paul semel

February 23, 2023

With the perfect Jane Yolen stories, THE SCARLET CIRCUS makes for an enjoyable time

Rick Klaw Uncategorized fantasy cafe, Jane Yolen, john scalzi, lisa loves literature, los angeles public library, mary robinette kowal, paul semel, reading reality, tales untangled, the big idea, the book lover's boudoir, the booked unicorn, The Girl Who Reads, the scarlet circus

The recent release of Jane Yolen’s latest collection THE SCARLET CIRCUS (with an intro from Brandon Sanderson) spawned a flurry of internet activity with glowing reviews from The Book Lover’s Boudoir, Reading Reality, Lisa Loves Literature, Tales Untangled, and The Girl Who Reads. Yolen produced guest posts for John Scalzi’s The Big Idea, Mary Robinette Kowal’s My Favorite Thing, The Booked Unicorn, and Fantasy Cafe. Finally, a pair of interviews/discussions with Paul Samel and for the Los Angeles Public Library.

Cover for The Scarlet Circus, a collection of love stories by Jane Yolen — Cover by Elizabeth Story

I love fantasy and these stories were perfect. I enjoyed each and every one.
The Book Lover’s Boudoir

But overall I’m very glad I picked this up, and enjoyed the ways that it played with romances of many types and stripes and definitions. That “love is all there is is all we know of love” doesn’t have to mean that all loves are exactly the same type.
Reading Reality

I really liked a lot of the stories in this one!
Lisa Loves Literature

This is such a fun short story collection!

I loved every single one of these stories from mermaids, to djinn, to rabbits, and ghosts. The variety was so much fun. I often found I wanted to continue the story with the characters even though it was over. That’s a sign of great writing.
Tales Untangled

If you’ve never taken a look at any of Jane Yolen’s novels, take a look at these short stories. Her work spans multiple genres, so there might be something for you even if high fantasy isn’t your thing.
The Girl Who Reads

January 4, 2023

One of the best queer books of 2022, R. B. Lemberg’s THE UNBALANCING is stunning

Rick Klaw blog autostraddle, best of 2022, birdverse, diary of doctor logic, Geometries of Belonging: Stories & Poems From the Birdverse, interview, jo walton, liz shayne, paul semel, r. b. lemberg, review, sara l uckelman, Scrapping and Playing, the four profound weaves, the unbalancing

Ending the year on a high note, R. B. Lemberg’s THE UNBALANCING continues to receive abundant praise with inclusion in Autostraddle‘s 92 of the Best Queer Books of 2022. Liz Shayne in their year end summation, mention the title as “Most Eloquent in its Spareness.” Scrapping and Playing further endorses the novel. At Diary of Doctor Logic in the year end review of what they read, Sara L. Uckelman praises THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES. In support of the first Birdverse story collection Geometries of Belonging, Lemberg was interviewed by Jo Walton and Paul Semel.

Lemberg’s first full novel in their acclaimed Birdverse series is outstanding. With deep roots in queer- and transness, neurodivesity, and mythical cosmology, this loose retelling of the Atlantis legend is intimate and authentic. Two characters, a poet and a starkeeper, fall in love over the course of the narrative as they work hard to save their doomed island home. The book’s lyrical prose, complex characterization, compelling action, and emotional resonance come together to create a flawless fantasy story. For nonbinary representation in adult fantasy, THE UNBALANCING should be your first stop.
Autostraddle

Most Eloquent in its Spareness
THE UNBALANCING by R. B. Lemberg. I raved about how Jewish this book is, not merely in scene-setting, but in its attitude towards diaspora and identity, but on top of that it’s an absolutely lovely story about what we do when we’re at a crossroads and heroism versus helping and it’s perfect and Lemberg’s work is always stunning and I can’t wait to read their upcoming book of poetry.

Liz Shayne

I fell in love with the Birdverse when I read THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES as this complex, inclusive, and fascinating universe kept in thrall and made me sad when I closed the book.

THE UNBALANCING is even better and I was happy to travel again to the Birdverse and meet the characters. There’s a lot of inclusivity and the characters are realistic, fleshed out and interesting.
Scrapping and Playing

Lemberg, R.B., THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES (finished September 10, 2022): I’ve followed Lemberg on twitter for awhile and have long wanted to read something of theirs. This was a great introduction to their Birdverse — rich and detailed, fiercely queer, and a lot in a small space.
Diary of Doctor Logic

Cover by Elizabeth Story based on initial concepts by Francesca Myman

I want to hear about the origins of the Birdverse. Where did this rich world come from? How did you land on the name?

I think I was in high school when I thought it would be interesting to create a fantasy world that began with a bird deity. I was reading a lot of mythology and folklore (a perennial interest of mine), and was interested in creation myths where the world is created from an egg. The World Egg is an idea present in some Indo-European mythologies, as well as in Finnish lore, and in other traditions. I kept wondering where the egg came from, and from there I got to a Bird deity (there is no egg in Birdverse creation mythology, it is all Bird). I also vaguely remember reading, around the same time, an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin, again, I am actually not sure if it was her or not, or if I imagined the whole thing – but the interview featured a childhood story in which “in the beginning, there was Bird.” I carried these ideas around me for a long time. Birdverse itself began as an image in my mind. This was a snippet of a story, a scene, about a linguist, Ulín, who travels the landmass in search of new languages to study. In this image, she is in a wood. It is deep and lush and green; she is feeling out of place and excited. She is about to meet some new people there, and begin to study their language. I knew little about her. I knew that most scholars in this world were magical people, but she herself had no magic. She is not in any of my published stories (yet), but her story is central to Birdverse and to everything I’ve written since then.
Jo Walton

Geometries Of Belonging: Stories & Poems From The Birdverse is obviously a collection of short stories and poems set in the Birdverse. It’s right there in the title. Where in relation to THE UNBALANCING and the other Birdverse books do the stories take place?

The stories, poems, and longer works are all set on a timeline, which I have only published on my Patreon. There is an arc to the stories that I want to tell in this world, even though it is more of a tapestry than a line.

The stories and poems in Geometries explore the different events of the Birdverse arc; some connect to my longer works, others do not, or not yet. For example, the poem “Ranra’s Unbalancing,” which won the Strange Horizons Readers Poll back in the day, has Ranra talking and swearing about the events of THE UNBALANCING. When I wrote the poem, I knew that I wanted to write a longer work about these events. Now the readers can get both the poem (in the collection) and the novel, too. The opening poem and novelette of the collection, “I Will Show You A Single Treasure,” and the Nebula-finalist novelette, “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth Of Winds,” are prequels to the novella THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES. Other pieces in the collection might be connected to longer works one day; for example, “The Book Of How To Live” and “Where Your Quince Trees Grow.”
Paul Semel

October 3, 2022

With THE UNBALANCING, R. B. Lemberg delivers a compelling book about real people with LGBTQIA+, disability, and neurodivergent representation

Rick Klaw blog birdverse, bog odea, book riot, booktubesff, interview, just geeking by, maija reads, paul semel, r b lemberg, review, rey rowland, rick hellman, the four profound weaves, the unbalancing, university of kansas

The recently released THE UNBALANCING by R. B. Lemberg continues to receive praise from the likes of Just Geeking By and Maija Reads as part of #booktubesff. Rick Hellman for The University of Kansas interviews Lemberg about the importance of names in the Birdverse. On his ubiquitous site, Paul Semel also interviews the author. For John Scalzi’s The Big Idea, they write about pronouns. And finally at Book Riot, Rey Rowland discusses the Birdverse novella THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES in “Weaving Magic: 8 Fantasy Books with Magic Systems based on Art“.

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Lemberg has written a wonderfully compelling book about real people with LGBTQIA+ representation, disability and neurodivergent representation. This is my first introduction to Lemberg’s Birdverse and I look forward to spending more time in the gorgeous world they have created.
Just Geeking By

More importantly, the author said, as canonized in the Birdverse works:

“Deepnames can be triggered by invocation — either spoken out loud or whispered or even spoken inside the mind. Then you can do magic with it. You have the magical ability to see it. It’s like a star or constellation that floats around your head, and we can use these geometrical structures to affect the world.”

