what I would call an “easy” read. You have to pay attention to follow the many characters and viewpoints, the jumps back and forth in time and space (literally). It’s a book that teaches you how to read it as you go along; it winks at you, elbows you in the ribs, then spins you around to face in a new direction. You can get a little dizzy in the process, but I enjoyed every twist and turn.

Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Ben Krueger
Bailey Chen is whip-smart and has the college degree, the steel-trap mind, and the ambition to prove it. What she doesn’t have is a job. Or rather, a “real” job — currently, she’s the barback at her high school friend’s bar, living with her parents, and failing at networking her way into a better gig. This is her biggest concern until the day she discovers that not only are monsters real, but that an elite cadre of bartenders fights them with magical booze.

There’s no time like the holidays for a page-turning adventure story about cocktails, am I right? Krueger’s got a sometimes wry, sometimes slapstick sense of humor and a knack for creating entertaining characters who eat clichés for breakfast. Indeed, every time I expected the plot to go one way it turned another. Recipes are interspersed between chapters, so one can add it to the mixology shelf as well as fiction. Fun, rompy, and a great book to have in your pocket for the boozehounds on your gift list.

 

Speaking of gifts, the next installment of Swords and Spaceships will skip news so that there’s more room for a Gift Guide for Nerd Pals. See you then!

Hello again, nerd-friends and fellow geeks.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Book Riot’s newsletters!

We’re giving away a brand-new, top-of-the-line Kindle Voyage. Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click on the image below.

During his acceptance speech last night at the National Book Awards, Colson Whitehead confessed that he had been struggling with what to say to people about the election as he toured for The Underground Railroad. What he finally came up with was (and I am paraphrasing slightly):

“BMF: Be kind to everyone. Make art. Fight the power… Remember, ‘They can’t break me, because I’m a Bad Mother F$#@!er.'”

Set this side by side with a quote from Ursula Le Guin’s speech at last year’s National Book Awards:

“Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.”

A final quote for you, this time from comics artist Valentine De Landro at Book Riot Live last weekend:

“We want Bitch Planet to be speculative fiction.”

Us too, De Landro. Us too.

Like many others right now, I am searching for explanation, illumination, inspiration, motivation. The fact that I turn to books and writers for these things is, well, why I’m writing a newsletter about genre fiction — and, I imagine, why you’re reading one. Science fiction and fantasy have always been the first and last place I turn. They are the cloudy mirror, the escape, the wake-up call, the great what-if. And now more than ever, we need the capacity to ask, “What if?”

Every book does this, of course, but some ask a bigger and stranger “What if?” than others. Since this question has never felt more relevant or urgent, I give you a list of 11 novels of science fiction and fantasy that have asked questions that pulled me out of myself, sparked my mind, and changed me as a reader and citizen.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl: What if the victims of the Belgian Congo had had better technology?

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin: What if gender was both variable and sporadic?

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin: What if the oppressed used their power to fight back?

Infomocracy by Malka Older: What if government was no longer tied to geography?

American Gods by Neil Gaiman: What if everything we put our faith in was made manifest?

Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine de Landro: What if unruly women were sent to prison?

Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer: What if we could watch the arc and fall of an empire through its stories?

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples: What if two people found love amidst war?

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes: What if our crimes were made manifest for all to see?

The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier: What if our pain was made visible and impossible to hide?

Gemsigns by Stephanie Saulter: What if we reconsidered what it means to be human?

 

Next installment we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming; until then, I wish you good books and fruitful thoughts.

Happy Friday, nerd-friends and fellow geeks.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by All the Books!

Keep up with the most exciting new books coming out each week with our All the Books! Podcast. YA, sci-fi, non-fiction, you name it, we cover it all.

Let’s talk some headlines, shall we?

If you’ve been wanting the full Hogwarts experience, you’ll want to keep an eye on the sorcerers of Mimbulus Mimbletonia. Next May, you could be practicing your wandwork and potion-making en français at their 4-day wizarding school. If only I had stuck with my high-school French! Which then leads me to wonder, does the language of magic have accents? What does a Beauxbaton levitation spell sound like? If anyone attends/has relevant information, please advise.

We are getting a new Middle-Earth story, and I have questions. But first, the actual news: It’s a previously unpublished novel about the adventures of Beren and Lúthien, written by J.R.R. and not Christopher. Now for my questions: Where has it been? We have had so much posthumous publishing from the Tolkien estate, it’s hard for me to believe that it’s taken this long for a full novel to come to light. I really want it to have been found in a secret compartment in his old writing desk, or perhaps a newly discovered wall-safe? As someone who did read The Silmarrillion (but not Unfinished Tales or Children of Húrin) and found it rough going, I’m also torn on whether or not to preorder a copy. What we already know about Beren and Lúthien is pretty great as backstories go — do I actually want more? Especially if it’s a (who knows how actually-finished) novel? This is something we all must decide for ourselves, I suppose. Regardless, it’s probably not going to be a good pick-up point for someone introducing themselves to Tolkien’s oeuvre.

