sfrevu

October 8, 2020

Carrie Vaughn’s KITTY’S MIX-TAPE will remind fans of the fun they have with Kitty Norville, while those new to Kitty, will find this a decent way to make their acquaintance

Rick Klaw blog ashley sapp, Carrie Vaughn, essay, joe sherry, kitty norville, kitty's mix tape, nerds of feather flock together, sam lubell, sfrevu, tachyon publications channel, the rustic reading gal, the world remains mysterious, unboxing, youtube 0

At SFREVU, Sam Lubell enjoys Carrie Vaughn’s final Kitty Norville book KITTY’S MIX-TAPE.

This collection has seventeen stories with author notes and a music playlist for each. Fellow urban fantasy writer Emma Bull contributes a nice introduction. Four stories are original to this collection and two previously appeared on Vaughn’s website. The others originally appeared in magazines and anthologies. Six stories feature Kitty.

Fans of Kitty will welcome her reappearance here especially since the author had said the series was finished. Readers new to Kitty and her adventures will find this book a decent way to start their acquaintance, although they will miss some aspects of the stories if they do not know who these characters are and what their connection is to Kitty. Still, some of the stories are about the early history of the characters, before they meet Kitty, and Vaughn successfully provides information about the major characters in Kitty’s life.

[…]

Reading this book caused me to remember how much fun is in the Kitty books and I’ve started re-reading them, which considering the size of my to-be-read pile is a strong endorsement for this book.

Joe Sherry for NERDS OF A FEATHER, FLOCK TOGETHER is excited about the book.

One of my greatest discoveries was winning an online contest that I don’t remember entering and receiving copies of Kitty and the Midnight Hour and Kitty Goes to Washington in the mail. After giving them the side eye for no good reason, I started to read and Kitty Norville quickly became one of my favorite characters and I could not get enough of the series – and then it ended and Carrie Vaughn moved on. But wait! Here’s a story collection and even though I’ve likely read at least half of the stories in it, there are two brand new Kitty stories! I’m here for this!

As is Ashley Sapp, THE RUSTIC READING GAL.

This week I’m featuring KITTY’S MIX-TAPE by Carrie Vaughn releasing October 16. I love this series and am so happy to be getting some more stories set in this world!

On the Tachyon Publications Channel, Zeppo (with a little help from Jacob) unboxes the book.

Vaughn contributes a guest post for Cat Rambo’s THE WORLD REMAINS MYSTERIOUS.

So, “voice” is the thing that makes us want to read the story. To spend time with the characters and their story. How, then, does one learn to write in a “voice” that makes readers want more?

Nobody’s quite figured that out, near as I can tell. But I can share how I finally started getting a handle on the concept: I wrote fourteen novels about the same character.

Kitty is a werewolf who hosts a talk radio advice show for supernatural creatures. She first appeared in a short story in Weird Tales in 2001. The final novel in her series, Kitty Saves the World, was published in 2015, and this year a collection, Kitty’s Mix-Tape, pulls together short stories set in the world, plus a few brand-new stories. So I’ve been writing this character for more than twenty years. “Voice” was key to getting her right.

Kitty’s identity as a radio DJ was instrumental in her development. In a very early (abandoned) draft, Kitty was passive. Other characters argued while she stood there observing and thinking snarky thoughts. This wasn’t going to work—as clever as her snark seemed at the time, she wasn’t an active participant in what was happening, which is sort of a requirement for the protagonist, yes? (There’s another lesson and blog post there, I think—you’d be surprised how often I tell people in critiques: your protagonist needs to do something.

November 27, 2018

Really quite terrific, Lavie Tidhar’s suspenseful UNHOLY LAND provides a complex meditation on the possible paths of modern Jewish history

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized andy cox, benjamin wald, chicago tribune, forbidden planet, gary k wolfe, interview, interzone, lavie tidhar, read well, review, sarah anne langton, sfrevu, suncerae smith, unholy land

Reviews keep flooding in for Lavie Tidhar’s fascinating UNHOLY LAND.

In INTERZONE (278 NOV-DEC), Andy Cox praises the novel.

This is really quite terrific. The story of the missing woman is intriguing, a proper detective novel plot, while the reality-shifting elements play an important role and reach an astonishing apotheosis towards the end in a sequence that puts Lovecraft to shame. It’s another Lavie Tidhar book that is full of ideas and unafraid to tackle big, controversial, important issues. Warren Ellis compares him to Michael Moorcock in an afterword, and like Moorcock, Tidhar writes books that are unpredictable and experimental, consistently and reliably surprising, yet always readable and engaging. UNHOLY LAND is another corker.

Gary K. Wolfe for CHICAGO TRIBUNE lauds the work.

Here, in UNHOLY LAND, he turns his attention to his own homeland, in a scenario that seems wildly unlikely until we realize it was actually proposed in the early 20th century: namely, relocating European Jews to part of what is now Uganda. When pulp writer Tirosh returns to his home in “Palestina,” he learns that his niece has disappeared while researching the early history of the country. While this mystery provides the spine of the plot, we also meet an ominous investigator following Tirosh for his own reasons and a historian working for a shadowy Border Agency, whose job is to monitor various timelines. By the time their stories all braid together, Tidhar has turned a suspenseful adventure tale into a complex meditation on the possible paths of modern Jewish history.

