One of the things Poughkeepsie could be famous for, if Poughkeepsie were famous, is abandoned factory buildings. Over the years, even over the centuries, there have been all kinds of manufacturing and industry, going all the way back to when dead whales were dragged up the Hudson River and cut up, processed, had their oil extracted, and maybe kibbled, for all I know. The whale-processing business was carried out seventy-five miles up the river from New York Harbor, because that way it was considered less likely that pirates would show up…and…steal the whales? It doesn’t make sense to me, but they teach this in school. Various other products came from Poughkeepsie, such as decks of cards, underwear, and beer, and when any of the companies that made them moved or shut down, they’d just leave the factory to fall apart.
– Daniel Pinkwater, CRAZY IN POUGHKEEPSIE, pp.53-54
i’m currently reading “crazy in poughkeepsie” to my family at bedtime and i’m so excited that my hometown of sheboygan made it in to the guru’s journeys. this made my day. thank you.
SEA CHANGEis a novella that is within the tradition of cli-fi (speculative fiction dealing with the impact of climate change). Kress creates a frighteningly persuasive near-future world—a world that ends not with a bang but with a whimper. Its plausibility lies in the fact that it is not a dystopia where civilization has collapsed (indeed, in SEA CHANGE, Donald Trump is voted out of office in 2020), and bands of scavengers now roam a feral countryside (although those novels are, of course, equally important). Rather, through a step-by-step reconstruction of a ten-year-long period, Kress shows us how a combination of human hubris, human accident, and human folly can bring us to a pass that nobody really wants, and that harms everyone.
[…]
Perhaps fittingly, the ending of SEA CHANGEis ambiguous (reminiscent of, perhaps, The Handmaid’s Tale, when Offred wonders if she is walking into darkness or light), telling us that in the near future, while there may be hope, there are no easy—or happy—endings; indeed, there are no endings at all but only a continuing struggle, with losses and uncertain consequences. That is another way in which SEA CHANGEpaints a compelling portrait of the times we live in and the times that may be over the horizon.
To be perfectly honest, I cringe when I see a book of short stories come up for these posts, because I suck at making good notes on them and it is really hard to remember details this many months later. I do know that I borrowed this from the library, read it and liked it so much I borrowed and read it again. I have also downloaded and read Strange Waters by Samantha Mills many, many times and it is now among my favourites. It is a time travel story nominally, but is actually about a mother’s determination to get back to her children, and about whether to spending your life in pursuit of a goal at the expense of all else is worthwhile – it’s beautiful and bittersweet. Our Lady of the Open Road [by Sarah Pinsker] is also very good – it relates to the author’s novel which I also coincidentally read this year, and is about the way music connects people and can be a revolutionary force.
On the podcast EATING THE FANTASTIC, hoist Scott Edelman sat down with Nick Mamatas.
We discussed why there’s a generational divide when it comes to what potential readers might think his upcoming novel The Second Shooter is about, our joint Brooklyn heritage and history with professional wrestling, why he threw away the first dozen stories he wrote, the reason Marvel Comics was always better than DC, his encounters with the famed monologuist Brother Theodore, the first bad book he ever read, the way having been a journalist helps him collaborate without killing his co-writers, why work for hire assignments can be difficult, how we feel about our refusal to pick a genre lane, and much more.
Over four years since publication, Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION continues to garner attention and praise.
This is not a long novel, but each of its chapters brings to life so many luminous moments of powerful emotional connection and builds the world of Central Station so convincingly that it feels much longer. I wish it were. It’s one of those books I savor and read slowly to keep it going. For me, Central Station is one of the classics of this century.
So unlike too many science fiction and fantasy novels, this one is a slice of future life with plenty of danger and mysteries. Some but hardly all are thwarted or solved–and then we go on. It’s a kind of high realism, if you like.
Describes the life of various people living around a space station in far-future Tel Aviv and reads like a tranquil fever dream. The worldbuilding is extremely strange, featuring everything from robo-priests to vampires that feed on data, but it’s also super super chill.
Strange, literary fever dream of a sci-fi book set at the base of a space station in far-future Tel Aviv. It’s true slice of life in that it has no plot, but is instead made out of interconnected fragments of the characters’ lives. Chill, relaxing, optimistic, with an incredibly diverse setting and some of the oddest worldbuilding I’ve seen (robo-priests, data vampires…).
Stylistically, THE VIOLENT CENTURY is one of the most interesting novels I’ve ever read. Although it is not an easy read at all, but one that requires effort from the reader, THE VIOLENT CENTURY is one of the most satisfying and full of wonderful books in recent years.
The sun had long set over the distant mountains, and the night world was still but for the two small figures trudging silently under the moonlight. One was tall and thin and moved with a precise energy. The other, smaller, kept hurrying to catch up behind. They wended their path over a dirt road threaded through the fields, earth beaten down under the tread of farmers’ feet.
‘There is a village up ahead, master,’ the smaller figure said. ‘If you are in need of feeding.’
The taller one said, ‘One must feed out of necessity, not greed, Jonathan.’
‘Of course, master.’
Jonathan peered ahead. He was grateful for the moon, for without its light he would find it hard to see, unlike his master. Too often in the moonless nights of their passage he tripped and stumbled and, once, would have fallen into a ravine had not his master interceded.
‘A lesson lost on many of the young ones.’ The master stopped, scenting the air. ‘The postulant feeds from fear and hunger; the novice from greed; the lay vampire, if he has reached that far, feeds for it has learned to accept its nature. Not too little to starve. Not too much to bring about one’s own destruction. Do you understand?’
I…yes?’
The master smiled. The smile tore his face in two, revealed his sharp white teeth, reached nearly to those clear and ancient eyes which saw the cruelty of the world long before his companion’s birth. How many decades – centuries – the young assistant never asked. Jonathan was human, and warm-blooded, and young. And his master was Judge Dee.
I spent the past decade trying to pitch a simple idea to publishers: a mass market anthology of international speculative fiction for the bookstore shelf. The responses varied from, well, no response at all to an under-an-hour rejection (that one still hurts).
The idea is simple and, to me, both logical and necessary. I am of that new generation of writers who grew up in a language other than English, and who decided at some point that our way in is to write in this peculiar, second language. Somehow, we reasoned, against all odds and common sense, we’ll break through into that rarefied Anglophone world, maybe even make a go of it. After all, how hard could English be?
Many of the writers in The Best of World SF do indeed write in English as a second language. Others are translated, thanks to the tireless effort of passionate translators from around the world. As a sometimes translator myself, I know how rarely translators get acknowledged or, indeed, paid, and I made sure that they were paid the same for these stories as the authors themselves.
I was fortunate enough to publish five anthologies of international speculative fiction for the small press in the past decade. The Apex Books of World SF (the last two edited by the fantastic Mahvesh Murad and Cristina Jurado, respectively), are an incredible project, and the unsung Jason Sizemore is my hero for doing them all this time. I promised him he won’t make any money from them when I first pitched the idea, but he’s stubborn fool and still thought they were worth doing—which indeed they were.
This book is one of a kind. The writing is fascinating, atmospheric, drenched in culture and personality. It feels completely immersive. The writing is utterly beautiful, and the characters are very memorable.
In a Sunday Status Update for FANTASY LITERATURE, Jana Nyman express some thoughts on the novella.
I also read R.B. Lemberg’s first BIRDVERSE novella, THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES, which is beautifully written, and I’m very much looking forward to reading more stories set in this universe.
As shared on TWITTER, Oliver Potter got a tattoo celebrating the book.
in a rapidfire decision today, I got my friend to give me a little tat for @RB_Lemberg's 4 Profound Weaves! a cute lil addition to my armful of literary tats. :] pic.twitter.com/4f6qo38WBd
Andrew Liptak and Lee Mandelo, in Liptak’s newsletter, mention THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES in Read Trans / Nonbinary Authors.
Earlier this year, J.K. Rowling blew up headlines with a series of transphobic tweets and a followup essay that outlined her views when it came to trans people. It’s caused considerable angst within the trans community and its allies, and has both galvanized trans activists and elevated hateful rhetoric to the wider public. I wrote about the situation back in June, and since then, Rowling has continued to promote her hateful views.
Most recently, she published a new installment of her Cormorant Strike mystery series, Troubled Blood, which reviewers have noted features a serial killer who stalks women dressed as a woman. The book appears to do away with parable of “separate the art from the artist,” and it’s ignited a new firestorm around the author. I’d like to use this moment to highlight some trans / nonbinary authors, because their works are well worth reading.
While I’ve read authors who fall into this category, I want to turn this particular newsletter edition over to Lee Mandelo. I’ve long admired their writing on the subject, and asked to highlight some works from trans and nonbinary writers that they’re a fan of.
[…]
For that matter, in the month of September alone there are multiple scintillating new books unto which I’d like to direct your attention:
The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke
Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg
Burning Roses by S. L. Huang
Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
…and that’s more or less off the top of my head, so apologies for the others that inevitably slipped past me. The point I’m aiming for here is that trans, nonbinary, and gender-variant folks of all backgrounds are out there writing books about a hundred thousand different things. Compare those September releases for a minute and you’ll notice, beautifully, nothing much in common between them; the same goes for the longer list above.
It’s a veritable cornucopia, so go snag some books and support the folks making good art.
Lavie Tidhar‘s acclaimed novel UNHOLY LAND is due out in France next year! To be published by Editions Mu as AUCUNE TERRE N’EST PROMISE, we wanted to take this opportunity to share the stunning cover.
Cover by Sarah Anne Langton
Cover by Sarah Anne Langton
Carolyn Conte for BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES recounts D. H. Aire’s discussion on science fiction and Judaism at the Baltimore Science Fiction Convention, where he recommended Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION.
A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper. When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed.
This excerpt featuring Kameron Hurley from Becca Anderson’s The Book of Awesome Women Writers ran on the book’s site.
KAMERON HURLEY a resistance movement historian writes future fiction.
Kameron Hurley is a science fiction and fantasy author as well as essayist who uses her writing to explore the future of war and resistance to oppression. Her fiction includes vivid female characters such as her 2018 book APOCALYPSE NYX’s bounty hunter Nyx, who must navigate a dystopian world and deal with challenges like giant bugs and contaminated deserts as she works to survive. Her short fiction was first published in 1998, and she has been writing novels since 2010. She is the author of The Light Brigade (2019) and The Stars are Legion (2017) as well as two trilogies, the Worldbreaker Saga and the award-winning God’s War trilogy.
She was born in the Pacific Northwest and earned a bachelor’s degree in historical studies at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, going on to receive a master’s degree in the history of South African resistance movements from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in Durban, South Africa. Her nonfiction has been published in journals including The Atlantic, The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, and Writers Digest, and she writes columns about writing and the publishing industry for Locus Magazine. In 2014, her essay “We Have Always Fought: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” (2013) won a Hugo Award; that same year, she also won the Hugo for Best Fan Writer. Hurley is also the author of the award-winning essay collection The Geek Feminist Revolution (2017 Locus and BSFA winner, nonfiction); she is an active blogger who posts reflections on topics including how not to burn out living in a “gig economy” and resisting nihilism. Amusingly, she refers to the sphere of her thought and writing as “the Hurleyverse.” She lives in Ohio, where she is cultivating an urban homestead.
While the world undergoes another cycle of necessary upheaval, it has become increasingly certain that I am likely to be spending the next couple of summers just as I have been spending this one: within the same few blocks of my house, gardening, doing dishes, writing books, tearing my hair out over finances, being careful and critical of the news, and trying to be kind to myself in an effort to prolong my own life.
Because living in a slow apocalypse can get to you, with the knowledge that nothing is certain except uncertainty as the world is remade. For all my restlessness, though, I have hope. America’s anger, our community’s anger, gives me hope.
The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.
R. B. Lemberg
Hannu Rajaniemi
Jacob Weisman
Lavie Tidhar
Photo by Barbera Bella
READS RAINBOW cites 5 Reasons To Read R. B. Lemberg’s forthcoming THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES. Here’s three of them:
The worldbuilding is incredibly intriguing, and detailed, so that you will find yourself just wanting to read more and more of the world. Good thing this is an entire 12 novella series, then!
The writing is gorgeous and evocative and you will feel as though you are really in the world.
It’s got a fun and creative magic system, one of the most inventive we’ve read.
Peter Flom for MEDIUM praises Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman‘s THE NEW VOICES OF SCIENCE FICTION. Flom singles out “Mother Tongues” by S. Qiouyi Lu, “Our Lady of the Open Road” by Sarah Pinsker, “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, “Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience TM” by Rebecca Roanhorse, “Openness” by Alexander Weinstein, and “Utopia, LOL?”by Jami Wahls.
All the stories are well written, but in any such collection, each reader will like some stories more than others.
Via Twitter, The Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction announced the finalists for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, which includes Lavie Tidhar’s “New Atlantis“. Congrats to Lavie and all the honorees.
Good, solid, science fiction space opera. Baddies and goodies, an interesting universe and a problem to solve. Life and Death in space with well-drawn characters and challenges to overcome.
Big enough to tell the whole story, not to big to be cumbersome or hard-to-handle.
Science fiction as it should be written.
Cover art by Thomas Canty Design by Elizabeth Story
The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.
Kameron Hurley
Nalo Hopkinson Photo by Sana Pudas
James Morrow
Ellen Datlow
Michael Swanwick Photo by Beth Gwynn
Callum McSorley, on his eponymous site, offers a preview of his forthcoming SHORELINE OF INFINITY review for Kameron Hurley’s MEET ME IN THE FUTURE.
I’ve spent many words on this excellent SFF collection in my Shoreline review which will be published in a future issue. Here’s a sneak peek:
“Conceptually, these stories are out at the weird end of SFF, but her characters are so well drawn, rich in complexity, allowed to be angry, scared, cruel, and even kind sometimes, that they are believably, undeniably human – regardless of their appearance or if their intelligence is deemed real or artificial – which creates an anchor for the incredible things happening all around them.”
At STORY 366, Michael Czyzniejewski discusses “The Easthound” by Nalo Hopkinson plus “Soul Case” and “Message in a Bottle”, all from FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS.
