Tachyon tidbits featuring Nalo Hopkinson, Kage Baker, and James Patrick Kelly
The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.
Nalo Hopkinson (Photo: David Findlay), Kage Baker, and James Patrick Kelly (Bill Clemente)
World Fantasy Award winner Nalo Hopkinson, author of the acclaimed FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, is receiving an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Anglia Ruskin University.
Thousands of students will receive their degree certificates from Vice Chancellor Professor Iain Martin during ceremonies to be held at the Corn Exchange, Cambridge, between Monday 17 and Thursday 20 October.
They will be joined by several special guests who have been chosen to receive honorary degrees from Anglia Ruskin for excellence in their respective fields and their contribution to society.
The guests include Nalo Hopkinson, a critically-acclaimed author, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, and valued mentor to several of Anglia Ruskin’s Creative Writing students. Nalo’s passionate and insightful commitment to the literary exploration of issues such as race, class and sexuality, exemplify the focus, determination and talent required to excel at the highest level. She will receive the award of Honorary Doctor of Letters.
Stefan Raets at TOR.COM continues the reread of Kage Baker’s Company Series with THE GRAVEYARD GAME.
Part
of the reason why this chapter is so wonderful is that it’s one of
only a few parts of this series that take place in a contemporary
setting. There’s something thrilling about seeing these characters,
who we’ve followed through several centuries and will follow far
into the future, navigating a recognizable environment. It makes
perfect sense that Joseph and Lewis would be involved with the
Hollywood entertainment industry and that Juan Bautista is working in
an Audubon Society bird sanctuary, but it’s still amazing to see
how well their long careers translated into 20th century jobs. For
me, seeing these characters living and working in contemporary
California always made them feel more relatable and more alien at the
same time. It gives the series an odd “they walk among us” secret
history vibe I really love, especially when you add in some of the
little details Kage Baker slipped into the story, like Lewis
complaining to Joseph that the VR simulation is unrealistic because
there weren’t any druids yet when Stonehenge was finished: “I was
one, I should know.”
But
aside from this general appreciation for the setting of the chapter,
so different from anything that came before in the series, I also
love it because it’s the first time we see the dynamic duo of Lewis
and Joseph in action. (I’m disregarding the brief meeting at start
of SKY
COYOTE because
yes, they met, but they didn’t really work together on a “mission”
like they do here and in some of the stories I mentioned earlier.) If
Kage Baker had lived longer and launched an ongoing series of The
Continued Adventures of Joseph and Lewis stories, I would have gladly
bought and read them as fast as they became available. (I should also
note here, that “Hollywood Ikons”, one of the stories Kathleen
Bartholomew completed posthumously, is a Joseph and Lewis story. You
can find it in the Tachyon Publications anthology IN THE COMPANY OF THIEVES.)
At CLARKESWORLD, Kate Baker reads James Patrick Kelly’s “One Sister, Two Sisters, Three.”
This isn’t my story—I’m nobody. It’s my sister’s. Zana is the one who got away, leaving me on this sad little world where we were born. Where I’ll die someday, as the Divine Moya wills. Moya expects us to die, each and every one. That’s her plan for those who still follow the human way.
For more information on FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover art by Chuma Hill
Design by Elizabeth Story
For more info about IN THE COMPANY OF THIEVES, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover by Thomas Canty
