brit mandelo

July 25, 2018

The grimdark version of a comfort read, Kameron Hurley’s APOCALYPSE NYX is a welcome return to the adventures of the author’s iconic hard-fisted anti-heroine

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized 10 bad habits, apocalypse nyx, bel dame apocrypha, brit mandelo, elizabeth story, kameron hurley, lilianny araujo, nerds of a feather flock together, nisi shawl, review, spanish, spoiler fans, the seattle review of books, tor.com, wadim kashin

More excitement surrounds Kameron Hurley’s APOCALYPSE NYX.

NERDS OF A FEATHER, FLOCK TOGETHER praises the book.

I was worried that some of the politics and technology of Nyx’s world might have escaped me in the years since I read Rapture, but I needn’t have been. Hurley is brilliant at developing worlds that makes little sense on the surface (how are all those bugs powering their cars?) but where the internal logic and the matter-of-fact acceptance from the characters makes it easy to just take everything as it comes. The plots are sufficiently twisty, though not immensely complex or original – but, again, that’s not really the point. Whether you’re coming to Nyx for the first time, or after reading one or more of the novels, what APOCALYPSE NYX offers is the grimdark version of a comfort read: action, well-placed aggression and bizarrely satisfying emotional frustration that will have you reading through your fingers.

Nisi Shawl for THE SEATTLE REVIEW OF BOOKS enjoys the return of Nyx.

Pulled together from novellas published primarily on her Patreon fundraising site, Kameron Hurley’s APOCALYPSE NYX (Tachyon)is a welcome return to the adventures of the author’s iconic hard-fisted anti-heroine.

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These five glimpses into her passage from an explosives expert fresh off a centuries-old battlefront to a bounty hunter in war-ravaged cities and villages show her being both tender and tough, both reckless and cynical. My favorite story’s the final one, in which Nyx notes how ridiculous it is for a killer like herself to have a panging conscience — but declines a ride home out of the desert from colleagues who set fire to a house full of children anyway.

At the Spanish-language site SPOILER FANS, Lilianny Araujo recommends APOCALYPSE NYX.

Each story is like a wild ride through a minefield in an old truck. They are narrowly drawn, implacably violent, and without apology are light in the exhibition. The reader is pushed into chaos from the beginning, which is both challenging and brutally convincing. I admit that I did not know what was happening at the beginning. Is this real? but in the middle of the second story, Nyx had me holding on to the balls. I got into this so much that I immediately went back to reading the first two stories and was as happy as I think most fans of Grimdark’s fiction will be to read this.

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I usually talk about issues in the reviews because I think they contribute to what the reader gets from a book. Forget that. Let APOCALYPSE NYX surprise you with its deep representation of a person in constant intellectual and moral crisis, and do not worry about what it means. You will be immersed in love, lust, hatred, revenge, desire, and you will question the value of human life. You will empathize with Nyx for his faults but you will be horrified by his lack of human consciousness. It is a heady mix and very entertaining.

Is it dark night? You can bet your ass yes. Try not to support Nyx while getting rid of innocents who get in the way of the next reward. That’s impossible. And the question of gray morale itself makes a couple of discrete appearances in the stories and in the delicious jokes among your monster crew. If you are reading this review, then obviously you appreciate grimdark. Grab this good introduction to life and the world of Nyx. You will not regret. Highly recommended

(Translation from Spanish, courtesy of Google.)

On TOR.COM, Brit Mandelo appreciates the collection.

It’s a pleasure-read, a set of stories that push the same buttons, but those happen to be buttons I can appreciate. APOCALYPSE NYX isn’t the place to start for a reader unfamiliar with Hurley’s work. For that I’d recommend a more recent novel such as The Stars are Legion (reviewed here as well). However, for a reader who’s interested in seeing a bit of Nyx before the series—Nyx the total fucking disaster of a person, Nyx the monster, Nyx who can’t connect and can’t communicate and lives on the fine line between a death-wish and a death-drive—this collection will scratch the itch.

10 BAD HABITS includes the title among Favorite Reads June 2018.

I am a huge fan of Hurley’s Bel Dame series and this book is a collection of short stories that serve as something of a tangential prequel to that series. Former Bel Dame, turned mercenary Nyx is still a battered and rebuilt veteran of the ongoing brutal war on her world, and here she’s putting together the team she’ll have around her in God’s War. If there’s something of a through line to the book’s stories, it’s Nyx’s struggle to be slightly less awful than the default awfulness of her surroundings. She might not have a completely functioning moral compass, but it works from time to time. Violent bug-fueled science-fantasy is my jam.

