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

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At PAPER KINGDOM, Michael Channing enjoys Joe R. Lansdale’s OF MICE AND MINESTRONE – HAP AND LEONARD: THE EARLY YEARS. He obviously needs to read HAP AND LEONARD: BLOOD AND LEMONADE which chronicled the duo’s first meeting.

OF MICE AND MINESTRONE contains a few short stories about the early years of Hap and Leonard. Mostly Hap, actually, though they are the full blood brothers we know them as by the book’s end. We don’t get the tale of their actual meeting, though. Maybe Joe is saving that for a later day. The final story is a good reminder of why I fell in love with those two characters and Joe’s writing in general. It’s a meditative piece full of shadowed, weary hope.

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For CBC Radio, THE CURRENT‘s Matt Galloway interviews Nalo Hopkinson, the first black woman to win the Damon Knight Grand Master award.

As the first Black woman to receive one of science fiction writing’s most prestigious awards, Nalo Hopkinson says she takes a “joyful” responsibility in her work.

“I know I represent a lot to people who didn’t think they could do what I’m doing for various reasons,” said Hopkinson, author of several award-winning books, including Brown Girl in the Ring and The New Moon’s Arms.

“People from marginalized experiences like I am, being Black, being an immigrant to North America, being female, being queer, being over a certain age, having some level of disability,” she told The Current’s Matt Galloway. “It’s something I do take seriously.”

The Jamaican-born Canadian was named Damon Knight Grand Master last month, a lifetime achievement honour presented annually by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). She is now based in California, where she is a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside.

The 60-year-old is not only the first Black woman to be honoured with the title, but is the youngest ever Grand Master. A tribute video for the award included appearances from SFWA members and Star Trek: The Next Generation star LeVar Burton.

“There’s a fine line, in my view, between humanity and divinity, and you dance between them with effortless ease and grace,” Burton said in the video.

Hopkinson said his tribute was humbling.

“You know that thing you do when you’re shocked — you put your hands over your mouth and your mouth is open? That’s what I was doing all the way through it,” she told Galloway.

“I hope I manage the humanity part, and the rest I would think of as being something I’m trying for in my writing, to sort of hit some of the more profane and sublime aspects of being human.”

Camestros Felapton, on his eponymous site, praises Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND.

I was both entranced and deeply impressed by this book. It loves its ideas and there is a love of science fiction and pulp and weird ideas (a brief mention of a kind Jewish Tarzan visiting a Pellucidar knock-off, Shelley’s Ozymandis, lost Nazi soldier appearing in an African jungle…) and just a great big pile of everything and yet somehow in a neat package. It is very much a story that unfolds.

FAR OUT compiles a list of Jimi Hendrix’s favorite books and science fiction that changed his life. Includes Ward Moore’s innovated story “Lot,” which Tachyon published as LOT & LOT’S DAUGHTER.

Jimi Hendrix’s favourite books:

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Urantia Book

The Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus by Brian Wilson Aldiss

Complete Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

Night of Light by Philip José Farmer

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

Lot by Ward Moore

Earth Abides by George Stewart

Secret Places of the Lion: Alien Influences on Earth’s Destiny by George Hunt Williamson