At SFREVU, Benjamin Wald enjoys the book.

Tidhar goes out of his way to make this clear; for example, Palestina is in the process of building a massive wall to separate themselves from their neighbors; a clear reference to both Trump and to the existing “security fence” between Isreal and the West Bank. Using Palestina to talk about Israel is a remarkably effective tool. Having the displaced peoples be Africans instead of Palestinians short-circuits many of the assumptions and habits of thinking about the conflict, or at least it did for me. Opinions on Israel are in many cases so entrenched that fantasy can be the most effective way of approaching them. This wouldn’t work if Tidhar has made Palestina a cardboard villain or crude satire of Israel. Instead, Tidhar paints a rich vibrant land, inhabited by real people. But none of this can conceal the violence on which it is founded.

That on its own would make UNHOLY LAND a fascinating work. But, this being Lavie Tidhar, alternate history is not enough. He also builds a whole network of alternate worlds, built around the kabbalistic idea of the tree of the Sephiroth. And some people, either accidentally or intentionally, can move between these worlds. Tirosh himself, it turns out, has unbeknownst to him slipped into Palestina from an alternate world. And someone is trying to tear down the walls between the worlds, with disastrous consequences.

As well as making for a gripping story, complete with trans-world agents tasked with preserving the Sephiroth, this conception allows Tidhar to even more explicitly consider the historical accidents that lead to the creation of Israel, and to consider the reaction of those from Palestina to our own Isreal.

Suncerae Smith on READ WELL reviews it.

I love the slow, surreal unraveling of UNHOLY LAND, both in terms of plot and genre. Without quite realizing it himself, Lior transitions from writer to detective, from an uneventful life to one filled with murder and intrigue, narrowly escaping multiple factions who want him dead. Then, it’s not just Lior’s memories that slip away, but reality itself, as Lior finds he can travel through alternate realities.

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At first blush the plot seems over-the-top and action-packed, and it is at times. But at its heart, the novel is slow and subtle and abstract and unnerving.

Lavie Tidhar and cover artist Sarah Anne Langton at Forbidden Planet (photo: Jon Harrison via Twitter)

In a FORBIDDEN PLANET blog interview, Tidhar talks type, time travel and clowns.

Can you tell us a bit about your latest novel, UNHOLY LAND?

I think of it as the last of that loose sequence of weird novels I’ve been writing since Osama. It’s an alternate histories-noir detective-metafictional-political thing (what Adam Roberts I think started to call “Tidharian”!). It’s about a guy called Lior Tirosh, who time-slips into an alternate history world where Jews settled in what was then British East Africa (based on a real historical offer from 1904!) and then things slowly get much weirder. Along the way he starts thinking he’s a hardoiled detective from one of his own novels, and there are people after him, and it turns out there’s more than one reality at play. It’s both sort of very playful and very serious at the same time – I can’t seem to help myself in that I like doing the political stuff, but there has to be some sort of cheap gags thrown in too!

<snip>

Can you tell us what you’re working on next?

The next book that’s going to be published in The Circumference of the World, which is sort of about God and science fiction. It’s sort of like, what if this 60s writer came up with a ridiculous theory about the nature of the universe – but it might just be that he was right about everything? It’s sort of a bibliomystery and it plays with a lot of different literary styles and voices. I suspect I may have been a little too ambitious with it! We’re still editing it…

But like I said, moving on, I am working on something very different, my first epic (in the sense of, it’s LONG!) novel, a sort of historical fantasy novel. But this being me it still has a lot of very ridiculous stuff in it, and it also addresses some pertinent political issues and so on. But there are swords! And I think there’s even a dragon at some point! A DRAGON! And it’s surprisingly fun to do, I’m having a blast with it.

For more info on UNHOLY LAND, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

July 19, 2018

The noir backdrop of Kameron Hurley’s thrilling APOCALYPSE NYX is enlivened by a double helping of gritty violence

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized apocalypse nyx, bel dame apocrypha, benjamin wald, booklist, elizabeth story, john denardo, john keogh, kameron hurley, kirkus, llama reads books, Marty Halpern, More Red Ink, review, sfrevu, the fantasy inn, wadim kashin

The recent release of Kameron Hurley’s APOCALYPSE NYX spawns some excitement.

At SFREVU, Benjamin Wald praises the collection.

The influence of noir on Nyx and her worldview was either absent or lost on me in the original novels, but is inescapable in this collection. Nyx sees the corruption and evil of the world she inhabits, where the rich profit while the poor are fed into the meat grinder of war or scrabble for survival. She likes to think she is inured to this injustice and purports to be out only for herself, but time and again she can’t help trying to protect those around her and right what injustices she can, often despite herself. Indeed, several stories feature femmes fatales who drag Nyx, against her better judgment, into intrigues that underline this message.

