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

Nalo Hopkinson (photo: David Findlay), Nancy Springer (Bob O’Leary), Michael Blumlein, and Suzy Mckee Charnas

At ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, Neil Gaiman announces four new comics set in the Sandman universe including one written by Nalo Hopkinson.

EW can exclusively announce that DC Comics is launching a Sandman Universe line of four new comic series. The books will be overseen by Gaiman but written and drawn by brand new creative teams. They will pick up story threads and themes from The Sandman while also adding new characters and concepts.

The project kicks off this August with The Sandman Universe one-shot special, which will catch readers up on what’s been happening in Dream’s realm. The most salient fact is that Dream has now gone missing, leaving chaos in his wake. Other important developments include the opening of a rift between worlds, revealing a space beyond the Dreaming. Dream’s official librarian Lucien is still in charge of all the books that were dreamed and never written, but now, one of those books has wound up in the waking world, to be discovered by a group of children. The Dreaming also has an important new resident, now that a House of Whispers has appeared alongside Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets.

Photo: Craig Mulcahy

Hopkinson will write House of Whispers and explore how the voodoo deity Erzulie ended up in the Dreaming with her titular house. It might have something to do with a comatose woman named Latoya, whose girlfriend and sisters used the Book of Whispers to try and heal her. Now out of her coma, Latoya is suffering from the Cotard’s Delusion belief that she’s already dead, and is transmitting her belief to others, catalyzing them to become guardians of the gap that has opened in the Dreaming. 

WAY TOO FANTASY loves Nancy Springer’s forthcoming novel THE ODDLING PRINCE.

I’m struggling with a way to begin this review that won’t sound like I’m incoherently babbling about how much I loved reading this because, for me, it’s just that great a book.

To start off, the immediate thing that grabbed me about this book was the prose. I was hooked from the first page because I fell in love with the way in which this book was written. It’s a very stylistic prose, and at times may feel a bit archaic to some, but this wasn’t a barrier for me and instead felt like an invitation to another time and place. This is just the type of touch that draws me in to a story.

I was so emotionally involved with this book and its characters. There are certain types of stories, or parts of stories, that I empathize with more than others. The thing that makes me weep, that pierces my heart, is when a character, innocently, naively, is yearning to be loved. And then is cruelly denied that love and doesn’t always understand why–why are they not able to be loved? This book has a lot of that, with Albaric having no one, except Aric, who accepts him in this new mortal world.

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I know it’s only February, it’s early yet and there are a lot of books ahead of me, but this very well could end up being my favorite book of the year. Rated 5/5 stars on goodreads.

Ian Sales on IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE RIGHT… is very pleased with his recent acquisitions.

Some other books by, er, authors I collect. I’ve been a big fan of Blumlein since first reading one of hs stories in Interzone back in the 1980s. Charnas’s ‘Beauty and the Opera, or the Phantom Beast’ is one of my favourite genre stories and it appears in STAGESTRUCK VAMPIRES AND OTHER PHANTASMS. It and THE ROBERTS I ordered direct from Tachyon Publications… and was delighted to discover on arrival they were both signed. 

For more info on THE ODDLING PRINCE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Brian Giberson

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on STAGESTRUCK VAMPIRES AND OTHER PHANTASMS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Picacio

For more info on THE ROBERTS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story