Nancy Kress’s acclaimed, Nebula nominated YESTERDAY’S KIN will be included in Prime’s inaugural THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY NOVELLAS.
(Not final cover)
For more info about THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY NOVELLAS 2015, visit the Prime Books page.
For more on YESTERDAY’S KIN, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover by Thomas Canty.
Sheila Williams, the Hugo Award-winning editor of ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION, delivers the first in a series of essays celebrating 20 years of Tachyon Publications.
I first met Jacob Weisman about twenty-nineyears ago, when he was a rail-thin college junior with jet-black
hair. Jacob showed up at Davis Publications in the spring of 1986 to
intern at ASIMOV’S.
I gave him some of the usual editorial-assistant type chores, like
filing and proofreading, but I also asked him for brief descriptions
of the purchased stories for the magazine’s art editor. A story’s
illustrator is expected to read the entire tale, but the editor would
use the intern’s synopsis to make sure the artist was on the right
track. Jacob was shy, but forthright. He enjoyed reading the material
but made candid and discerning comments about the stories. I quickly
realized that he was someone who truly loved science fiction and that
his tastes were not all that different from mine.
When Jacob founded Tachyon, I was delighted to
help him reach out to his favorite authors. I passed along a few
addresses and put in a good word with authors who had never heard of
Jacob. I knew that he had an abiding passion for their work and would
ensure that his company would do well for them. Jacob was the only
publisher I turned to when it came time to edit
ASIMOV’S
SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE 30TH
ANNIVERSARY ANTHOLOGY. Jacob had a few suggestions about authors whom
he wanted to see in the book, and all of them were on my own short
list. It was exhilarating to create the book with him and Jill [Roberts, Tachyon managing editor]. I
also had great fun assembling group author signings at the Tachyon
table to promote the anthology at conventions. Patient Jacob put up
with the raucous hilarity that develops when such authors as Michael
Swanwick, Nancy Kress, James Patrick Kelly, Connie Willis, and even
the ever-debonair Robert Silverberg are commandeered to sign books
together for an hour or two.
I won my first Hugo Award for Best Editor,
Short Form in 2011 at the World Con in Reno, Nevada. That evening was
one of the high points of my life, but it was also a little
lonely—unfortunately, the ceremony had conflicted with my oldest
daughter’s freshman move-in day at college. The next evening was
rescued by Jacob and his wife, Rina, who asked whether they could
take me to dinner to celebrate my achievement. That lovely meal also
ranks among my life’s happiest events.
A
friendship that has lasted nearly three decades contains many
wonderful moments of celebration. I’m very pleased that this time the
celebration is for twenty years of Jacob’s discerning vision at the
helm of Tachyon Publications.
For more info about ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION, visit their site.
For more info about ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE 30TH ANNIVERSARY ANTHOLOGY, visit the Tachyon site.
Cover by Michael Whelan.
Another pair of glowing reviews for THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA.
There is a lot of great short works in this book and I enjoyed reading it and enjoyed W.P’s writing style. I didn’t realize that W.P. had stopped writing for a while – he was struck by a car in 1997 and had brain damage and didn’t end up writing again until 2011!
If you like to read about sports I am sure that you will enjoy this book of works. And there’s some non-sports related stories in there too for everyone else.
Timothy Tocher at TOCHER TALES:
Only a Kinsella character, when asked by a woman, “What’s your sign?” would reply, “Hit-and-run.” Yet what surprised me about this collection is that fewer than half the stories are about baseball. My favorites, other than baseball, are those set on the reservation of an imaginary Canadian Indian tribe. The ingenious ways in which the native Canadians deal with misguided and self serving government efforts to"assist" them will make you laugh out loud. The author’s range is also shown in several stories with female narrators.
In Kinsella’s work, time is a fluid and malleable limitation. Apparently, this same flexibility applies to Kinsella’s own life. A cycling accident in 1997 resulted in a head injury that left him unable to write. Somehow, in 2011, he began working again. Two of the stories in this volume bear a 2015 copyright. Nearing his 80th birthday, Kinsella continues to remind us not to place too much faith in reality. Many thanks to Tachyon Publications for providing a review copy and several nights of enjoyable reading.
For more info about THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover art by Thomas Canty.
Cover design by Elizabeth Story.
At the Emerald City Comic Con, Dark Horse announced the new comic STEAM MAN, based on the Joe R. Lansdale story “The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel,” written by Mark Miller and art by Piotr Kowalski. The short story most recently appeared in Ann & Jeff VanderMeer’s groundbreaking anthology STEAMPUNK.
The Old West (but not as we know it): Giant robots that run on steam power are created to take down invading Martians and armies of killer albino apes in an all-out brawl. The Steam Man, a giant metal man operated by a team of monster hunters, seems to have the town protected and the West under control, until a crazed and powerful vampire comes to town to bring forth the apocalypse.
For more info about STEAMPUNK, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover by Ann Monn.
Image by Piotr Kowalski.
As any fan of Lovecraft knows, you can’t keep the Old Ones down. In that vein, here are a pair of glowing reviews for the award-winning Ellen Datlow’s anthology LOVECRAFT’S MONSTERS.
‘Lovecraft‘s Monsters’ is a big anthology and this much gloom is probably best taken in small doses, unless you‘re from Innsmouth. The very famous Neil Gaiman opens the billing but I’m heading up the review with ‘Remnants’, a short story by Fred Chappell. Fred Chappell! I mean no disrespect to the other great talents on display here but for me a Fred Chappell story is a thing of glory. He writes beautifully, perhaps even more beautifully than Peter S. Beagle. He is a poet and has a poet’s ear for language and the rhythm of a sentence. I was mad for his ‘Shadow’ stories in ‘The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science-Fiction’ and intrigued to know what he would do with Lovecraft’s monsters. He doesn’t disappoint.
Eamonn Murphy then reviews every story in the book.
My lasting impression of the LOVECRAFT’S MONSTERS is that Ellen Datlow once again has created a solid anthology that is a commendable contribution to the genre.
Reviewer Martin Andersson also discussed every story.
For more information on LOVECRAFT’S MONSTERS, visit the Tachyon site.
Cover by John Coulthart.
At BOOKS, BONES & BUFFY, Tammy Sparks interviews Daryl Gregory about the Nebula nominated WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE and its recently released prequel HARRISON SQUARED.
BB&B: Harrison Squared is a prequel to We Are All Completely Fine, describing Harrison’s teenage years and his misadventures in Dunnsmouth. Have you considered writing prequels for any of the any characters in We Are All Completely Fine?
DG: This is the first time prequels and sequels have been on the menu for me. Before these two books, none of my novels shared a universe. Hardly any of them even share a genre. I’ve written near-future hard SF, a literary zombie novel that talks more about how brains work than how they taste, a Southern Gothic murder mystery about Tennessee mutants… really, it’s no way to run a career. Thank goodness for the readers who are willing to follow me from book to book.
I never seriously considered sequels for those other novels, because when I finished I felt like I’d told the story I wanted to tell. The world of the story was bound up with the characters who lived there. When the characters’ stories were complete, that world closed down for me. (And often, the main characters were so changed by the end that they were unfit to tell the same kind of story again.)
But with these two books, the characters’ stories aren’t finished. I’ve got plenty more ideas. For example (here comes the plug) the free interactive story online,Harrison Squared Dies Early (http://darylgregory.com/harrison-squared/game), where you take on the role of Harrison on a monster hunt through Dunnsmouth Secondary. Think of those old choose-your-own-adventure books, but running in your browser. It has art by David Hinnergardt, and text and puzzles by me.
So what was your question? Oh, right! I haven’t mapped out prequels for the other characters in We Are All Completely Fine, but I have thought of sequels for them. Let’s see if I get around to writing them!
<snip>
I know we’re here to celebrate the release of Harrison Squared, but I have a burning question about We Are All Completely Fine. The point of view you used was a bit unusual. My guess is “first person omniscient,” but even then I feel like you gave that a twist. What made you decide to use this POV?
I’m happy to answer burning questions—and this one has heated up more than a few people. In We Are All Completely Fine, each chapter begins in first person plural: “We did this,” “We thought that.” Then the chapter focuses on the point of view of one member of the group.
So what’s this all about? In my mind, the protagonist of the book is not Harrison, or any one member of the group—the hero is the group itself. The story is about how a handful of individuals, including the therapist, become something larger and stronger than themselves. And as you may have picked up on, that “we” is not quite omniscient—it knows only what the group knows. One chapter even leads off with a question about that pronoun: who’s in this we, and who’s out? Is the group that started the book the same group at the end?
And near the end, the point of view starts shifting among multiple group members in one chapter, to show how the group is cohering, even though some members are no longer with the group. (It would be spoilers to tell your readers which ones, and how they leave.)
Read the rest of the interview at BOOKS, BONES & BUFFY.
BOOKS, BONES & BUFFY is also giving away three copies of HARRISON SQUARED. Visit the site for full details.
For information on WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover design by Elizabeth Story.
Cover for HARRISON SQUARED by Allen Williams.
For NATIONAL POST, Richard Warnica talks with W. P. Kinsella about his new collection THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA.
The 79-year-old author is just happy to have a new book out. His once prolific career — he averaged more than a book a year between 1977 and 1998 — has slowed in recent decades. He still writes, usually at a big oak table in his living room. And he has “at least four or five” books sitting with his agent. But he rarely publishes anymore; he believes the big players aren’t interested in his kind of work. “The midlist author,” he says, “is dead.”
If so, The Essential W.P. Kinsella (Tachyon, 432 pp, $22) exists as both anthology and time capsule. The 31 stories within were produced over more than 35 years and they reflect the sort of career Kinsella doesn’t think could exist today. He’s best known for his 1982 novel Shoeless Joe, which was adapted into the mega-hit movie Field of Dreams. But he spent most of his career cranking out moderately successful novels and short story collections.
<snip>
More than half the stories in the new book touch on baseball in one way or another, even though Kinsella himself doesn’t watch the game much anymore. He hasn’t in years. “I’m still mad about the baseball strike,” he says, referencing 1994’s season, when major league players walked off the field for 232 days, sinking that year’s World Series in the process. “I said I would never go to a game as long as any of the players who struck were still playing,” he says.
<snip>
The stories in the new collection, selected by editor Jacob Weisman, come from all phases of his career. Baseball and nostalgia feature heavily, as one might expect. There’s “Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa,” the short story he later expanded into Shoeless Joe and “K-Mart,” a moodier piece from 1985 that uses baseball as a device to talk about adolescence, regret and even death.
<snip>
There are also several stories in the collection from his popular — and controversial — Hobbema series. Set on a fictionalized version of the Alberta reserve, the Hobbema stories, which are mostly comedic, have been criticized for appropriating First Nations voices. They have even been called racist. Read today they are, at the very least, jarring. Kinsella, for his part, describes the attempts to brand them insensitive-or-worse “idiotic.”
“They are funny and they are true,” he says. “They portray the native people in a great light and they show their sense of humour. That is how oppressed people survive.”
Some of the better, more surprising stories in the collection are the newer ones. Works like the never-before-published “Do Not Abandon Me” and “Out of the Picture” deal frankly with aging, sex and the passage of time.
“The Last Surviving Member of the Japanese Victory Society,” originally published in 2013, is a sweet piece about late-life love and loss. It is the also the last story Kinsella read to his wife, Barbara, before she died in 2012. “I always read everything aloud [to her],” he says. “She is the best editor I ever worked with.”
Read the rest of the interview at NATIONAL POST.
For more info about THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover art by Thomas Canty.
Cover design by Elizabeth Story.
Nancy Kress’s acclaimed, Nebula nominated YESTERDAY’S KIN is a Kindle Daily Deal for Monday, March 30.
“Science-fiction fans will luxuriate in the dystopian madness, while even nonfans will find an artful critique of humanity’s ability to
cooperate in the face of a greater threat.”—Kirkus
Aliens have landed in New York.
A deadly cloud of spores has already infected and killed the
inhabitants of two worlds. Now that plague is heading for Earth, and
threatens humans and aliens alike. Can either species be trusted to
find the cure?
