Happy birthday to the magnificent grandmaster Nalo Hopkinson
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, the acclaimed Nalo Hopkinson spent her childhood in Trinidad and Guyana before her family moved to Toronto when she was sixteen. Her groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy, noted for diverse characters and the mixture of folklore, include the novels Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000), The Salt Roads (2003), The New Moon’s Arms (2007), The Chaos (2012), and Sister Mine (2013). Hopkinson’s shorter workers has been collected in Skin Folk (2001), Report from Planet Midnight (2012), and FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS (2015). She wrote 22 issues of House of Whispers, a comic book series set in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Universe. The series was collected in The House of Whispers Vol. 1: Power Divided (2019), The House of Whispers Vol. 2: Ananse (2020), and House of Whispers Vol. 3: Watching the Watchers (2020).
As an editor, Hopkinson has worked on many publications including Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction (2000), Mojo: Conjure Stories (2003), So Long Been Dreaming (with Uppinder Mehan; 2004), Tesseracts 9 (with Geoff Ryman; 2005), People of Colo(U)R Destroy Science Fiction! (with Kristine Ong Muslim; 2016), and Particulates (2018).
Beginning with her first novel Brown Girl in the Ring winning the Warner Aspect First Novel contest, Hopkinson has garnered numerous awards. Brown Girl also won a 1999 Locus Award and that same year, the author herself won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her second novel Midnight Robber was a 2000 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Skin Folk won the 2003 World Fantasy and Sunburst Awards as well as 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award (for GLBTQ themes in science fiction and fantasy). The New Moon’s Arms received the 2008 Sunburst and Prix Aurora Awards. Hopkinson’s superior editing skills were acknowledged with the 2006 Prix Aurora Award for Tesseracts 9 and a British Fantasy Award for People of Colo(U)R Destroy Science Fiction! Her short story “Broad Duffy Water” (2021) won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. In 2016, she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Anglia Ruskin University. In 2021, she became the youngest recipent of the SFWA Damon Knight Grand Master. Conversations with Nalo Hopkinson (2023) collects 21 interviews, from 1999-2021, with the fascinating and unique author.
Design by Elizabeth Story
The movie Brown Girl Begins, directed and written by Sharon Lewis, serves as a prequel to Brown Girl in the Ring. The acclaimed film garnered several awards including IndieFEST Film Award and Houston Black Film Festival Prize.
All of us at Tachyon wish the extraordinary Nalo Hopkinson a happy birthday. May those incredible and insightful folktales keep flowing!
Happy birthday to the award-winning Brandon Sanderson
Best known for his Cosmere sequence of interconnected series, Brandon Sanderson’s first publication was Elantris (2005) which was followed in 2006 by Mistborn: The Final Empire, the first volume of the popular Mistborn Trilogy. Robert Jordan’s widow Harriet McDougal Rigney chose Sanderson to complete the epic Wheel of Time series. The final volume was published as three separated books: The Gathering Storm (2009), Towers Of Midnight (2010 Goodreads Choice Award winner), and A Memory of Light (2013).
Other aspects of the Cosmere include Wax and Wayne (The Alloy of Law [2011], Shadows Of Self [2015 Neffy Award winner], The Bands of Mourning [2016], The Lost Metal [2022]),The Stormlight Archive (The Way of Kings [2010 Gemmel Award winner; The Way of Kings Prime: The 2002 Alternate Version (2020)], Words of Radiance [2014 Gemmel Award winner],Oathbringer [2017 Dragon Award winner], Dawnshard [2020], Rhythm of War [2020]), Warbreaker (2009), and the graphic novels White Sand (with Rik Hoskin and art by Julius Gopez Volume One [2016 Dragon Award winner], Two [2018], Three [2019]). Many of Sanderson’s numerous short Cosmere works including the Hugo Award-winning THE EMPEROR’S SOUL (2012), were collected in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection (2016).
Design by Elizabeth Story
The prolific Sanderson’s other works include the middle-grade Alcatraz Smerdy adventures (Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians [2007], Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener’s Bones [2008], Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia [2009], Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens [2010], The Dark Talent [2016], Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians [2022] with Janci Patterson), the young adult Series Reckoners (Steelheart [2013], Mitosis [2013], Firefight [2015], Calamity [2016]), and the YA Skyward series (Skyward [2018], Starsight [2019], Cytonic [2021], Sunreach [2021 with Janci Patterson], ReDawn [2021 with Patterson], Evershore [2021 with Patterson], Defiant [2023]).