“It’s a neat magic system that is based on language, because in order to acquire deepnames, but also in order to know what to do with the deepnames, you need to understand how language is produced. It really has to do with breath; how you train your breath to produce particular sounds. … I love when readers geek out over this magical system and ask me details. It’s awesome.”
The University of Kansas

As I mentioned, THE UNBALANCING is your first novel, but you’ve written novellas, short stories, and poems. Are there any writers who you feel had a particularly big influence on The Unbalancing but not on anything else you’ve written?

Aleksandr Grin. He is a Russian-language writer and revolutionary from the turn of the 20th century who wrote stories about fantastical Crimea. I am from Ukraine, and my grandmother’s best friend Raya lived in Crimea. We used to go there in the summers when I was very young. Grin’s writing resonates with me both because of my childhood and how fantastical those places were, and because of the strange, fragile lyricism of his work, his unapologetic imagination which is often described as “romantic” — I don’t describe it as romantic necessarily, it’s rather like sea glass to me — muted and varied and lyrical and strange. It’s just very dear to me. The name Gelle-Geu is inspired by one of his fantastical cities, adjusted for archipelago phonology.

The Russian Federation’s violent wars have brutalized the landscapes of my childhood and caused so much suffering to Ukrainian people. It is a source of endless pain and rage for me.
Paul Semel

THE UNBALANCING is the first novel in my long-standing Birdverse fantasy world. Since the very first Birdverse story in Beneath Ceaseless Skies back in 2011, Birdverse has been a place which centered queer and trans people. LGBTQIA+ people in Birdverse do not always have it easy. Some countries and cultures are more accepting and welcoming than others, and people who travel or migrate between different places might be shocked by the differences in language and culture that make space for people like them – or take it away.

In THE UNBALANCING, I wanted to imagine queer utopia. The archipelago is a place of refuge for people who do not fit in their home countries. The society of the islands is welcoming and carefree, celebrating the many expressions of gender and sexuality. One of the key features of archipelago culture is its recognition of women, men, and ichidar. Ichidi (plural ichidar) is a word which roughly corresponds to our nonbinary gender. But nonbinary gender is not monolithic – neither in our world, nor in Birdverse. The islanders recognize “the five ichidi variations”, which are represented by words and animal symbols accompanied by lyrical sayings for each variation.
The Big Idea

Last but not least, weaving is a beautiful art form, and I love that this novella uses it to create such a unique magic system that has characters weaving different materials like sand and bone as if they were cloth. THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES in “Weavin follows a weaver named Uiziya, who is looking for the master weaver to learn the final weave. Then there’s a nameless man who struggles to find where he belongs. The two travel together to find Benesret — but there’s a price for what they want out of Benesret, and it may be too high for them to pay.
Book Riot

July 25, 2022

With the fascinating THE EXTRACTIONIST, Kimberly Unger ushers in a new generation of cyberpunk

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Kimberly Unger’s new technothriller THE EXTRACTIONIST continues to enthrall with reviews from Kara Babcock at Kara Reviews and Pamela Scott for The Book Lover’s Boudoir as well as an interview with Paul Semel. Also, be sure to catch Unger reading from the book for KALW Pubic Media.

THE EXTRACTIONIST is a pretty strong contender for a new generation of cyberpunk that hews to the traditions of the subgenre while also carving out new ones given our modern society’s flirtation with a metaverse.
Kara Reviews

I’ve read other books by the author and was looking forward to THE EXTRACTIONIST. I liked the world-building and the level of detail used to bring McKay’s world and job to life. It got a bit technical at times but I was fascinated. I enjoyed the thriller elements but preferred just hanging out with McKay and her strange life.
The Book Lover’s Boudoir

I’d like to start with a little background: Who is Eliza McKay, the main character of The Extractionist? What does she do? And what exactly is an extractionist?

So, in every science fictional universe with some kind of “alternate reality” technology, there’s a story about someone getting stuck in it. Star Trek did it, Stargate did it, even The X-Files did it. An extractionist is the person whose job is to pull you out of those virtual spaces in time for dinner, even if you really don’t want to go.

Eliza McKay is doing this as a fallback career. After she royally fucked up in her day-job, this was the slice of the gig economy where she really found a fit.
Paul Semel

November 19, 2020

Get to know Kimberly Unger and her debut novel NUCLEATION

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In celebration of the release of NUCLEATION, which BOOKLIST recommends “for fans of Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon and Martha Wells’ Murderbot series,” Kimberly Unger engaged in a virtual tour.