What do we talk about when we talk about Turkish delight? That is not actually the title of this article but a girl can dream. JSTOR Daily offers us a lovely piece on why exactly Edmund would find Turkish delight the most compelling and wish-worthy of treats in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I spent most of my childhood believing it was some kind of pastry, who knows why.

And now, we need to talk about Dirk Gently. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Teatime of the Soul are my 2nd and 3rd favorite Douglas Adams novels (1st is Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 4th is Last Chance to See, in case you were wondering). With this in mind, I was originally very disheartened by the casting for HBO’s new series — while Samuel Barnett is very photogenic, he is neither portly, short, nor wearing a giant flappy hat. I tried to put that aside and give the pilot a chance; perhaps, like the movie, they’d capture the spirit rather than the letter. I am here to report that I tend to agree more with Vulture on this one after seeing the first episode, but the AV Club is holding out more hope (and has seen the first three eps). HBO did nod to the books but also made it clear that previous knowledge of the character and series is not required; your mileage may vary, but I recommend you proceed with caution.

Alright, onto this week’s reviews.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
Oh, friends. If you have not read these two books yet, can I just say how jealous I am of you? And if you have only read Long Way, I am so delighted for you to read the sequel! Which is available RIGHT NOW in ebook (but not in print until March 14, 2017). In Long Way we meet the crew of the spaceship Wayfarer, a motley group of humans and aliens who just want to dig wormholes and be left to their own devices. Yes, you read that correctly: in Chambers’ world, people travel across the universe via wormholes and they can be manufactured. And while the world-building (universe-building?) is solid and enjoyable, this is a character-driven story at its heart. Where the various crew members came from, what they’re doing out in the black, and how they stand working with each other fill up the bulk of the plot.

Some of them we find out more than others, and some we’re left wanting more — enter A Closed and Common Orbit! It picks up where the previous book leaves off, but we’re no longer on Wayfarer; instead, we’re taking off with two minor characters for a fringe community of hackers, modders. Chambers is asking big questions about both technology and personhood — cloning and artificial intelligence and the logical extensions thereof come under close scrutiny.

If authors like NK Jemisin are busy ripping our hearts out (in the good way), Becky Chambers’ work is more likely to put it back into your chest and fill it with warmth (also, obviously, in the good way). These two books are the perfect escape from the tensions and stresses of this year: enough action to drive the plot along, and a ton of characters to root for.

The Chimes by Anna Smaill
The Chimes recently beat out a truly amazing roster of novels (including personal favorites The Fifth Season and Uprooted) for the 2016 World Fantasy Award, so of course I had to pick it up. After reading it, I am somewhat astonished no one shoved it at me in the last year because it’s exactly in my wheelhouse. It takes place primarily in a London that could be our dystopian future, or an alternate timeline, where music is the primary metaphor and memories must be captured externally to be kept. It takes some getting used to the language of the novel: things happen subito instead of suddenly, or lento instead of slowly. If you’re a classically trained musician (like the author) you’ll be fine; if not (like me), you’ll pick it up through context sooner or later. Our young narrator, Simon, finds himself in London on a half-remembered mission from his dying mother without friends, resources, or a plan. It’s especially hard to have a mission or a plan when your memories are wiped clean every day. But the mission finds Simon via his new-found ally Lucien, and he begins to unravel the truth about his own life and his world.

Smaill’s achievement lies in creating a dystopia that feels completely new — I don’t remember ever reading about the beauty and dangers of sound in the ways she lays them out. Simon is a wonderful narrator, and I got attached to the supporting cast as well. This is an absorbing, compelling read, and one that very well could change the way you think about your playlists, the whine of your refrigerator, that song stuck in your head.

 

See you two Fridays from now, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

Welcome back, nerd-friends and fellow geeks, to our second installment of Swords and Spaceships!

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by The Tourist by Robert Dickinson.

“A seductively intriguing work of speculative fiction.”―Kirkus

It was supposed to be an ordinary tour of the 21st century. A bus would take them to the mall. They’d have an hour or so to look around. Perhaps try the food.

A traffic accident on the way back to the resort provided some additional interest – but the tour rep had no reason to expect any trouble.

Until he noticed one of his party was missing. Which, according to the records from the future, is impossible.

She is the Tourist, and her disappearance could change the past and the future forever.

Let’s start off with some linky goodness.

If you live in San Francisco, you can train to be a Jedi Knight. This looks a little hardcore for my taste (ForceFit? CrossSaber?), but competitive lightsabering probably sounds great to at least some of you.

