chicago tribune

February 1, 2019

Tachyon tidbits featuring Caitlín R. Kiernan, Jane Yolen, James Tiptree Jr., and Jaymee Goh

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized by the storytelling fire, Caitlín R. Kiernan, chicago tribune, elizabeth story, fireside quarterly, gary k wolfe, hannes hummel, her smoke rose up forever, interview, james tiptree jr, Jane Yolen, jennifer kent, John Picacio, Publishers Weekly, review, rogerebert.com, the very best of caitlin r kiernan, tiptree, tomris laffly

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

Caitlín R. Kiernan (photo: Kyle Cassidy), Jane Yolen (Jason Stemple), James Tiptree Jr., and Jaymee Goh

In a starred review, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY praises THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN.

This stellar collection of 20 reprints, drawn solely from Kiernan’s limited-edition publications, showcases her talent for blurring boundaries and creating distinctive sensory experiences.

With lush prose, Kiernan finds strange beauty in terrible tableaus, never failing to unsettle and inspire awe in equal measure. This versatile retrospective offers something for nearly every fan of the strange and macabre, and cements Kiernan’s legacy as the reigning queen of dark fantasy.

Gary K. Wolfe for the CHICAGO TRIBUNE enjoys Jane Yolen’s HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE.

But Yolen doesn’t confine herself to offering critical versions of the familiar Western tales. She also draws on Chinese, Japanese and Native American traditions, and, perhaps more important, digs below some of the stories’ innocent surfaces to examine the darker subtexts. A version of Rumpelstiltskin, set in the historical Ukraine, persuasively reveals anti-Semitic undertones, while two of the most moving stories touch upon the Holocaust, in terms of the myth of Lilith and the tradition of Elijah’s cup. A Grimm tale, “Allerleirauh,” is retold in a way that brings its disturbing incest-and-power theme to the forefront. Yolen’s story notes and poems only add to her insights, which invite us to rethink many of our comfortable assumptions.

At ROGEREBERT.COM in an interview with Tomris Laffly, The Babadook director Jennifer Kent discuss Tiptree.

And Tiptree?

I don’t know where to start. There was this writer of short science fiction stories in ‘60s and ’70s who was very feted, and of the level of Philip K. Dick, or Ursula Le Guin. He was really creating the most powerful stories of gender and of being an outsider. But they were so potent, very prescient; because it’s almost the world we’re living in now. So they were written 50 years ago. They’re incredibly relevant still, and then he was sort of well known. His stories were well known, but no one knew who he was for 10 years, and then eventually someone uncovered his identity to be a woman in her 60s, in I think Virginia. This woman’s story is unbelievable. Unbelievable. And she was a genius. So I want to tell her story.

So you’ll make something episodic at a network?

Yeah, but including her short stories within. It’s not a straight biopic; so aliens from her stories inhabit her true world, and then she will be in the world of her stories, and it’s so exciting to me. It’s science fiction, which I love. I came across that because I was being given a lot of science fiction scripts. And I thought, “Where are the female science fiction stories?” So I Googled “female science fiction”, and I came across her! It was so hard to get the rights. And then I got all the rights to these stories, so it’s just meant to be. I could sit for hours and tell you how we got these rights. I’m working with producer Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, who is wonderful. He’s engaged with a company called Imperative, and so that’s the deal at the moment. But Imperative has thrown some money at the development, but we want to keep control of it. So we didn’t want to go to HBO and have it sit on a shelf and not get made, for example. So, we want to come with a pilot and a bible, so I’m working on that at the moment.

Jaymee Goh’s short story “By the Storytelling Fire” appears in both digital and audio versions in FIRESIDE MAGAZINE (January 2019).

The fire crackled and cast shadows on the trees. They lay on either side of it, watching the fire, but secretly also each other.

It was not the first time they had traveled together, and not the first time they had parted, but there was something about this time, this moment, that made them loathe to say farewell. They suspected that they were in love.

“This feels like a storytelling fire,” she finally said.

“It does,” he agreed. “Will you tell one?”

“If you will as well.”

“By all means.”

For more info about THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Hannes Hummel
Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

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

Cover by John Picacio

November 27, 2018

Really quite terrific, Lavie Tidhar’s suspenseful UNHOLY LAND provides a complex meditation on the possible paths of modern Jewish history

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized andy cox, benjamin wald, chicago tribune, forbidden planet, gary k wolfe, interview, interzone, lavie tidhar, read well, review, sarah anne langton, sfrevu, suncerae smith, unholy land

Reviews keep flooding in for Lavie Tidhar’s fascinating UNHOLY LAND.

In INTERZONE (278 NOV-DEC), Andy Cox praises the novel.

This is really quite terrific. The story of the missing woman is intriguing, a proper detective novel plot, while the reality-shifting elements play an important role and reach an astonishing apotheosis towards the end in a sequence that puts Lovecraft to shame. It’s another Lavie Tidhar book that is full of ideas and unafraid to tackle big, controversial, important issues. Warren Ellis compares him to Michael Moorcock in an afterword, and like Moorcock, Tidhar writes books that are unpredictable and experimental, consistently and reliably surprising, yet always readable and engaging. UNHOLY LAND is another corker.

Gary K. Wolfe for CHICAGO TRIBUNE lauds the work.

Here, in UNHOLY LAND, he turns his attention to his own homeland, in a scenario that seems wildly unlikely until we realize it was actually proposed in the early 20th century: namely, relocating European Jews to part of what is now Uganda. When pulp writer Tirosh returns to his home in “Palestina,” he learns that his niece has disappeared while researching the early history of the country. While this mystery provides the spine of the plot, we also meet an ominous investigator following Tirosh for his own reasons and a historian working for a shadowy Border Agency, whose job is to monitor various timelines. By the time their stories all braid together, Tidhar has turned a suspenseful adventure tale into a complex meditation on the possible paths of modern Jewish history.

At SFREVU, Benjamin Wald enjoys the book.

Tidhar goes out of his way to make this clear; for example, Palestina is in the process of building a massive wall to separate themselves from their neighbors; a clear reference to both Trump and to the existing “security fence” between Isreal and the West Bank. Using Palestina to talk about Israel is a remarkably effective tool. Having the displaced peoples be Africans instead of Palestinians short-circuits many of the assumptions and habits of thinking about the conflict, or at least it did for me. Opinions on Israel are in many cases so entrenched that fantasy can be the most effective way of approaching them. This wouldn’t work if Tidhar has made Palestina a cardboard villain or crude satire of Israel. Instead, Tidhar paints a rich vibrant land, inhabited by real people. But none of this can conceal the violence on which it is founded.

That on its own would make UNHOLY LAND a fascinating work. But, this being Lavie Tidhar, alternate history is not enough. He also builds a whole network of alternate worlds, built around the kabbalistic idea of the tree of the Sephiroth. And some people, either accidentally or intentionally, can move between these worlds. Tirosh himself, it turns out, has unbeknownst to him slipped into Palestina from an alternate world. And someone is trying to tear down the walls between the worlds, with disastrous consequences.

As well as making for a gripping story, complete with trans-world agents tasked with preserving the Sephiroth, this conception allows Tidhar to even more explicitly consider the historical accidents that lead to the creation of Israel, and to consider the reaction of those from Palestina to our own Isreal.

Suncerae Smith on READ WELL reviews it.

I love the slow, surreal unraveling of UNHOLY LAND, both in terms of plot and genre. Without quite realizing it himself, Lior transitions from writer to detective, from an uneventful life to one filled with murder and intrigue, narrowly escaping multiple factions who want him dead. Then, it’s not just Lior’s memories that slip away, but reality itself, as Lior finds he can travel through alternate realities.

<snip>

At first blush the plot seems over-the-top and action-packed, and it is at times. But at its heart, the novel is slow and subtle and abstract and unnerving.

Lavie Tidhar and cover artist Sarah Anne Langton at Forbidden Planet (photo: Jon Harrison via Twitter)

In a FORBIDDEN PLANET blog interview, Tidhar talks type, time travel and clowns.

Can you tell us a bit about your latest novel, UNHOLY LAND?

I think of it as the last of that loose sequence of weird novels I’ve been writing since Osama. It’s an alternate histories-noir detective-metafictional-political thing (what Adam Roberts I think started to call “Tidharian”!). It’s about a guy called Lior Tirosh, who time-slips into an alternate history world where Jews settled in what was then British East Africa (based on a real historical offer from 1904!) and then things slowly get much weirder. Along the way he starts thinking he’s a hardoiled detective from one of his own novels, and there are people after him, and it turns out there’s more than one reality at play. It’s both sort of very playful and very serious at the same time – I can’t seem to help myself in that I like doing the political stuff, but there has to be some sort of cheap gags thrown in too!

<snip>

Can you tell us what you’re working on next?