On FACEBOOK LIVE, Unger sat down for a chat with the incomparable Cat Rambo.

Unger contributed essays to both Mary Robinette Kowal’s MY FAVORITE BIT and John Scalzi’s THE BIG IDEA.

My favorite bit of NUCLEATION is front and center from the very first page, in fact it’s the bit that got me to write the entire rest of everything.

NUCLEATION is a story about a top-tier pilot who operates robots (waldos) by remote from a billion miles away via a quantum communication link. When the story opens Helen Vectorovich is at the top of her game. She and her partner Ted have been awarded the very first, very public shift on a multi year mission that will open up a whole new set of resources for the Earth colonies. It’s a big deal, a big honor and they… are… rocking it.
MY FAVORITE BIT

My name is Kimberly Unger and I am here to talk to you about one of the Big Ideas behind my debut novel, NUCLEATION.

At some point, we stopped plunging headlong into the great unknown and did the smart thing, the safe thing. We let the robots go first. We send probes and satellites and rovers and landers, we peer through telescopes and send out radio signals. We bounce frikkin’ laser beams off everything in frikkin’ laser beam range. All of this, every signal, every nuclear-powered tin-can, gets out there before we do.

Why?

Because we don’t want anyone to die who doesn’t have to.
THE BIG IDEA

She, also, participated in a REDDIT AMA at r/books.

vorpalcheeseknife

You write about virtual reality and work for a video game company. How does your day job inform your fiction?

Agiliste AMA Author

The biggest takeaway I have from my day job experience is really about where people and technology intersect. What happens when someone has a problem with a games interface or what kind of mindset do you develop when you are used to working with alpha or beta builds of software. Helen’s tendency to just “hack around” problems, rather than calling IT for a fix is definitely informed by my work experience, for example.

llh23

Wow, did not hear about NUCLEATION till now, but I am ordering right away. It looks fantastic.

Who was your favourite sci-fi author when growing up? And who is your hidden gem that not enough people read? Mine is John Wyndham.

Agiliste AMA Author

Fabulous! I hope you enjoy it.

I was (and still am) a card-carrying Asimov fan. He had an ability to extrapolate against existing technology that really came across as believable, I could see how to get to that future from here.

Ron Goulart would be my pick for hidden gem. It’s been a very long time since I read those books, but when I was younger I used to haunt my local used books stores looking for copies his work.

Paul Semel, on his eponymous site, interviews the author.

NUCLEATION sounds like it’s a cyberpunk sci-fi space opera story. Is that how you’d describe it?

I’ve always thought of it as a “nanotech space opera.” My team at Tachyon has been referring to it as a “vROP” (VR Opera) because that kind of telepresence is my key to everything when you’re piloting by wire. There was a challenge here, about how to get that fast-actiony feel while dealing with world-spaces that really are tiny. The “eenies” (this universe’s version of nano-bots) are the size of an orchid seed, so an all-out clash between two massive armies can fit on the palm of your hand. VR is a great medium for adjusting the perceptual sense of scale and giving a physically tiny (but critically important) event the gravitas it deserves.

Now, while NUCLEATION is your first novel, you’ve previously written some short stories and novellas. Are there any writers who had a big influence on Nucleation but not on anything else you’ve written?

There are a handful of writers who unknowingly contributed. Long before VR even became a thing, Eric Nylund’s Signal To Noise really cemented the idea for me of VR as a functional computing metaphor (much the way your Windows desktop is a metaphor) rather than a far out there concept. I also loved the shared virtual spaces of Diane Duane’s Omnitopia as a way of life, and Walter Jon Williams’ Aristoi and the idea that nanobots can go rogue figures in there as well.

TOR.COM shares an excerpt from the novel.

The Golfball was reaching the end of its line drive—the hole in one an orbit around an orphan star. No planets depended on that burning ball of resources for life. Nothing would suffer when it launched its payload and started consuming every asteroid within reach. The starship-sized jump-gate would take a year to complete, after which the job of stripping Otlyan23’s asteroid ring of every valuable asset could begin in earnest.

“Mark local time 24:48:16.” The NAV’s voice wasn’t in Helen’s ear, precisely. She didn’t have ears out here. Different bodies took time to get used to, and ears were a luxury item. The vibrations of sound shivered along the walls of the Golfball’s interior and filtered through receivers placed along her spine. “Station live. Station live. Station live.”