Remember how much I love Ted Chiang? You can read a short story of his for free at Electric Literature! If you ever wondered what parrots thought about humanity’s obsession with extraterrestrial life, wonder no more.

Our President and Nerd-in-Chief Barack Obama has some thoughts about AI in this excellent interview with MIT’s Joi Ito. I had not previously considered the moral dilemmas involved in programming self-driving cars, or the ways in which cybersecurity is like epidemic prevention. It’s a long read, but a good one.

Kim Stanley Robinson has some words for Elon Musk and the rest of us about Mars colonization (plus a zinger on sustainability).

Carmilla is getting a movie! Even though I have never actually watched this modern lesbian vampire love story, I have seen enough GIFs as a Tumblr user that I am already fond of it, and now I’ve got a reason to finally sit down and catch up. Let’s all watch together, shall we?

Here are this week’s books I strongly (SO STRONGLY) encourage you to add to your TBR pile:

Infomocracy by Malka Older
This is the election-year book you didn’t know you wanted, and I need you all to read it so that we can talk about Democracy In The Future! After finishing it, I felt a little bit better about the garbage fire that is this election season, although I couldn’t tell you exactly why. Perhaps it’s the way that Older is so thoughtful about the issue of democracy itself, and the different ways her characters relate to it. Perhaps it was the high-wire fight sequences (actual wires occasionally involved! Plus much stabbing) balanced with Very Important data-crunching (we’re talking world-saving data crunching here). Perhaps it was the characters themselves, who range from campaign staff to covert agents to punk dissenters to combinations-thereof. Probably it was all of these things, and the brio that marks Older’s writing. If you can’t stop thinking about politics but need a new way to think about them, pick this up ASAP.

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
I would recommend (and have been recommending) this to you regardless, but it is our very first #RiotRead book club pick! Find out exactly what that means right here. As to why you should read it, I have so many reasons. It’s a more diverse, more light-hearted (and way less footnoted) comp to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, if English Magic is your bag; if you love Historical Ladies Doing It For Themselves, it has that and then some; if you have always wanted a magical familiar, you will be delighted with this new take on the theme. And if you really, really, really need something delightful and distracting, I cannot recommend a better fantasy novel. The only caveat I have, so that you can’t say I didn’t warn you, is that it’s the first in a series and the new book isn’t out until July of 2017. WOE. Read it anyway.

Welcome to the first installment of our new science fiction and fantasy newsletter, Swords & Spaceships! I’ll be gathering news from in and around our favorite genres, and including reviews of some of my favorite reads. Let’s get to it.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Unbound Worlds.

Unbound Worlds offers readers insight into books and authors across and between the science fiction and fantasy worlds, including horror, slipstream, pop science, fairy tales and folklore, magical realism, urban fantasy, and anything that’s just a little bit weird. Expect exclusive essays from new authors, interviews with favorite writers, extended book excerpts, insider looks at the science fiction and fantasy industry, and giveaways – as well as our annual Cage Match and our coverage of Comic Con and other events.

Join us here at Unbound Worlds to explore the science fiction and fantasy universe and to discover the authors writing the books that you want to read.

Unbound Worlds is owned and operated by Penguin Random House.

Space is the place, y’all. In real-life news:
– Tabby’s Star, or KIC 8462852, has been making headlines due to inexplicable dimming. Scientists have been monitoring the star to try to determine why it’s not behaving in a scientifical way, and the best they can come up with is that it’s not NOT aliens.
– Not only is there a potentially habitable planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, but there is probably water on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
– Elon Musk is planning to colonize Mars, and eat a lot of pizza on the way. (Seriously.)
With all this science-fact in the offing, maybe we will get actual hoverboards and generation ships sooner rather than later. What does it mean for science fiction? My hope is a flood of new space opera! Especially since the chances of me being able to afford a spot in Elon Musk’s bright and shiny future are slim to none.

Medieval England is apparently also the place. As you may have heard, Guy Ritchie is making a King Arthur film starring Charlie Hunnam as a street-fighter who, well, pulls a sword from a stone. If the trailer is any indication this will be a glorious mess, and my body is ready. The next Transformers movie will also have a King Arthur cameo — we shall never speak of this again. And apparently Fox has decided that Arthur should join modern times as a graffiti artist (?!) who teams up with his cop ex-girlfriend Gwen (!?!!) to fight the forces of darkness (!???????). But I have saved the best news for last: Lev Grossman (The Magicians series) is writing an Arthurian novel! INSERT CONFETTI TREBUCHET HERE. The Bright Sword will pick up with the fall of Camelot, and features a band of misfit knights and Merlin’s apprentice. Inquiring minds want to know: how does Mordred fit into all of this? And exactly which minor knights will make appearances? I feel like I need an Arthurian fantasy league to adequately prepare.

And now, this week’s reviews.

Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang
While it is more properly classified as speculative rather than science fiction, we’re counting it because ALIENS. This collection has been floating around in one form or another for years. The first story, “Tower of Babylon,” won the Nebula Award in 1990. Tor first published the collection in 2002, Small Beer Press republished it in 2010, and Vintage has just re-issued it this June. When you read it, you’ll understand why: it’s incredible in its range and vision. Whether he’s writing about Industrial-era golems or ancient Babylonians or modern-day super-geniuses, Chiang has an eye for the details that make the unbelievable feel real. The title story, “Story of Your Life,” is an absolute knock-out, with one of the most satisfying twists I’ve read in a while and some of the hardest-to-conceptualize aliens since China Mieville’s Embassytown. Arrival, a feature-film adaptation of the story, will be released in November and it looks pretty amazing. Since it’s clear from the trailer that they’re taking liberties with the storyline, you’ll definitely want to read it first. (And even if you’re not going to see the movie, you want to read it anyway.)

The Mirror Empire, Kameron Hurley
It’s been some time since I read an epic fantasy that delighted and enthralled me as much as The Mirror Empire, the first book in the Worldbreaker Saga. If you also missed it when it came out in 2014, I invite you to catch up with me! While the narrative jumps between a few characters the linchpin is Lilia, an orphan with strange and disturbing memories of the moment she lost her mother. As she comes of age, the world around her is coming undone. Savage forces are attacking many countries’ lines of defense, and the political situation is not exactly ripe for alliance. Hurley has built a dark and complicated world with multiple cultures and gender roles, and in the process has breathed fresh air into second-world fantasy. If you’re out of NK Jemisin to read, are waiting on the newest installment of A Song of Ice and Fire, or just really like swords and politics and magic and So Much Stabbing, pick this up. The second novel in the series, Empire Ascendant, is out already and the third is slated for next year.

And that’s our show! May you live long and prosper; see you in two weeks.

Women took top honors in this year’s Hugo Awards, with awards in each of the four fiction categories going to women authors. Three of the awards in the fiction categories went to women of color, and authors of African descent took the award in the longest fiction categories: N.K. Jemisin received the Best Novel award for The Fifth Season, and Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti received the award for Best Novella. These results bear heavy significance on their own: women who write science fiction and fantasy have historically faced many trials in receiving recognition for their work. The same can be said for people of African descent. The fact Jemisin’s and Okorafor’s works have received a Hugo award is amazing, and important for those reasons alone.

This victory has an additional significance. For the second year in a row, one of two right-wing networks of authors has attempted to game the Hugo Awards ballot with a slate of work that, they claim, calls back to recognition of more traditional, conservative science fiction. The leaders of these groups have been widely recognized as bigots. Their slate of recommended works this year was weak, haphazard, and the work of many of the authors therein has been recognized as not deserving of the award because, frankly, it just isn’t good enough.

These cabals and their supporters oppose the existence of writers like Okorafor and Jemisin, and consider their work to be representative of everything that is wrong with the genre’s direction. They view the genre’s increased focus on prioritizing the voices of those who have been historically marginalized as a threat to their own success, as if the groups that they represent have not dominated the awards and controlled avenues to success in the genre for decades.

The news of this win comes on the heels of a report showing that, at least at the short fiction level, black authors of science fiction and fantasy are just not being published. Until very recently, the only black authors featured on lists of recommended science fiction and fantasy books were Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, or Nalo Hopkinson. Despite claims to the contrary, black readers have always looked to speculative fiction as a way of dealing with the social and political realities of their lives. And black writers have always used speculative fiction to wrestle with a world that marginalizes and threatens them. Black readers and writers of speculative fiction have also always had to deal with the reality that mainstream speculative fiction publishing and fandom was not built for us or by us, and because of this, the two institutions struggle to recognize the brilliance of our works and voices.

But with this award win, both black readers and black writers are validated. Hugo award winners are not decided by a distant panel of “experts.” They are decided by the reading public, people who love these books enough to make their voices heard. Readers of all races, cultures, and ethnicities came together not just to deal a blow to alt-right ideologues and their temper tantrums, but also to uplift the work that they, rightfully, considered the most powerful, most significant, most relevant work to have been produced in a year full of powerful, significant, relevant works of speculative fiction.

And these books are written by black women. Jemisin and Okorafor used the earth and stars to write stories that speak to their experiences and histories as complete humans. Readers for years to come will be able to find these books more easily, and lose themselves in the truths and realities that they contain. These books and these authors’ names will now be prefaced forever more with “Hugo Award Winning,” and when new readers encounter them in libraries, when new writers begin to aspire, they will be comforted by the fact that these books have been vetted and found to meet the exacting standards of thousands readers and writers just like them. Jemisin and Okorafor’s Hugo Award win is a win for all readers of speculative fiction, but most especially for black ones.