After a mild start to the winter with overeager trees blooming in December, the first two and a half months of 2016 got off to a cold start. Hence, there aren’t a whole lot of signs of the coming spring yet.
However, there are a few, including crocuses (or croci, if you prefer the grammatically correct Latin version) blooming in my garden. So here are a few photos:
Bright purple crocuses in my garden.
White crocuses/croci in the garden.
On Friday, one of my personal heroes, Sir Ken Adam, died aged 95.
Even if you’ve never heard the name Ken Adam, you’ll probably recognise his work when you see it, for Ken Adam determined our ideas of what a supervillain lair is supposed to look like. He was the production designer on the James Bond movies from Dr. No all the way up to Moonraker and gave us such visual delights as submarine swallowing supertankers, Bond’s famous tricked out Aston Martin, the only slightly less famous Lotus Esprit that turns into a submarine, a translucent waterbed with real fish inside, the glittering interior of Fort Knox that looked so much cooler than the real thing probably did, undersea bases and space stations, Alpine lairs and rocket launch pads, genital slicing lasers and of course Blofeld’s volcano lair cum rocket launch pad, complete with monorail and piranha pond. The Guardian has a gallery of some of Ken Adam’s famous designs.
In these days of ubiquitous greenscreen and CGI, it is hard to imagine that all of those sets were physical and specifically built for the respective films. But if you look at a vintage Bond movie from the 1960s or 1970s, you’ll notice how real those sets look. When I watched those movies for the first time as a kid, I actually thought they were real places and that there were really hollowed-out volcanoes and mountaintop supervillain lairs out there in the world somewhere. The first time I saw an actual waterbed, I was disappointed that it was neither translucent nor contained any living goldfish like the one in Diamonds Are Forever.
Nor am I the only person who mistook Ken Adam’s designs for real. During the Cold War, East European intelligence services eagerly watched Bond movies to see what the enemy was doing and what cool tech they had. The KGB reportedly even tried to order an example of Bond’s gadget-laden Aston Martin, only to be told that the actual car doesn’t have any of those functions. And Ronald Reagan – who used to be an actor, after all, and should have known how filmic illusions work – reportedly asked to see another famous Ken Adam set, the NORAD War Room from Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, when he visited the real NORAD shortly after his inauguration as President.
Of all of Ken Adam’s designs, it’s the volcano lair from You Only Live Twice that has stuck with me most. Seeing that volcano lair for the first time on TV, I immediately exclaimed “I want to live there.” With the rocket, the monorail and everything, though I would have swapped the piranhas in the pool for goldfish. And in my early attempts at writing, everybody – both heroes and villains – had elaborate secret lairs hidden in seemingly innocuous places. There was an undersea spaceport, too, that was clearly inspired both by the Blofeld’s volcano lair from You Only Live Twice and the underwater spaceport from Raumpatrouille Orion (and I strongly suspect the latter was inspired by the former as well). Coincidentally, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who wanted to move into the sets of the Bond movie. I sometimes do translations for a company that builds mega-yachts for the ultra-rich and a lot of the time the specs boil down to “Someone has seen too many Bond movies and thought they were real”. More precisely, they all want to own some variation of the Disco Volante, Emilio Largo’s yacht from Thunderball.
I have the theory that the true reason why the Bond movie franchise survived both replacing the lead actor several times and having fuck-all to do with the actual Ian Fleming novels after the first few movies is because what makes a Bond movie is not so much the actor playing the lead role nor the Fleming novel it’s supposedly based on. Of course, all Bond movies contain certain set pieces, but what sets them apart from umpteen other action franchises is that Bond movies have a certain look and style. Tune into any Bond movie at random and it is immediately recognisable as a Bond movie, even if neither Bond nor any other recognisable character is on screen. And this Bond film look was largely defined by Ken Adam, along with Maurice Binder who designed the distinctive psychedelic title sequences with the floating nudes, and composer John Barry, who created the sound of Bond films. All three are dead now, but their legacy remains and not just in Bond movies either.
I don’t remember when I first heard Ken Adam’s name. It must have been during my cineastic phase as a teenager and I must have either read it in a book somewhere or picked it up directly from the credits of a Bond movie. But while I have known his name for a long time and have admired his designs for even longer, it was only years later that I learned that Ken Adam had been born in Germany, in Berlin to be exact, as Klaus Hugo Adam. And that he had been at least partly inspired by the dull Bauhaus modernism that I loathed with a passion. Though as an adult, I can clearly see both the Bauhaus influence (especially if you know that a lot of what was actually built was watered down Bauhaus) and the influence of German expressionist cinema of the 1920s on Ken Adam. I also suspect that this is why German cinema of the 1960s is full of Ken Adamsesque sets – because they were all drawing on the same inspirations.
Coincidentally, I also wonder how Ian Fleming felt about Ken Adam’s designs for the Bond movies, given his well-known dislike of modernist architecture in general and of architect Ernö Goldfinger in particular, a man Fleming disliked so much that he named one of his most famous villains after him. This isn’t Ernö Goldfinger’s only claim to literary fame BTW, he was also reportedly the inspiration for the sinister architect in J.G. Ballard’s novel High Rise, which has just been filmed with sets that look like something Ken Adam might have come up with in the 1970s.
I obviously wasn’t the only person who was inspired by Ken Adam’s glorious designs. You can see his influence in many movies he never worked on. The later 1960s birthed dozens of cheap Bond knock-offs with plywood and cardboard sets that look like Ken Adam on a budget. Here is one of the better examples, Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse from 1964, with a very Ken-Adam-like supervillain lair. Poor Dr. Mabuse, a true legend of villainy with a ninety year reign of terror and yet he was never able to afford a real Ken Adam lair.
Ken Adam’s visual influence also extended beyond the Bond knock-offs of the late 1960s. The Imperial Star Destroyers, the Death Star and the Starkiller Base of the various Star Wars installments are very clearly influenced by Ken Adam’s designs for the Bond movies and Dr. Strangelove, as are the Triskelion and the S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier from the Marvel movies. Ditto for the Stark/Avengers Tower and Tony Stark’s Malibu home (with a bit of Oscar Niemeyer thrown in for good measure). Ironically, a lot of these movies were shot at the 007 Stage at the Pinewood Studios in London, which was specifically built to house Ken Adam’s set of the submarine swallowing supertanker from The Spy Who Loved Me.
So rest in peace, Sir Ken Adam. I still want to live in that volcano base BTW.
It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.
So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some January books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.
Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. We have space opera, military science fiction, science fiction romance, paranormal romance, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, historical fantasy, horror, steampunk, alternate history, post-apocalyptic fiction, lots of young adult SFF, witches, demons, zombies, intergalactic conspiracies, alien invaders, were-foxes, magical swords, beleaguered queens, alternate history PIs, Valentine’s Day in space, Victorians in space, increasingly transparent girls, bioengineered jellyfish terrorists and much more.
Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.
As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.
And now on to the books without further ado:
Emerald Emergent by James Aaron
Emmie’s mother never lets her forget that an obsession with ancient magic killed her father and left Emmie horribly scarred.
When her best friend Bryte offers Emmie a chance to explore an ancient city, Emmie is torn between her father’s sense of adventure and her mother’s common sense. She also can’t deny her fascination with bookish Bryte.
Following her heart, Emmie will face her fears and discover secrets bound to change her life forever. . . once she chooses to stand up and fight.
Book 1 in the Adventures of Emerald of Elegaia, a thrilling new science fantasy series offering a world of action and romance to explore and love.
Welcome to Elegaia, where the past can kill you.
Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime by Cora Buhlert
Kai and Maisie are about the celebrate their first Valentine’s Day on the planet Iago Prime. However, the holiday traditions they established back on Earth such as celebrating Valentine’s Day with a picnic on the beach are impossible to maintain in the hostile environment of their new home. But in spite of the many limitations imposed by living on Iago Prime, Kai pulls out all the stops to give Maisie an unforgettable Valentine’s Day.
This is a science fictional Valentine’s Day story of 2200 words or approx. 10 print pages.
For Charles, responding to Station 332’s emergency help request starts out no different than any other mission. She’s been paired with a near-retirement medic, Robin, and a lax mechanic, Jay. Their job is simple: check the station, kill any threats, provide assistance if needed, then return to Central.
But this is unlike any assistance request Charles has been on before.