“Live and well, Ted. Operator Helen Vectorovich, personal identifier T4T4-957.” She responded automatically, rattling the words and numbers off without thinking. Helen was only the first shift on this year-long project and every shift started this way, every mission, every time. She refocused her vision as Ted worked to unlock the capsule controls from his station in the Fishbowl, a billion miles away. The lights around Helen brightened, moving from hibernation blue to heartbeat yellow. System after system came to life after two years of silent spinning through the black of deep space. From Helen’s perspective through the eyes of the waldo, the room opened up like a cathedral, lights and buckypanels rising around her to a point just over her head. In real-world terms, the whole space was the size of a basketball, but from inside the waldo it was oh, so much bigger than that.

October 28, 2020

Carrie Vaughn’s KITTY’S MIX-TAPE is a delightful mix of stories from the world of werewolf DJ Kitty Norville

Rick Klaw blog books of my heart, carrie vsughn, elaine howlin, in my humble opinion, interview, kitty norville, kitty's mix tape, mary robinette kowal, my favorite bit, paul semel, review

Elaine Howlin, on their eponymous site, enjoys Carrie Vaughn’s KITTY’S MIX-TAPE.

★★★★☆

I love how this short story collection has tie in songs for each story. It adds another layer to the story especially with the author’s notes included.

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION agrees.

KITTY’S MIX-TAPE is a delightful mix of vignettes featuring characters from the world of werewolf DJ Kitty Norville. I love this series and miss the characters so this was like a gift.

As does BOOKS OF MY HEART.

As a fan who has read every book in the Kitty Norville series, I enjoyed it.

Vaughn contributed to Mary Robinette Kowal’s MY FAVORITE BIT.

How do I pick a favorite bit from a book that builds on a fourteen novel series, a previous short story collection, and something like twenty years of dealing with these characters and their world?

Let me think about this a minute.

KITTY’S MIX-TAPE collects the short stories I’ve written set in the world of my Kitty Norville urban fantasy series since about 2010. Kitty is a werewolf who hosts a talk radio advice show for supernatural creatures, and she manages to get into a lot of adventures and trouble. I used short stories to explore the backgrounds of supporting characters and ideas that just didn’t fit in the novels.

The entire Kitty series riffs on tropes to one degree or another. Werewolf tropes, vampire tropes, talk radio tropes. Structural tropes, like a screwball comedy set in Las Vegas, or the cabin-in-the-woods horror story. If you want to know where I get my ideas, it’s often from just asking the question: what can I do with that trope? What spin, what ironic twist, what bit of commentary can I add to it? I get a lot of material out of asking those questions.

Paul Semel interviews the author.

Let’s start with some background. For people who haven’t read any of the Kitty Norville stories, who is Kitty, what does she do, and where does she live?

Kitty is a werewolf who hosts a talk radio advice show for supernatural creatures. Her adventures, based in Denver, Colorado, run for fourteen novels and a whole bunch of spin-off stories.

And then for those who have read those books, what is KITTY’S MIX-TAPE and how does it connect, both narratively and chronologically, to the other books in this series?

KITTY’S MIX-TAPE is a collection of short stories, most of which were previously published in magazines and anthologies, but it does have a few new stories. This includes most of the stories written since about 2010, while Kitty’s Greatest Hits [a previous collection of Kitty Norville short stories] includes stories written before then. They take place over a wide stretch of time, and are about many of the secondary characters in the series as well as Kitty herself.

August 14, 2020

Kameron Hurley’s MEET ME IN THE FUTURE is inventive and unique

Rick Klaw blog apocalypse nyx, becca anderson, essay, excerpt, kameron hurley, Locus, meet me in the future, paul semel, review, the book of awesome women writers, twitter 0

Via Twitter, Paul Semel gives his brief review of Kameron Hurley’s MEET ME IN THE FUTURE.

Finished reading Kameron Hurley's "Meet Me In The Future: Stories"https://t.co/Ik3YMM4eNE
📖🚀🪐
As inventive and unique as her best novels.#books #reading #ShortStory #ShortStories #SciFi #SciFiBooks #ScienceFiction #ScienceFictionBooks @KameronHurley @TachyonPub pic.twitter.com/HHlA9NIMPQ
— Paul Semel (@paulsemel) August 8, 2020

This excerpt featuring Kameron Hurley from Becca Anderson’s The Book of Awesome Women Writers ran on the book’s site.