Among his other works are the standalone The Rithmatist (2013), a Magic the Gathering novel Children of the Nameless (2018), the two volume videogame tie-in Infinity Blade series (Infinity Blade: Awakening [2011] and Infinity Blade: Redemption [2013]), Dark One (Dark One, Vol. One [2021 graphic novel with Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing; art by Nathan C. Gooden], Forgotten [2023 audio original with Dan Wells]) and the audio novella The Original (2020 with Mary Robinette Kowal). Sanderson, alongside Dan Wells and Robison Wells, edited the anthology Altered Perceptions (2014).
In 2022, he crowdfunded an extraordinary $42.7 million for four secret novels to be published quarterly through 2023. The four novels were Tress of the Emerald Sea, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and The Sunlit Man. He amazingly finds time to participate in the Hugo award-winning podcast Writing Excuses.
All of us at Tachyon wish the amazing Brandon a magical birthday.
Win a copy of THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD: SPECIAL 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION by Patricia A. McKillip with new intro by Marjorie Liu and original illustrations by Stephanie Law
With the help of the fine folks at The StoryGraph, we’re giving away THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD: SPECIAL 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, Patricia A. McKillip’s classic World Fantasy Award novel with a new introduction by Hugo Award Winner Marjorie Liu and original art by the acclaimed Stephanie Law.
Before Daenerys was Mother of Dragons, Sybel commanded beasts of all kinds. McKillip offers up a powerful character full of passion, determination, obsession, and love.
A. C. Wise, author of The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories
Design by Elizabeth Story
This is my favorite book of all time. If I had to pick a desert island book, it would be this one.
Gail Carriger, New York Times bestselling author of the Parasol Protectorate
WORLD FANTASY AWARD WINNER
SPECIAL 50TH ANNIVERSARY HARDCOVER EDITION
Fifty years ago, the soon-to-be celebrated young author Patricia A. McKillip (the Riddle-Master trilogy) penned the tale of an iron-willed young sorceress. Brought vividly to life by McKillip’s gorgeously lush prose, Sybel, living with her captivating menagerie, is powerful and resourceful, yet headstrong and flawed. Sybel and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld continue to enrapture new generations of readers, and they continue to inspire generations of new fantasy writers.
This is what great literature looks like: bold, self-incisive, powerfully feminist without drawing attention to anything but the prose, the characters, and the story.
Usman T. Malik, author of The Pauper Prince and The Eucalyptus Jinn
Sybel, the heiress of powerful wizards, needs the company of no-one outside her gates. In her exquisite stone mansion, she is attended by exotic, magical beasts: Riddle-master Cyrin the boar; the treasure-starved dragon Gyld; Gules the Lyon, tawny master of the Southern Deserts; Ter, the fiercely vengeful falcon; Moriah, feline Lady of the Night. Sybel only lacks the exquisite and mysterious Liralen, which continues to elude her most powerful enchantments.
But when a soldier bearing an infant arrives, Sybel discovers that the world of man and magic is full of both love and deceit, and the possibility of more power than she can possibly imagine.
Happy birthday to the iconic grandmaster Michael Moorcock
Not only did the singular Michael Moorcock create numerous legendary characters such as the definitive fantasy anti-hero Elric, the proto-cyberpunk Jerry Cornelius, and arguably the first modern steampunk protagonist Oswald Bastable, but he pioneered the concepts of the multiverse and as the editor of New Worlds, ushered in the New Wave literary movement.
His over 100 novels include notable works such as Stormbringer (1965), The Final Programme (1968), Behold the Man (1969), The Warlord of the Air (1971), Gloriana, or the Unfulfill’d Queen (1978), The War Hound and the World’s Pain (1981), Mother London (1988), and Colonel Pyat sequence (Byzantium Endures [1981], The Laughter of Carthage [1984], Jerusalem Commands [1992], and The Vengeance of Rome [2006]). Recent works include The Sanctuary of the White Friars (The Whispering Swarm [2015], The Woods of Arcady [2023]), Kaboul (2018; French), which completed the My Experiences in the Third World War sequence, a new Elric novel The Citadel of Forgotten Dreams (2022), and Caribbean Crisis & Voodoo Island (2023 with Mark Hodder).