Someone or something has destroyed the station, smashing the control panel and upending equipment. They find two bodies–murdered–in the bedroom, and the third staff member is missing.
Robin labels it a murder-suicide, but Charles has doubts.
Something is killing Central’s best fighters, leaving humanity defenceless. It’s spreading quickly. And the danger lives closer to home than anyone ever expected…
Station 332 is a short story in the five-part Cymic Parasite Breach series. Each story can be read independently.
The Memory Thief by Sarina Dorie
What would the Victorian era look like if they had “rediscovered” space flight? Would the British really be interested in colonizing the continent of America if they could colonize an entire planet?
Imagine a Neo-Victorian alternate history romance set on a shogun-like planet. Felicity is a young lady betrothed to a British noble of rank and fortune who will someday inherit a space station. Her life should be happy and perfect. Alas, she fears she will never achieve happiness—or wholeness—until her memories have been returned by the man who stole them.
In pursuit of her past, Felicity returns to an alien planet where she once encountered descendants of Japanese colonists from Earth who had settled millennia before. After a seven year absence, she finds the world much changed. The climate and geography have been altered, the planet has been colonized by her own Victorian culture, destroyed by unethical surveyors, and she is told the man she believes may have stolen her memories—a man she once loved and trusted—is dead. Her only hope for finding answers about her mysterious past is performing the Jomon courtship ritual of memory exchange. The idea of trusting another man enough to perform the ritual after what she has been through is too much and she doesn’t know if she can go through with it. Worse yet, she finds herself falling in love with the alien planet’s leader, even though she is already engaged. Only when she learns to let go of her fears can she learn the secrets that may aid in the freedom of the Jomon people—and herself.
One Sunny Night by Charon Dunn
On March 20, 3748, terrorist clones in submarines made of bioengineered jellyfish attacked the stadium where fifteen-year-old Sonny Knight was watching the
clashball championship game, kidnapping his family and his two best friends.
But the day wasn’t a total loss. Sonny got to meet one of his favorite sports heroes, he got a new dog, and he ran into an extremely tattooed man who has a really fast ship. Which might have been fast enough to get Sonny safely home in a couple of days if they hadn’t run into the tsunamis, and the pliosaurs, and the cattle stampede, and more clones, and all those other complications.
Complications fly fast and furious in this fast-paced adventure story set in a far future in which the climate has changed significantly, making travel difficult.
The Strength to Serve by Claire Frank
Home after their long absence, Daro and Cecily want nothing more than to pick up the pieces of their life and return to normalcy. But outside events intrude and the memories of what they lived through aren’t so easy to leave behind.
Pathius languishes, an unchained prisoner in a foreign land, doubtful of his place in the world. In Imara, he is offered a chance for a new life, if he can release the ghosts of his past and accept the man he has become.
As an invading army threatens their homeland, Daro, Cecily, and Pathius are drawn back into the political turmoil of Halthas. An assassin wreaks havoc in the city, a dangerous artifact is stolen, a force bent on conquest marches toward their border, and they all must take up arms to defeat an enemy their kingdom is not prepared to face.
Lay Me Down by Tamara Hart Heiner
Life is more than just breathing.
Kylee Mansfield knows what it is to be alone. Her dad left when she was seven, and her mother remarried an abusive alcoholic. Kylee finds ways to escape reality, usually by substituting one pain for another.
Things take a deadly turn when a jagged cut shows up on her arm, and she doesn’t know where it came from. She enlists her neighbor, Price Hudson, to help her uncover the truth. But Price shows her much more than just her past—he shows her what it is to be alive.
A heartbreakingly beautiful teen/young adult paranormal romance that will chill you to the core.
After rescuing Annette Funicello’s stand-in from the amorous clutches of Guy Williams, Stan Wade, young, LA-based PI, gets a new, but secret, assignment from his number-one client, Walt Disney. The elder cartoonist and filmmaker wants Stan to investigate a death at Edwards Air Force Base. The victim, who drowned while testing an outer-space uniform, was the eighth astronaut candidate for America’s new space agency, NASA. Working out of his cramped office in the back of the Brown Derby restaurant where he’s employed as a part-time “bouncer,” Stan uncovers much more than a suspicious death…putting his own life—and the lives of those closest to him—in danger.