But this noir backdrop is enlivened by a double helping of gritty violence. Nyx is a self-admitted terrible shot, but she makes up for it with her scattergun, sword, and sheer bloody-mindedness, leaving a trail of corpses through the stories–most of whom might possibly deserve it, if you squint a bit, but some of whom just find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nyx is a killer and her tragedy is she can neither accept this in herself nor bring herself to walk away from the violence by which she makes her living.

This collection starts off with two longer stories, “The Body Project” and “The Heart is Eaten Last” that do an excellent job of introducing Nyx and her team and setting a pattern that other stories will elaborate on. In each story, Nyx and her team take on a job, find out that the job is not quite what they had been led to believe, overcome danger and obstacles (often with significant injuries and moral quandaries), and finally achieve an ambiguous victory. Sometimes, victory is just survival. While this might seem formulaic, it is a perfect frame for the character moments that lie at the heart of the stories, while giving plenty of space for the gritty action scenes that Hurley does so well.

Hurley always innovates enough within the pattern for the stories to feel fresh. APOCALYPSE NYX is an excellent introduction for those wondering whether to pick up the original trilogy or a great way for those who have already read the previous books chronicling Nyx’s adventures to spend a bit more time in Nyx’s violent world.

John Keogh for BOOKLIST enjoys the book.

The plots are taut, thrilling, gritty, violent, profane, magical—everything Hurley’s readers expect. New readers will not feel lost in this world—Hurley has created one of the most engrossing environments in modern sf—but fans will delight in learning how Nix meets Khos and the first time she hires Anneke. Though there is not much personal growth, all of the characters are well realized, even in the short story format, and each story covers familiar interpersonal conflicts and emotional highs and lows. These stories were previously published online, but fans of sf adventure stories with lots of political intrigue will welcome them in print.

THE FANTASY INN delights in their introduction to Nyx.

To put it lightly, Nyx is not the easiest person to love. She is almost completely selfish. For example, in one scene a crew member saves someone’s life and leaves something valuable behind; Nyx berates them for not getting the valuables first and going back to see if the person was still alive. She is incredibly stubborn and gives off a vibe that she doesn’t really care about the majority of her crew as individual people. She just cares that she has a crew. Yet Nyx is competent and acknowledges were weaknesses. Doing something about her shortcomings, though? Nah. And while she will leave a crew member to die if it benefits her in the short run, she still does depend on them. Her character is excellently written, along with the others.

Another positive about this book is how it incorporates grimdark and new weird elements (bugpunk, for example) seamlessly in the world. Nyx’s moral seems to be, “A job is a job. If it pays well, take it.” The world is full of morally grey characters. Nyx might be extreme, but her crew isn’t innocent either. And despite the perspective being mainly hers, the other characters are still well developed.

LLAMA READS BOOKS also found interest her first meeting with Nyx.

As a first introduction to Nyx, I think it works pretty well, and it definitely made me interested in picking up the rest of the books in the series to see more of Nyx and her team. Recommended for fans of kickass flawed heroines and grimdark SF&F!

Marty Halpern on his MORE RED INK blog is excited about the book’s release.

Last week I received my contributor’s copy of APOCALYPSE NYX, Kameron Hurley’s collection of stories set in her Bel Dame Apocrypha world of God’s War. The book should have arrived within a couple days of being mailed as I live only about fifty miles south of the publisher, Tachyon Publications…but that’s not taking into account the mode of transport: the United States Postal Service! So the package was mailed in San Francisco, Tachyon’s home; upon checking tracking updates, I discovered that the package was transported to a Los Angeles USPS receiving station (about 350 miles south of me), before, eventually, making its way back to good ole San Jose, where I live. I believe it was about six days after being mailed that the package was actually delivered. Six days to really travel only about fifty miles….

In my December 11, 2017, blog post, I wrote about my work on APOCALYPSE NYX. At that time the book was scheduled for publication in July 2018 – and here we are! Aside from the quality of their books, Tachyon Publications have always met their release dates (rare for an independent publisher… I could tell you stories about other publishers….), and I’ve been working with them since 2002. In fact, I just looked up the details: my first invoice was dated February 19, 2002.

As Kirkus states at the conclusion of its review of APOCALYPSE NYX “For established fans, a bittersweet reunion with old friends; for new readers, a reasonable enticement toward the superior novels of the series.”

For KIRKUS, John DeNardo includes APOCALYPSE NYX in If You Could Read a Book a Day, These are the 31 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books You Should Read for July.

For more info on APOCALYPSE NYX, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Wadim Kashin

Design by Elizabeth Story

February 7, 2018

Jane Yolen’s recommended THE EMERALD CIRCUS is genius

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized benjamin wald, elizabeth story, emma rose hollands, Jane Yolen, sfrevu, the emerald circus, the emerald city book review, why words work

A trio of fresh takes on Jane Yolen’s THE EMERALD CIRCUS.

Photo: Jason Stemple

Benjamin Wald at SFREVU praises the collection.

My favorite stories in the collection are those that riff on other authors’ work. “Blown Away”, despite having almost no plot elements in common with the Wizard of Oz other than Dorothy being carried off by a hurricane, manages to construct a fascinating dialogue with that famous work while telling a rich and affecting story in its own right. “Lost Girls” questions the gender dynamic of never-never land to great effect. Indeed, I wish this story were longer–it sometimes feels like a novella or short novel compressed into a few short pages. And, while a bit less substantial than these stories, “The Gift of the Magicians, with Apologies to You Know Who” mashes up the “Gift of the Magi” with “Beauty and the Beast”, with hilarious and gruesome results.

Arthurian legend is another frequent source of inspiration for Yolen. “The Confession of Brother Blaise” tells of Merlin’s birth, “Evian Steel” of the forging of Excalibur, and “The Quiet Monk” of Lancelot’s search for the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere to ask forgiveness. I have only a passing familiarity with the Arthurian story, so I feel that I missed some of the nuances of these stories, but “The Quiet Monk” in particular succeeds as a story despite this ignorance.

The story notes at the end of the collection are a special treat, offering a selection of poems along with insight into the inspiration for, and writing of, the stories collected here. This behind-the-scenes peek is a lot of fun, and Yolen has the rare gift of being as interesting when she talks about her writing as the writing itself is.

This collection represents the self-assured and confident voice of a writer who has perfected their own voice. If you enjoy reading fresh, sometimes subversive, but always affectionate takes on the stories that we all grew up with, I recommend this collection without reservation.

THE EMERALD CITY BOOK REVIEW enjoys the book.

Other standouts for me were “Blown Away,” which imagines an alternative fate for Dorothy from the point of view of one of the Kansas farmhands (including a stint in the Emerald Circus of the title), and “Sister Emily’s Lightship,” which makes the unlikely pairing of Emily Dickinson and an alien visitor seem almost inevitable. Yolen has made me look asquint at all the classic books and authors on my shelves now…what antics might be going on just beyond or around those hallowed pages?

For WHY WORDS WORK, Emma Rose Hollands recommends the work.

Easy to read, easier to be drawn into, this collection maintains the feeling of childhood nostalgia the original stories brought. There is a sense of wonder, pleasant and unnerving, that runs through all of the stories within THE EMERALD CIRCUS.

In addition, the stories in this collection are able to build upon the themes of the original stories. For example, in Jane Yolen’s re-telling of Peter Pan – a story with themes about growing up, accepting childhood and adulthood – the lost girls fight the patriarchy with union strikes.Taking a story that promotes the wonderful escapism of an endless childhood, and changing it to a story about using maturity to save the day. That…that is genius.

In fact, my favourite stories came from surprising origins. Peter Pan, Robin Hood, The Wizard of Oz, King Arthur – Jane Yolen’s re-telling of these stories were some of the most original, interesting, and thought provoking stories in the collection. Perhaps its because these stories aren’t re-told as often – or because there were more characters/ideas to work from – but I found the stories based on legends and classical literature to be the best in the collection.

<snip>

Overall, I would recommend this collection to people who enjoy re-tellings of classical stories. I would also recommend it to those who love stories which aren’t all that they seem. The Emerald Circus may be easy to read, but once you sink into its charm, you’ll soon find that Jane Yolen’s collection weaves these classic characters, stories, and themes, into something deeply modern, marvelous and magical.

For more info on THE EMERALD CIRCUS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

September 16, 2016

Peter S. Beagle’s SUMMERLONG is a delicate and interesting work of speculative fiction

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized a fine and private place, Ann Monn, bookshots, elizabeth story, gayle surrette, interzone, leah dearborn, Lit Reactor, magdalena korzeniewska, maureen kincaid speller, peter s beagle, review, sfrevu, summerlong, the last unicorn, the quidnuncinc

Four new reviews for Peter Beagle’s excellent SUMMERLONG.

In INTERZONE 266, Maureen Kincaid
Speller praises the book.

My relationship with
Peter S. Beagle’s writing is a long one, and enduring. I read THE
LAST UNICORN in the early 1970s, and was enchanted by it. A year or
so later I found a copy of his astonishingly accomplished first
novel, A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE, which similarly delighted me. It
must be galling for any writer to be remembered best for their
earliest work, but there it is. Beagle has written some excellent
fantasy novels since, and some wonderful short stories, but somehow
nothing has ever quite hit the spot, for me at least, in the same way
as those two early novels. Until now.

Which is not to say
that SUMMERLONG is a faithful replica of either novel. It is quite
definitely its own thing but while clearly showing its relationship
to A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE in terms of atmosphere, and THE LAST
UNICORN in terms of plot, the latter noted by other reviewers.

The question I have
asked myself all along is whether SUMMERLONG is a retreat to an old
and reliable formula. However, I don’t think this is the case.
While SUMMERLONG undeniably revisits earlier themes, there is much
about it that is fresh and new, not least the portrayal of a tender
long-term relationship between two older people (a genuine rarity in
modern literature, and certainly in modern fantasy writing). The
fantastical elements are undoubtedly more evanescent than in the
earlier novels but that is perhaps unsurprising given the worldy-wise
natures of our protagonists. If, as we are often told, change is the
only constant, then SUMMERLONG seems to suggest that while change may
be slower to come as one grows older, it will nonetheless arrive, and
in the most shocking and inconvenient ways possible. SUMMERLONG
reminds us that we can never taken anything for granted, and that
includes our assumptions about a much-loved and familiar writer.

Leah Dearborn at LIT REACTOR gives the novel the Bookshots treatment.

Beagle spends his time crafting a world through small moments and little details— silent dialogues of caught glances or shifting eyes, the kinds of clothing characters wear or what they like to cook for dinner. In SUMMERLONG, these details read as more than mere character development, they’re also a convenient camouflage for the more fantastic elements. The author leaves a sparse trail of bread crumbs for readers to follow, stomping on the brakes whenever there’s danger of too much information leaking at once. Just when something unusual happens, the story quickly slips back into a smokescreen of dinner party conversation.

In short, SUMMERLONG is a delicate and interesting work of speculative fiction that should please old Beagle fans and win him a few new ones.

At SFREVU, Gayle Surrette enjoys the work.

The story builds slowly throughout. The points of view moves among Abe, Joanna, and Lily, but it keeps the reader engrossed as the relationships shift and change and the background of the characters are revealed to the reader. The ending is inevitable, but the changes in the lives touched by Lioness may or may not be for the best. But only the characters themselves can attest to that, while the reader may think things could have been different.

An excellent story of love, relationships, and responsibility with much to think about after the last page is read.

Photo: Paul Todisco

THE QUIDNUNCINC loved SUMMERLONG.

Where I come from we have those amazing transition days from summer to fall, where the sun is still warm, but the rain and the wind remind you that October is close, you begin to smell pumpkin and apple pies from every corner, you see people beginning to wrap themselves in warm scarfs and sweaters, still bearing the sun-kissed skin on their faces. It is one of the most beautiful seasons of the year, for me at least. Like one of those days, Peter S. Beagle’s upcoming novel, SUMMERLONG, is charmingly quiet yet deeply thoughtful, with an ambience that will keep readers spellbound to the final page. It is the kind of read you will engage in from beneath you warm blanket while the rain is sweetly whispering its words on the window and you are reminiscing amazing, wild memories of summer. You are going to taste that book, smell it and feel its warmth from the cover to the very last word in it.

SUMMERLONG relies upon Beagle’s literary mastery for its success. The setting on a small island outside of Seattle becomes an extra protagonist to the story as our characters conduct their day-to-day lives. From the fish markets of Seattle to the quiet peace of island life, Beagle paints a vivid picture of the community in which these characters live, and sets the foundation for the changes he will visit upon them. It’s a strange novel, blending the monotony of day-to-day living with the world of myths and legends, and even in the spots where it is uplifting, you can’t help but catch a hint of sadness and melancholy, as the choices that allow the characters to find new joys or ease their pain bring entirely new problems.

<snip>

If I have to strip it to basics SUMMERLONG is a rather deep exploration of both points of view in the grand myth of Persephone and Hades, too, so it’s actually rather rich in contemplation. It is very introspective and I often found myself distracted by my own thought, because I found pieces of my own doubts and struggles connected with the characters’ battles. It was an eye-opening read. I did surface from in as a melancholic mermaid from an ocean of thoughts and feelings, but I found a lot of hope and content, just like those last rays of sun that sneak in-between the falling autumn leaves.

I loved it. I lived it.

And I think you should tool

For more info on SUMMERLONG, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Magdalena Korzeniewska

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Ann Monn

August 2, 2016

Each story in Michael Swanwick’s NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT is a work of art

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized Ann Monn, beelzebub, cheryl eddy, collection, elizabeth story, io9, michael swanwick, not so much said the cat, review, risingshadow, sam lubell, seregil of rhiminee, sfrevu, short stories, the dog said bow-wow

Reviews and recommendations for Michael Swanwick’s recently released collection NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT keep coming.

At IO9, Cheryl Eddy includes the book among her 15 Must-Read Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Arriving This August.

A second collection of short science fiction from the author of THE DOG SAID BOW-WOW, with tales that promise to include the Devil, time travelers, a horse with magic powers, and “a semi-repentant troll.”

Sam Lubell at SFREVU praises the collection.

Michael Swanwick is one of the best short story writers in the science fiction/fantasy field. He will be a guest of honor at this month’s Worldcon, MidAmeriCon in Kansas City. While he jokes that he has lost more major awards than any other science fiction writer, his display cabinet holds five Hugo awards, a Nebula, and a World Fantasy Award. Swanwick writes clear, elegant prose that is a joy to read, and excels at creating lifelike characters. Each story is a complete work of art.

<snip>

Perhaps the best reason to read short stories is the way they give a skilled writer many different canvases to display his talents. Not So Much Said the Cat tackles themes of love, identity, morals, and reality in varying settings and plots. Still, Swanwick’s style shines through in all of these and each story will make the reader think.

For RISINGSHADOW, Seregil of Rhiminee lauds NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT.

Ah, what a pleasure it was to read Michael Swanwick’s NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT. This magnificent collection was everything I hoped it would be and more, because it contained imaginative and well written stories. It wonderfully demonstrates Michael Swanwick’s strengths as an author and lets readers marvel at his vast imagination. It’s a collection that I can wholeheartedly praise and recommend, because it’s excellent.

<snip>

NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT is an excellent collection of imaginative and beautifully written stories that deftly explore various themes, issues and elements ranging from magic and robots to love and aliens. There’s something for everyone in this collection.

<snip>

I’m impressed by the author’s ability to blend science fiction with fantasy elements. He’s one of the few authors who succeed in combining these genres in a flawless way, because his stories are at their best wildly imaginative. He even manages to spice up some of his stories with a few horror elements.

I like the author’s storytelling skills, because he’s a masterful storyteller who takes his readers on a journey into fascinating places. He writes imaginative stories that offer plenty of food for thoughts.

<snip>

What makes these stories especially good and memorable is the author’s literary writing style, because he charms readers with his fluent and atmospheric prose. His prose is irresistibly beautiful, vibrant and vivid, but also strikingly effective.

If you’re a newcomer to Michael Swanwick’s fiction, you’re in for a special treat when you pick up this collection and begin to turn its pages. I’m sure that you’ll find each of the stories intriguing, because they’re well-created stories with lots of imagination.

I highly recommend Michael Swanwick’s NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT to speculative fiction readers. This magnificent collection is essential reading material to those who love quality and originality. The stories contained within its covers are simply marvellous and offer plenty of entertainment, excellent prose, memorable scenes and thought-provoking moments to readers. What more could you possibly hope to find in a speculative fiction short story collection?

Beelzebub celebrates all the kind words

For more information on NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on THE DOG SAID BOW-WOW, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Ann Monn

May 2, 2016

CENTRAL STATION seems both thoroughly new and oddly familiar

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized books bones and buffy, central station, chicago tribune, gary k wolfe, io9, kevin nixon, koenix, lavie tidhar, review, sam lubell, sarah anne langton, science fiction, sfrevu, strange allegiances

The reviews keep flooding in for Lavie Tidhar’s fantastic and refreshing CENTRAL STATION.

For the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Gary K. Wolfe praises Lavie Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION.

Lavie Tidhar, who was raised in an Israeli kibbutz and has lived in places as exotic as Vanuatu, has for several years been writing sharply insightful stories set around the Central Station district of Tel Aviv, which in his future has become a massive, bustling spaceport and home to a stew of colorful figures and subcultures. By weaving and reshaping these tales into a sort of novel, he has created a textured and original future that echoes real historical and economic tensions while satisfying veteran readers with deliberate echoes of classic science fiction.

<snip>

In the world of Central Station, nearly everyone is connected to the web (or Conversation) by an internal node, though a few holdouts still prefer ancient forms of information like books. Hallucinatory drugs remain a popular pastime and addiction, as do online games where characters can make a decent real-world living. Death can be sidestepped by cryogenics, by becoming a cyborg, or by simply uploading into the Conversation — where a separate, non-human society of artificial intelligences already thrives. Wounded cyborg veterans called robotniks remind us that war has not been eliminated. This world unfolds through the linked adventures of a series of characters including a “data vampire” (named after a character in a classic C.L. Moore story), a boy hoping for his father to return from space, the owner of a popular bar and her old-fashioned book collector brother, a legendary junk dealer, and a famous artist. Despite the book’s affectionate allusions to earlier science-fiction themes, its deeply humane world seems both thoroughly new and oddly familiar.

Both IO9 (”We’ve really loved some of his earlier novels, and we’re looking forward to this one.”) and BOOKS, BONES & BUFFY (”This sounds like all kinds of awesome!”) look forward to the book.

Sam Lubell at SFREVU reviews the “something different” CENTRAL STATION.

CENTRAL STATION is a wonderful piece of worldbuilding. The book takes place in a future Israel, where some Jews have Asian names and robots can conduct Jewish rituals. Nearly all the characters are linked in the Conversation, essentially an internally accessed wireless Internet/virtual world. Data vampires called Shambleaus can feed off of humans’ connections to the Conversation. Other humans have Martian symbionts. There are the few remaining robots and robotniks–discarded cyborg soldiers reduced to begging or odd jobs. There are mentions of mysterious Others, never really defined. People have jobs in the virtual world they can convert into rent money. And a few children with hacked genes from a Messiah breeding program have special powers.

<snip>

This book is perfect for literary readers who want something different, who enjoy images and language more than plot and action. This is a book that needs close attention and a re-read for a more complete understanding. It’s not a light beach read or for multi-tasking while watching television. CENTRAL STATION is not like anything else you’ve read. This book shows clearly that Lavie Tidhar is an author to watch.

KOENIX loved their introduction to the works of Lavie Tidhar.

Central Station is a “fix-up” novel of previously published short stories by Lavie Tidhar — stories which were always intended to be drawn together into a whole novel. It hints at huge changes and shifts for humanity while intimately focusing on the individuals; it’s about a transformed human experience in the solar system, but stays in a single city. And it harks back to the feel of a golden age of SF with a distinctly retro vibe that is rich and imaginative. It manages to evoke the past and the future simultaneously, making me feel a sense of longing and familiarity with a history of pulp SF I’ve not even read! (And just look at that cover art from Tachyon — it’s perfect!)

This is the first work I’ve read by Lavie Tidhar, and I can’t wait to read more. I was so happy to come to Central Station without any expectations, encouraged by only a few brief anticipatory remarks from others. I not only thoroughly enjoyed Central Station, I also enjoyed going in blind and letting its atmosphere sink in.

<snip>

The lushness, the alien-ness, but organic feel of the setting of Tel Aviv, with the gamespace and the Conversation flickering in and around, reminded me of HYPERION by Dan Simmons. The idea that this is on Earth but felt actually alien to me was fantastic and refreshing: this is a futuristic imagining of a part of the world that is already unknown to me, but remained human and real.

The truth is I loved reading this book so much but it’s hard to explain why, because it was so personal. It triggered some wonderful memories of other books and reading experiences and this intangible thing I seem to be pursuing in my own personal reading journey. Is it possible to feel nostalgia for a book while reading it for the first time? Because that’s what it felt like. I also appreciated the subtle nature of the story itself: there may not be a decisive-enough conclusion to the tale for some readers, but I didn’t need one. There are hints and implications and I saw where the story could go… it was the journey itself and the characters that I devoured.

STRANGE ALLIANCES joins the fun with a review of their own.

The readers’ entry into the world of CENTRAL STATION begins as a ‘I am a camera’ type of tour, highlighting both the exotic and grimy mundane of the many inhabitants populating this dense gathering of people, until there is a smooth and seamless zoom in to Mama Jones and her otherworldly adopted son Kranki and the conversation they are having. This constant shift of focus back and forth between the surroundings and the different characters demonstrates Lavie Tidhar’s skill at world building and making you feel you should have a vested interest in the outcome of the people within in it.

<snip>

So strange and yet so much of this story could be dropped into our world because this is about relationships and connectedness; about different people with different beliefs living side by side as in a community, albeit uncomfortably at times. This is science fiction told on an intimate scale. Because of this, the strangeness disappears into the background, although its presence is responsible for the way Tidhar is able to make the reader really think about the everyday issues we might encounter and are effectively being discussed by the story.

That CENTRAL STATION was developed from short stories is an interesting proposition for any writers reading this novel, because it demonstrates that it is possible to play with ideas, put them out there and continue to develop them into something that has coherence. Certainly there is a sense of episodes as the narrative is explored through different viewpoints, but this provides helpful bookmarks, because at less than 300 pages this is a novel dense with concepts and characterisations.

This is the type of story that has a unique footprint and because of that will need an audience tuned to Tidhar’s excursions into his more unusual styles of writing. But it is worth an outing for those not familiar with him and anyone wanting to understand how to write the type of science fiction that really has something to say without making an extravagant opera out of it. For those who do enjoy Tidhar’s work this is definitely a novel that will stand more than one reading because of the richness of the narrative and the ideas that are developed within it.

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

Cover and poster by Sarah Anne Langton

June 8, 2015

The highly recommended SLOW BULLETS is eminently worthwhile

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized alastair reynolds, elizabeth story, novella, review, science fiction, sffworld, sfrevu, slow bullets, the green man review, Thomas Canty

Another trio of reviews for Alastair Reynolds’ “fast paced” SLOW BULLETS.

From SFFWORLD:

SLOW BULLETS is the latest release from the acclaimed sci-fi writer Alastair Reynolds. Released by Tachyon Publications, Slow Bullets falls outside of Reynolds’ usual publishing schedule, and this is reflected in its rather modest page count. While Reynolds’ shorter fiction output is often a highlight of my reading, I have never really been able to connect with any of his novel-length works. This was my main concern going in to this novella, but one that was ultimately unfounded: SLOW BULLETS captured my attention and did not let up until the ride was over.

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SLOW BULLETS is an interesting novella, one that deals with very real topics that are present in day-to-day life. It’s a story that delivers on many counts, from its strong cast of characters, to the fascinating and barely touched-upon universe it is set within. I enjoyed this novella very much, and I’ve come away with a renewed interest in reading some more of Reynolds’ previous works.

Highly recommended.

SFREVU:

One minute Scur is a soldier captured and tortured by a war criminal reviled by both her side and his, the next she’s waking up on a ship bound for a penal planet, only to find it’s thousands of years overdue. Scur, who has no idea how she wound up in hibernation with a bunch of people from both sides with little in common but their war crimes, has to find a way to meld the survivors into something besides a replay of a war long over. If that’s not hard enough on its own, it’s made considerably more difficult by the presence of her former tormentor, who’s very, very good at being very, very bad. Unlike most of Reynolds novels, this isn’t a doorstopper, but a fast paced 200 odd page adventure.

<snip>

It’s a good story, quite up to the authors usual quality, and offers some new ideas on the “waking up unexpectedly on a starship” theme, as did Greg Bear’s Hull Zero Three (2011), demonstrating that this field isn’t nearly played out nearly three quarters of a century after A.E. van Vogt’s “Far Centaurus" where crewmen arrive at Alpha Centauri after taking the slow route only to find that the universe wasn’t willing to wait for them to arrive.

THE GREEN MAN REVIEW:

The pace of the novella is never less than breakneck, even if the incidents being discussed don’t fit neatly into conventional action beats. Reynolds sketches the evolution of this unconventional, highly combustible society with a sure hand, eliding unnecessary detail while laying out the key components in stark detail. There’s no wasted space here, no digressions into pointless technobabble or infodump for the sake of showing off the world building. Indeed, even the slow bullets of the title get described as much by implication as by exposition, which can lead an unwary reader to assume they’re stumbled into a segment in an ongoing series. The fact that the ideas of the book are so big—the source and implications of the untimely ice age, the scale of the just-ended war, the questions of faith and memory and society that drive the action onboard ship – that it seems impossible for them to be given their due in something novella length. And yet Reynolds manages it while effortlessly sidestepping the more conventional questions one would expect him to have to answer—what happened to the ship, the larger details of the war—remain thoroughly sidelined. It is enough that things have happened, and SLOW BULLETS looks resolutely to the future instead of shoring up its universe’s past.

At its core, SLOW BULLETS is a hopeful book, a cry against the darkness of seeming inevitable destruction. Scur and her shipmates, against all odds, manage to create something in the midst of a scenario primed instead for bloody destruction, and they give freely of themselves to do so. The greater good is ultimately affirmed as something worth striving and sacrificing for, even if the personal cost is high. But that doesn’t mean it’s a happy or cheerful book, rather just an eminently worthwhile one.

For more about SLOW BULLETS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Thomas Canty.

Design by Elizabeth Story.

May 13, 2015

A trifecta of recent interviews with the extraordinary Daryl Gregory

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized allen willians, daryl gregory, dynamic forces, elizabeth story, harrison squared, horror, interview, novella, sfrevu, the daily times, we are all completely fine

Three recent interviews with Daryl Gregory, author of the Nebula, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and Locus award nominee WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE.

At SFREVU:

SFRevu: Your novella, We Are All Completely Fine, came out in August 2014 from Tachyon, but Harrison Squared, its prequel, or first of its prequels, just came out in late March 2015 from Tor. Now, that doesn’t seem like quite enough time to have written We Are All Completely Fine, then decide to write a novel to set it up, so how did that happen, anyway?

Daryl Gregory: It happened in the most complicated way possible. I wrote the first draft of Harrison Squared as a middle-grade adventure novel, intending to write something light and fun with as much banter as possible. My idea of light and fun, however, was out of step with middle grade editors. Several of them said that what I’d written was way too scary for little kids. (I don’t think this is true. I loved gruesome stuff when I was ten. But hey, that’s the market.)

I was ready to set aside the book as an experiment, but it did start me thinking about what kind of PTSD a grown-up Harrison would have to cope with. And what about all those sole survivors of horror novels and movies? Surely they needed a lot of therapy. Jacob Weisman of Tachyon had been after me to write a novella for him, so I pitched him the idea of a therapy group made up of final girls and last men standing. He thought it was a hilarious idea. I kept trying to explain that it wasn’t funny. We still argue about whether the novella is a comedy. I think we’ve compromised on ‘ultra-dark comedy’.

While I was writing the novella, Tor offered to buy Harrison Squared, but they were interested in YA, not middle grade, and asked if I’d be willing to change it. I said, if you’re willing to pay me, I’m interested. But this actually solved the scariness problem for me. An older protagonist, and therefore older readers, would be able to handle the creepy stuff, and allow me to spend more time with the monsters, which is always my favorite part of horror stories.

So, as soon as I finished We Are All Completely Fine, I rewrote Harrison Squared from scratch, using that first draft as a kind of detailed outline that was missing some of the story. But because I now had written the adult Harrison, that changed how I wrote him as a kid. There’s still a big gap between the boy he was and the man he becomes–but now I know what that arc is.

DYNAMIC FORCES:

DF: I know you have been asked this a thousand times, but take us through and compare your particular processes for doing a novel vs. a comic series.

Daryl Gregory: Comics are short, and they’re all about structure–hitting the right beats, exactly at the right turn of the page, and ending with a snap or a cliffhanger on the last page. My job is to get the story, structure, and dialogue to work. But most of the heavy lifting for the emotion in the book, and its effectiveness, is in the hands of the artist. My job is to put the minimum number of words on the page and let the art shine. I often write comics in outline mode, mapping out each page, before I write any dialogue.

With a novel, all the heavy lifting is on me. That’s both wonderful and daunting. I do outline my novels, but the form is so flexible. Every book I’ve written has a different structure, a different length, and a different tone. And I’m constantly rewriting. You’re building a house (or a castle, if it’s that kind of novel) out of sentences, and get them wrong and the whole thing comes crashing down.

THE DAILY TIMES (Maryville, TN):

As for his subject matter, the author chuckled and said, “I don’t think I had any choice. I started reading, and it seemed like it was the weird stuff and the fun stuff that kept drawing me back.”

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

Cover design by Elizabeth Story.

Cover for HARRISON SQUARED by Allen Williams.