r. b. lemberg

August 27, 2020

The fine folks at BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES are giving away R. B. Lemberg’s heartbreaking and beautiful THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES

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Cover by Elizabeth Story based on initial concepts by Francesca Myman

The good folks at BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES are giving away two copies of of R. B. Lemberg’s acclaimed debut THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES. The first contest occurs on their site and runs through Wednesday, September 9, and then the second happens on Twitter, Wednesday, September 2.

In conjunction with the release of BCS author R.B. Lemberg’s new book THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES, out Sep. 4 from Tachyon Publications, BCS is giving away two copies.

The Four Profound Weaves is set in R.B.’s lushly imagined and culturally rich fantasy world Birdverse. BCS readers may know Birdverse from the five BCS novelettes and novellas set there, including “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” in BCS #175, which was a finalist for the Nebula Awards.

The Four Profound Weaves is a brand-new novella of Birdverse, featuring one of the characters from “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds.” It’s published by Tachycon Publications in digital and as a trade paperback with this lovely cover.

One giveaway is on the BCS website in this post. (The other will be on the BCS Twitter feed @BCSmagazine, on Wed. Sep. 2.)

To enter the giveaway that’s in this very post, comment on this post (here) and tell us what your favorite R.B. Lemberg piece of short fiction is. Whether a Birdverse story or one of their other stories; whether published in BCS or elsewhere.Your comment will enter you in a random drawing for the copy of The Four Profound Weaves. This giveaway ends Wed. Sep. 9.

The Twitter giveaway for the copy of The Four Profound Weaves will take place Wed. Sep. 2 on the BCS Twitter feed @BCSmagazine. It will run from 2 PM EST until 5 PM EST.

To enter, all you need to do is tweet what your favorite R.B. Lemberg short story is. Whether a Birdverse story or one of their many other stories; whether published in BCS or elsewhere. (Full Rules are here, at the end of this post.)

To get you started, here are R.B.’s stories in BCS, and you can peruse our BCS Authors Elsewhere posts for work by them in other venues:

“To Balance the Weight of Khalem” in BCS #300
“A Portrait of the Desert in Personages of Power” in BCS #229 and podcast BCS 200
“The Book of How to Live” in BCS #209
“Geometries of Belonging” in BCS #183
“Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” in BCS #175
“Held Close in Syllables of Light” in BCS #80
Good luck!

August 25, 2020

Win a copy of R. B. Lemberg’s extraordinary, groundbreaking THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES

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With the help of the fine folks at GOODREADS, we’re giving away two copies of R. B. Lemberg’s acclaimed debut THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES.

A beautiful, heartfelt story of change, family, identity, and courage.
—Library Journal, starred review

Wind: To match one’s body with one’s heart
Sand: To take the bearer where they wish
Song: In praise of the goddess Bird
Bone: To move unheard in the night

The Surun’ nomads do not speak of the master weaver, Benesret, who creates the cloth of bone for assassins in the Great Burri Desert. But aged Uiziya must find her aunt in order to learn the final weave, although the price for knowledge may be far too dear to pay.

Among the Khana in the springflower city of Iyar, women travel in caravans to trade, while men remain in the inner quarter, as scholars. A nameless man struggles to embody Khana masculinity, after many years of performing the life of a woman, trader, wife, and grandmother.

As his past catches up, the nameless man must choose between the life he dreamed of and Uiziya—while Uiziya must discover how to challenge the evil Ruler of Iyar, and to weave from deaths that matter.

In this breathtaking debut set in R. B. Lemberg’s beloved Birdverse, THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES offers a timeless chronicle of claiming one’s identity in a hostile world.

The prose is blunt and powerful, the narrative compelling, and the worldbuilding both deep and lightly-sketched, lending an impression of a full world while only touching on what is immediately important.
— Tor.com

About the Birdverse: The Birdverse is the creation of fantasy author R. B. Lemberg. It is a complex, culturally diverse world, with a range of LGBTQIA characters and different family configurations. Named after its deity, Bird, Birdverse shorter works have been nominated the Nebula, Hugo, Tiptree award, and Rhysling awards. The Four Profound Weaves is the first full-length work set in the Birdverse.