For more info on APOCALYPSE NYX, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Wadim Kashin

Design by Elizabeth Story

August 24, 2017

The recommended NEW VOICES OF FANTASY is absorbing

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized brit mandelo, elizabeth lefebvre, finding wonderland, jacob weisman, peter s beagle, review, sarah stevenson, strange and random happenstance, tanita s davis, the new voices of fantasy, tor.com

Brit Mandelo for TOR.COM praises Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman’s THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY.

The editors have done a solid job of collecting a range of a specific type of fantastic story that has grown popular in recent years. Though each of these pieces differs, sometimes significantly, from the others, the collection as a whole is remarkably cohesive in terms of affect and intention. I’d recommend it for anyone who has an appreciation for the literary fantastic or stories about families, and especially both.

Peter S. Beagle (photo: Rina Weisman) and Jacob Weisman

At FINDING WONDERLAND, Tanita S. Davis and Sarah Stevenson, in tandem, enjoy the anthology.

tanita: Oh, yes! My main interest in choosing this anthology is that it is aimed at “new voices;” the overarching meaning, in this particular, is not solely stories I haven’t yet read from “new” to the field authors, but additionally, nonwhite voices in fantasy, which brings that new vibe to the entire genre. Usman T. Malik allowed us to glimpse both old Lahore, new, busy Lahore, and the mental and physical and spiritual space in between, bridged by the character’s life in the West. It was enchanting, in part because the story was about family stories, and how they stretch the truth and what we understand of truth through time. Wouldn’t it be lovely, if an aging relative could remember themselves in another time, in their dementia – and it would all be real? That… in a way would redeem old age and remakes it into something beautiful.

And, in a way, that’s what the whole anthology does. Familiar bits of ephemera from our imaginations, from our urban myths and legends, from our cultures and our worlds have been transmuted into something both less familiar and more knowable, both more off-puttingly gross and horrible (and there are some prime bits of horror in this collection – eek), and more charmingly disturbing. This collection runs a good gamut. It’s meaty stuff, and could easily be taken along to ease the pain of airports and train rides. It’s absorbing and invites the reader to a feast of a thousand different senses. It’s not our usual fare here at the Treehouse, but I’m glad we read it.

sarah: Me, too! It definitely fulfills our goal to read widely and diversely, something that we both try to do as much as possible–just not usually at the same time… In this case, though, a tandem review seemed like a good way to survey the gamut of stories in the anthology–we each responded to different ones, and as a result, hopefully, we were able to do it justice as a collection…and tempt you into picking it up, perhaps.

Elizabeth Lefebvre at STRANGE AND RANDOM HAPPENSTANCE is looking forward to the book.

Just everything about this screams yes to me. Also come on, a supernatural portal on Craigslist? How much does that sound like an episode of Angel? Just everything about this screams yes to me. Also come on, a supernatural portal on Craigslist? How much does that sound like an episode of Angel?

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Camille André

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

December 7, 2015

FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS is a delightful smorgasbord

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized afrocaribbean, best of 2015, brit mandelo, brown girl in the ring, chuma hill, collection, elizabeth story, falling in love with hominids, gift guide, hope wabuke, john green, midnight robber, nalo hopkinson, octavia's brood, review, rock paperback scissors, science fiction, short stories, short story spotlight, silva moreno-garcia, smugglivus, the root, tor.com, vlog brothers

A smattering of gift guides, best of lists, and even a review, all featuring Nalo Hopkinson’s great FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS.

On his VLOG BROTHERS video blog, John Green shares his Book Giving Guide For the Holidays. Among his selections are Nalo Hopkinson’s MIDNIGHT ROBBER and FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, saying about the latter "I recently started FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, which is a great title and so far a great book.“

ROCK, PAPERBACK, SCISSORS offers its own holiday guide.

In many of Neil Gaiman’s stories, the fantastical is just around the corner from reality, and the world can be very dark although it’s never completely devoid of light. If that sort of story appeals, then I would recommend FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS by Nalo Hopkinson. It is a short story collection that spans multiple genres, from horror to sci-fi to fairytale.

Brit Mandelo of TOR.COM shines the Short Fiction Spotlight on the collection.

As for the stories that stuck out to me the most from this delightful smorgasbord, there are a handful. I tended to appreciate the longer pieces more than the flash work, but the flash work remains interesting, often for what it reveals about Hopkinson’s pet projects and the things she finds enjoyable as a writer.

