The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web
Nicole Kornher-Stace as envisioned by Elizabeth StoryJosh Rountree Photo by Leah MusePatrick O’LearyBrandon Sanderson (Ceridwen via Wikimedia Commons)Clifford Simak
Since the publication of Archivist Wasp in 2015, Nicole Kornher-Stace has whisked readers through a post-apocalypse populated by the ghosts of supersoldiers and the Archivists who catalog what happened in the world before theirs. The followup Latchkey cemented this engaging world and especially its depiction of platonic friendships, written with the care and depth that these relationships deserve. Last year’s somewhat standalone Firebreak expanded the scope of the Archivist Wasp universe, a video game thriller that does Ready Player One one better. And now, Kornher-Stace has brought us another story within that universe: FLIGHT & ANCHOR, following two of that book’s characters (supersoldiers known only as 06 and 22) as twelve-year-olds on a misadventure in a shipping container in a wonderful homage to The Boxcar Children. Watching Kornher-Stace play within her own realms is a delight, and the added nostalgia factor of this book makes it a can’t-miss.
By recounting their past tales of loss and longing, Rountree effectively crafts deep characterizations for each of his cast members and makes you care for their plight, especially during the breathless final act as a colossal hurricane bears down on their Galveston locale.
I was thoroughly taken with this story, Rountree’s writing, and the unique island setting. Definitely add this to your TBRs.
It’s a confusing story, entirely on purpose, in part because of the atemporal arrangement, in part because of the unreliable nested narrators — and maybe mostly because the IFs are confusing period. But it’s fascinating, and compulsively readable, and cumulatively quite moving. O’Leary’s first three novels proved he is a major writer in our field — and 51 shouldn’t change anyone’s mind about that!
Cover by Elizabeth Story
On his Instagram, O’Leary shared a marvelous gift from artist Gary Scott.
An overwhelming present from an artist who felt inspired to sculpt the hidden hero of the tale: 51. Thanks, Gary Scott. Wow.
The other stories are like that as well, and while, these are stories from the 1960’s (maybe some from earlier?) aside from the lack of smartphones and iPads and whatnot, it does not feel as dated as it probably ought to. By giving most of these stories a rural setting, you just don’t expect someone to say, “Oh, hang on, I’ll Google it.”
All told this was a fun set of stories to listen to.
This is a mosaic novel. It’s several stories set in the same world but written at different times, put together with a framing story. I liked the setting of these a lot! It’s a bunch of worlds that have all ended that somehow get glomped up together. I liked all the little bits of culture and how most of the stories focused on urban places.
Rich Horton on STRANGER AT ECBATAN recalls his many reviews of Brennan’s short stories.
I haven’t done a Birthday Review in a bit, and it occurred to me that I had never done a collection of my Locus reviews of Marie Brennan’s short fiction … and I realized that there are some people whose birthdays I don’t know. But that’s no reason not to post about their wonderful short stories! So here is what I’ve written about Marie Brennan’s short stories in the past dozen years or so:
Locus, March 2008
The Fall On Spec has three nice fantasy stories – each managing to be somewhat traditional and yet quite clever and original. Marie Brennan’s “Nine Sketches in Charcoal and Blood” tells of a curious group of seemingly related people at the auction of a dead man’s effects – what sinister secret links them to each other and the dead man, and on what are they bidding?
Locus, January 2009
I was particularly impressed by Marie Brennan’s “A Heretic by Degrees” (Intergalactic Medicine Show, December). It’s set in a strikingly artificial setting – I was reminded of Ted Chiang’s “Exhalation” and Will McIntosh’s “Linkworlds”, to name two other 2008 stories. Brennan’s story opens it what seems a somewhat conventional fantasy world, as the new Councillor Paramount feels pushed to heretically suggest that they look “outside the world” for a cure for their dying King. And soon the Councillor is journeying to a series of strange quite separately and increasingly small “worlds”. Brennan does not content herself with simply displaying this odd universe – we get a similarly odd, and unsettling, explanation, as well as a satisfying and unexpected solution to the Councillor’s (and the King’s ) problem.
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.
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.
Cover by Elizabeth Story
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 FICTIONS 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.
This book’s first paperback edition comes from the US, specialist SF imprint, Tachyon: it is not yet out in Britain (we desperately need more of Watts over here in Blighty) but Europeans can find it, as I did, in larger bookshops as well as genre specialist ones. Or you can, if you are prepared to sink that low, get it from Amazon. The Tachyon first edition paperback also comes with a neat interior design by Elizabeth Story. Almost every other page has a word with one letter printed in red: it is as if the publisher or author wishes to send a message to the reader without anyone else knowing…
So, THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is not yet (early 2019) out in Europe. But it is , I assure you, worth seeking out as an import. Some SF² Concatenationteam members nominated The Freeze-Frame Revolution as one of the best SF books of 2018: I simply had to see what all the fuss was about. What the fuss is about is a tightly written, SFnal gem, and it really is possibly one of the best SF books of 2018!
THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION by Peter Watts was a book proposed by Amazon. The plot description sounded excellent and captivating, and I’ve tried the free reading example. I had some issues to get into the story and understand what’s going on, but once I passed this, the book was terrific, a good idea and perfect execution of it.
For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.
It’s become abundantly obvious that this is Lavie Tidhar’s reality and we’re all just living it.
Tidhar was interviewed in FROM EARTH TO THE STARS, the ASIMOV’S author and editor blog, about his short story “Neom.”
Asimov’s Editor: What is the story behind “Neom”?
LT: I’ve been visiting the Red Sea for twenty years now (on the Egyptian side), and I was always struck by looking just across the water to the Arabian Peninsula, and that huge stretch of desert along the Red Sea coast is, of course, Saudi Arabia. Then I came across crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS)’s plan to build this sort of cyberpunk utopia called Neom there! I mean it has a promotional Youtube video and everything … And I’ve been recently very interested in the idea of future cities, and I knew I had to write about it. If only because I find the idea of a cyberpunk utopia so very terrifying …
Your novel CENTRAL STATION has received much acclaim. What inspired you to write it?
I was living in Tel Aviv back in 2010, and I became kind of obsessed with the old Central Bus Station area, as well as the new station itself, which is this crazy, enormous place with its own nuclear fallout shelter, if you can believe it. And, you know, most of my novels fall into this weird, political, alternate history, noir sort of thing, and I wanted to do something completely different — just write about these people and this place.
And I always loved mosaic novels, especially in science fiction. That’s where a lot of the classics are. But it always struck me as quite a difficult thing to do, from a technical point of view. So, that was the challenge.
I wrote it now and then over the next five years or so. Some of the stories got into various Year’s Best anthologies. A few got translated into various languages. And then one day it was done. I just didn’t expect anyone would actually read it.
On The Italian site STAY NERD, Andrea Viscusi views Tidhar’s work through the lens of CENTRAL STATION and the short story collection Terminale Terra.
The strength of Lavie Tidhar’s stories lies precisely in this: not originality, understood as the innovative power of ideas, but the work of unification with which the author drew the constituent elements of science fiction and made it a playground. in which a multiplicity of actors and situations collide. CENTRAL STATION and Terminale Terra are not to be read for the research of mindblowing ideas, but for the naturalness with which the ideas are treated. Those who follow and know science fiction (above all literary, but not only) will be able to recognize dozens of citations and references, but those who are more distant can still appreciate the constant unfolding of stories of normal people in exceptional contexts. The enthusiast and the neophyte can therefore be considered both satisfied, even if for different reasons.
Translation courtesy of Google
Massimo Luciani on the Italian site NETMASSIO reviews the short story "The Memcordist.“
"The Memcordist” is set in the same narrative universe as the novel CENTRAL STATION: the two works are autonomous but Pym is explicitly mentioned in the novel therefore among the stories of Lavie Tidhar is perhaps the one that most completes the novel. The various contrasts created by the author in my opinion give the story its emotional strength which is why I believe it is worth reading.
Translation courtesy of Google
Rich Horton’s “Memories of 2018″ for LOCUS includes Tidhar’s “The Buried Giant.”
“The Buried Giant”, by Lavie Tidhar (Robots vs Fairies) tells (literally – it’s an expertly framed story) of the dangerous adventures of a boy in a post-apocalyptic world who wants to be a “real boy” (i.e. robot), and in the process encounters a robot cat and a robot fox, and a dead girl and a manshonyagger. Powerful work.
Two new Tidhar stories appeared recently: “Venus in Bloom” (CLARKESWORLD ISSUE 148, JANUARY 2019) and “Dem Bones” (STRANGE HORIZONS 18 FEBRUARY 2019).
The Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante series (from Osama by Lavie Tidhar)
Joe, a private investigator in an alternate reality, loves to read novels that detail the planning and execution of terrorist attacks—because global terrorism does not exist beyond their pages. A client who hires him to track down the series’ author sends Joe across the globe from Laos to Paris, London and New York, while shadowy operatives who want to keep the realities apart tail, assail, and finally imprison him. The Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante books are popular trade paperbacks with garish covers, released by an imprint that also publishes porn, but as Joe points out, they “read like the lab reports of a morgue, full of facts and figures all concerned with death.” The clinical excerpts Tidher includes from the books made me think about the chance casualties of these real attacks; it is Joe’s world that feels like a pulp.
And perhaps the most unexpected Tidhar sighting comes from the Stan Lee Wikipedia page under Fiction Portrayals.