KAMERON HURLEY a resistance movement historian writes future fiction.

Kameron Hurley is a science fiction and fantasy author as well as essayist who uses her writing to explore the future of war and resistance to oppression. Her fiction includes vivid female characters such as her 2018 book APOCALYPSE NYX’s bounty hunter Nyx, who must navigate a dystopian world and deal with challenges like giant bugs and contaminated deserts as she works to survive. Her short fiction was first published in 1998, and she has been writing novels since 2010. She is the author of The Light Brigade (2019) and The Stars are Legion (2017) as well as two trilogies, the Worldbreaker Saga and the award-winning God’s War trilogy.

She was born in the Pacific Northwest and earned a bachelor’s degree in historical studies at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, going on to receive a master’s degree in the history of South African resistance movements from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in Durban, South Africa. Her nonfiction has been published in journals including The Atlantic, The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, and Writers Digest, and she writes columns about writing and the publishing industry for Locus Magazine. In 2014, her essay “We Have Always Fought: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” (2013) won a Hugo Award; that same year, she also won the Hugo for Best Fan Writer. Hurley is also the author of the award-winning essay collection The Geek Feminist Revolution (2017 Locus and BSFA winner, nonfiction); she is an active blogger who posts reflections on topics including how not to burn out living in a “gig economy” and resisting nihilism. Amusingly, she refers to the sphere of her thought and writing as “the Hurleyverse.” She lives in Ohio, where she is cultivating an urban homestead.

Cover by Wadim Kashin
**Design by Elizabeth Story**

For LOCUS, Hurley contributes the essay “Of Men and Monsters.”

While the world undergoes another cycle of necessary upheaval, it has become increasingly certain that I am likely to be spending the next couple of summers just as I have been spending this one: within the same few blocks of my house, gardening, doing dishes, writing books, tearing my hair out over finances, being careful and critical of the news, and trying to be kind to myself in an effort to prolong my own life.

Because living in a slow apocalypse can get to you, with the knowledge that nothing is certain except uncertainty as the world is remade. For all my restlessness, though, I have hope. America’s anger, our community’s anger, gives me hope.

We aren’t dead yet. Not quite yet.

July 15, 2020

Tachyon tidbits featuring Caitlín R. Kiernan, Eileen Gunn, Kameron Hurley, Hannu Rajaniemi & Jacob Weisman, and Michael Swanwick

Rick Klaw blog artificial people, Caitlín R. Kiernan, clarion west, clarion west summer reading series, clarkesworld, eileen gunn, eric bosarge, hannu rajaniemi, interview, jacob weisman, kameron hurley, meet me in the future, michael swanwick, north georgia technical college, paul semel, r/weirdlit, reddit, short story, the very best of caitlin r kiernan 0

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

Caitlín R. Kiernan
Photo by Kyle Cassidy

Over at REDDIT, the r/WeirdLit Short Story Discussion group has been discussing THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN, one story/week for the past two months. This week’s story is “Galapagos,” the 11th story in the collection.

This is a weekly discussion focusing on short stories within the Weird Fiction genre. For those who do not know, Weird Fiction is a subgenre of horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction is which is infamously hard to quantify.

Each week I will be posting a new thread on a story from the current collection, moving from front-to-back. We are currently following through a single collection as a pilot, and when we’re done with it, we will set a broader schedule.

Cover by Hannes Hummel
Design by Elizabeth Story

Eileen Gunn participated in the 2020 Virtual Clarion West Summer Reading Series: Summer of Science Fiction & Fantasy on Tuesday, June 30.

In a Paul Semel interview with co-editor Joe M. McDermott about their anthology The Way of the Laser, editor Eric Bosarge recommends Kameron Hurley’s MEET ME IN THE FUTURE.

It’s unfortunate that scheduling didn’t quite work out so that Kameron Hurley could be included in this collection, because her collection MEET ME IN THE FUTURE. absolutely blew my mind. It sorts of mingles and juxtaposes some ideas about technology and biological fusion, quietly contemplating what that might mean for the soul, both for humans and machines, in a way I thought was truly beautiful.