“The Easthound” (2012) is the first piece in the collection and also one of the ones that stood out most to me—both because I hadn’t encountered it before and because it’s a strong showing. As a post-apocalyptic piece, it combines a few familiar tropes: a world of children, where the coming of adulthood is also the coming of the disease that turns them into werewolf-like monsters who consume their nearest and dearest. Hopkinson combines the Peter-Pan-esque attention to staying a child as long as possible with a much darker set of notes, like the children starving themselves intentionally to slow their development. The language-game the protagonists play to occupy themselves in the fallen future is intriguing as well. Overall, I felt that the ending was a bit obvious in coming—of course it’s her twin; of course she’ll change right after—but that the emotional content of the story doesn’t suffer for it. The payoff just isn’t in the actual conclusion.

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Overall, Falling in Love with Hominids is a worthwhile collection that goes together well—and these are some of the stories I liked best. Hopkinson is a talented writer, whose interest in topics like embodiment and desire comes through in many of these stories; I appreciated reading it quite a bit.

Read the rest of Mandelo’s review at TOR.COM.

THE ROOT’s Hope Wabuke included FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS on her list of 15 Powerful Works of Fiction Published by Black Authors in 2015.

Jamaican-born writer Nalo Hopkinson made a name for herself with her debut novel, BROWN GIRL IN THE RING, winner of the Warner Aspect First Novel Award. Hopkinson has also won the John W. Campbell Award, the Locus Award, the World Fantasy Award and the Prix Aurora, among others. In FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, the multitalented author turns her considerable prowess to a collection of short fiction steeped in Afro-Caribbean folklore.

THE BOOK SMUGGLERS’ Smugglivus 2015 Guest Author Silvia Moreno-Garcia dubbed the collection as one of the best books of 2015.

Finally, 2015 also saw the release of
OCTAVIA’S
BROOD: SCIENCE FICTION STORIES FROM SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT and FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS by Nalo Hopkinson, both of which would be of interest to short fiction readers who enjoy stories that don’t quite fall in a single category but straddle different genres.

For more information on FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Chuma Hill

Design by Elizabeth Story

August 20, 2015

James Tiptree, Jr. was prolific, engaged, and provocative

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized brit mandelo, her smoke rose up forever, james tiptree jr, John Picacio, tor.com

Over at TOR.COM, Brit Mandelo suggests Where to Start with the Works of James Tiptree, Jr.

Alice B. Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.)

So, where do you start if you want to start reading Tiptree—which is a very good idea, given their position as namesake of a genre award for fiction exploring ideas about gender and as an individual whose own complex gender identity threw the field of sf into an uproar when revealed?

The first thing to note is that Alice Sheldon wrote under the names James Tiptree, Jr. and Raccoona Sheldon. While stories published under each name dealt with issues of gender, often the level of externalized rage and aggression is higher in the Raccoona stories; “The Screwfly Solution,” for example, is not a delicate or gentle representation of masculinity—but it is one that makes a stunning impact. There have been two recent omnibus collections that gather up much of Tiptree/Sheldon’s work, both fiction and nonfiction: HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER and MEET ME AT INFINITY. The first is all short fiction, while the second also contains other work.

These books are pulling from a history of publications that spans twenty years from 1968 to 1988, generally a few stories every year. Tiptree/Sheldon was prolific, engaged, and provocative; there are eight initial short story collections and two novels that collect much of this work, distilled down into those two previously mentioned more recent books. (A list.)

So, let’s start there. If you’re new to Tiptree/Sheldon, HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER is a solid place to begin. The novels, interestingly enough, are mostly regarded as forgettable. This is a writer whose primary mode was short fiction, and whose facility with the medium is hard to debate. All of these are damn good stories, even the ones that are a little “out of date” or are wrestling with the problems of gender and sexuality that were more on the cutting edge in the seventies and strike us as outmoded now.

Read the rest of Mandelo’s fascinating piece at TOR.COM.

For more info about HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Picacio.

October 28, 2014

The Tiptree Award anthologies are weird and wonderful, thoughtful and provocative

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized anthology, brit mandelo, debbie norkin, fantasy, james tiptree award, jeffrey d smith, John D. Berry, Karen Joy Fowler, pat murphy, review, science fiction, short stories, tor.com

Brit Mandelo devotes two of her regular Short Fiction Spotlight columns at Tor.com (part 1 part 2) to The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1.

The Tiptree Award anthologies—there are currently three—are reliably interesting reads, a mix of nonfiction, novel excerpts, and short stories that, as the introduction says, “seduce or repel you. Instruct and surprise you. Push you around a bit. Take no prisoners. Make no apologies. […] stories for women. And stories for men. And stories for the rest of us, too.” These stories are weird and wonderful, thoughtful and provocative; plus, the linking factor is their complex engagement with gender, so naturally I tend to find them compelling.

Read the rest of Mandelo’s fascinating insights about The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1, which include reviews of many of the individual stories, at Tor. com.

For more info on The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John D. Berry.

Tachyon Publications

brit mandelo

tachyonpub