August 18, 2020

Win a copy of THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES by R. B. Lemberg, which exemplifies modern speculative fiction at its best

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For THE FANTASY HIVE, James Latimer praises R. B. Lemberg’s THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES.

The prose is simple but elegant, unafraid to use repetition for emphasis or rhythm, or to leave other things to the reader’s imagination (description is sparse, for example). The story wears its themes on its sleeves, so to speak, tackling head-on the challenges of change vs. stasis, and the danger of being chained to a past, or to people who don’t want what’s best for you. It’s a story about trans characters and trans experiences, but a story that (I hope) anyone can understand, relate to, and enjoy.

In conclusion, THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is modern speculative fiction at its best, exploring important issues through compelling characters, fantastic settings, and exciting stories. It’s also a gorgeous book, if the illustrations in my digital ARC were anything to go by

The fine folks at M1 BOOK REVIEWS are giving away a copy of THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES.

The publisher for THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES has offered one free digital copy of this book to someone of my choosing. To have a chance of winning, just send me an email at mibookreviews@gmail.com saying you want it and what the best email address for getting it to you would be. That’s it. I will pick a random person from who emails in and get the email address to the publisher to email you your book.

A winner will be announced on September 4th (which is publication day).

CIVILIAN READER interviews Lemberg.

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is R.B. Lemberg?

I am a queer, bigender immigrant writer, editor and academic originally from Ukraine, Russia, and Israel, now living in Kansas. My favorite genre is epic fantasy, but I write science fiction, magic realism, slipstream, and sometimes even horror. I also write poetry and non-fiction. I have a wide range, and I’m rarely bored!

Your debut novella, THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES, is due to be published by Tachyon in September. It looks really interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is a novella that follows two transgender elders on a journey of identity and adventure — they must learn to weave from Death itself to defeat a tyrant who hoards the bones and souls of his victims. The book is a stand-alone, set in my Birdverse universe. I’ve been publishing in this world since 2011, but only short work so far. Each story set in Birdverse stands alone, but together they add up to something greater — a rich tapestry of many perspectives, stories, and lives. The Four Profound Weaves is the first Birdverse book in print — the rest of the published pieces are online. It’s a good gateway into the world — you do not need to know anything else.

August 5, 2020

R. B. Lemberg’s gorgeous prose sets THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES apart as one of the most beautifully written fantasies of the year

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Roughly one month from publication, R. B. Lemberg’s THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES (not due until September, but available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon) continues to garner praise.

In LOCUS (August 2020), Gary K. Wolfe reviews the novella.

For nearly a decade, R.B. Lemberg has been developing their Birdverse world in a number of stories and poems, and I confess to having seen only a handful of them prior to reading their first novel THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES. But the novel provides most of what you need to know about this universe, which worships the god Bird and Bird’s ‘‘hidden brother Kimri,’’ who serves as a men’s god for some of the tribes and alliances that make up this rather sparse desert world. Lemberg was, as I recall, the only author to become a finalist for the Crawford fantasy award on the basis of a volume of poetry (Marginalia to Stone Bird), and it’s apparent from the outset that their novel is the work of a poet. The prose is lyrical, evocative, and precise, and it soars when it needs to, without ever yielding to coloratura dramatics.

That’s not the only thing appealing, and even refreshing, about this remarkable novel. For one thing, Lemberg demonstrates how it’s possible to construct an evocative and expansive setting without the need for hundreds of pages of arduous, stone-by-stone worldbuilding, and how, by doing this, the setting becomes a function of the tale, rather than the other way around. For another, they populate this tale with a fascinating mix of characters of various gender identities, including nonbinary children (one narrator’s grandchild is ‘‘neither a boy nor a girl’’; others are referred to as ‘‘in-between’’).

[…]

For once, these aren’t whip-smart kids learning to be gods or kings, but complex, experienced older adults recognizing and acting on what a lifetime has taught them about resistance, redemption, and loyalty. If that isn’t rarity enough, Lemberg’s gorgeous prose sets THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES apart as one of the most beautifully written fantasies of the year.

BEAUTY IN THE RUINS feels much the same.

Powerful, magical, lyrical, and beautifully original, THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is one of those books where you linger over each paragraph, admiring the flow of words almost as much as the flow of ideas. R.B. Lemberg weaves – quite literally – a tale of change that encompasses the transformation of bodies, families, and identities.

