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

Nalo Hopkinson, Peter S. Beagle, Carter Scholz, Tim Powers (Matt Gush), and Alastair Reynolds (Barbera Bella)

YZABEL discovers Nalo Hopkinson and her collection FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS.

To be honest, I had no idea who Nalo Hopkinson was until I requested this book. But I was definitely interested to read stories by an author who seemed to have an approach stemming from a different culture than mine. I didn’t know what to expect; I wasn’t disappointed.

Urban fantasy, fairy tales, science fiction, magical realism: Hopkinson weaves a lot of ideas in various settings, while never losing sight of human beings: their complexity, the depth of their feelings, all their doubts and ambiguities. A mother tries to make her teenage girl realise that “taming her hair” may amount to rejecting where she came from. Fairy beings, humans and “half-breeds” mingle in Bordertown, but do they all really accept each other? Beings preying at each other, feeding on each other, going through phases of desire and guilt, of doubt and acceptance. Beings with both monstrous and loving sides, displaying alien features yet also deeply human ones, like the girl turning into a dragon, but whose deep desire remains, all in all, to be accepted by others… her own self included.

SOMA FM has released a podcast of April’s SF in SF which featured Peter S. Beagle and Carter Scholz.

SPECULICTION reviews Tim Powers’ THE BIBLE REPAIRMAN AND OTHER STORIES.

Tim Powers is
certainly best known for his novel-length work—THE ANUBIS GATES,
LAST CALL, THE STRESS OF HER REGARD, DECLARE, and the like.  What
fewer people are aware of are his talents as a short story writer.
Admittedly not prolific, he nevertheless puts the same attention to
detail into his shorter works.  Not forcing epic storylines into
twenty or so pages, everything is appropriately scaled to suit his
writing style.  THE BIBLE REPAIRMAN AND OTHER STORIES (2011) is a
good example.

Opening with the strongest two entries in the collection, the title story “The Bible Repairman” is about a haunted man involved in spiritual work.  Now a simple eradicator of troublesome bits of the Bible for customers needing absolution, he once was, however, a kidnapping negotiator for ghosts.  His soul sapped to its dregs as a result, the weight of his own daughter’s death, and subsequent kidnapping of her ghost, hangs heavy, resulting in a dark, personal story with more than a few hints of run-down suburban magic to broaden the scene.  “A Soul in a Bottle” is about a rare book dealer who has a remarkable encounter on Hollywood Boulevard putting three pennies in Jean Harlow’

In the end, THE BIBLE REPAIRMAN AND OTHER STORIES  is a solid collection that displays Powers’ talents, talents that have certainly matured since the author’s early years.  There are no timeless stories in the collection, but each has its own singular level of detail, idiosyncrasy, and subtle layers of plot.  The title story arguably the strongest, most readers, however, will probably enjoy “A Time to Cast Away Stones.”

On his extraordinary MORE RED INK, Marty Halpern discusses Alastair Reynolds’ SLOW BULLETS.

I was fortunate to have worked on SLOW BULLETS by Alastair Reynolds – I acquired and edited the novella for Tachyon Publications – so I am quite pleased to be able to announce that SLOW BULLETS is now a finalist for both the Hugo Award and the Locus Award.

I’d like to quote a paragraph from my June 8, 2015, blog post:

If you are unfamiliar with the various works of author Alastair Reynolds, then Slow Bullets would be the perfect starting point. If you read Alastair Reynolds already, preferring his longer novels and series work – still, don’t deny yourself the pleasure of reading this story, as SLOW BULLETS has more ideas than some novels that are twice its length.

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

Cover art by Chuma Hill

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on SUMMERLONG, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Magdalena Korzeniewska

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on THE BIBLE REPAIRMAN AND OTHER STORIES, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Josh Beatman

For more info about SLOW BULLETS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Thomas Canty

Design by Elizabeth Story