Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin Dying for You by Jenny Frame Harsh Reality by Elle E. Ire What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher BOYS, BEASTS & MEN by Sam J. Miller Bite Me! (You Know I Like It) by Fae Quin Cougar Woods by Tiana Warner All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes
They’re bright, they’re colorful, and they’re doing the meaningful work of ensnaring a potential reader’s eye. These are the boldest and most original book covers of the year, as selected by BookPage’s designer.
I really liked this book, the setting felt fresh and didn’t bog itself down with tons of worldbuilding. Just enough to get the story told and leave lots of room for more tales in this setting with either these characters or new people.
Elle knows her younger brother will kill her if he finds her. That’s why she’s working an entry-level job with a temp agency; she can’t risk putting all of her magical powers on display for him to find. It’s not all bad — she gets to help a cute half-elf named Luc carry out some truly dangerous operations. When Luc’s next target turns out to be Elle’s younger brother, Elle sees a chance at the kind of happiness she can only dream of. But can she really choose Luc over the rest of her family?
THE SCARLET CIRCUS is another fantastic collection by a master storyteller, one that should be added to every fantasy lover’s library. Turning the pages gave the sense of wonder and adventure that first drew me to fairytales as a child, making this a book to treasure.
This is an entrancing collection of short stories. The Reader is drawn through remarkable tales that lead into the next story building tension and wonder.
As an unlikely found-family flees toward Galveston, a psychic young girl bonds with Charlie Fish, an enigmatic gill-man. Meanwhile, they are pursued by bounty hunters determined to profit from the spectacle of Charlie. But the Great Storm—the worst natural disaster in U.S. history—is on its way. Josh Rountree’s strikingly original debut novel ranges effortlessly between the Gothic, pulp, literary, Western, and comedic. With his vivid imagery, evocative storytelling, and uncanny wit, Rountree enters the fine tradition of Texan storytellers, wading into True Grit by way of The Shape of Water.
I was thoroughly taken with this story, Rountree’s writing, and the unique island setting. Definitely add this to your TBRs.
The Speculative Shelf
As always, Floyd Betts rides into town alone. He arrives for his father’s funeral, but he is returning to Galveston, Texas, with two orphaned siblings he has rescued. Nellie, who is descended from a long line of witches, has visions from other people’s minds. Hank, her impulsive younger brother, just wants to break out his outsized revolver.
Along the way home, Floyd, Nellie, and Jim encounter a dubious traveling salesman, Professor Finn, and his henchman, Kentucky Jim. They are struggling to capture a fish-man in order to put him on cruel display. When Nellie taps into the peril of the gentle Charlie Fish, Floyd’s makeshift family expands to include the lost, two-legged amphibian.
With the circus charlatans in pursuit, ominous winds are picking up from an impending hurricane. Meanwhile, all Charlie Fish wants is to return to his home at sea.
A fantastic work of dark historical fiction, in the spirit of Lansdale, Gorman, Pronzini, and McMurtry.
All of us at Tachyon are saddened by the news of the amazing Suzy McKee Charnas’ death.
Hugo, Nebula, and Tiptree award–winning author Suzy McKee Charnas was best known for her groundbreaking Holdfast Chronicles, a four-volume story written over the course of almost thirty years (1974-1999) which addressed the oft-controversial topics of feminist dystopia, separatist societies, war, and reintegration, and her critically acclaimed exploration of the vampire mythos, The Vampire Tapestry.
The first and second volumes of the Holdfast Chronicles, Walk to the End of the World (1974) and Motherlines (1978), each won a 1996 Retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Award. The final volume The Conqueror’s Child (1999) won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. The series as a whole which also included The Furies (1994) was given the 2003 Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame Award. Her young adult novel The Kingdom of Kevin Malone earned the Aslan Award for Best Children’s Book of 1993. The novella “The Unicorn Tapestry,” that was part of The Vampire Tapestry, won a 1980 Nebula.
Other works included The Sorcery Hall trilogy (The Bronze King [1985], The Silver Glove [1988], and The Golden Thread [1989]), the short story collections Moonstone and the Tiger-Eye (1992), Music of the Night (2001), and STAGESTRUCK VAMPIRES AND OTHER PHANTASMS (2004), and the memoir My Father’s Ghost: The Return of My Old Man and Other Second Chances (2002),. Charnas adapted The Vampire Tapestry into the two-act play Vampire Dreams. It enjoyed runs in both San Francisco and New York, debuting as part of Springfest in San Francisco in 1990.
Any new offering from Nacogdoches author Lansdale that includes his beloved characters Hap and Leonard is welcome. I worried the short story format might lose the luster gained by Lansdale’s gift for a long narrative. Nope. Turns out he possesses a gift for intricate storytelling. This collection is a welcome addition to the Hap and Leonard story.
BORN FOR TROUBLE is a new collection of Hap and Leonard stories, which is always cause for celebration. Unlike the past couple of collections, which focused on the boy’s early years, the stories in BORN FOR TROUBLE cover Hap and Leonard in their later, more mature years. Don’t panic, mature refers only to their age. They are still, for the most part, the same shit-talking, shit-kicking badasses you know and love.
While the mystery and action of these stories is always fun (in a twisted sort of way) it is the relationship between Hap and Leonard that is the heart and soul of these books. It’s for that reason that my favorite part of this collection is the first part of “The Briar Patch Boogie” story which is nine pages of the two of them just bitching at each other about a failed fishing trip.