An Alternate History Mystery
All Emma wanted was to sell her enchanted teas in peace; instead, she’s caught up in the chase for a killer who’s stalking the streets of London. He’s targeting half-bloods, people with limited magical ability. People just like Emma.
The police are baffled by the long string of deaths, but they’re not willing to put in the legwork to make an arrest. After all, magic users can take care of themselves, right? Except, those with real power don’t give a damn about half-bloods. So, when Emma wakes from a strange dream that nearly gets her killed in the waking world, she knows she has to deal with it herself.
With only her boggart shop-assistant and the two strange men who have offered to help, can she thwart the killer and make the city safe again?
Stop the Sirens by E.E. Isherwood
When the sirens end, “post-apocalypse” begins.
Exhausted after two weeks of rolling chaos since the sirens, Liam and his family prepare for their biggest challenge yet.
Fifteen-year-old Liam Peters starts his day in a muddy creek. The Air Force tried to wipe his subdivision off the map, but luck and fast feet helped him find refuge from the big bombs. When he looks up, he sees his whole life has been swept away by fire. And Grandma? He’d been successful getting her out of the city, and across suburbia, but she was snatched from him minutes prior to the attack. She’d gotten a one-way ticket to a brutal government facility set up to research the cure.
As a studious reader of zombie literature, Liam knows the dangers of being without shelter or direction during the zombie plague. He’d already been attacked by angry looters, malicious refugees, and hordes of zombies. His house had been riddled by a chain gun–twice–before the final bombs fell. He tried to look ahead, but saw little hope. He was bolstered by Victoria, but without Grandma by his side he felt defeated.
And yet, hope was out there. People were coming together to survive and help each other. One such group was at the Beaumont Boy Scout Reservation. It was an enclave of peace within the swirl of zombies and death engulfing all of metropolitan St. Louis. There Liam and his family might find a base from which to search for Grandma Marty.
As book 3 concludes, Liam will learn the origin of the plague, the fate of Grandma, and whether a couple of teenagers have anything to look forward to in a world filled with zombies
The Necromancer’s Daughter by Patty Jansen
One brave woman’s struggle against magical forces.
Queen Johanna’s position in Saardam is fragile. The Barons and Kings of the countries in the hinterland are not happy that she helped the royal family to survive and is now about to ensure the next generation. They vow to teach this little upstart country a lesson for once and for all.
Of course it is not so much about petty rivalry, but about access to the sea port that connects the hinterland with the lucrative ocean trade.
Johanna knows that if it came to a fight Saardam could never survive, so she has invited all the heads of state and other important people for talks to invest in the city’s shattered infrastructure for the benefit of all.
As a congregation of royal families gathers such as the lowlands have never seen, the magicians travelling with the esteemed guests prepare the final and most insidious attempt to get control of the upstart little country and its usurper, commoner queen: through her baby daughter.
Mission: Blackguard Conspiracy by V.A. Jeffrey
The Dark Energy Project, started by a group of far-thinking engineers, scientists and programmers many years ago has come roaring back like a storm!
Meant to catapult human exploration and civilization out to the farthest reaches of space, it centered around the groundbreaking information on how to build working stargates. Except, the information was stolen and its founders and all other humans attached to the project killed by alien loyalists. Thereafter, it was renamed The Blackguard Project, the linchpin of the entire drama between humans, alien rebels and the alien loyalists. It’s a shortcut for the aliens in the approaching Black Fleet who abandoned their dying planet and are heading to the solar system to invade Earth and wipe out humanity.
Bob receives a copy of the Blackguard files by The Boss with a new mission: stop the inaugural activation of the new stargate at the annual Sci-Tech Convention. To most people, this is a momentous year in the history of science and space exploration. However, Bob and his U-net band know that this gate is a Trojan Horse! It must be stopped and the aliens behind this sinister plan exposed, no matter the cost.
Kathy and her sister, Samantha, have always been a team. Throughout their time as witches, they’ve taken out more than their share of bad guys. But after Kathy meets Will, who she learns is a demonic Dark Knight, her loyalties begin to change.
Meanwhile, Samantha doesn’t trust Will or his intentions. Still, Kathy can’t help but feel tempted by the dark side as she falls deeper in love with Will. Crossing over would give Kathy the freedom to do whatever she wanted with her magic. No rules. No limitations. It would also mean breaking the bond she has always shared with her sister, who has made it clear that she wants nothing to do with the dark side.
