tais teng Archives - Tachyon Publications

October 21, 2020

Tachyon tidbits featuring Daniel Pinkwater, Peter S. Beagle, Nalo Hopkinson, Brandon Sanderson, Charlie Jane Anders, Michael Swanwick, and Cory Doctorow

Rick Klaw blog adventures of a dwergish girl, all the birds in the sky, brandon sanderson, brown girl in the ring, Charlie Jane Anders, cory doctorow, daniel pinkwater, interview, kids bookbuzz, michael swanwick, mistborn, mythaxis review, nalo hopkinson, peter s beagle, review, tais teng, the 100 best fantasy books of all time, the last unicorn, time, torforge, youtube 0

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

At KIDS BOOKBUZZ, Zara – Age 11 enjoys Daniel Pinkwater’s ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL.

I think that people ages from seven to one hundred and one could read ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL. It is a great book for everybody! Also, if you like fun adventure books, along with some humor and fun facts! I would definitely recommend this book, so go buy it!!

Cover by Aaron Renier
Design by Elizabeth Story

TIME’s The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time includes Peter S. Beagle, Nalo Hopkinson, Brandon Sanderson, and Charlie Jane Anders.

With a panel of leading fantasy authors—N.K. Jemisin, Neil Gaiman, Sabaa Tahir, Tomi Adeyemi, Diana Gabaldon, George R.R. Martin, Cassandra Clare and Marlon James—TIME presents the most engaging, inventive and influential works of fantasy fiction, in chronological order beginning in the 9th century

The book’s charm lies in the ways it defies fantasy convention. In this cult classic, written in lyrical prose and rife with both whimsical humor and philosophical ruminations on what it means to be human, Beagle spins a quasi-medieval fairy tale that remains timeless. —*Megan McCluskey*

A hybrid of sci-fi, fantasy, eye-popping horror and Afro-Caribbean lore, the eloquent *Brown Girl in the Ring* is a true original—and the savior at its center is a beacon of strength in the body of a young single mother. —*Judy Berman*

The detail with which Sanderson explores the hows and whys of allomancy in the novel, setting up a crescendo of action and adventure by its end, is a solid illustration of his own “First Law of Magics,” which posits that a writer’s capacity to resolve a story’s conflict using magic is directly correlated with readers’ understanding of how that magic works. —*Cate Matthews*

The burgeoning romance brims with eccentricities, but the true fun of Charlie Jane Anders’ Nebula Award-winning novel is its blend of the fantasy and science fiction genres. Anders reveals an intersection full of possibilities. —*Annabel Gutterman*

Tais Teng for MYTHAXIS REVIEW interviews Michael Swanwick.

TT: Some blockbuster fantasy writers are clearly paladins of Tolkien. I get the impression that you belong to a quite different tribe, harkening back to a time when each fantasy novel was one of a kind. Hope-in-the-Mist (which I read recently thanks to your glowing recommendation), The Night Lands, Gormenghast, A Voyage to Arcturus and The Gods of Pegana come to mind.

What are the novels and authors that inspired you when you just had started writing? Or better, when you yearned to become a writer but hadn’t sold a word yet?

MS: As a boy, I was determined to be a scientist. Nothing could be surer. Then, at age sixteen, Tolkien turned me into a writer. I read The Fellowship of the Ring over one long, sleepless night and that was it, I knew what I was going to be. This was before commercial fantasy was a genre, so I had to hunt out fantasy works, which were few and far between. So I read everything from E. R. Eddison’s Mistress of Mistresses to John Jakes’ Brak the Barbarian (very highly not recommended), the books you mention most definitely included. This imprinted on me the idea that great fantasy must necessarily be different from everything else and written in imitation of nobody.

I’ve never gotten over this conviction.

Also, back in the 1980s, I was on the Nebula Award Jury, which was, for reasons that made sense at the time, tasked with adding a single worthy but neglected work to every category on the final award ballot. We made a valiant but futile attempt to read everything published in genre that year and in so doing I read so much fantasy written in lockstep with the common expectation of what it should be that I developed a revulsion for it.

To sum it all up, I love fantasy the way you love your firstborn. You have such high expectations for it that any failure to live up to them is a disappointment. If it’s not astonishingly good, I’m not going to much like it.

For TORFORGE via YOUTUBE, Cory Doctorow discusses writing.