BTW even if you haven’t read a single Hap & Leonard novel the recent short story collections are very accessible and a great way to discover these characters.
Well, they’re in there. Just got to have the right bait and be patient. You don’t mind if I sit down on the bank next to you, do you?
Good, good. Thanks.
Yeah, I like it fine. I never fish with anything but a cane pole. An old-fashioned way of doing things, I guess, but it suits me. I like to sharpen one end a bit, stick that baby in the ground, and wait it out. Maybe find someone like yourself to chat with for a while.
Whee, it’s hot. Near sundown, too. You know, every time I’m out fishing in heat like this, I think of Old Charlie.
Huh? No, no. You couldn’t really say he was a friend of mine. You see, I met him right on this bank, sort of like I’m meeting you, only he came down and sat beside me.
It was hot, just like today. So damned hot you’d think your nose was going to melt off your face and run down your chin. I was out here trying to catch a bite before sundown, because there’s not much I like better than fish, when here comes this old codger with a fishing rig. It was just like he stepped out of nowhere.
Don’t let my saying he was old get you to thinking about white hair and withered muscles. This old boy was stout looking, like maybe he’d done hard labor all his life. Looked, and was built, a whole lot like me, as a matter of fact.
We’ve partnered with Humble Bundle for Sanderson, Liu, Yolen and More Great SF&F bundle with award-winning, acclaimed books from Brandon Sanderson, Marjorie Liu, Jane Yolen, Elly Bangs, Tobias Buckell, Ellen Datlow, David Ebenbach, Naseem Jamnia, Nicole Kornher-Stace, R. B. Lemberg, David Liss, Sam J. Miller, Patrick O’Leary, Daniel Pinkwater, Josh Rountree, Bruce Sterling, Lavie Tidhar, Kimberly Unger, and Carrie Vaughn.
Samuel R. Delany Fellowship recipient Naseem Jamnia’s debut novella THE BRUISING OF QILWA collects even more praise with Jo Ladzinski at Jo Writes Fantasy including the novella among their favorite reads of the year. For Ambling Along the Aqueduct, Cheryl Morgan finds the novella a pleasant surprise. Carrie Chi Lough in Grimdark Magazine feels much the same.
One of the most pleasant surprises of the year has been THE BRUISING OF QILWA. This novella from Naseem Jamnia is not much about gender, though it does have a non-binary protagonist. It is a medical mystery set in a fantasy world that manages to approach the medical and magical sides of the story with the rigor of hard science fiction.
THE BRUISING OF QILWA contains some of the most memorable voices I’ve read in fantasy. Having an assistant healer as the protagonist unfolds a different kind of fantasy story. In many ways, THE BRUISING OF QILWA is more slice of life than epic. A good majority of the story is Firuz’s day to day life in Qilwa. They are treating patients and disposing of deceased bodies. They are guardian to their brother and a young refugee they adopted. As they uncover secrets regarding this disease, they also are adapting to their new homeland and protecting their family. These small moments of Firuz’s daily struggles are where Jamnia’s writing shines brightest.
This was superb and I’m in awe of Tidhar’s vision. He’s conjured up a futuristic city that feels simultaneously ultramodern and also run down. The rich histories of the region and its cultures are seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of this fully-realized world.
NEOM is a thoughtful, beautifully written story about what we have, what we want, how we achieve our desires, and what, and whom, are we willing to risk for our own benefit.
This is great! Like CENTRAL STATION, a fascinating blend of huge and tiny ideas; quiet and believable, shot through with vivid oddness, and chock-full of allusion to other works. Highly recommended.
And NEOM tells these stories beautifully, whether that be of the Robot (who probably gets the most time in page-length) and its quest, or of Mariam simply doing her jobs and encountering all these oddities…as well as encountering a man in Nasir who might actually be interested in giving her some company, or of Elias as he learns more about himself and the world…be that friendship, or the strangeness of other humans and creatures, or more. The setting remains utterly delightfully weird at times – Jackals with personality who can talk, strange hermits seemingly on the spectrum in the Desert who live on trade, abandoned spaceships, robots broken apart by war, terror artists creating art through mass destruction, etc. etc. But Tidhar infuses all of these oddball aspects of the setting with depth and life and with such great dialogue such that they’re both delightful to read about and never feel like something artificial and weird just for the sake of being weird.
One of the things Poughkeepsie could be famous for, if Poughkeepsie were famous, is abandoned factory buildings. Over the years, even over the centuries, there have been all kinds of manufacturing and industry, going all the way back to when dead whales were dragged up the Hudson River and cut up, processed, had their oil extracted, and maybe kibbled, for all I know. The whale-processing business was carried out seventy-five miles up the river from New York Harbor, because that way it was considered less likely that pirates would show up…and…steal the whales? It doesn’t make sense to me, but they teach this in school. Various other products came from Poughkeepsie, such as decks of cards, underwear, and beer, and when any of the companies that made them moved or shut down, they’d just leave the factory to fall apart.
– Daniel Pinkwater, CRAZY IN POUGHKEEPSIE, pp.53-54
i’m currently reading “crazy in poughkeepsie” to my family at bedtime and i’m so excited that my hometown of sheboygan made it in to the guru’s journeys. this made my day. thank you.