The next book that’s going to be published in The Circumference of the World, which is sort of about God and science fiction. It’s sort of like, what if this 60s writer came up with a ridiculous theory about the nature of the universe – but it might just be that he was right about everything? It’s sort of a bibliomystery and it plays with a lot of different literary styles and voices. I suspect I may have been a little too ambitious with it! We’re still editing it…

But like I said, moving on, I am working on something very different, my first epic (in the sense of, it’s LONG!) novel, a sort of historical fantasy novel. But this being me it still has a lot of very ridiculous stuff in it, and it also addresses some pertinent political issues and so on. But there are swords! And I think there’s even a dragon at some point! A DRAGON! And it’s surprisingly fun to do, I’m having a blast with it.

For more info on UNHOLY LAND, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

June 26, 2018

Peter Watts’ irresistible THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is compelling science fiction with heart

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized ama, bluchickenninja, chicago tribune, elizabeth story, everdeen mason, foreword reviews, gary k wolfe, l'épaule d'orion, nisi shawl, peter dabbene, Peter Watts, reddit, review, the freeze frame revolution, the seattle review of books, the washington post

Reviews for Peter Watts’ entertaining and provocative THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION keep flooding in.

At FOREWORD REVIEWS, Peter Dabbene praises the work.

Hard science fiction that reads like a first-person parable, Peter Watts’s THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is thoughtful, suspenseful, and unforgettable.

<snip>

Watts, a former marine biologist, deftly weaves hard science, both actual and theoretical, into the book. Those familiar with cutting-edge ideas like Boltzmann Bodies or the Stefan-Boltzmann law and the Alcubierre warp drive will come away satisfied, but the science is so fully ingrained into the narrative that it doesn’t draw attention to itself—a high compliment indeed.

Sophisticated enough for hard science-fiction purists, the book is nevertheless intimately written in a conversational style, as Sunday relates the happenings aboard ship and her interactions with Chimp and the others. There are many examples of Watts’s inventive writing, perhaps most noticeably the use of the gender-neutral pronouns “se” and “hir” throughout the book.

The story’s massive time span invites intriguing questions, as when Sunday asks a crewmate, “How do you tell the difference between going extinct and just, you know, changing into something else?”

The result of all this is an epic of epochs; entertaining and provocative, brilliant and ambitious, FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is compelling science fiction with heart.

Nisi Shawl in THE SEATTLE REVIEW OF BOOKS enjoys the novella.

THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION (Tachyon), the shortest and latest novel from Canadian Peter Watts, is as brilliant and enticingly acute as any of his earlier and longer work.

<snip>

The mission, after millions and millions and millions of years, goes on under the implacable and inescapable eye of an artificial intelligence tasked with keeping the crew’s nose to an eternal grindstone. How can its favorite human Sunday Ahzmundin and a few thousand others possibly manage to rebel against their superhuman supervisor? With skin-creeping tension, sharply realistic detail, and action moving fast as thought, Watts shows us.

Everdeen Mason of THE WASHINGTON POST declares the tale as one of the month’s top reads.

THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION (Tachyon), by Peter Watts, is a delicious morsel of hard science fiction. The short novel follows the crew of a construction ship who have spent 66 million years traveling across the galaxy building interstellar wormhole gates for humanity. The group is held in suspended animation, awakened for brief periods by Chimp, the AI that runs the ship.

<snip>

The setup of the book is irresistible, and the science is high-concept, but the story is driven by Sunday’s relationships and her conviction in herself and her companions.

Watts participated in a REDDIT AMA.

Vermilion-Sands

1 point·

10 days ago

Hello. Huge fan….Blindsight is the only book (besides Stan Robinson’s Red Mars ) that I’ve re-read in the last 10 years. Anyway, my question…… What is your recommended reading order of the SUNFLOWER CYCLE ? Can it truly be the publication order?! Thank you in advance.

The-Squidnapper

AMA Author

1 point·

10 days ago

Chronologically, the order is “Hotshot”; “The Freeze-Frame Revolution”; “Giants”; and “The Island”. But each was designed to be understandable whether or not you’ve read any of the others, and Sunday doesn’t even appear in all of them, so go wild.

Duke_Paul

1026 points·

12 days ago

Please, elaborate on your relationship with raccoons and your opinion on the raccoon that climbed a skyscraper yesterday. Also maybe I guess why use tumblrspeak or whatever when referring to yourself as a terrorist…

The-Squidnapper

AMA Author

9 points·

12 days ago

·edited 11 days ago

There is an Ancient Compact Between Squid And Raccoon: I feed them unlimited kibble on the porch every night, and in return they don’t tear the shit out of our organics bin on Recycling Night. Unfortunately there is a loophole;nothing in the compact forbids them from tearing the shit out of our roof. Although I think they may have done so as a retaliatory tariff against the new “raccoon-proof” bins the city has been rolling out. It’s always the innocents that get caught in the middle.

