The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles from around the web.

Jacob Weisman, W. P. Kinsella (Photo: Pat Covello), Lavie Tidhar, and James Tiptree, Jr.

Jacob Weisman’s new anthology INVADERS: 22 TALES FROM THE OUTER LIMITS OF LITERATURE garnered a starred review from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

In this very fine reprint anthology, Weisman has brought together 22 SF stories by authors who, although not generally associated with the genre, are clearly fellow travelers (not the ominous invaders suggested by the title). Among the major names are Pulitzer Prize–winner Junot Díaz, George Sanders, Katherine Dunn, Jonathan Lethem, Amiri Baraka, W.P. Kinsella, Steven Millhauser, Robert Olen Butler, and Molly Gloss. 

In general, the stories tend toward satire and emphasize fine writing more than hitting genre beats—technology is usually a means to an end rather than the center of the story—but most of them could easily have found homes in SF magazines. This volume is a treasure trove of stories that draw equally from SF and literary fiction, and they are superlative in either context.

LOOKING FOR A GOOD BOOK was impressed by THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA.

Right from the start, Kinsella made me smile.  A turn of a phrase, the recognition of a trait in a character, the understanding of a look or a desire, the shared secret between a character and myself … Kinsella captures it all so well and I was constantly smiling through these stories, which seems an unusual reaction to a work of fiction, but felt good all the same!

I tried to keep track of my favorite stories but it soon became evident that this was both easy, because I enjoyed them all, and difficult – how do you pick favorites from 30+ stories when you enjoy them all?  “How I Got My Nickname” was one of the first stories that put a big smile on my face, and  “The Indian Nation Cultural Exchange Program” hit home with me as it seemed to capture a mood and culture so perfectly.

This is the sort of book that I want to put into the hands of everyone I know and tell them to read these stories.  They are about life and the people that make life worth living.

I think that this needs to be required reading in schools.  In Kinsella’s parlance, this book is a home-run.

Looking for a good book?  You’ve found it with the collection THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA.

Brad K. Horner can’t get enough of Lavie Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION.

You know you’ve got a winner when:

You keep saying to yourself, over and over and over, I hope this never ends, I hope this never ends.

Its full of Jewish-Robot religions, a wide assortment of post-mortality packages, Strigoi (data vampirism, damn I loved Carmel,) and a heavily advanced system of MMORPG’s that is tied very tightly to real-money systems, and can help you earn enough to book passage off-planet by way of captaining a starship in-game. How cool is all this? I can’t even begin click off all these hundreds of wonderful ideas, and so many of them get explored so deeply, too.

Yes, it’s a setting piece, but the characters are much more than just setting. The themes are also deep and introspective and Lavie Tidhar loves to explore everything deeply and interestingly. 

I just couldn’t get enough of this novel. 

<snip>

I could read this novel forever. I could keep reading its like from now to eternity. It’s just that good and it’s BRIGHT in my head.

Twelfth Planet Press’s amazing LETTERS TO TIPTREE has won the prestigious Aurealis Awards.

BEST CHILDREN’S
FICTION

A SINGLE STONE, Meg
McKinlay (Walker Books Australia)

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL /
ILLUSTRATED WORK

THE SINGING BONES,
Shaun Tan (Allen & Unwin)

BEST YOUNG ADULT
SHORT STORY

“The Miseducation
of Mara Lys”, Deborah Kalin (CHERRY CROW CHILDREN, Twelfth Planet
Press)

BEST HORROR SHORT
STORY

“Bullets”,
Joanne Anderton (IN SUNSHINE BRIGHT AND DARKNESS DEEP, AHWA)

BEST HORROR NOVELLA

“The Miseducation
of Mara Lys”, Deborah Kalin (CHERRY CROW CHILDREN, Twelfth Planet
Press)

BEST FANTASY SHORT
STORY

“The Giant’s
Lady”, Rowena Cory Daniells (LEGENDS 2, Newcon Press)

BEST FANTASY NOVELLA

“Defy the Grey
Kings”, Jason Fischer (BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES, Firkin Press)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION
SHORT STORY

“All the Wrong
Places”, Sean Williams (MEETING INFINITY, Solaris)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION
NOVELLA

“By Frogsled and
Lizardback to Outcast Venusian Lepers”, Garth Nix (OLD VENUS,
Random House)

BEST COLLECTION

TO HOLD THE BRIDGE,
Garth Nix (Allen & Unwin)

BEST ANTHOLOGY

BLOODLINES, Amanda
Pillar (ed.) (Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST YOUNG ADULT
NOVEL

IN THE SKIN OF A
MONSTER, Kathryn Barker (Allen & Unwin)

BEST HORROR NOVEL

DAY BOY, Trent
Jamieson (Text Publishing)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL

DAY BOY, Trent
Jamieson (Text Publishing)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION
NOVEL

ILLUMINAE, Amie
Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Allen & Unwin)

SARA DOUGLASS BOOK
SERIES AWARD

THE WATERGIVERS [THE
LAST STORMLORD (2009), STORMLORD RISING (2010), STORMLORD’S EXILE
(2011)], Glenda Larke (HarperVoyager)

THE CONVENORS’
AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

LETTERS TO TIPTREE,
Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)

Congratulations to all the honorees.

For more information about INVADERS: 22 TALES FROM THE OUTER LIMITS OF LITERATURE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Goro Fujita

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about THE ESSENTIAL W. P. KINSELLA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Thomas Canty

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about CENTRAL STATION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton