theaker’s quarterly fiction

July 7, 2020

In the time of the Coronavirus, Marie Brennan’s fascinating DRIFTWOOD shares a lesson worth remembering

Rick Klaw blog a refuge from life, driftwood, marie brennan, nerds of a feather flock together, Paul Weimer, review, simply a book drunkard, stephen theaker, theaker's quarterly fiction 0

Roughly one month from publication (but available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon), interest in Marie Brennan’s DRIFTWOOD ramps up.

At NERDS OF A FEATHER, FLOCK TOGETHER, Paul Weimer praises the book.

And what brings worlds there in the first place to that doom isn’t the point, and as we learn in the stories, the slow destruction isn’t the point, either. The point is what the people of these worlds do with the time that they have. In the time of the Coronavirus, that’s a lesson worth remembering.

In a self-interview, Stephen Theaker on his THEAKER’S QUARTERLY FICTION reveals his thoughts on the novel.

What are you reading? – Reading Glasses Facebook group

DRIFTWOOD by Marie Brennan, about a place where what seem to be the ghosts of dead planets cluster before disappearing forever. Very good.

SIMPLY A BOOK DRUNKARD also thought highly of the work.

It took me a few chapters to get into this, the lack of main plot line confusing me. But then I was absolutely hooked on this fascinating setting with its diversity in people. It is a shorter read, one I easily got through in a few hours. It is so worth it though, because it is interesting and unique.

I really hope more books will be set in this world. I had a great time with it and highly recommend picking this one up.

THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE deems the forthcoming book as squee-worthy.

August squeeing keeps right on going with Driftwood, introducing a new post-apocalyptic universe – ‘where worlds go to die’ – from Marie Brennan.

A REFUGE FROM LIFE includes DRIFTWOOD among Most Anticipated Books of the 2nd Half of 2020.

June 28, 2018

Bruce Sterling’s PIRATE UTOPIA honored with Theaker’s Quarterly Award

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized john coulthart, language log, mark liberman, peter lunenfeld, pirate utopia, roy christopher, theaker's quarterly awards, theaker's quarterly fiction

The Theaker’s Quarterly Awards 2018 were recently announced with Bruce Sterling’s PIRATE UTOPIA garnering the prize on the books category.

As announced in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #62, these are the winners of the Theaker’s Quarterly Awards 2018. Voting was open to the public from February 11 to 25, and people could vote for as many items as they wanted in each category. Items were eligible if they had appeared in or were reviewed in the previous four issues of the magazine. Here are the results!

Books

1st PIRATE UTOPIA, by Bruce Sterling (Tachyon Publications)
2nd I Am Providence, by Nick Mamatas (Night Shade Books)
3rd Metronome, by Oliver Langmead (Unsung Stories)

Roy Christopher’s annual summer book reading list compiled from diverse hands includes Peter Lunenfeld’s recommendation.

Bruce Sterling’s PIRATE UTOPIA (Tachyon, 2016) also interrogates culture’s tortured relationship with power, but from a deiselpunk perspective, creating an alternative past in which the Futurists take over the Regency of Carnaro to wreck havoc on their enemies. It was a nominee for the 2016 Sidewise Award, Best Short-Form Alternate History. In my alternate history, it won.

At LANGUAGE LOG, Mark Liberman’s discussion about Melania Trump’s jacket choices includes this unexpected update.

Update — I should add that a semi-true history of Fiume/Carnaro/Rijeka in the period after WWI can be found Bruce Sterling’s novel PIRATE UTOPIA.

For more info on PIRATE UTOPIA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and illustration by John Coulthart

February 16, 2018

Tachyon tidbits featuring Bruce Sterling, Nalo Hopkinson, Nancy Springer, and Michael Swanwick

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized boskone, brenda noiseux, bruce sterling, el sol de plata, jamaica ginger, josé francisco sastre garcía, lightspeed, michael swanwick, nalo hopkinson, nancy springer, nisi shawl, theaker's quarterly awards, theaker's quarterly fiction, tqf awards

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

Bruce Sterling, Nalo Hopkinson (photo: David Findlay), Nancy Springer (Lyla Ellzey), and Michael Swanwick (Beth Gwynn)

Vote Bruce Sterling’s PIRATE UTOPIA for the TQF Awards 2018.

For the next fortnight TQF readers (and non-readers, if they want) can vote in the faintly embarrassing TQF Awards 2018!

Click here to vote. Anyone can vote, and you can vote for as many items in each category as you like.

The longlist consists of everything we reviewed in issues 58, 59, 60 and 61, in the categories that appeared in the Quarterly Review (audio, books, comics, events, films, music and television), plus categories for best TQF story, cover art and issue. If you aren’t sure what to vote for, click the links provided below to find out more.

Voting will continue until midnight, 25 February 2018, with the winners to be announced in TQF62 a few days later.

LIGHTSPEED (Feb. 2018, Issue 93) reprints “Jamaica Ginger” by Nalo Hopkinson and Nisi Shawl.

“Damn and blast it!”

Plaquette let herself in through the showroom door of the watchmaker’s that morning to hear Msieur blistering the air of his shop with his swearing. The hulking clockwork man he’d been working on was high-stepping around the workroom floor in a clumsy lurch. It lifted its knees comically high, its body listing to one side and its feet coming down in the wrong order; toe, then heel. Billy Sumach, who delivered supplies to Msieur, was in the workroom. Through the open doorway he threw her a merry glance with his pretty brown eyes, but he had better sense than to laugh at Msieur’s handiwork with Msieur in the room.

Msieur glared at Plaquette. “You’re late. That’s coming off your pay.”

Plaquette winced. Their family needed every cent of her earnings, but she’d had to wait home till Ma got back from the railroad to take over minding Pa.

The mechanical George staggered tap-click, tap-click across the shop. It crashed into a wall and tumbled with a clank to the floor, then lay there whirring. Msieur swore again, words Ma would be mortified to know that Plaquette had heard. He snatched off one of his own shoes and threw it at the George. Billy Sumach gave a little peep of swallowed laughter. Msieur pointed at the George. “Fix it,” he growled at Plaquette. “I have to present it to the governor the day after tomorrow.”

As though Plaquette didn’t know that. “Yes, Msieur,” she said to his back as he stormed through the door to the showroom.

The second the door slammed shut, Billy let out a whoop. Plaquette found herself smiling along with him, glad of a little amusement. It was scarce in her life nowadays. “My land,” Billy said, “’Pears Old George there has got himself the jake leg!”

The fun blew out of the room like a candle flame. “Don’t you joke,” Plaquette told him, through teeth clamped tight together. “You know ’bout my Pa.”

On his eponymous Spanish-language site, José
Francisco Sastre García profiles Nancy Springer.

Within the genre of epic fantasy, one of the great continuators of Tolkien’s work, with a style markedly similar to that of the British author, is Nancy Connor Springer (Montclair, New Jersey, 1948). Not too well known in our country, she works in different genres such as fantasy, mystery, science fiction or juvenile literature.

She studied at the University of Gettysburg, where she got the cum laude graduation in 1970. Later she moved to Pennsylvania, where she will work as a high school teacher in McSherrytown. A couple of years later, in 1972, he will begin his literary work, eventually publishing in 1977 his first book, The Book of Suns, a novel which was later republished under the title The Silver Sun.

According to her own account, her love of writing arises because nobody wrote the books she wanted to read, deciding that she would create them herself. This is how works such as the Island Cycle, the King of the Sea.

In Spain his work has passed in a certain way unnoticed, with hardly transcendence, being published in Castilian two of the stories of the cycle of Island, three of the adventures of Enola Holmes and Apocalypse. However, these stories have been so successful that apparently they are going to take to the movies the adventures of Sherlock’s sister.

In the case of the fantasy of the Island Cycle, his style is reminiscent of Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings: a certain lyricism, a narrative in which the characters are sliding through the plot with a rhythm that can sometimes seem slow but is very addictive, which at times accelerates to generate an action that, far from being hard, is it becomes something softer thanks to that more poetic way of narrating; the melancholic aftertaste, the romance, the epic, are integrated in a whole, in a harmonious whole that drags the reader towards a world in which fantastic creatures roam at their ease, a world in which a certain Celtic touch can be perceived at the same time that medieval, with an aftertaste to troubadour that is very pleasant. In the end, I will say that this author is an excellent option when looking for a good and interesting reading.

(Translation from Spanish courtesy of Google)

For BOSKONE, Brenda Noiseux interviews Michael Swanwick.

If you could relive your first experience with any book or film, which one would you pick? What is it about this book or film that you want to experience again for the “first time?”

Reading The Fellowship of the Ring. I was sixteen and a junior in high school, when I picked it up out of a box of books my sister Patty had sent home from college. It was eleven o’clock at night and I’d just finished my homework, so I thought I’d read a chapter or two before bed. I stayed up all night, reading. I read through breakfast. I read all the mile-long walk to school, and I finished the book just as the home bell rang.

I’ve said this before, but it’s true. That book rang me like a bell. Overnight, it made me determined to become a writer. It’s the reason I’m taking part in this mini-interview right now.

When was the last time you dressed up for Halloween? What costume did you wear?

A friend has a themed costume party, where everyone has to dress up as something beginning with that year’s letter. It was T this year, so I went as Tom Terrific. It’s an easy costume to put together once you locate an enormous white funnel for his Thinking Cap.
On reflection, I probably went as grown-up Tom Terrific. Young Tom didn’t have a beard.

For more info on PIRATE UTOPIA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Coulthart

August 31, 2017

Tachyon tidbits featuring James Morrow, Bruce Sterling, Mary Shelley, and James Tiptree, Jr.

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized best science fiction books, bruce sterling, elizabeth story, five directions press, gabrielle mathieu, her smoke rose up forever, James Morrow, james tiptree jr, john coulthart, John Picacio, mary shelley, pirate utopia, review, stephen theaker, the asylum of dr caligari, the mortal immortal, theaker's quarterly fiction

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

James Morrow, Bruce Sterling, Mary Shelley (Portrait: Richard Rothwell), and James Tiptree, Jr.

For FIVE DIRECTIONS PRESS, Gabrielle Mathieu loves James Morrow’s THE ASYLUM OF DR. CALIGARI.

This is less a fantasy novel in the usual modern sense than an allegory about war and the patriotic frenzy that inspires men to lay down their lives. The plot is an elegant scaffolding on which to hang the author’s gems of observation. And I found some of the scenes disturbing. But the book offers considerable pleasure in its musings on art, history, and philosophy.

Stephen Theaker at his THEAKER’S QUARTERLY FICTION enjoys Bruce Sterling’s Sidewise Award-nominated PIRATE UTOPIA.

****

I enjoyed the book while finding it a bit hard to get to grips with, much like Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius and Oswald Bastable books. The book also contains an introduction by Warren Ellis, an interview with Bruce Sterling, a useful afterword by Christopher Brown, and a note by the cover artist, all of which, while interesting and often educational, does make you wish the story itself was a bit longer.

BEST SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS listing of The Greatest SF Authors includes both Mary Shelley and James Tiptree, Jr.

There’s a post I’ve just come across (it seems to be a year old, but you know how these things disappear and resurface on the web) that claims to list “The Greatest Sci-Fi Authors of All Time“.

It’s an interesting, if largely predictable list: Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Jules Verne, Tanith Lee, Robert Heinlein, Iain Banks, Octavia E. Butler, Alfred Bester, Dan Simmons, Peter Watts, Gene Wolfe.

I’m not going to argue with that. Well, I could: Orwell makes the list for just one novel, Lee was probably better at fantasy than sf, Simmons drifted more into horror, and Iain Banks wrote mainstream fiction it was Iain M. Banks who wrote sf (just being pedantic there). But really, it’s a halfway decent list, if you accept that the high water mark of sf was sometime between the 1940s and 1960s (the era of Asimov, Dick, Herbert, Clarke, Bradbury, Orwell, Heinlein, Bester – half the list). But there are at least as many names as good if not better missing from this list.

So here we go, here’s a list of the greatest sf writers who didn’t make the list but should have.

If Wells gave us the shape of modern science fiction, there are some would argue that it was Mary Shelley who created the genre. Of course, it’s not really as simple as that, but it is hard to deny that FRANKENSTEIN is one of the founding texts of science fiction. There aren’t that many words from science fiction that have entered the language, but “Frankenstein” is certainly one of them. It’s a book that continues to haunt our imaginations to this day, even those who’ve never actually read it. And it wasn’t her only contribution to science fiction, she later went on to write THE LAST MAN, which helped to establish the strand of catastrophe story that we still see today.

There can’t be many sf writers who made such a big splash so quickly. Her first stories appeared in 1968, and she committed suicide less than 20 years later, yet in that brief career she won two Hugo Awards (for “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” and “Houston, Houston, Do You Read”), three Nebula Awards (for “Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death”, “Houston, Houston, Do You Read” and “The Screwfly Solution”, written under her other pseudonym, Raccoona Sheldon), plus a bunch of other awards. And if there had been any justice, she would have won plenty more, it remains inconceivable, for instance, that “The Women Men Don’t See” or “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” or “A Momentary Taste of Being” or any of a dozen other stories won nothing. She was primarily a short story writer; the two novels published late in her career, UP THE WALL OF THE WORLD and BRIGHTNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR, really didn’t match up to the best of her short fiction. But those stories, most of them collected in HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER, had a profound effect on the science fiction of her day.

For more info on THE ASYLUM OF DR. CALIGARI, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

For more info on PIRATE UTOPIA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Coulthart

For more info on THE MORTAL IMMORTAL: THE COMPLETE SUPERNATURAL SHORT FICTION, visit the Tachyon page.

For more info about HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Picacio

April 13, 2017

Tachyon tidbits featuring Bruce Sterling, Jacob Weisman, and Peter Watts

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized au-delà du gouffre, beyond the rift, bruce sterling, elizabeth story, goro fujita, grand prix de l'imaginaire, Hugh Sicotte, invaders, invaders: 22 tales from the outer limits of literature, jacob weisman, joe milicia, john coulthart, Locus, patricia a mckillip, peter s beagle, Peter Watts, stephen theaker, The New York Review of Science Fiction, theaker's quarterly fiction

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

Bruce Sterling, Jacob Weisman, and Peter Watts

In THEAKER’S QUARTERLY FICTION #59, Stephen Theaker praises Bruce Sterling’s PIRATE UTOPIA.

I
really liked one bit of dialogue from Secondari, when he says, “I
don’t have to believe any more, because it’s the truth!” I’ve
often thought that when someone says they believe in a thing, that
can be a sign that they don’t think it’s actually true (or at
least isn’t true yet), whether they realise that or not. I enjoyed
the book while finding it a bit hard to get to grips with, much like
Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius and Oswald Bastable books.

Joe Milicia at THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION enjoys Jacob Weisman’s INVADERS: 22 TALES FROM THE OUTER LIMITS OF LITERATURE.

The first thing to say about INVADERS is that it’s a good collection of sf and borderline-sf short stories. I’d argue that all but a couple of the 22 are quite worth reading: a nice percentage. The stories are recent or nearly so, with copyright dates 1990 to 2015, except for one by Max Apple published in 1975.

INVADERS offers a range of stories whose humor varies from downright silliness and mordant satire to mere arches of the eyebrow. It remains for me to call attention to a few selections that take us into the unnerving—but not humorless—realms of Kafka or Dick. The stories in INVADERS that are the most Kafkaesque or Dickian—and I mean these adjectives as praise, not insinuations of lack of originality—involve some shift in reality, not merely a character’s perception (as in “A Precursor of the Cinema” and “Escape from Spiderhead”) but an actual plunge into altered states as in “Portal” and the four stories I haven’t yet mentioned.

LOCUS announced the 2017 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire Shortlist which includes Peter Watt’s BEYOND THE RIFT. Congrats to all the nominees.

Foreign Short Fiction

“Une brève
histoire des formes à venir” [THE THING ABOUT SHAPES TO COME],
Adam-Troy Castro (ANGLE MORT #11)

Un Pont sur la brume
[THE MAN WHO BRIDGED THE MIST], Kij Johnson (Bélial’)

L’Homme qui mit
fin à l’histoire [THE MAN WHO ENDED HISTORY], Ken Liu (Bélial’)

“Honey Bear”,
Sofia Samatar (ANGLE MORT #11)

Infinités [THE
WOMAN WHO THOUGHT SHE WAS A PLANET], Vandana Singh (Denoël)

Au-delà du gouffre
[BEYOND THE RIFT], Peter Watts (Bélial’)

For more info on PIRATE UTOPIA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and by John Coulthart

For more info on INVADERS: 22 TALES FROM THE OUTER LIMITS OF LITERATURE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Goro Fujita

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about BEYOND THE RIFT, visit the Tachyon page

Cover art by Hugh Sicotte

Design by Elizabeth Story

February 1, 2017

SLOW BULLETS is another brilliant space opera from a master of the genre

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized alastair reynolds, rapture in books, review, science fiction, slow bullets, theaker's quarterly awards, theaker's quarterly fiction

Photo: Barbera Bella

RAPTUREINBOOKS praises Alastair Reynolds’ SLOW BULLETS.

★★★★

4 stars – Another brilliant Space Opera from a master of the genre

<snip>

SLOW BULLETS is the second book by Alastair Reynolds that I have read, it was only 192 pages, but it was 192 pages of yet another brilliant space opera by the master. This novella took place in an alternate world to ours and mostly in space; there is one main character Scureyla or Scur as she is known throughout the novella. The novella reads a lot like a memoir rather than a story with the narrator Scur bringing you back to various points in her life as a forcibly conscripted military individual on her home planet.

<snip>

It was certainly a good slice of Alastair Reynolds work and was definitely written along the same lines of the other book of his I’ve read Revenger, although short and sweet, there were no loose ends that can sometimes be present, the dialogue was a touch mis-matched but was ultimately well-rounded and proved a good thing.

SLOW BULLETS is nominated for the inaugural THEAKER’S QUARTERLY AWARDS.

For the last four years, and a couple of other years a bit further back, I ran the British Fantasy Awards, which was absolutely fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable. I stepped down last September, but I loved doing it, so to innoculate myself against volunteering to run any other awards, and also to give myself the chance to experiment with voting systems in a way that wasn’t possible with the BFAs, I have decided to introduce our own Theaker’s Quarterly awards.

The only items eligible are those that have been reviewed in our pages (regardless of when they were published – and whether we liked them!), and the only categories are those that have appeared in the Quarterly Review, plus three about our own magazine: best story, cover art and issue. Voting is open to everyone, and you can vote for as many items in each category as you want.

Click here to vote!

For more info about SLOW BULLETS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Thomas Canty

Design by Elizabeth Story

March 25, 2016

Tachyon tidbits featuring Nalo Hopkinson, Patricia A. McKillip, Alastair Reynolds, and Kelly Armstrong

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized alastair reynolds, anne-thology, book riot, bronwyn averett, chuma hill, collection, dreams of distant shores, elizabeth story, falling in love with hominids, fantasy, horror, kelley armstrong, led astray, led astray: the best of kelley armstrong, nalo hopkinson, paranormal romance, patricia a mckillip, readwomen, review, science fiction, slow bullets, stephen theaker, the written world, theaker's quarterly fiction, Thomas Canty, urban fantasy

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

Nalo Hopkinson, Patricia A. McKillip (Wikimedia Commons), Alastair Reynolds (photo: Barbera Bella), and Kelley Armstrong (photo: Kathryn Hollinrake)

Over at Book Riot, in celebration of Women’s History Month, Bronwyn Averett offers pairings of music and books, a soundtrack to #ReadWomen.

Janelle
Monáe’s METROPOLIS series

Inspired by the classic Fritz Lang silent film, Monáe’s EP
METROPOLIS:
THE CHASE and full-length albums THE
ARCHANDROID and THE
ELECTRIC LADY tell the story of a time traveling
android who is sent to Metropolis to stop the oppressive forces of a
secret society. It’s an Afrofuturist journey told through
Monáe’s strong lyrics and neo-soul musical stylings. I highly
recommend pairing with Nalo Hopkinson’s recent collection of short
stories FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS.

ANNE-THOLOGY OF BOOKS enjoyed her introduction to Patricia A. McKillip by way of DREAMS OF DISTANT SHORES.

The series of stories were each unique and contained within different settings. The continuous transition from one story to the next was extremely jarring and I felt like a fish flailing on land. There was so much detail and the characters were all so diverse that I felt overwhelmed…in a good way. The tales were simply bewitching and bewildering. I’m a new reader to Patricia McKillip but I loved the prose and the way the writing immediately sucked me in. I liked some stories better than most and each has something that snags my attention, but I favored The Gorgon in the Cupboard. There’s just something about it that fits and connects with me since I’ve always had a fascination for the Victorian era. I left that story (and many others) wishing to know more.

Stephen Theaker at his THEAKER’S QUARTERLY FICTION praises Alastair Reynolds’ SLOW BULLETS.

There was a war between the Central Worlds and the Peripheral Systems, both of them fairly religious, and just as a peace was agreed Scurelya Timsuk Shunde, our narrator, is captured by a war criminal and taken to a bunker, where he injects her with a slow bullet, which’ll burrow through her body till it reaches her heart. She’s left to die, and probably will, and then she wakes up…

Now, I was glad to be able to read the book and be surprised by everything that came next, and if you want the full effect too then skip to the star rating and buy the book. If not…

<skip>

****

For THE WRITTEN WORLD, Kailana reviews LED ASTRAY: THE BEST OF KELLEY ARMSTRONG.

I have been reading this for a while. I am notoriously bad at reading short story collections, but I read one or two of these every morning and it worked really well. My only draw-back was there were novellas mixed in and they took a bit longer to read. But, I finished it! I love Kelley Armstrong, but have only mostly read her Women of the Otherworld series. There were stories related to that, but there were also stories based around her other series that I really must get around to reading more from. Recommended!

For more information on FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Chuma Hill

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on DREAMS OF DISTANT SHORES, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Thomas Canty

For more info about SLOW BULLETS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Thomas Canty

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more information on LED ASTRAY: THE BEST OF KELLEY ARMSTRONG, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

February 6, 2015

YESTERDAY’S KIN is proper full-blooded science fiction

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized Nancy Kress, novella, review, science fiction, stephen theaker, theaker's quarterly fiction, Thomas Canty, yesterday's kin

At his Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, Stephen Theaker discovers that he loves Nancy Kress’ YESTERDAY’S KIN.

This is the kind of novel I thought they didn’t make any more. Short, but complete in itself, giving clever scientists an intractable problem and an impossible deadline. A fascinating alien culture, psychological insight into our own. And what seems like (to this non-scientist, at least) real science. It’s not a horror story, or a western, or a war story dressed in space clothes, but proper full-blooded science fiction, and I loved it.

Read the rest of Theaker’s review at Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction.

For more on YESTERDAY’S KIN, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Thomas Canty.