MPRRaccoon is a North American Hero, just as much as little Timmy who fell down the well in that old episode of The Simpsons. Oh, and this just in from The BUG:

‘Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn even went so far as to offer a $1,000 charity donation to “anyone who saves this raccoon. I can’t handle this. Poor dude.”’

https://www.blogto.com/city/2018/06/toronto-sends-thoughts-and-prayers-raccoon-minnesota/

Excuse me for a moment while I wipe myself, and go put on my Rocket t-shirt.

Gary K. Wolfe for CHICAGO TRIBUNE reviews the book.

Sometimes sheer magnitude of scale can lend an epic scope to stories which, at the human level, remain fairly intimate. Peter Watts’s episodic tale mostly concerns efforts by a few crew members to rebel against the artificial intelligence that controls their spaceship, and whose motives they have come to distrust.

<snip>

The real question she faces, however, and what gives Watts’s tale surprising depth, is what it means to be human on an endless mission in an uncaring universe.

BLUCHICKENNINJA highly recommends THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION.

THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is a story about humans living in an unbearable situation. And I think the human character aspect is what Peter Watts has excelled at. The other short stories start involving aliens and they lack something because of this.

This is a hard science-fiction story, if you like books such as Seveneves by Neal Stephenson I would recommend this. It also has elements of artificial intelligence, and the problems which comes from having an all-knowing AI in control of a ship. In some ways it is also similar to The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.

I would highly recommend this book to any reader who enjoys locked room puzzles, political intrigue, and human stories in science fiction settings.

The French L’ÉPAULE D’ORION lauds the narrative and its hidden text.

THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is a short narrative that offers a relatively simple and classic scenario, without the philosophical depth that Peter Watts has been able to accustom us in the past. Although it is very far from reaching the heights of Blind Vision, the text offers a certain sense of wonder in view of the extent of what it gives to imagine, but which comes more from its frame than from the scenario itself. even. It is also very accessible for a hard-SF novel and this is undoubtedly its highest quality. The scientific side, always very elaborate at Watts, never disturbs the story.

That being said, you will need to be attentive during your reading as the main text contains a hidden text, and if you find it, you will be rewarded with a revelation that is even more interesting than the main text itself. I would almost be tempted to give him 3 stars just for that. He’s teasing Peter Watts.

(Translation from French courtesy of Google)

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and design by Elizabeth Story

January 10, 2018

Excitement builds for Jo Walton’s beautiful STARLINGS

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized andrew liptak, book riot, chicago tribune, elizabeth story, gary k wolfe, jo walton, ready set hold, review, starlings, the verge, you tube

With less than a month before publication, the Internet is abuzz about Jo Walton’s STARLINGS.

At CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Gary K. Wolfe calls it a new short story collection worth reading.

Jo Walton has won just about every major award in the field for her humane and literate novels, but her short fiction has been comparatively sparse. She acknowledges that she’s among those writers not especially comfortable with short forms, and so the stories and poems collected here (along with one play) show a fair amount of experimentation. One of the best stories concerns a TV producer and possible Cold War Soviet spy resurrected as a simulation by a future biographer who wants to interview him, while another describes a technology that enables patients suffering chronic pain to temporarily offload their pain to others willing to share the burden, in this case a young woman’s parents.

<snip>

That sense of the comic infuses what Walton calls extended jokes, some of which play with point of view. One story is actually narrated by Google, another by Snow White’s mirror, and in another Jane Austen’s letter to her sister Cassandra somehow gets delivered to the Cassandra of Greek myth. But for all her playfulness, Walton offers a beautiful, original fairy tale in three elegantly interwoven stories of a man made of moonlight and his magical effect on the denizens of a village inn.

Andrew Liptak on THE VERGE recommends the book.

Noted author and commentator Jo Walton collects some of her works, including a play, poetry, and short fiction, alongside extended commentary on each entry. Alongside stories of sentient search engines, generation ships, and fantastic quests, Walton musts on the nature of writing and storytelling. Kirkus Reviews calls the book an “intriguing peek inside a fertile mind.”

For BOOK RIOT, Rincey discusses the volume in Ready, Set, Hold: February 2018 (starting at 4:12).

For more info on STARLINGS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

December 12, 2017

The fun of Jane Yolen’s THE EMERALD CIRCUS is contagious

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized chicago tribune, elizabeth story, gary k wolfe, Jane Yolen, mysterious galaxy, the bookworm chronicles, the emerald circus, Thomas Canty

For CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Gary K. Wolfe praises Jane Yolen’s THE EMERALD CIRCUS.