So glad that this project has led me to writers like Nalo Hopkinson and her collection, FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS. Hopkinson’s books number in the teens and her awards, especially from sci-fi and fantasy-type societies, are just as numerous. I loved exploring her imagination, her settings, and her characters, eating up her super-awesome stories one after another.
In James Morrow’s novella SHAMBLING TOWARDS HIROSHIMA, a man is hired by the US government to put on a rubber monster suit and put on a demonstration in which he destroys a small city, in order to completely end World War II. As his main character says of his intentions for the beast, “I hope to make this magnificent lizard as famous a symbol for the abolition of nuclear weapons as Smokey the Bear has become for the prevention of forest fires” (Morrow 162). This scenario is an obvious homage to the Godzilla films from Japan’s Toho Company in the 1950s – a distinct reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki several years beforehand, and a nuclear cautionary tale in the guise of a kitschy monster movie.
On Twitter, ArmadilloCon Chair Person Jennifer Juday explains how they discovered GoH Deji Bryce Olukotun.
Carol Cooper for THE VILLAGE VOICE catches up with the next generation of science fiction writers.
Ever wonder where new science fiction writers come from? Typically, the best ones emerge from its readership. This would include video gamers and other genre media fans whose love for a broad spectrum of imaginative literature is both critical and obsessive. SF fandom (the initials here meaning “speculative fiction” to capture all flavors of fantasy and science fiction in one easy acronym) incubates its own future.
Fandom as a familial collective of readers and writers has existed since at least the 1920s, when lurid pulp fiction magazines encouraged Lovecraft’s quirky circle of acolytes to pen and critique their own tales of cosmic horror, scientific fantasy, or sword-and-sorcery epics. This path of transition from fan to pro is now made explicit for the curious by events like last month’s Nebula Conference, a four-day convention featuring panel discussions and an awards ceremony celebrating the most significant writing released during the previous year. This time held at the Pittsburgh Marriott hotel downtown, the Nebula Awards, given annually since 1965, are the Oscars of genre fiction, voted on by fellow writers, editors, publishers, and book agents.
Photo: Jill Roberts
Once indie fiction magazines were viable again, some magazine editors took the next evolutionary step to become publishers. Jacob Weisman discontinued his magazine in the mid-Nineties to form Tachyon Publications, which now publishes SFWA’s newly anointed “Grand Master” Peter S. Beagle, and released Bruce Sterling’s PIRATE UTOPIA in 2016. This month, Tachyon published THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION by Peter Watts, a former marine biologist who boldly inserts high-concept speculations about time and the future of humanity into a rigorously scientific space opera. In August, the giddily picaresque THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF EVERYTHING is due from Nick Mamatas, or — as China Miéville, himself a New York Times bestselling novelist, prefers to describe him — “The People’s Commissar of Awesome.”
For more info on INVADERS: 22 TALES FROM THE OUTER LIMITS OF LITERATURE, visit the Tachyon page.
We’d like to send you a copy of Kameron Hurley’s APOCALYPSE NYX!
Post an image of you and/or the creature of your choice with either a previous Kameron Hurley title or a Tachyon title on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr with the hashtag #ApocalypseNyx. To be entered, follow @tachyonpub.
US Winner gets a SIGNED copy of APOCALYPSE NYX.
International winners get free ebook of APOCALYPSE NYX AND a Tachyon/Particle ebook of their choice.
“You’re going to love Nyx … she makes Han Solo look like a Boy Scout.” —io9
Ex-government assassin turned bounty-hunter Nyx is good at solving other people’s problems. Her favorite problem-solving solution is punching people in the face. Then maybe chopping off some heads. Hey—it’s a living.
Nyx’s disreputable reputation has been well earned. After all, she’s trying to navigate an apocalyptic world full of giant bugs, contaminated deserts, scheming magicians, and a centuries-long war that’s consuming her future. Managing her ragtag squad of misfits has required a lot of morally-gray choices. Every new job is another day alive. Every new mission is another step toward changing a hellish future—but only if she can survive.
APOCALYPSE NYX is the must-have collection of Kameron Hurley’s five newest Nyx adventures.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A purchase does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes for the signed copy of Apocalypse Nyx is open only to legal residents of 50 United States and D.C. Sweepstakes for free ebook of Apocalypse Nyx AND a Tachyon/Particle ebook is open worldwide. To enter, post an image of you and/or the creature of your choice with either a previous Kameron Hurley title or a Tachyon title on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr with the hashtag #ApocalypseNyx and follow @tachyonpub on the appropriate platform, beginning at 8:00 AM Pacific Time (PT) on June 5th. Sweepstakes ends at 12:00 PM Pacific Time (PT) on June 19th. Void where prohibited by law.
For more info on APOCALYPSE NYX, visit the Tachyon page.
