mike reeves-mcmillan

September 13, 2022

With assured prose and a well-plotted, well-paced story, Mia Tsai’s groundbreaking BITTER MEDICINE is an extraordinary and distinct blend of agent thriller, the supernatural, and romance

Rick Klaw blog asia pacific arts, bitter medicine, grace wynter, interview, mia tsai, mike reeves-mcmillan, review, the review curmudgeon, valerie wu, writer unboxed

Though some six months until its March release (the book, both physical and digital, is currently available directly from Tachyon and other select outlets), Mia Tsai’s debut novel BITTER MEDICINE has earned glowing reviews from Valerie Wu for Asia Pacific Arts and Mike Reeves-McMillan at The Review Curmudgeon. She was also interviewed by Grace Wynter at Writer Unboxed.

cover for Bitter Medicine by Mia Tasi — Cover art by Jia-Ling Pan
Design by Elizabeth Story

As a contemporary fantasy debut, Mia Tsai’s Bitter Medicine is an extraordinary and distinct blend of agent thriller, the supernatural, and romance. Although these different elements do get lost in one another, the overall way they play out together is a welcome form of “medicine” for readers craving a groundbreaking work of fiction.
Asia Pacific Arts

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A capably written fantasy/romance with a strong element of Chinese mythology, something I tend to enjoy despite not having much familiarity with the source material.

Even in the pre-publication copy I received via Netgalley, the editing is good, with just a few very minor mistakes. As is often the case, that’s accompanied by assured prose and a well-plotted, well-paced story.
The Review Curmudgeon

Mia Tsai author photo — Photo by Rebekah Chavez Wynne

GW: What do you want readers to take away from reading BITTER MEDICINE?

MT: I wanted, frankly, a story centering an Asian American woman who suffers from depression and who doesn’t have to go it alone, no matter how much she thinks she should. That story is something I think we see quite rarely, though in my experience, it’s not rare at all. Asian American women suffer disproportionately from depression, but that’s not reflected much in our media, especially in genre fiction (shoutout here to Angela Mi Young Hur and Folklorn, which has depictions of depression and grief). The first rewrite of BITTER MEDICINE was actually too depressed, believe it or not, so I had to pare back the bits that were making readers blue. For the Asians out there, I want them to know they don’t have to be alone, that community is there to support and uplift them, that reaching out to get help in whatever way you need is good, and that we will all be happy to know you’re here tomorrow and tomorrow and all the days after.
Writer Unboxed

November 10, 2017

Tachyon tidbits featuring Peter S. Beagle, Jo Walton, and Jeff VanderMeer

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized in calabria, jeff vandermeer, jo walton, mike reeves-mcmillan, nciba, peter s beagle, review, starlings, the review curmudgeon, this world is full of monsters, tor.com

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

Peter S. Beagle (photo: Rina Weisman), Jo Walton (Ada Palmer), and Jeff VanderMeer (Kyle Cassidy)

Peter S. Beagle’s IN CALABRIA was named to the NCIBA Book Award Long List.

The NCIBA presents the Northern California Book Awards every Spring. Awards are given in various categories for books published for the first time in the prior year and written by an author residing in Northern California (we make a residency exception for an author whose book is nominated in the Regional Title category).

Fiction

A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Counterpoint, 9781619029224
Sourdough by Robin Sloan, MCD, Macmillan, 9790374203108
Artemis by Andy Weir, Crown, 9780553448122
Less by Andrew Sean Greer, Lee Boudreaux Books, Hachette, 9780316316125
Autonomous by Analee Newitz, Tor Books, Macmillan, 9780765392077
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson, Orbit, Hachette, 9780316262347
Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory, Knopf, Penguin Random House, 9781524731823
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 9781101982242
An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King, Harper Voyager, HarperCollins, 9780062662552
Goodbye Vitamin by Rachel Khong, Henry Holt and Co., Macmillan, 9781250109163
In this Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear, HarperLuxe, HarperCollins, 9780062644299
All the News I Need by Joan Frank, University of Massachusetts Press, 9781625342621
IN CALABRIA by Peter S. Beagle, Tachyon Publications, 9781616962487
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende, Atria Books, Simon & Schuster 9781501178139
Void Star by Zachary Mason, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Macmillan, 9780374285067
Dead on Arrival by Matt Richtel, William Morrow, HarperCollins, 9780062443274

Congrats to all the honorees.

Mike Reeves-McMillan at THE REVIEW CURMUDGEON praises Jo Walton’s STARLINGS.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By the author’s own admission, several of the “short stories” in this book are not actually stories. They’re exercises in mode, or jokes, or the attempts of someone who knows how novels work but not how short stories work to write a short story

.

This doesn’t sound promising, but Jo Walton is such a good writer that she mostly gets away with it in any case. In fact, some of the stories have been published in prestigious publications like Strange Horizons and Subterranean. Unfairly, I occasionally thought, “I wish I had the kind of standing in the SFF community that meant I could get published in those publications by writing a story that isn’t a story,” but that’s not the only thing that’s going on. Walton is a deep thinker, a close observer, and a master of language, and all these things shine through, even when her “story” is only an exploration of a clever idea with no real beginning, middle, or (especially) end.

Overall, then, this collection is proof that, if you’re a good enough writer, you can write a successful piece of short fiction in a lot of different ways. Not all of the pieces are excellent or weighty, or even original, but those that are lift the average considerably.

Art: Armando Veve

TOR.COM shares the original Jeff VanderMeer story “This World Is Full of Monsters.”

I Did Not Recognize What Sought Me

The story that meant the end arrived late one night. A tiny story, covered in green fur or lichen, shaky on its legs. It fit in the palm of my hand. I stared at the story for a long time, trying to understand. The story had large eyes that could see in the dark, and sharp teeth. It purred, and the purr grew louder and louder: a beautiful flower bud opening and opening until I was filled up. I heard the thrush and pull of the darkness, grown so mighty inside my head.

I grew weary.

I grew weary and I fell asleep on the couch holding the story, wondering what it might be and who had delivered it to me. But there was no time left for wonder. As I slept, the story gnawed its way into my belly and then the story crawled up through my body into my head. When I woke, gasping my resistance, the story made me stumble out the door of my house and lurch through the dark down my street, giddy and disoriented, muttering, “Do not stop me. Do not stop me. Story made me this way. Story made me this way.”

I felt a compulsion to turn to the left, and then to turn to the left again. Until the story made me stop at the end of the block, where the last fence meets a forest. By now I knew that the story wasn’t a story at all. It had just made me think it was a story so it could invade my brain.

For more info about IN CALABRIA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on STARLINGS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

July 18, 2017

Patricia A. McKillip’s THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD is a remarkable work of literature

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized book riot, celine low, cristina alves, fred phillips, mike reeves-mcmillan, patricia a mckillip, rascunhos, the forgotten beasts of eld, the review curmudgeon, the royal library, Thomas Canty

Fred Phillips at THE ROYAL LIBRARY enjoyed his introduction to Patricia A. McKillip with THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD.

Even after 30-plus years of reading fantasy, there are still a few icons in the genre that I have not read. One of those was Patricia McKillip. With her World Fantasy Award-winning novel THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD ($9.99, Tachyon Publications) up for its first e-book release in the near future, I took the opportunity to fix that oversight.

<snip>

Epic doesn’t necessarily mean massive and sprawling. At a relatively brief 240 pages, THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD is certainly nothing short of epic.

That’s not to say that the tale is sparse. Though McKillip wastes no words, the ones that she puts on the page are lyrical and magical. Despite the speed with which the tale moves, there is an undeniable flow that carries the reader along and catches us up in the action and the drama of Sybel’s story, and it’s a remarkable work of literature.

THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD makes me sorry that I’ve neglected McKillip’s work for so long. I will soon remedy that situation.

Photo: Stephen Gold/Wikimedia Commons

For THE REVIEW CURMUDGEON, Mike Reeves-McMillan praises the novel.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thought I’d read this before, but I didn’t remember it once I got into it, and I would have remembered a book like this. I think I’d just heard about it so often that I assumed I’d read it, particularly since I love the author’s other work.

McKillip writes with a magnificent complexity and depth, in the mythopoeic style championed by Tolkien. Lest we be fooled by the commercial epic fantasy of the 1970s and 1980s into thinking that Tolkien was all about armies and orcs and a quirky mixed group on a quest, this book reminds us that there was another, deeper layer to his work, which few subsequent authors have the skills to emulate. It’s poetic, without ever trying too hard for beauty for its own sake; it’s mythic, while also being anchored in the reality of human psychology; it’s epic, without depicting a single battle on stage (though a battle forms an important part of the backstory).

<snip>

The wisdom at the heart of this book is that, in caring for others, we come to understand ourselves; and the person who comes to this insight most clearly is not the young boy, but the magically powerful middle-aged woman. It’s a landmark work in the fantasy field, and I’m glad it’s being reissued in ebook, and that I had the chance to read it through Netgalley for this review.

Cristina Alves at the Portuguese-language RASCUNHOS enjoys the book.

The premise of the story is not unknown – impossible loves, orphans who prove to be heirs to a throne or revenge that had long been forgotten; What is different is the way events coil and the board is turned over whenever it seems to slip into vulgarity. The end, this, is not at all expected, but the way is what distinguishes history.

(Translation from Portuguese courtesy of Google)

For BOOK RIOT, Celine Low includes THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD among her 9 Indulgent Fiction and Food Pairings.

THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD by Patricia A. McKillip

PAIRS WELL WITH:

TWG’s Silver Moon Tea. This is a blend of green teas, with a berry and vanilla bouquet. Sounds so magical, doesn’t it–‘silver moon’? Perfect for a book about the power of a name!

PAIRS POORLY WITH:

Chamomile. You know how your favourite music can put you to sleep? Yeah.

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

Cover by Thomas Canty

March 4, 2016

Tachyon tidbits featuring Lavie Tidhar, Patricia A. McKillip, and Elizabeth Story

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized book cover designs, bookaneer, central station, collection, daryl gregory, dreams of distant shores, elizabeth story, fantasy, horror, lavie tidhar, mike reeves-mcmillan, novella, patricia a mckillip, Publishers Weekly, review, sarah anne langton, science fiction, the review curmudgeon, Thomas Canty, we are all completely fine

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

Lavie Tidhar (photo: Kevin Nixon. © Future Publishing 2013.)/Patricia A. McKillip (Wikimedia Commons)/Elizabeth Story

Lavie Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION received a starred review from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

World Fantasy Award–winner Tidhar (A Man Lies Dreaming) magnificently blends literary and speculative elements in this streetwise mosaic novel set under the towering titular spaceport.

Tidhar gleefully mixes classic SF concepts with prose styles and concepts that recall the best of world literature. The byways of Central Station ring with dusty life, like the bruising, bustling Cairo streets depicted by Naguib Mahfouz. Characters wrestle with problems of identity forged under systems of oppression, much as displaced Easterners and Westerners do in the novels of Orhan Pamuk. And yet this is unmistakably SF. Readers of all persuasions will be entranced.

At THE REVIEW CURMUDGEON, Mike Reeves-McMillan gives Patricia A. McKillip’s forthcoming collection DREAMS OF DISTANT SHORES 5 out of 5 stars.

Overall, this is a fine collection of a rare type of story, the mythopoeic kind of fantasy that evokes wonder and shows us complex human people undergoing realizations about themselves that shake them to the core of their identities.

In their review of the recent publication BOOK COVER DESIGNS, BOOKANEER mentions several covers that caught their attention including Elizabeth Story’s design for Daryl Gregory’s World Fantasy Award-winning WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE.

I confess I prefer the covers that speak to the soul of the book, the type of cover you look at again after reading the story and you realize what scene they’re portraying, and see all the little details from all the minor moments in the story. Covers like these, in fact:

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

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

For more info on DREAMS OF DISTANT SHORES, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Thomas Canty

For more information on WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

September 23, 2014

THE SECRET HISTORY OF FANTASY is diverse and wide-ranging

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized anthology, fantasy, fantasy literature, mike reeves-mcmillan, peter s beagle, review, the secret history of fantasy

Fantasy Literature guest contributor Mike Reeves-McMillan delivers a lengthy review of The Secret History of Fantasy.

In the case of fantasy, this type of writing is somewhere between fairy tale and magical realism, or so the selections in this volume suggest. Mainstream commercial fantasy, despite its frequent derivation from Tolkien, lacks his deep background in traditional story, and often ends up with an explicable world that happens to have magic as part of the explanation. These stories don’t. Things just happen that aren’t explained. At the fairy-tale end of the spectrum, that’s often the jumping-off point for the story, somebody having to deal with this unexplained magical thing. At the magical-realism end are at least a couple of stories that suggest that it makes very little difference, that people will just continue as they would have anyway, working around the magical thing as best they can.

Those are generalisations, and it’s difficult to generalise about this collection without immediately thinking of exceptions. It’s diverse and wide-ranging. Although not every story in this volume was to my taste — something that’s unlikely to happen unless I edit an anthology myself — there were still some fine ones. Let’s go piece by piece.

Read the rest of Reeves-McMillan’s interesting review at Fantasy Literature.

For more info on The Secret History of Fantasy, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Ann Monn.

June 17, 2014

THE VERY BEST OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION, VOLUME TWO scores a pair of fantastic reviews

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized amazing, anthology, brian aldiss, Charles de Lint, damon knight, elizabeth hand, F&SF, fantasy, Gene Wolfe, Gordon Van Gelder, Harlan Ellison, Jack Finney, Jack Vance, Jane Yolen, Maureen McHugh, mike reeves-mcmillan, paolo bacigalupi, review, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Silverberg, science fiction, short stories, stephen king, steve fahnestalk, the review curmudgeon, the very best fantasy & science fiction, the very best of fantasy & science fiction volume 2, Thomas Canty, ventureadlaxre, Zenna Henderson

Recently, a pair of reviews for the forthcoming anthology The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2 hit the interwebs.

Steve Fahnestalk at Amazing delivers a lengthy review, which features some background to the magazine, an argument about what is sf, and an overview of every story.

All in all—and I’ve read this anthology more than once—I can’t say that there are any bad stories in it; Gordon Van Gelder has proved himself, in a time when there must be many more submissions than in any other editor’s tenure, to be not only a competent editor, but a talented one as well. I can’t wait to see what diamonds he mines from the 66 years (plus!) of F&SF’s history for the next “Very Best Of” anthology!

Ventueadlaxre awards the anthology 4 out 5 stars and also reviews each story.

Overall this is a strong anthology, proving that it lives up to the title of the Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction – some anthologies are named as such, but this delivers on that promise. It’s also interesting to see what ideas were in play 60 years ago, and both how we have come from that time as technology develops, as well as how things are still eerily stagnant.

I highly recommend this anthology, and thank Tachyon for offering me a copy to review.

Bonus coverage:

I preparation for Volume 2, The Review Curmudgeon Mike Reeves-McMillan reviewed the first volume of The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

Some true classics here, along with stories I don’t remember hearing of or reading before. As with any anthology, it’s Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, and only the editor will love every one of the stories, but by and large these stories demonstrate why F&SF has been so successful for so long. They aren’t, for the most part, trotting out the tropes, even to play with them or subvert them; they’re taking SFF to strange and wonderful new places.

For more info on The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Thomas Canty.

For more info on The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, visit the Tachyon page.