Often Yolen explores the unexamined role of women in classic tales. One of three stories drawn from Arthurian legends tells of an island of women famed for sword-making and how they produce the most famous sword of all. In “Lost Girls,” a modern-day Wendy, whisked off to Neverland, is appalled at the sexism and narcissism of Peter and his boys, so she organizes all the other Wendys (abducted from various periods) into a feminist labor movement. Not all the stories allude to specific antecedents, though; an excellent ghost story is set in rural Scotland, and others feature Edgar Allan Poe, Queen Victoria and even Geoffrey of Monmouth. Yolen seems to have had fun writing many of these, and the fun is contagious.

Photo: Jason Stemple

MYSTERIOUS GALAXY includes the book among their Holiday Picks.

For a Quick Read – A collection of magical short stories that provide opportunities to escape with new visions of familiar characters and traditional tales in one’s limited time.

THE BOOKWORM CHRONICLES is excited about winning both the collection and Patricia A. McKillip’s World Fantasy Award-winner THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD.

Firstly, I was very lucky to win e-book copies of new release The Emerald Circus and a new edition of fantasy classic The Forgotten Beasts of Eld in the wonderful Witch Week giveaway, hosted by the lovely Lory at The Emerald City Book Review. Thank you Lory!

For more info on THE EMERALD CIRCUS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Thomas Canty

May 18, 2017

Ellen Klages’ deeply poetic WICKED WONDERS is highly entertaining

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized amazing stories, caligo lane, chicago tribune, ellen klages, fangirl nation, gary k wolfe, ira nayman, passing strange, reprint, review, short story, tor.com, victoria irwin, wicked wonders

Reviews keep flooding in for Ellen Klages’ lyrical WICKED WONDERS.

Photo: Scott R. Kline

Victoria Irwin at FANGIRL NATION praises the collection.

Ellen Klages’ WICKED WONDERS is one of those short story collections that is deeply poetic and carries you like a song through the night when you’re supposed to be sound asleep. This collection of short stories features everything from a girl destined to be on one of the first missions into space where return is not an option, a story of a young woman who can create magic through maps and rescue those who cannot help themselves halfway across the world, and even the secret imagined history behind margarine.

<snip>

As I’ve stated before, Klages’ work has a poetic quality to it that appears almost lyrical. Passages become much more fun to read aloud than quietly to one’s self. The best part is each story is relatively short so it’s hard to fall back in to the age old excuse of not having enough time to read. WICKED WONDERS is a collection that the reader finds themselves not wanting to put down, but also not wanting to finish out of fear that they will have to leave the magical world they’ve found behind when the close the cover.

For AMAZING STORIES, Ira Nayman enjoys the book.

I loved the detailed specificity of Klages’ writing, the way she finds evocative words and phrases that really paint a picture of the reality she is attempting to portray. “No one used this path in a long time, that was for sure,” Klages writes in “Gone to the Library.” “Saplings sprang back, hard, against her bare arms when she pushed through. Twigs snagged at her ankles, and her white socks were soon covered with a carpet of tiny green burrs that would take forever to pick out. But it was a path, marked by more piles of rocks topped with the same red-painted crosshatch.” Prose like this, throughout the book, makes the reader feel like they have entered her stories rather than are merely experiencing them.

Ellen Klages’ Wicked Wonders is smart, sad, funny, moving fiction, much of it with a speculative fiction bent. Pure spec fic fans will likely not find enough genre tropes written in a style they are used to to be able to enjoy it. But the adventurous reader who is open to the mixing up of styles and subject matter will find it highly entertaining.

Gary K. Wolfe in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE reviews the volume.

Klages writes from the emotional center of a tale rather than from the science fiction conceit. So when an astronaut discovers she’s pregnant on a voyage to Mars and gives birth there, we feel her loneliness, knowing that since the child could not survive on Earth, she too will be a lonely exile. Another story takes us to a fantasy world derived from games like Clue and Monopoly. One of the best stories isn’t fantastic at all, but nostalgically evokes a summer at camp, with an unusual surprise at the end. The funniest piece isn’t even fiction, telling of a “scary ham” that she and her sister inherited after her father died. Even here, Klages’ mastery of the telling detail is evident.

TOR.COM reprints the short story “Caligo Lane.”

Tor.com is pleased to reprint “Caligo Lane” by Ellen Klages. Originally published by Subterranean Press, the story is also found in WICKED WONDERS, a collection available now from Tachyon Publications.

Franny Travers is a cartographer of exceptional ability. From her house high above the cascading hills of San Francisco, she creates maps that, when folded properly, can transform space. This is her gift. These temporary new alignments of the world open improbable passages, a last resort when politics or geography make escape impossible.

If you like this story, join Franny and her friends for more adventures on the borders of magic and science in Klages’ PASSING STRANGE, available from Tor.com Publishing.

For more info on WICKED WONDERS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

January 19, 2017

Tachyon tidbits featuring Lauren Beukes, James Tiptree Jr., and Ellen Klages

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized book riot, chicago tribune, clara bacou, elbakin, elizabeth story, ellen klages, gary k wolfe, her smoke rose up forever, james tiptree jr, joanna russ, john berry, John Picacio, lauren beukes, passing strange, review, slipping, slipping: stories essays & other writing, swords and spaceships, the girl who was plugged in, the james tiptree award anthology 3

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

Lauren Beukes, James Tiptree, Jr., and Ellen Klages (photo: Scott R. Kline)

The French ELBAKIN reviews Lauren Beukes’ must read SLIPPING: STORIES, ESSAYS, & OTHER WRITING.

The “try” part ultimately proves to be just as interesting as the new part, if not more so. Lauren Beukes shows relevant, bubbly, which does not prevent it, once again, to address strong subjects like the genesis of bright or even, more generally, violence against women, as The social context of South Africa, his country.

Concluding with a “letter” to his daughter as moving as decided, SLIPPING: STORIES, ESSAYS, & OTHER WRITING is a must read for those who loved the novels of Beukes. For others, namely those who would not know it yet, it is a gateway not far from being ideal, but in English, obviously…

8.0 / 10

(Translation from French courtesy of Google)

The BOOK RIOT newsletter “Swords & Spaceships” (Jan 13, 2017) discusses James Tiptree Jr., Joanna Russ, and THE JAMES TIPTREE
AWARD ANTHOLOGY 3.

LitHub recently published a selection of letters from Alice B. Sheldon as James Tiptree Jr. to Joanna Russ, and I am fascinated. Not least because I love the work of both authors, but because it gives us a look at the charade Sheldon maintained and her reasons for it. My first encounter with Tiptree’s work was “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” likely via THE JAMES TIPTREE AWARD ANTHOLOGY 3 — [also available in HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER] well worth a read if you haven’t already. As near as I can tell, the letters quoted are from this collection (which does not appear to be digitized, alas).

For the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Gary K. Wolf praises Ellen Klages’ PASSING STRANGE.

Readers often think of science fiction and fantasy in terms of short stories or very long novels, but some of the most exciting work of the past few years has been at the intermediate length of the short novel or novella. Ellen Klages has won awards for her short fiction, but her only two novels have been well-received young-adult historicals. “Passing Strange” is her best adult work to date — partly a meticulously researched portrait of gay life in 1940s San Francisco, partly a magical fantasy about the power of women working together, partly a doomed romance, partly even a tribute to a particular erotic tradition of pulp magazine art.

For more information about SLIPPING: STORIES, ESSAYS, & OTHER WRITING, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Clara Bacou

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about THE JAMES TIPTREE AWARD ANTHOLOGY 3, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Berry

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

Cover by John Picacio

September 20, 2016

Peter S. Beagle’s SUMMERLONG is an elegantly written revelation of the magic beneath everyday life

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized b&n sci-fi & fantasy blog, ceridwen christensen, chicago tribune, elizabeth story, gary k wolfe, hungary, magdalena korzeniewska, peter s beagle, review, sf mag, summerlong

The praise for Peter Beagle’s masterful SUMMERLONG keeps rolling in.

In the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Gary K. Wolfe lauds the novel.

Since his earliest novels, notably “The Last Unicorn,” Peter S. Beagle has been among the most beloved of American fantasists, and his first novel in 17 years will be welcomed enthusiastically by his many fans. They won’t be disappointed, but those who haven’t followed the series of brilliant short stories Beagle has published over the past decade or so might be a little surprised at the domestic setting and largely realistic tone of his current fiction.

<snip>

There is real suspense, but in place of facile shocks Beagle opts for gentle revelations, and the result is a quietly glowing and elegantly written revelation of the magic beneath everyday life.

Ceridwen Christensen on the B&N SCI-FI & FANTASY BLOG reviews the book.

It’s perfect, somehow, that I read SUMMERLONG, the new novel by Peter S. Beagle, in early September, as summer folds up into the paper edge of autumn, sharp and cool. I don’t hear crickets or cicadas until August, and then the air hums with their drone and chirp: the cicadas languid and sleepy during the day; the crickets cheerfully bright at night. It’s all jumbled reversals, here on the edge of seasons. Beagle harnesses that long summer, that summer long, to tell a story steeped in myth and mystery, but with such fine portraits of its principles that its otherworldliness remains grounded and tactile. It’s a book that makes me shiver in anticipation of a winter that hasn’t quite come.

<snip>

So rarely do people write about aging, about being old, about being the adult parents of adult children, about the way the seasons pile one upon the other into a refrain of this is how it is. So rarely do people write about how that breaks, and how in breaking, it is complete. Ah.

The Hungarian site SF MAG eagerly anticipates SUMMERLONG.

Many, many years have passed since Peter S. Beagle new novel appeared (remember, ten years ago you could soon be ready to SUMMERLONG), in which a mysterious waitress comes to Gardner Island, and is a conflict-ridden family. In terms of location and atmosphere of the novel FOLK OF THE AIR. FOLK OF THE AIR evokes the world, not THE LAST UNICORN or THE INNKEEPER’S SONG, but we can be sure of one thing: be a wonderful story, as written by Beagle.

(Translated from Hungarian by Google)

For more info on SUMMERLONG, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Magdalena Korzeniewska

Design by Elizabeth Story

May 2, 2016

CENTRAL STATION seems both thoroughly new and oddly familiar

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized books bones and buffy, central station, chicago tribune, gary k wolfe, io9, kevin nixon, koenix, lavie tidhar, review, sam lubell, sarah anne langton, science fiction, sfrevu, strange allegiances

The reviews keep flooding in for Lavie Tidhar’s fantastic and refreshing CENTRAL STATION.

For the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Gary K. Wolfe praises Lavie Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION.

Lavie Tidhar, who was raised in an Israeli kibbutz and has lived in places as exotic as Vanuatu, has for several years been writing sharply insightful stories set around the Central Station district of Tel Aviv, which in his future has become a massive, bustling spaceport and home to a stew of colorful figures and subcultures. By weaving and reshaping these tales into a sort of novel, he has created a textured and original future that echoes real historical and economic tensions while satisfying veteran readers with deliberate echoes of classic science fiction.

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In the world of Central Station, nearly everyone is connected to the web (or Conversation) by an internal node, though a few holdouts still prefer ancient forms of information like books. Hallucinatory drugs remain a popular pastime and addiction, as do online games where characters can make a decent real-world living. Death can be sidestepped by cryogenics, by becoming a cyborg, or by simply uploading into the Conversation — where a separate, non-human society of artificial intelligences already thrives. Wounded cyborg veterans called robotniks remind us that war has not been eliminated. This world unfolds through the linked adventures of a series of characters including a “data vampire” (named after a character in a classic C.L. Moore story), a boy hoping for his father to return from space, the owner of a popular bar and her old-fashioned book collector brother, a legendary junk dealer, and a famous artist. Despite the book’s affectionate allusions to earlier science-fiction themes, its deeply humane world seems both thoroughly new and oddly familiar.

Both IO9 (”We’ve really loved some of his earlier novels, and we’re looking forward to this one.”) and BOOKS, BONES & BUFFY (”This sounds like all kinds of awesome!”) look forward to the book.

Sam Lubell at SFREVU reviews the “something different” CENTRAL STATION.

CENTRAL STATION is a wonderful piece of worldbuilding. The book takes place in a future Israel, where some Jews have Asian names and robots can conduct Jewish rituals. Nearly all the characters are linked in the Conversation, essentially an internally accessed wireless Internet/virtual world. Data vampires called Shambleaus can feed off of humans’ connections to the Conversation. Other humans have Martian symbionts. There are the few remaining robots and robotniks–discarded cyborg soldiers reduced to begging or odd jobs. There are mentions of mysterious Others, never really defined. People have jobs in the virtual world they can convert into rent money. And a few children with hacked genes from a Messiah breeding program have special powers.

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This book is perfect for literary readers who want something different, who enjoy images and language more than plot and action. This is a book that needs close attention and a re-read for a more complete understanding. It’s not a light beach read or for multi-tasking while watching television. CENTRAL STATION is not like anything else you’ve read. This book shows clearly that Lavie Tidhar is an author to watch.

KOENIX loved their introduction to the works of Lavie Tidhar.