“Nancy Kress has always written stories as accessible to the novice as to the seasoned fan, and “Yesterday’s Kin” gets my vote as this summer’s
most inviting introduction to science fiction for new readers.”
—Gary K. Wolfe, Chicago Tribune
Geneticist Marianne Jenner is immersed in the desperate race to save humanity, yet her family is tearing itself apart. Siblings Elizabeth and
Ryan are strident isolationists who agree only that an alien conspiracy
is in play. Marianne’s youngest, Noah, is a loner addicted to a drug
that constantly changes his identity. But between the four Jenners, the
course of human history will be forever altered.
Earth’s most elite scientists have ten months to prevent human extinction—and not everyone is willing to wait.
“Nancy Kress delivers one of the strongest stories of the year to date…. As with all of Kress’s work, this is very nicely crafted, with
well-paced prose that carries you through the story, complex human
characters, a compelling and conflict-driven human story, a clever twist
partway through, and an even cleverer twist at the end.”
—Gardner Dozois, editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction series
“Aliens arrive and set up a research station in New York, offering their friendship and aid. There’s a cloud of spores heading for Earth, and
the aliens (dubbed Denebs despite coming from another star entirely)
have firsthand experience dealing with it. In exchange for the
technology that made their interstellar travel possible, the aliens want
human help in curing the plague caused by the spores that have already
destroyed two of their own colony worlds. Geneticist Marianne Jenner is
one of the scientists who have been asked aboard the alien station, but
even among her own family there is a difference of opinion about whether
these extraterrestrials can be trusted. Verdict: Kress has proven that
she can pack a huge amount of story into a small container (as with
2013’s title After the Fall Before the Fall, During the Fall), and here the author expertly explores one family’s experience of alien visitation.”
—Library Journal
“Yesterday’s Kin is a fabulous look at first contact through the eyes of a family. Like all of Nancy’s work, the characterization
and the science is impeccable, and the story so well done that I was sad
when it was over. Nancy delivers a complete package, and shows her
chops as one of our best modern science fiction writers.”
—Brenda Cooper, award-winning author of the Ruby’s Song series
“Sparely constructed and cleverly resolved, “Yesterday’s Kin”
provides everything readers need for an immersive plunge into a
frightening, fascinating and inescapable predicament.”
—Seattle Times
“ clear prose and deft strokes of character”
—Locus
“Kress combines intriguing scientific speculation with strong human
drama to create a finely crafted story that should appeal to a wide
range of readers”
—Asimov’s Science Fiction
A Fantasy Cafe Best Book of 2014
“Yesterday’s Kin is a wonderful example of why Nancy Kress is
such an acclaimed science fiction author. It’s hard science fiction with
a big focus on scientific research and discovery but it’s never bogged
down by explanation, remaining equally focused on the characters and
story. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down!”
—Fantasy Cafe
“In short, Yesterday’s Kin was a joy to read. Not only was
the prose easily digested, but the scientific speculation and facts
behind the story really helped in raising enjoyment. A thoroughly
recommended novel.”
—SFF World
“Yesterday’s Kin is a beautiful blend of science and drama.”
—Bibliophilic
“… fascinating, intelligent and intuitive… . Yesterday’s Kin is highly recommended.
—Nerds in Babeland
“…well worth the read…”
—Internet Book Review
“It’s not a horror story, or a western, or a war story dressed in space
clothes, but proper full-blooded science fiction, and I loved it. I get
the feeling that I will be reading many more books by Nancy Kress.”—Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction
For more on YESTERDAY’S KIN, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover by Thomas Canty.
At the SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY BOOK CORNER, Daniel praises Alastair Reynolds’ SLOW BULLETS.
The characters are very well done, and fully complex. The cast that is detailed is limited, but this is to be expected with the word count of this novella. We are also introduced to the characters by watching their actions, not be being told about them. This is very important in a streamlined story such as this. The characters act in believable ways, and the times we are surprised by them, it is never ‘out of character.’