Cover by Carl Sutton
Design by Elizabeth Story

North Georgia Technical College Library suggests checking out Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman‘s THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION.

A must-read for anyone interested in the latest and most exciting science fiction writing out there.

Cover art by Matt Dixon
Design by Elizabeth Story

CLARKESWORLD (Issue 166, July 2020) published the Michael Swanwick story “Artificial People.”

My first moment of consciousness pleased me so much that I wanted it to last forever. An insect hanging upon invisible wings, a dust mote jittering in a sunbeam, the flash of motion that was a vanished tetra in the fish tank, the smell of coffee from the break room . . . My brain was sparking. Everything filled me with joy and made me grateful to be alive.

I drew a breath. Bliss! I took a step. Ecstasy!

It was only later that I realized I had just been born. At the time, I was too entranced by the wonder of existence to notice.

Subroutines booted up vocal and musical abilities and I began to sing.

All but lost among the many wonders crowding about me was Dr. Ellen Lange. I saw her delighted smile and liked it no less than everything else I beheld.

“Stop that noise and tell me how you feel,” Dr. Leonidas Erdmann said. “Please focus. How are your cognitive functions? Can you see my hand? How many fingers am I holding up? What is the capital of Kyrgyzstan?”

“You have a lovely voice,” said Dr. Lange. “Do you feel as happy as you sound?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Ellen, please. Don’t muddle the data.” To me: “That’s enough for a start. I’m going to put you down now.”

Blackness.

June 3, 2020

With SEA CHANGE, Nancy Kress successfully renders a global-scale conflict in intimate terms

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The recently released SEA CHANGE by Nancy Kress continues to garner notice.

THE 1000 YEAR PLAN praises the book.

Kress, a long-established master of conjectural sci-fi, renders a global-scale conflict in intimate terms. The obstacles Renata faces and the choices she makes have deeply personal consequences for her as well as world-changing implications, allowing the author to effectively whittle away the border between the macro and the micro.

For FEMALE FIRST, Kress contributed the essay “Saving The World, One Carrot At A Time“.

I’m always a little suspicious when writers assert confidently their one specific source of inspiration for a given story. Fiction comes from a deep well within each writer, a well filled with everything one has experienced, seen, read, heard, thought about, all sloshing around down there and cross-breeding like some promiscuous water-borne micro-organisms. With luck, the combinations spawn a story.

In the case of my novella Sea Change, however, I can identify the three things that moved me to write this story. For me, not only is this atypical, but the elements floated into mind in an order atypical for me.

The first was a cause I believe in. Starting with a cause is dangerous, because it can lead to a polemic rather than a story. The way around this is to present your cause, first, in terms of how it affects your character (and it had better do so deeply, viscerally, urgently). Second, present your cause in a balanced way, showing not just the pluses but also the minuses. There is, after all, no free lunch.

The cause that interests me is genetically altered crops. There is a huge prejudice among many people against GMOs, mostly because there is so much disinformation out there. For hundreds of years agriculturists have cross-bred strains of crops and even different species (tangelos, anyone?) Genetic engineering just does it faster and more reliably. Is it “natural”? No. Neither is putting antibiotics into your body to cure plague. Or transplanting a heart from one body to another.

My passionate belief in GMOs comes from knowing how necessary they will be to feeding the world in the future, particularly poor countries. Rising temperatures and increased flooding of coastal growing areas, plus a growing global population, all make food insecurity a problem that is not going to go away. Already, the UN estimates, 10% of the world suffers from chronic hunger, and a disproportionate number of them are women and children. Crops engineered for greater yields and changing growing conditions can and will help.

Jim Higgins and Chris Foran of MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL list the title among 71 books for summer reading in 2020.

May 5, 2020

Tachyon tidbits featuring Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple, Nancy Kress, Bruce Sterling, and Jaymee Goh

Rick Klaw blog adam stemple, bruce sterling, curious fictions, excerpt, green man review, interview, jacob weisman, Jane Yolen, jaymee goh, Nancy Kress, paul semel, review, rich horton, sea change, short story, the doll in the museum, the last tsar's dragons 0

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

GREEN MAN REVIEW runs the first several chapters of THE LAST TSAR’S DRAGONS by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple.