Befitting the seminal nature of his career, Moorcock has been awarded the 1993 British Fantasy Award (Committee Award), 2000 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, 2004 Prix Utopiales “Grandmaster” Lifetime Achievement Award, 2004 Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in the horror genre, 2008 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award and First Fandom Hall of Award (2023). In 2008, The Times named Moorcock in its list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”. Among the numerous accolades for his individual works include the 1967 Nebula Award (Behold the Man), four BFA August Derleth Fantasy Awards (The Knight of the Swords [1972], The King of the Swords [1973], The Sword and the Stallion [1975], and The Hollow Lands [1976]), 1974 British Fantasy Award (Best Short Story, “The Jade Man’s Eyes”), 1977 Guardian Fiction Award (The Condition of Muzak), 1979 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Gloriana), and 1979 World Fantasy Award (Gloriana).
His shorter works have been collected in several volumes including The Deep Fix (1966), The Time Dweller (1969), Moorcock’s Book of Martyrs (1976), The Opium General (1984), Earl Aubec (1993), Lunching with the Antichrist (1995), Tales from the Texas Woods (1997), London Bone (2001), THE BEST OF MICHAEL MOORCOCK (2009), Into the Media Web: Selected Short Non-Fiction, 1956-2006 (2010), and London Peculiar and Other Nonfiction (2012). Among his many edited anthologies are Best SF Stories From New Worlds (1-8; 1968-74), The Traps of Time (1968), Before Armageddon (1975), England Invaded (1977), and The New Nature of the Catastrophe (1993 with Langdon Jones). His work has been adapted into numerous comics and the film The Final Programme (1973) was based on the novel of the same name.
The polymath Moorcock impressive output has also included work in comics, music, film, and criticism. As if all this wasn’t enough, he created the Symbol of Chaos and is the maintainer of The Jack Trevor Story Memorial Cup, whose previous winners include Howard Waldrop, Steve Aylett, and Peter S. Beagle.
All of us at Tachyon wish the extraordinary Michael, a happy birthday. May the winds of limbo continue to roar!
Happy birthday to the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Kelley Armstrong
Canadian Kelley Armstrong’s first novel Bitten, the initial book of Women Of The Otherworld, was published in 2001. The immensely popular series last novel was Thirteen (2012), though it continued with short fiction and novellas, finally culminating with the novella Driven (2016). The seventh book No Humans Involved (2007) was Armstrong’s first New York Times best-seller. For three seasons from 2014 to 2016, the Canadian channel Space adapted Bitten into a popular television series.
In 2007, Armstrong began her second series, Nadia Stafford, with Exit Strategy. 2008’s The Summoning started The Darkest Powers trilogy. The second volume of the series The Awakening (2009) achieved a number one status on the New York Times best-seller list. She followed that series in 2011 with the sequel trilogy The Darkness Rising. The third book in that series The Rising (2013) won the prestigious Prix Aurora Award.
Armstrong started the Cainsville series in 2013, which is comprised of five novels (Omens [2013], Visions [2014], Deceptions [2015], Betrayals [2016], Rituals [2017]) and the young adult The Age Of Legends with Sea Of Shadows (2014), Empire Of Night (2015), and Forest Of Ruin (2016). Other series include Otherworld: Kate and Logan (Wolf’s Bane [2019], Wolf’s Curse [2020]) and the middle-grade fantasy series Blackwell Pages Trilogy (as K. L. Armstrong co-authored with Melissa Marr; Loki’s Wolves [2013], Odin’s Ravens [2014], Thor’s Serpents [2015]).
Current series include A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying (A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying [2019], The Gryphon’s Lair [2020], The Serpent’s Fury [2021], The Final Trial [2022]), A Stitch in Time (A Stitch in Time [2020], A Twist of Fate [2021], A Turn of the Tide ]2022], A Castle in the Air [2023]), Cursed Luck (Cursed Luck [2021], High Jinx [2021]), Rockton (City of the Lost [2017], A Darkness Absolute [2017], This Fallen Prey [2018], Watcher in the Woods [2019], Alone in the Wild [2020]), and A Rip Through Time (A Rip Through Time [2022], The Poisoner’s Ring [2023], Cocktails & Chloroform [2023]). Her standalone novels include The Masked Truth (2016), Missing (2017), Aftermath (2018), Indigo (2017 with Christopher Golden, Charlaine Harris, Tim Lebbon, Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, James A. Moore, Mark Morris, Cherie Priest, and Kat Richardson), Wherever She Goes (2019), Every Step She Takes (2020), and Hemlock Island (2023).
Her short stories have been collected in several books including Men of the Otherworld (2010), Tales of the Otherworld (2012), Otherworld Nights (2014), Darkest Powers Tales (2015), LED ASTRAY: THE BEST OF KELLEY ARMSTRONG (2015), Otherworld Chills (2016), The Complete Darkest Powers Tales (2017), Portents (2018), and Dreaming Darkness: Volumes 1-3 (2020, 2021, 2022). Alongside Melissa Marr, Armstrong edited the anthologies Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (2011) and Shards & Ashes (2013).
All of us at Tachyon, wish the extraordinary Kelley a happy birthday! Beware the creatures of the night. They bite!
Tachyon tidbits featuring Mia Tsai, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Sam J. Miller, Nalo Hopkinson, Elly Bangs, Izzy Wasserstein, and Terry Bisson
The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web
Photo by Rebekah Chavez Wynne
Photo by Kalyaní-Aindrí Sánchez
Photo by David Findlay
Photo by Huascar Medina
Photo by Rosalie Winard
Via their Tumblr, Powell’s shared a romantasy display featuring Mia Tsai’s BITTER MEDICINE.
BITTER MEDICINE by Mia Tsai
“The magic system had me mesmerized in how it blends cultures. Inspired by Chinese drama, the romance & action were addictive”
James Davis Nicoll for Tor.com includes Nicole Kornher-Stace’s FLIGHT & ANCHOR in Five Must-Read SF Books Published in 2023.
This novella is a prequel to Kornher-Stace’s 2021’s Firebreak. In the spirit of “the dog doesn’t die,” since older versions of 06 and 22 appear in Firebreak and other works, it is unlikely either will die in this prequel. It seems odd that I would encounter two 2023 SF novels about workers being brutally exploited by ruthless corporations. What possible reason could there be for SF authors to focus on this subject in particular at this specific moment in time? This must be just one of those odd coincidences one sees from time to time in SF…
Clarion Workshop announced that Sam J. Miller and Nalo Hopkinson will be teaching in 2024.
Cover art by Chuma Hill
Design by Elizabeth Story
Design by Elizabeth Story
For Before We Go Blog in a round table interview, conducted by Dani Finn and with Ela Bambust, May Peterson, Vyria Durav, Abigail Trusity, and Devi Lacroix, Charlie Jane Anders answered the query “I don’t see as much transfeminine representation in books as I would like, but I hope we are approaching a turning point. Please drop any recommendations you might have, whether SFF or not–and do go on at as much length as you like!” by citing Elly Bangs‘ debut novel UNITY and Izzy Wasserstein’s debut collection All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From.
Umm… I just read Atoms Never Touch by micha cárdenas, which I highly recommend. Also recently: OK Psyche by Anya Johanna DeNiro, All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From by Izzy Wasserstein, UNITY by Elly Bangs, and Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, off the top of my head. I also urge everyone to hunt down books by April Daniels, Roz Kaveney, and Rachel Pollack. Oh, and here’s a list I did a while back in my newsletter.
The New Yorker‘s Margret Grebowicz shares a profile of Terry Bisson.
Sometime in 1989, Terry Bisson was driving his daughter to college in upstate New York when an idea for a short story came to him. Glancing toward the highway median, he had a vision: animals sitting together, in their own world, talking to one other. The vision became a title: “Bears Discover Fire.”
The perfect mix of world building and action, Tobias S. Buckell’s provocative A STRANGER IN THE CITADEL is a 2023 favorite
World Fantasy Award winner Tobias S. Buckell’s well-told and compassionate A STRANGER IN THE CITADEL is among Newsweek Staffers’ Favorite Books of 2023 for Everyone on Your Gift List (as selected by Josh Smith, Director of Rankings). The book received favorable notices from both Gary K. Wolfe for Locus and the Bocas Book Bulletin in the Trinidad Daily Express.
Set in a dystopian future where books are not just banned but burned on sight, this thrilling tale feels of-the-moment. An outlaw librarian lands at the gates of a far-flung city, kicking into motion a journey of discovery for young royal Lilith as she discovers the truth of her world, literacy and herself—while evading a killer mechanical angel and her former guards. It’s the perfect mix of world building, action, layered reveals and suspenseful secrets.
Newsweek
A STRANGER IN THE CITADEL thus emerges as a well-told and at times provocative addition to the long SF tradition of tales of postrationalist dystopias who blame scientists and intellectuals for their plight.
Locus
A STRANGER IN THE CITADEL (Tachyon Publications) by Grenada-raised Tobias Buckell presents a compassionate allegory for humanity’s peaceful coexistence and survival, through the lens of speculative fiction. Focusing on the thorny relationship between a warrioress who has never seen a book, and a fugitive librarian fleeing dangerous reprisals, A STRANGER IN THE CITADEL is awash with political intrigue, often highlighting the fundamental breakdown between official pronouncements and the lives of the working-class people that superpowers are meant to serve.
Trinidad Daily Express
Inventive, thought-provoking, and audacious, Lavie Tidhar’s THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE WORLD is one of the best books of the year
The World Fantasy, Campbell, Xingyun, and Neukom Award winning-author Lavie Tidhar’s new science fiction novel THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE WORLD ranks among the best books of 2023 according to Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, and New Scientist. Amber Troska for Ancillary Review of Books and Raf Blutaxt on YouTube both praise the novel.
This mind-bending metafictional tale from World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar imagines a lost pulp masterpiece that may or may not hold the secrets of the universe and sends an eclectic cast on a whirlwind quest to track the book down. It’s both a love letter to the genre and a wildly entertaining romp.
Publishers Weekly
Inventive, thought-provoking, audacious and, as ever with Tidhar, superbly readable, this is where his genius lies.
The Guardian
Despite the focus on grand existential mysteries and its metatextual elements, THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE WORLD is, overall, an inviting and propulsive read and its characters keep you invested in the core mysteries of the story, even without much of a plot in the traditional sense. I feel this rather simplistic observation is worth noting because this tendency for the novel to propel the reader forward can be a little misleading—it is a book that rewards slow, thoughtful consideration.
Ancillary Review of Books
Nick Bantock’s whimsical THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH recaptures the idiosyncratic charm of Griffin & Sabine
The perfect stocking stuffer, international best-selling Nick Bantock’s THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH continues to wow readers and critics alike with reviews from Karen Haber in Locus, Mala Rai for The Miramichi Reader, Pamela Scott at The Book Lover’s Boudoir, and John Coulthart on his feuilleton journal. For Nuvo, Rebecca Peng includes the title among A Gift Guide for the Book Lover.
Design by Brian DeVoot and Elizabeth Story
Tachyon has done a lovely job – nice paper, nice cover – on this whimsical volume, printed with full color illustrations. A November book, it would make a nice stocking stuffer for fans of Bantock’s work.
Locus
Each story survives well on its own, whether a mystery, romance, sci-fi or more. A taste of the macabre is served fresh in “Halloween” as experienced by a curmudgeonly senior. The accompanying art is fitting; you can will it to be so as the smile on the object’s face begins to look sinister. In “A Fool’s Kiss”, unrequited love finds resolution, at a cost. Another favourite is the lead up to murder in “Double-Crossed”. There is the sense that there could be more to each, but they appear perfect on the page, much like watching a festival of short films.
The Miramichi Reader
I liked the range of stories on offer and how no two pieces were the same. I like the stories that verge on the fantastic featuring all manner of fantastical creatures, myths and monsters and I liked the stories more seeped in reality. This book is an excellent example of just how powerful so few words can be.
The Book Lover’s Boudoir
Each of Bantock’s illustrations is printed in colour, which I think is a first for the publisher. Given the time of year, THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH is an ideal gift for any visitors to Calvino’s invisible cities.
feuilleton
Bantock’s illustrated, epistolary novel Griffin and Sabine was an international sensation. His latest book, THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH, recaptures all of its idiosyncratic charm. The book comprises 100 stories, each 100 words itself, and the cryptic invitation for the reader to add one of their own to the collection. Complete with whimsical illustrations, THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH is a unique and magical curio to get lost in.
Nuvo