In summary, this is a very nice piece of scifi fiction, sure to please fans of hard scifi and space opera. The writing is tight, the characters are well developed, and the story itself moves along at a cracking pace. The challenges that are met by the cast of characters are interesting, and how they adapt to them is inventive and believable. The social critique aspects of the story thought provoking and dealt with within the framework of the story.
Read the rest of Daniel’s review at SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY BOOK CORNER.
For more about SLOW BULLETS, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover art by Thomas Canty.
Design by Elizabeth Story.
Kage Baker’s acclaimed story for young readers THE HOTEL UNDER THE SAND is a Kindle Daily Deal for Friday, March 27.
2010 Andre Norton and Mythopoeic Award nominee
2010 Locus Award runner-up
“Wow! I read The Hotel Under the Sand with delight and joy. It’s wonderful, wacky and spooky, and serious and FUN. It also strikes
me as utterly original (which is quite rare). In fact—although this is
something one should always say with some caution—it wouldn’t surprise
me if it turned out to be a classic and went on down the ages along with
Alice and Oz and the very few others that have become immortal.”
—Diana Wynne Jones, author of Howl’s Moving Castle
Nine-year-old Emma is lost at sea in a terrible storm. She awakens on
a desolate island, frightened and lonely. Yet brave, quick-witted Emma
will not be alone for long, as the ghost of a bellboy appears with the
tragic tale of the Grand Wenlocke.
“It’s exciting to come upon a book that serves not only as a great story to share with your kids, but one that has some undeniably
unusual—and geeky—features.”
—Wired.com
More than a century ago, a brilliant inventor built a splendid
Victorian resort, the Grand Wenlocke. The hotel was powered by a
Difference Engine, a miraculous device that could slow down time (making
your vacation just as long as you’d like). But just before it was
scheduled to open, the Grand Wenlocke mysteriously sank under the sand.
Now the storm that brought Emma to the island has awakened the hotel,
perfectly preserved and as incredible as ever.
“…charming…Baker’s first book for younger readers is a delight.”
—Denver Post
While exploring the magical hotel, Emma encounters a kind-hearted
cook and her faithful little dog, a seemingly fearsome pirate captain,
and the imperious young heir to the Wenlocke fortune (should it ever be
recovered). Adventure, friendship, peril, and perhaps even treasure—all
these and more await Emma at the hotel under the sand.
“Kage Baker’s The Hotel Under the Sand will grab you on page
one and never let you go until you finish reading and beg for more.
Young Emma is exactly the kind of little girl I wish I’d had for a
sister and would love to have for a daughter. She’s smart, brave, and
good. Her adventures are wonderful, her companions are amazing, and The Hotel Under the Sand will send you back to the bookshop to search for every Kage Baker book you can find.”
—Richard A. Lupoff, author of Marblehead
“I read it all in one sitting, enjoying the characters and the
well-crafted plot very much, and want to read it soon to my
granddaughters. Kage Baker used the fantasy structure with a light
touch, reassuring but exciting, and the Wenlocke itself is a wonderful
creation. Baker writes well without writing down to her young audience;
in fact, she invites them to stretch and reach.”
—Cecilia Holland, author of Until the Sun Falls
“…skillfully written….”
—Publishers Weekly
“Kage Baker is already well-known among adult readers for her science-fiction series The Company, but her new children’s book The Hotel Under the Sand is bound to win her plenty of new readers among the younger set.”
—Omivoracious.com
“Refreshingly original…. Although Baker is an established author of
science fiction and fantasy for adults, this novel is written so
naturally that it is difficult to believe it is her debut for younger
readers.”
—VOYA Library Journal
“There are few books that I immediately want to press into the hands
of other readers the instant I turn the last page. My copy of Hotel will be one that I hand to my daughter in a few years. First, however, I’m going to force it on everybody I know.”
—Locus
“…a strangely delightful story.”
—Charlotte’s Library
“The Hotel Under the Sand is the kind of book that you resolve to send to your nieces and nephews even before you have finished the first page.”
—Reading the Leaves
“I just wanted more!”
—Fantasy Book Critic
For more on THE HOTEL UNDER THE SAND, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover by Ann Monn