Your revolution is a lie.

There were no heroes, no great causes. Just slaughter, suffering, death.

And dragons.

Oh, you thought those a myth? Tales your grandfather told you?

No, the dragons were real. Bolvan, the dragons are why you won! The only reason there aren’t dragons today is that Uncle Joe slaughtered the reds during the Great Purge, and in ’23 a pack of larcenous Chinese eunuchs blew up the dragon barns in the Forbidden Citywhile trying to destroy evidence of their embezzlement.

I see you smiling, you indoctrinated young fool. You see a man who has turned against the revolution that employed him for nearly thirty years. A man convicted of corruption and treason and worse, and you think I would say anything to avoid the firing squad. But in truth, I am old and weary and no longer afraid to die. I just want someone to know the truth.

So it falls on you, young man, to hear the true tale of the revolution, dragons and all.

Cover art by Anabelle Gerardy
Design by Elizabeth Story

Paul Semel, on his eponymous site, interviews Nancy Kress about her new book SEA CHANGE.

To begin, what is Sea Change about and when and where is it set?

Sea Change spans a few decades beginning in 2005 and ending in 2033. Most of it takes place in Seattle. It’s about a lot of things, but the primary concern is genetically-modified crops. This is, I know, a spectacularly controversial subject. And, I believe, a necessary one. Usually people come down hard on one side or the other, without nuance. “Frankenfoods!” “Luddite!” I wanted to depict a near future that takes into account the genuine complexity of GMOs.

Sea Change is also “about” ocean algae blooms, government control, and chess. But since all stories are primarily about the characters who inhabit them, this is a story about Renata and Jake. In fact, if I were titling my novella now, I would call it Sea Change: A Love Story. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of this in time and Tachyon would not be happy to change the title at this late date.

In celebration of Bruce Sterling’s birthday, Rich Horton offers a collection of his Sterling short fiction reviews, many of which will be included in the forthcoming collection ROBOT ARTISTS AND BLACK SWANS.

Locus, June 2009

The March-April Interzone features a Bruce Sterling story – not that he was ever gone, but Sterling seems “back” this year, with a new novel and now “Black Swan”, gritty and savvy, with a journalist lured across multiple timelines, chasing wild tech not to mention a revolutionary version of Nicolas Sarkozy.

Locus, September 2009

And Bruce Sterling offers a clever fantasy about an Italian auto executive encountering the devil – or something like him – in “Esoteric City” (F&SF, August-September). The story is fun, original – certainly worth reading, but at some level it struck me as insubstantial.

Review of Subterranean 2: Tales of Dark Fantasy (Locus, May 2011)

Another story I particularly enjoyed comes from Bruce Sterling. “The Parthenopean Scalpel” concerns an assassin who has to flee the Papal States after the too clumsy success of one of his assignments. In exile he falls in love – but a certain Transylvanian intervenes. The story rides on the well-maintained voice of the main character, and the backstory of Europe in the turbulent middle of the 19th Century.

CURIOUS FICTION S published Tachyon editor Jaymee Goh’s new story “The Doll in the Museum.”

Little doll, buried under dust and sand,
Little doll, what do you have in your hands?

“It’s obviously a sacred figurine,” my date said. “And you can tell it was from a matriarchy, given how many female shapes there are.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, non-committedly.

“It was obviously a fertility cult, too, you see how big the hips are.”

I stifled a yawn. In my head I could see the hands, my hands, folded across my belly. I tried not to think about it; I hate my stomach. It bulges too much.

This museum display made me feel comfortable, though. There was just one in this case, with a sign next to her full of words about who had found her, where, and what she possibly represented. She pressed her hands on her belly, too. It was found somewhere in Mesopotamia, one of the earliest ever figurines. Clay.

My date was trying to hustle me on. He majored in History, although I was unclear how that mattered when he’d never taken a class on the ancients. Still, he seemed so sure that I found myself nodding along. As he droned on, I pressed my palm against the glass, staring at the figurine.

Something in my hand—a piece of cloth, with scribblings on it. I knew what those marks were. I felt the insides of my cheeks pressed against my teeth in a smile, the crinkling of my eyes in pleasure, the deep breath containing the surge of triumph.

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