Rick Klaw
Posts by Rick Klaw:
Carrie Vaughn reveals that the final Kitty Norville book, KITTY’S MIX-TAPE, will include lots of fun snippets and easter eggs that fans will enjoy
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CIVILIAN READER interviews Carrie Vaughn about the forthcoming KITTY’S MIX-TAPE (not due until October but currently available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon and for reviewers via EDELWEISS and NETGALLEY).
Your new story collection, KITTY’S MIX-TAPE, is due to be published by Tachyon in October. It’s the final instalment in your Kitty Norville series: how would you introduce the series to a potential reader, and what can fans of the series expect from this book?
The series is about a werewolf named Kitty who hosts a talk radio advice show for the supernaturally disadvantaged. She has lots of adventures along the way. Kitty’s Mix Tape collects most of the short stories related to the series I wrote after about 2010 — plus four brand-new, never before seen stories. As usual with the Kitty-related short stories, they often feature the supporting cast, revealing their secret back stories, and including lots of other fun snippets and easter eggs that fans will enjoy.
What inspired you to write the novel and series? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?
I realized that vampires and werewolves and other supernatural creatures living in the modern world would need their own advice shows, because Dr. Laura and Dr. Phil just wouldn’t know what to do with their problems. From that small beginning, the idea blew up, since Kitty and her show gave me a chance to write just about any kind of story I wanted, with lots of great supporting characters. As far as inspiration in general… everywhere, really. A piece of music, a piece of art, a news story. Not liking the way some other story or movie turns out and wanting to tell my own version. My own obsessions and demons.
CURIOUS FICTIONS publishes “Dirt and Destiny: A Regency Tale,” Vaughn’s Jane Austen and Robert E. Howard mashup.
After the briefest of searches, Lydia Blythe-Jones-Forrester made the discovery that her brother Reginald had once again been conducting occult experiments in the gazebo behind the hedge maze.
It wasn’t that Reginald was evil, or even particularly mischievous. Rather, he was one of those bright young men who, despite possessing an intellect bordering on the level of genius, was constantly forgetting where he set his spectacles. Or that someone other than his own self might chance through the gazebo during the course of one of his habitual experiments.
So, let us state from the first that Reginald did not intend for what subsequently befell Lydia to actually happen. Nevertheless. . .
GNOMEQUEEN-TONKATOYLEGS showcases Ricardo de Avila and THE IMMORTAL CONQUISTADOR in their series of favorite fictional vampires.
At TOR.COM, Vaughn shares what she is reading right now.
I’ve felt fortunate during this summer of Covid that I haven’t lost the focus to read. In fact, I’ve been burning up my local library’s Overdrive e-book lending account, maxing out my holds and then having new books suddenly appear on my tablet with no effort on my part. What will I read next? Whatever shows up! I don’t even have to think about it, I just have to read it before it vanishes off my device on the due date. It’s magic.
I’m also reading a lot of non-fiction, as I hunker down with some new ideas for historical pieces. So my current reading reflects a pattern of bouncing back and forth between comfort reads, exciting new books, and research. It keeps me on my toes. Here’s a selection:
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
I’ve read a lot of Tudor history, and Thomas Cromwell is never presented as the hero of the story. He’s usually portrayed as another ruthless social climbing politician doomed to fall hard, yet another victim of Henry VIII’s temper. So it’s fascinating to see him in Wolf Hall as the sympathetic protagonist, a man who rises from nothing to become one of the most powerful politicians in England, master of a close-knit household, who uses his power and influence to help those in his care as much as he can. I also appreciate the almost stream-of-consciousness, present-tense style. It’s immersive and riveting. Alas, I know this story doesn’t end well. But I’m still looking forward to the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies.
Happy book birthday to R. B. Lemberg’s remarkable THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES
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Today, September 1, Tachyon welcomes their new child, R. B. Lemberg’s acclaimed debut THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES, now available from all finer booksellers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY includes the birthday book among their Books of the Week, August 31, 2020.
Lemberg’s outstanding debut novel expands on the short stories of the Birdverse that they have been publishing for about a decade, most frequently in the lit mag Beneath Ceaseless Skies, drawing readers into a lush desert world and the two elders from different cultures navigating its wilds.
TRAVELING IN BOOKS concurs.
THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is a remarkable story, and not simply for the heartbreaking and beautiful ways in which it deals with gender norms, cultural expectactions, family, and friendship. In just 192 pages, Lemberg weaves a multi-facted story in which two aging characters still have a lot to learn about themselves, their strengths, and their flaws. Although, while the prose is elegant and lyrical, its beauty can sometimes obfuscate the meaning. But this is a minor issue overall, as it detracts very little from the story. With elegant prose and an understanding of human nature in all its genders, Lemberg weaves a golden tale of human longing, friendship, and hope.
Then they double down with another mention in Sunday Sum-Up: August 23, 2020.
THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is a beautifully written novella about a world where, in certain cultures, the ability of people to change gender is assumed and the transformation is a celebrated part of life, if one so chooses. But there are cultures that do not accept these changes, which makes life difficult– if not impossible– for those who wish to change. It’s also a story about love and family, and the sacrifices we must make in order to make the world a better place.
THE FOUR PROFOUND BOOK WEAVES book trailer premiered on the Tachyon Publications YouTube Channel. After you finish with the trailer, be sure to check out the other Tachyon goodies on the channel.
Amy Mitchell for THE /TEMZ/ REVIEW continues the love.
THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES packs an enormous aesthetic and emotional punch, especially considering how short it is. No details are wasted, and everything knits together in complicated, compassionate and dreamlike ways. It’s a mature look at how life can always still be celebrated, despite the pain and wasted time that people can increasingly feel weighing on them as their lives progress. It’s also a profoundly moving and intimate look at the harms that are specifically caused by transphobia, homophobia and gender-based violence. I highly recommend it for all readers, even if fantasy is not normally a genre you frequent.
THE NOVEL APPROACH REVIEWS joins the celebration.
THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is an emotional story, at times intense and brutal in its telling, but nothing less than sincere. Its beauty is in its weaving of words into a fantasy steeped in its characters’ truths and desires.
MAIJA READS adds ther thoughts about the beautifully written novella.
Daniel Pinkwater’s forthcoming ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL is a good read, especially for pizza lovers!
Rick Klaw blog adventures of a dwergish girl, daniel pinkwater, magic and dust, mi book reviews, michael dirda, review, tachyon publications channel, the washington post, yo, you tube 0
Coming your way September 30th, Daniel Pinkwater’s forthcoming ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL (available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon and for reviewers via EDELWEISS and NETGALLEY) generates interest.
Design by Elizabeth Story
For THE WASHINGTON POST, Micheal Dirda in expresses excitement for both Pinkwater and the forthcoming book.
While Daniel Pinkwater has produced classics for all ages — from that paean to nonconformity, “The Big Orange Splot,” to the Sherlockian pastiche “The Snarkout Boys & the Avocado of Death” — I’m fondest of “Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars.” In it, the two young heroes acquire the Samuel Klugarsh Mind Control System and discover that it really works. Happily, Pinkwater still works, too: Next month Tachyon Books will bring out ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL.
MAGIC AND DUST enjoys the adventure.
When I first saw ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL, I was struck with the cover, then I read the description and struck again. A Dwergish girl gets bored with her dull life and what lays in her future and decides to leave her in-forest-home for the city? And her family just lets her? And supports her? Just give me that.
It is amazing what a cover and just a little bit of information can do to a reader…
[…]
It is a good read and pizza lovers will feel an elevated love for this book. I also hope that this is a beginning of series as the end of the book suggests.
Rating ★★★★
MI BOOK REVIEWS feels much the same.
The plot itself was slow and meandering, but in a way that made it feel fleshed out and one that allowed for cute jokes to happen. The ending was one that mostly made sense. I feel like it was left open a bit for a sequel, but the only questions I have are about what that sequel would be which is a wonderful change from a huge plot point not being explained just to set up a sequel. I liked the ending. It was quick, no huge surprises that annoyed me, and it fit perfectly with the pace of the story and the world that was built. So at least one of the chapters I wanted to erase before really is necessary.
Overall, it was a cute story and my first Pinkwater book.
ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL book trailer premiered on the Tachyon Publications YouTube Channel. After you finish with the trailer, be sure to check out the other Tachyon goodies on the channel.
Mary Shelley, writer of the first science fiction novel FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS, was born 223 years ago
The daughter of political philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797. Her seminal work Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), often considered the very first science fiction story, created the iconic mad scientist-monster tale.
Though best remembered for her archetypal creation, Shelley wrote six other novels most notably the historicals Valperga; Or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (1823), and The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1834), and perhaps most famously the apocalyptic The Last Man (1826). Her two dozen supernational short stories have been collected by Tachyon in THE MORTAL IMMORTAL and BEYOND FRANKENSTEIN. She penned numerous poems, travel narratives and children’s books and also contributed several entries to The Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men, which comprised ten volumes of Dionysius Lardner’s 133-Volume Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46).
A painless way to help support your favorite faster-than-light particle-infused press
If you like to review books—and we like you to review our books!—kindly post across as many platforms as possible! Particularly Amazon, as most book sales still happen via Amazon during this pandemic age. Reviews of our books across Instagram, NetGalley, GoodReads, websites, Amazon, and any other platforms where we get to see nice things said about our books help us a lot. You don’t even have to change anything you say for the different sites. Except maybe Twitter; you might have to say slightly less on Twitter.
Thanks!
This Saturday, 7PM CST, celebrate Tachyon Publications 25th Anniversary with authors Marie Brennan, Daryl Gregory, Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Swanwick, Kimberly Unger, and Carrie Vaughn plus Tachyonistas Jacob Weisman, Jill Roberts, and Rick Klaw
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In this special Armadillocon 2020 virtual event, Tachyon publisher/founder Jacob Weisman, managing editor Jill Roberts, and consulting editor Rick Klaw team-up with the all-star linuep of acclaimed, award -winning authors (Marie Brennan, Daryl Gregory, Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Swanwick, Kimberly Unger, and Carrie Vaughn) to discuss, in expected Tachyon fashion, the press’s pasts, presents, and futures. This FREE event happens on Saturday, August 28 at 7PM CST. Please RSVP.
The fine folks at BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES are giving away R. B. Lemberg’s heartbreaking and beautiful THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES
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The good folks at BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES are giving away two copies of of R. B. Lemberg’s acclaimed debut THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES. The first contest occurs on their site and runs through Wednesday, September 9, and then the second happens on Twitter, Wednesday, September 2.
In conjunction with the release of BCS author R.B. Lemberg’s new book THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES, out Sep. 4 from Tachyon Publications, BCS is giving away two copies.
The Four Profound Weaves is set in R.B.’s lushly imagined and culturally rich fantasy world Birdverse. BCS readers may know Birdverse from the five BCS novelettes and novellas set there, including “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” in BCS #175, which was a finalist for the Nebula Awards.
The Four Profound Weaves is a brand-new novella of Birdverse, featuring one of the characters from “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds.” It’s published by Tachycon Publications in digital and as a trade paperback with this lovely cover.
One giveaway is on the BCS website in this post. (The other will be on the BCS Twitter feed @BCSmagazine, on Wed. Sep. 2.)
To enter the giveaway that’s in this very post, comment on this post (here) and tell us what your favorite R.B. Lemberg piece of short fiction is. Whether a Birdverse story or one of their other stories; whether published in BCS or elsewhere.Your comment will enter you in a random drawing for the copy of The Four Profound Weaves. This giveaway ends Wed. Sep. 9.
The Twitter giveaway for the copy of The Four Profound Weaves will take place Wed. Sep. 2 on the BCS Twitter feed @BCSmagazine. It will run from 2 PM EST until 5 PM EST.
To enter, all you need to do is tweet what your favorite R.B. Lemberg short story is. Whether a Birdverse story or one of their many other stories; whether published in BCS or elsewhere. (Full Rules are here, at the end of this post.)