Central Station is a “fix-up” novel of previously published short stories by Lavie Tidhar — stories which were always intended to be drawn together into a whole novel. It hints at huge changes and shifts for humanity while intimately focusing on the individuals; it’s about a transformed human experience in the solar system, but stays in a single city. And it harks back to the feel of a golden age of SF with a distinctly retro vibe that is rich and imaginative. It manages to evoke the past and the future simultaneously, making me feel a sense of longing and familiarity with a history of pulp SF I’ve not even read! (And just look at that cover art from Tachyon — it’s perfect!)

This is the first work I’ve read by Lavie Tidhar, and I can’t wait to read more. I was so happy to come to Central Station without any expectations, encouraged by only a few brief anticipatory remarks from others. I not only thoroughly enjoyed Central Station, I also enjoyed going in blind and letting its atmosphere sink in.

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The lushness, the alien-ness, but organic feel of the setting of Tel Aviv, with the gamespace and the Conversation flickering in and around, reminded me of HYPERION by Dan Simmons. The idea that this is on Earth but felt actually alien to me was fantastic and refreshing: this is a futuristic imagining of a part of the world that is already unknown to me, but remained human and real.

The truth is I loved reading this book so much but it’s hard to explain why, because it was so personal. It triggered some wonderful memories of other books and reading experiences and this intangible thing I seem to be pursuing in my own personal reading journey. Is it possible to feel nostalgia for a book while reading it for the first time? Because that’s what it felt like. I also appreciated the subtle nature of the story itself: there may not be a decisive-enough conclusion to the tale for some readers, but I didn’t need one. There are hints and implications and I saw where the story could go… it was the journey itself and the characters that I devoured.

STRANGE ALLIANCES joins the fun with a review of their own.

The readers’ entry into the world of CENTRAL STATION begins as a ‘I am a camera’ type of tour, highlighting both the exotic and grimy mundane of the many inhabitants populating this dense gathering of people, until there is a smooth and seamless zoom in to Mama Jones and her otherworldly adopted son Kranki and the conversation they are having. This constant shift of focus back and forth between the surroundings and the different characters demonstrates Lavie Tidhar’s skill at world building and making you feel you should have a vested interest in the outcome of the people within in it.

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So strange and yet so much of this story could be dropped into our world because this is about relationships and connectedness; about different people with different beliefs living side by side as in a community, albeit uncomfortably at times. This is science fiction told on an intimate scale. Because of this, the strangeness disappears into the background, although its presence is responsible for the way Tidhar is able to make the reader really think about the everyday issues we might encounter and are effectively being discussed by the story.

That CENTRAL STATION was developed from short stories is an interesting proposition for any writers reading this novel, because it demonstrates that it is possible to play with ideas, put them out there and continue to develop them into something that has coherence. Certainly there is a sense of episodes as the narrative is explored through different viewpoints, but this provides helpful bookmarks, because at less than 300 pages this is a novel dense with concepts and characterisations.

This is the type of story that has a unique footprint and because of that will need an audience tuned to Tidhar’s excursions into his more unusual styles of writing. But it is worth an outing for those not familiar with him and anyone wanting to understand how to write the type of science fiction that really has something to say without making an extravagant opera out of it. For those who do enjoy Tidhar’s work this is definitely a novel that will stand more than one reading because of the richness of the narrative and the ideas that are developed within it.

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

Cover and poster by Sarah Anne Langton

September 8, 2014

YESTERDAY’S KIN is this summer’s most inviting introduction to science fiction for new reader

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized aliens, chicago tribune, gary k wolfe, Nancy Kress, novella, review, science fiction, Thomas Canty, yesterday's kin

For the Chicago Tribune, Gary K. Wolfe reviews Nancy Kress’ Yesterday’s Kin.

With so many overbudgeted and underthought movies involving giant alien spacecraft suddenly appearing above the world’s cities, it’s interesting to see what a skilled and experienced science fiction writer can do with this familiar trope. 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. It’s short, suspenseful, populated with well-drawn characters and based solidly in speculations drawn from evolutionary biology, particularly concerning human haplogroups — groups which share a common ancestor.

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With the clock running, much of the plot plays out like other scenarios of impending apocalypse, but Kress’ skill in portraying the human reactions to the threat — particularly among Marianne’s own troubled family, each of whom comes to play an unexpected role in the outcome — gives the novel an almost intimate feeling of a family drama. This manages to unite with the scientific speculation and the large-scale spectacle in a small marvel of narrative economy that should appeal to the most occasional science fiction reader as well as the fan.

Read the rest of Wolfe’s review at Chicago Tribune (subscription required).

For more info on Yesterday’s Kin, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Thomas Canty.

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