[…]

While I don’t re-read a lot of books, I’m looking forward to sitting down and immersing myself in the paperback of THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES once it’s released. There’s such a depth of meaning to it all, I’m confident I’ll uncover a whole other reading.

July 22, 2020

R. B. Lemberg’s THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is one of the great 2020 LGBTQ+ fantasy books

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For BOOK RIOT, Casey Stepaniuk includes R. B. Lemberg’s forthcoming THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES (not due until September, but available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon) in 10 Great 2020 Adult LGBTQ+ Fantasy Books.

This trans epic fantasy set in Lemberg’s Birdverse centers on two elder “changers,” a nameless man and his friend Uiziya. The two friends travel through the desert, Uiziya wanting to learn the skill of bone weaving, her friend seeking a name. But when they find the master weaver, they discover the weaver has a difficult task for them to accomplish.

BEAUTY IN THE RUINS can’t wait for the novella’s release.

My pick for this week is a long-awaited queer epic fantasy featuring two transgender protagonists who must learn the weaves to defeat an evil ruler…

In the REDDIT group r/Fantasy, leftoverbrine praises the book.

Meaning, most of my reading has been on Four Profound Weaves by RB Lemberg I’m really liking how different it is to anything I’ve read, it really focuses on physical change and identity, but then there is is whole mysterious weaving magic, it’s also very emotionally dark.

July 8, 2020

With impressive THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES, R. B. Lemberg’s spins a world of singing gods, desert nomads, and magic humming in the wind

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In a STARRED review for FOREWORD, Danielle Ballantyne praises R. B. Lemberg’s forthcoming THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES (not due until September, but available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon).

R. B. Lemberg spins a world of singing gods, desert nomads, and magic humming in the wind in THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES . . . Impressive world building renders the shifting hues of the desert sands and the cold stone of The Collector’s palace in tight prose. Social structures and customs are relayed with the same deft hand; the free, accepting atmosphere of the desert and its people ends at Iyar’s stifling walls.

ANXIOUS NACHOS includes the book among 30 Days of Pride: The rise of the queer novella.

This book is publishing in September this year and I am very excited to have an ARC for it. This is a trans epic fantasy, set in a world with very strict gender roles and a man who has changed between them and struggles to embody the masculinity required of his new role after years performing the life of a woman.

THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE is excited as well.

September sees the release of the first full-length Birdverse story by Rose Lemberg, which I’m very excited about: The Four Profound Weaves is a desert-set fairytale of identity, death and (obviously) weaving.

June 29, 2020

Happy birthday to Tachyon’s sensational managing editor Jill Roberts

Rick Klaw birthday, blog birthday, Caitlín R. Kiernan, central station, daryl gregory, her smoke rose up forever, james tiptree jr, jill roberts, kage baker, lavie tidhar, r. b. lemberg, the four profound weaves, the hotel under the sand, the very best of caitlin r kiernan, we are all completely fine

Since joining Tachyon in 2002 as the managing editor, Jill Roberts has overseen the remaking of the press from one that originally published 2-3 titles a year and only sold to specialty bookstores into its present incarnation of 8-10 books a year and mainstream distribution. Tachyon titles under her watch have won Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, Campbell, Neukom, Sturgeon, and Locus awards and routinely make “best of the year” lists. Among the numerous acclaimed titles Roberts oversaw include HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER by James Tiptree Jr., THE EMPEROR’S SOUL by Brandon Sanderson, WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE by Daryl Gregory, STEAMPUNK edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, CENTRAL STATION by Lavie Tidhar, THE HOTEL UNDER THE SAND by Kage Baker, THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION by Peter Watts, THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN, and THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES by R. B. Lemberg.

Prior to Tachyon, Roberts worked within the gaming, fashion, and health industries. She has been a columnist for Books to Watch Out For and the Thirteenth Moon, as well as a consulting editor at the nonprofit writing program Streetside Stories.

Everyone at Tachyon wishes the amazing Jill a happy birthday. And not just because we’re scared of her.

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r. b. lemberg

With the help of the fine folks at GOODREADS, we’re giving away two copies of R. B. Lemberg’s acclaimed debut THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES.