house of whispers

December 20, 2022

Happy birthday to the magnificent grandmaster Nalo Hopkinson

Rick Klaw birthday, blog birthday, brown girl in the ring, falling in love with hominids, house of whispers, nalo hopkinson, particulates

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, the acclaimed Nalo Hopkinson spent her childhood in Trinidad and Guyana before her family moved to Toronto when she was sixteen. Her groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy, noted for diverse characters and the mixture of folklore, include the novels Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000), The Salt Roads (2003), The New Moon’s Arms (2007), The Chaos (2012), and Sister Mine (2013). Hopkinson’s shorter workers has been collected in Skin Folk (2001), Report from Planet Midnight (2012), and FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS (2015). She wrote 22 issues of House of Whispers, a comic book series set in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Universe. The series was collected in The House of Whispers Vol. 1: Power Divided (2019), The House of Whispers Vol. 2: Ananse (2020), and House of Whispers Vol. 3: Watching the Watchers (2020).

Cover art by Chuma Hill
Design by Elizabeth Story

As an editor, Hopkinson has worked on many publications including Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction (2000), Mojo: Conjure Stories (2003), So Long Been Dreaming (with Uppinder Mehan; 2004), Tesseracts 9 (with Geoff Ryman; 2005), People of Colo(U)R Destroy Science Fiction! (with Kristine Ong Muslim; 2016), and Particulates (2018).

Beginning with her first novel Brown Girl in the Ring winning the Warner Aspect First Novel contest, Hopkinson has garnered numerous awards. Brown Girl also won a 1999 Locus Award and that same year, the author herself won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her second novel Midnight Robber was a 2000 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Skin Folk won the 2003 World Fantasy and Sunburst Awards as well as 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award (for GLBTQ themes in science fiction and fantasy). The New Moon’s Arms received the 2008 Sunburst and Prix Aurora Awards. Hopkinson’s superior editing skills were acknowledged with the 2006 Prix Aurora Award for Tesseracts 9 and a British Fantasy Award for People of Colo(U)R Destroy Science Fiction! Her short story “Broad Duffy Water” (2021) won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. In 2016, she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Anglia Ruskin University. Hopkinson was named the 2021 SFWA Damon Knight Grand Master.

The movie Brown Girl Begins, directed and written by Sharon Lewis, serves as a prequel to Brown Girl in the Ring. The acclaimed film garnered several awards including IndieFEST Film Award and Houston Black Film Festival Prize.

All of us at Tachyon wish the extraordinary Nalo Hopkinson a happy birthday. May those incredible and insightful folktales keep flowing!

December 20, 2021

Happy birthday to the magnificent grandmaster Nalo Hopkinson

Rick Klaw birthday, blog birthday, brown girl in the ring, falling in love with hominids, house of whispers, nalo hopkinson, particulates

Beginning with her first novel Brown Girl in the Ring winning the Warner Aspect First Novel contest, Hopkinson has garnered numerous awards. Brown Girl also won a 1999 Locus Award and that same year, the author herself won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her second novel Midnight Robber was a 2000 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Skin Folk won the 2003 World Fantasy and Sunburst Awards as well as 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award (for GLBTQ themes in science fiction and fantasy). The New Moon’s Arms received the 2008 Sunburst and Prix Aurora Awards. Hopkinson’s superior editing skills were acknowledged with the 2006 Prix Aurora Award for Tesseracts 9 and a British Fantasy Award for People of Colo(U)R Destroy Science Fiction! In 2016, she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Anglia Ruskin University. Hopkinson was named the 2021 SFWA Damon Knight Grand Master.

All of us at Tachyon wish the extraordinary Nalo Hopkinson a happy birthday. May those incredible and insightful folktales keep flowing!

December 20, 2020

Happy birthday to the magnificent grandmaster Nalo Hopkinson

Rick Klaw birthday, blog birthday, brown girl in the ring, falling in love with hominids, house of whispers, nalo hopkinson, particulates 0

Beginning with her first novel Brown Girl in the Ring winning the Warner Aspect First Novel contest, Hopkinson has garnered numerous awards. Brown Girl also won a 1999 Locus Award and that same year, the author herself won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her second novel Midnight Robber was a 2000 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Skin Folk won the 2003 World Fantasy and Sunburst Awards as well as 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award (for GLBTQ themes in science fiction and fantasy). The New Moon’s Arms received the 2008 Sunburst and Prix Aurora Awards. Hopkinson’s superior editing skills were acknowledged with the 2006 Prix Aurora Award for Tesseracts 9 and a British Fantasy Award for People of Colo(U)R Destroy Science Fiction! She was named the 2021 SFWA Damon Knight Grand Master.

Hopkinson currently teaches in the Creative Writing department at the University of California, Riverside. In 2016, she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Anglia Ruskin University.

All of us at Tachyon wish the extraordinary Nalo Hopkinson a happy birthday. May those incredible and insightful folktales keep flowing!

September 21, 2018

Tachyon tidbits featuring George R. R. Martin, John Picacio, Nalo Hopkinson, Brandon Sanderson, and JY Yang

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized brandon sanderson, deron bennett, dominike domo stanton, George R. R. Martin, house of whispers, John Picacio, john rauch, jy yang, Locus, martin cahill, nalo hopkinson, neil gaiman, paste, sandman, SF in SF, steve foxe, the descent of monsters, the stormlight archive, tor.com

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

George R. R. Martin & John Picacio (Photo: Francesca Myman), Nalo Hopkinson (David Findlay), Brandon Sanderson (Ceridwen via Wikimedia Commons), and JY Yang (Scott Edelman)

LOCUS reports on SF in SF with George R. R. Martin and John Picacio.

George R.R. Martin appeared on stage in conversation with artist John Picacio on August 14, 2018 at the historic Fox Theatre in Redwood City CA. The event was hosted by SF in SF, with proceeds from ticket sales benefitting the Locus Science Fiction Foundation. An audience of nearly 600 (including various genre luminaries in town for Worldcon) gathered for a wide-ranging discussion that stretched over more than two hours (with a Q&A period). Picacio and Martin covered topics including Game of Thrones and other media adaptations of Martin’s work, his love for SF art, his writing process, his early successes and setbacks, his work in the Wild Cards shared universe, his views on the importance of Worldcon, and advice for young writers. (When Picacio asked how the forthcoming Song of Ice and Fire volume The Winds of Winter is going, Martin roared, “I’m working on it!” to applause.)

Fox Theater Lobby (by Francesca Myman)

Steve Foxe at PASTE interviews Nalo Hopkinson, Dominike “Domo” Stanton, John Rauch & Deron Bennett about a key scene in first issue of House of Whispers, one of the four new titles in the Sandman Universe Series.

Writer: Nalo Hopkinson

One of the huge delights for me as a prose person is seeing the people, settings and scenes I envision become real images. I’m very fond of this spread. It’s the first scene I imagined for this first issue, and everyone has made it so gorgeous! It is set in the main ballroom of the house of Mistress Mambo Erzulie Freda of Dahomey. She is the loa (or lwa, or orisha, or deity) of love and luxury. She’s hosting a party attended by the spirits of her human followers.

I have combined a number of different traditions from this belief system. It’s a set of real-world living religions with millions of believers, so I’m trying to reference as many of those traditions as I can throughout the series. Erzulie sits in state on her throne in the center. I asked for her to be in mermaid form, holding her mirror. I was also adamant that she should have a goodly amount of meat on her bones. A skinny mermaid is a chilly mermaid. She is greeting Uncle Monday, a shape-shifting alligator man from a Florida folktale which references the fact that many Africans who escaped slavery in the region were welcomed by the local Seminole peoples.

House of Whispers #1 Interior Art by Dominike “Domo” Stanton, John Rauch & Deron Bennett

At TOR.COM, Martin Cahill includes books from Brandon Sanderson and JY Yang in Outside the Lines: Unique Narrative Devices in Fantasy.

There’s something appealing about a book that does things a little differently. Maybe it doesn’t break the rules, but bends them? Tries something new? Experiments with narrative? That’s absolutely my jam. I love when writers find new ways, new formats, and new styles to help elevate narration. Tricks of the trade that deliver information, or tell the reader something new, or force them to look at a story in a new way.

The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

Sanderson is no stranger to utilizing epigraphs to teach readers about his world, and that device is most on display for his epic series, The Stormlight Archive. Set on the planet Roshar, a world wracked by frequent magical hurricane-like storms, this planet is home to several god-like beings, complicated cultures, deep histories, and much more. Sanderson explores those in his epigraphs before each chapter, where he details in-world letters between characters, quotes from historical figures, texts from history books, and more. He’ll also feature small short stories about events that are happening throughout the world, that may not directly affect the plot, but create a more immersive experience for readers. It helps the world remain grounded, while also expanding it in a way that feels and looks organic, but is actually a very clever mechanic to highlight world-building without info-dumping.

The Descent of Monsters by JY Yang

Continuing the tale that they began in their first two Tensorate novellas, Yang does something completely unexpected and fresh in their third novella, The Descent of Monsters: it’s told entirely in an epistolary format. The story of a Tensorate official working to uncover the tragedy that occurred at the Rewar Teng Institute of Experimental Methods, Investigator Chuwan begins to suspect foul play and must work to understand what happened, and uncover whether the mysterious Rider and Sanao Aheka of the Machinists are involved in the atrocity. Told in a series of letters to loved ones, official Tensorate reports and interviews, blacked-out government documents, and more, Yang does what they do best: tell a compelling story in an inventive format, continue to unfold the mysteries of their world, and create lively and complex characters in between the pages of letters. This novella is an incredible feat of style and structure, as well as story, and I can only hope Yang continues to push their work in new and unexpected directions as they have here.

March 7, 2018

Tachyon tidbits featuring Nalo Hopkinson, Nancy Springer, Michael Blumlein, and Suzy McKee Charnas

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized brian giberson, elizabeth story, entertainment weekly, house of whispers, ian sales, it doesn't have to be right..., John Picacio, michael blumlein, nalo hopkinson, nancy springer, neil gaiman, review, sandman universe, stagestruck vampires and other phantasms, suzy mckee charnas, the oddling prince, the roberts, way too fantasy

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

Nalo Hopkinson (photo: David Findlay), Nancy Springer (Bob O’Leary), Michael Blumlein, and Suzy Mckee Charnas

At ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, Neil Gaiman announces four new comics set in the Sandman universe including one written by Nalo Hopkinson.

EW can exclusively announce that DC Comics is launching a Sandman Universe line of four new comic series. The books will be overseen by Gaiman but written and drawn by brand new creative teams. They will pick up story threads and themes from The Sandman while also adding new characters and concepts.

The project kicks off this August with The Sandman Universe one-shot special, which will catch readers up on what’s been happening in Dream’s realm. The most salient fact is that Dream has now gone missing, leaving chaos in his wake. Other important developments include the opening of a rift between worlds, revealing a space beyond the Dreaming. Dream’s official librarian Lucien is still in charge of all the books that were dreamed and never written, but now, one of those books has wound up in the waking world, to be discovered by a group of children. The Dreaming also has an important new resident, now that a House of Whispers has appeared alongside Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets.

Photo: Craig Mulcahy

Hopkinson will write House of Whispers and explore how the voodoo deity Erzulie ended up in the Dreaming with her titular house. It might have something to do with a comatose woman named Latoya, whose girlfriend and sisters used the Book of Whispers to try and heal her. Now out of her coma, Latoya is suffering from the Cotard’s Delusion belief that she’s already dead, and is transmitting her belief to others, catalyzing them to become guardians of the gap that has opened in the Dreaming.

WAY TOO FANTASY loves Nancy Springer’s forthcoming novel THE ODDLING PRINCE.

I’m struggling with a way to begin this review that won’t sound like I’m incoherently babbling about how much I loved reading this because, for me, it’s just that great a book.

To start off, the immediate thing that grabbed me about this book was the prose. I was hooked from the first page because I fell in love with the way in which this book was written. It’s a very stylistic prose, and at times may feel a bit archaic to some, but this wasn’t a barrier for me and instead felt like an invitation to another time and place. This is just the type of touch that draws me in to a story.

I was so emotionally involved with this book and its characters. There are certain types of stories, or parts of stories, that I empathize with more than others. The thing that makes me weep, that pierces my heart, is when a character, innocently, naively, is yearning to be loved. And then is cruelly denied that love and doesn’t always understand why–why are they not able to be loved? This book has a lot of that, with Albaric having no one, except Aric, who accepts him in this new mortal world.

<snip>

I know it’s only February, it’s early yet and there are a lot of books ahead of me, but this very well could end up being my favorite book of the year. Rated 5/5 stars on goodreads.

Ian Sales on IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE RIGHT… is very pleased with his recent acquisitions.

Some other books by, er, authors I collect. I’ve been a big fan of Blumlein since first reading one of hs stories in Interzone back in the 1980s. Charnas’s ‘Beauty and the Opera, or the Phantom Beast’ is one of my favourite genre stories and it appears in STAGESTRUCK VAMPIRES AND OTHER PHANTASMS. It and THE ROBERTS I ordered direct from Tachyon Publications… and was delighted to discover on arrival they were both signed.

For more info on THE ODDLING PRINCE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Brian Giberson

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on STAGESTRUCK VAMPIRES AND OTHER PHANTASMS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Picacio

For more info on THE ROBERTS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story