To get you started, here are R.B.’s stories in BCS, and you can peruse our BCS Authors Elsewhere posts for work by them in other venues:
“To Balance the Weight of Khalem” in BCS #300“A Portrait of the Desert in Personages of Power” in BCS #229 and podcast BCS 200
“The Book of How to Live” in BCS #209
“Geometries of Belonging” in BCS #183
“Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” in BCS #175
“Held Close in Syllables of Light” in BCS #80
Good luck!
Tachyon 25th Anniversary eBooknanza! Newsletter subscribers get your free copy of UNHOLY LAND by Lavie Tidhar
Rick Klaw blog 25th anniversary, eBooknanza, giveaway, lavie tidhar, unholy land 0
Cover by Sarah Anne Langton
It’s been 25 years since Jacob Weisman started publishing books, and here we are entering the ’20s with digital giveaways for every newsletter subscriber!
For the whole of 2020 on every last Wednesday of the month, we will be giving away a free ebook to everyone subscribed to our newsletter prior to that Wednesday. This will be the only time we amp up our newsletter from quarterly announcements of new and upcoming books to monthly. The download link will be good for 48 hours, so if this is a book you’ve been meaning to get, make sure you download it as soon as you can.
This is our thanks for sticking around with us for so long. We look forward to another 25 years with you.
Lavie Tidhar is a genius at conjuring realities that are just two steps to the left of our own . . . Gorgeous in its alienness . . .
—NPR Books
More on UNHOLY LAND by Lavie Tidhar:
- An NPR Best Book of 2018
- A Library Journal Best Book of 2018
- A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018
- A Guardian Best Book of 2018
- A Barnes & Noble Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2018
- A Crime Time Book Best Book of 2018
- Locus Recommended Reading List
- 2018 SCKA Award nominations
- 2018 British Science Fiction Award finalist, Best Artwork: Sarah Anne Langton
[STARRED REVIEW] “Unholy Land is a wonder and a revelation—a work of science fiction capable of enthralling audiences across the multiverse.”
—Foreword
Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.
Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina—a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century—has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts—possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.
From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.
[STARRED REVIEW] World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history. Author Lior Tirosh, grieving a personal tragedy, travels home after years abroad and immediately has a series of strange encounters that pull him into a complex plot to destroy the border between worlds. He arrives in Palestina, the land that the Jews were offered on the Ugandan border in 1904, which both closely resembles and is profoundly different from the Israel of our world, and is followed by two government agents who are trying to stop the destruction of ‘borders,’ though it’s unclear whose side they are really on. Tirosh discovers a niece he had forgotten, is accused of murder, narrowly dodges threats to his life, and takes on the role of a detective from one of his own novels as he tries to understand what is endangered and by whom. ‘No matter what we do, human history always attempts to repeat itself,’ Tidhar writes, even as he explores the substantial differences in history that might arise from single but significant choices. Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.
—Publishers Weekly
Simultaneously somber and uplifting, Marie Brennan’s DRIFTWOOD is beautifully written and incredibly unique
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Serena of THE LIBRARY LADIES praises DRIFTWOOD by Marie Brennan.
Beautifully written and incredibly unique. This is definitely a book to check out this summer!
On REDDIT r/Fantasy, user u/daavor agrees.
In terms of style and atmosphere, it perhaps most reminds me of some glorious hybrid of the Divine Cities Trilogy, MJ Harrisons Viriconium novels, and maybe shreds of Gaiman and Valente. Details drift past you in a style reminiscent of certain weird fiction. Of course, those who’ve read Lady Trent have a sense of Brennan’s voice, but absent the framing device of Trent’s memoir this novel’s voice is I think a little softer, a little sadder, a little less feisty, but in the best of ways. The prose is clear, fluid, and well crafted, lingering on the details and oddities, as mentioned before.
Repeatedly here I’ve summarized this novel as sombre or melancholy. It is, and yet I don’t walk away from it sad. Because Driftwood is more than the sum of its parts and DRIFTWOOD is more than the sum of its sorrows. I leave it optimistic and thoughtful (though I wouldn’t pencil it in as optimistic fiction in your bingo card).
THE CURIOUS SFF READER includes the novel in their Mid-Year Freak Out Tag | 2020.
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SURPRISE SO FAR?
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders and DRIFTWOOD by Marie Brennan, I wasn’t expecting to love them as much as I did but, they both blew me away!