When Will proposes they take over the underworld, Kathy loves the idea of having power. But it also leaves her with a choice that will change her life: abandon her family and the life she has always known, or give up the love of her life forever.
The Forgotten Engineer by T.S. Paul
Ensign Athena Lee was on her first engineering assignment. She was helping to build a secret space station. There was a war on and this new station was vital. When the engineering fleet was attacked and destroyed she was left lost and alone. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. She was going to have to Engineer her way home.
“After 55 years of waiting for an answer to the invite to join the RIM Confederacy, the planet Enki has responded with an alternate idea—that the RIM Confederacy join them instead. Captain Tanner Scott is sent on the Diplomatic mission to get the Enkians to reconsider.
What he and the Atlas crew do is to help the new Ambassador to find a way to both diplomatic as well as the Enki into the RIM Confederacy without exposing to them the secret of why that is so important. If the Enkians can be persuaded, the RIM could gain access to the newly discovered metal ores that appear to make a ship invulnerable.
But all of the RIM wants to shortcut the process so the Atlas needs to quarantine the planet as well as maintain full diplomacy with the Enkians. When the Caliphate gets involved and back room deals are made it all comes to a head at the Atlas Adept Officers trial for Terrorism.
Captain Scott will try to defend his officer by acting as his defense counsel—a job that is made even more difficult as the Enkian society and justice system are both hard to learn and hard to navigate within the law…”
Wind Chill by Patrick Rutigliano
What if you were held captive by your own family?
Emma Rawlins has spent the last year a prisoner. The months following her mother’s death dragged her father into a paranoid spiral of conspiracy theories and doomsday premonitions. Obsessing him, controlling him, they now whisper the end days are finally at hand.
And he doesn’t intend to face them alone.
Emma finds herself drugged and dragged to a secluded cabin, the last refuge from a society supposedly due to collapse. Their cabin a snowbound fortress, her every move controlled, but even that isn’t enough to weather the end of the world.
Everything she knows is out of reach, lost beyond a haze of white. There is no choice but to play her father’s game while she plans her escape.
But there is a force far colder than the freezing drifts. Ancient, ravenous, it knows no mercy. And it’s already had a taste…
Wallace Avery, bookworm extraordinaire, is not out at work in either sense, as a gay man or as a fox shifter. He likes his privacy, and he’s quite content in records management, thank you: filing papers and spending his off hours quietly.
When the opportunity he never wanted is thrust into his lap, he has to decide what to do about it. Police work and a pay raise, and probably stress up to his eyeballs, or trying to stay in his old life and pretending he’s not capable of so much more?
Whatever he chooses, he definitely doesn’t want to fall for someone from his workplace. Especially not that cop . . .
Spirit of the Sword: Faith and Virtue by Frances Smith
Michael has survived his battle with the Voice of Corona, and is determined to walk the path of service to the immortal Empress Aegea. But opposing him is none other than his own beloved brother, Felix, who was thought dead but is the chief servant to Michael’s enemy, Quirian.
Meanwhile, the quarrels between the Empire’s feuding factions continue as Miranda finds herself increasingly entangled in the treacherous currents of Imperial politics. As plots multiply, Miranda finds herself increasingly unsure of her loyalties to anyone but her lover Octavia and her dear friend, Empress Portia. But as the Empire hurtles towards civil war the day approaches when she will have to choose a side once and for all.
The roads of Michael, Felix and Miranda entwine in Eternal Pantheia, the Empire’s capital, where betrayals and revelations try their resolve. As the city burns around them the three divided siblings must reunite and put their faith in one another, for only together can they save the Empire, or let the fires of its hubris consume the nation.
The Increasingly Transparent Girl by Matthew Stott
Things live between awake and asleep. In the moment after your eyes grow too heavy to stay open, but before the dreams take you.
One day, Melody May begins to disappear from view. Her hands, her knees, her face, her everything. A monster’s enchantment has ensnared her, and now Melody must travel across a strange and dangerous land between awake and asleep to reclaim herself; otherwise, in 48 short hours, she will never have existed at all…
I already offered my own reactions to the 2015 Nebula nominees in this post and collected some responses from around the web here.
Now, for the third post about the 2015 Nebulas, here are some more reactions from around the web:
At the Fangirl Happy Hour podcast (which is on my personal Hugo list for best fancast BTW), Renay Williams and Ana Grilo talk about the 2015 shortlists for the Nebulas and the Kitschies.
In many ways, their comments match my own, down to the fact that I have never heard of Hugo Wilcken whose novel The Reflection is on the Kitschies shortlist either and that all but one of the Kitschies’ best debut novel nominees are unknown to me.
Over the past few years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Kitschies fill a void in the SFF awards spectrum, because they tend to recognise works that are often overlooked due to not being core genre. In spite of her well-deserved acclaim in the greater literary world, Margaret Atwood is a name you’ll never see on the Hugo or Nebula shortlist, not least because of that giant squid comment, which she has since repudiated and which I suspect was based on a misunderstanding in the first place, since it is impossible to find the source of the comment. And a writer like Hugo Wilcken, published by a small literary press that is mostly known for its regular rants against Amazon, is not on the radar of most genre folks at all.
I also liked getting Ana and Renay’s impressions on the shortlist for the Andre Norton Award for best YA SFF, since I’m not that plugged into the YA sphere and therefore several of the nominees were unknown quatities to me, in spite of apparently having gotten a lot of buzz in the YA world. In many ways, this is a positive development, because it means that the Andre Norton Award has gotten better at recognising what YA readers are actually reading, whereas in the past the nominees often included (male) writers of adult SFF’s forays into YA (see Shipbreaker by Paolo Bacigalupi or Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi), which got a lot of buzz in SFF circles, but not so much in YA circles.
Ian Mond also weighs in on the Nebula nominees, the Kitschies shortlist and notes a gap in the shortlist for the Aurealis Awards.
In particular, he notes that the Nebula nominations were rather predictable, largely because of the SFWA’s recommended reading list being made public. Coincidentally, Ana and Renay offered a good theory for the reasons behind this on their podcast, namely that given the ongoing uproar in fandom about secret and public slates and alleged or real awards manipulation, maximum transparency was probably the best answer.
Ian Mond is also pleased by the increased diversity of both the Kitschies and the Nebula nominees and notes a good gender mix as well as the presence of several writers of colour on both shortlists. It’s far from perfect, of course, and Ian Mond also notes that the same writers of colour keep showing up again and again, but it’s a start.
Ian Mond also notes that the Nebula nominees include several books that are part of a series, whereas the Kitchies tend to favour standalones. Given that the Kitschies also tend to favour works that are not core genre works, this isn’t all that surprising, since the prevalence of series is a genre thing (any genre, not just SFF), whereas literary fiction and literary genre works tend to favour standalones.
Unlike Ana and Renay (and me, for that matter), Ian Mond has also actually tried to read Charles E. Gannon’s Caine series and bounced off hard. In fact, Charles E. Gannon and Jack McDevitt are names that frequently pop up on the Nebula shortlist, but aren’t discussed a whole lot in the wider SFF sphere. Both strike me as authors that have a very devoted fanbase (which can be enough for an awards nomination), but not all that much impact outside their fanbase. There are a couple of other authors to whom I believe this applies as well. Small devoted fanbase, but little known or read in the wider SFF community.
In fact, I suspect this lies at the heart of most of the genre award controversies of recent years, namely that certain authors and/or their devoted fanbases simply fail to grasp that even though author X is massively popular in their circle, he or she isn’t all that well known nor highly regarded outside it.
To a certain degree I even sympathise. I have no idea why e.g. Ann Aguirre, Rob Thurman, Rachel Aaron/Rachel Bach or Simon R. Green – to name some core genre writers – aren’t more widely discussed in the SFF world and never show up on awards shortlists. Meanwhile, there are also authors whose names regularly show up on awards shortlists and whose every work gets a lot of buzz, even though I dislike their work so much that I’m not sure how it even got published in the first place, let alone landed on an awards shortlist. Coincidentally, I’m very pleased that this year’s Nebulas dodged at least three bullets of that sort and hope that the Hugos will dodge them as well.
However, where it gets ugly is when someone or a group of someones fails to grasp that the fact that their favourites are largely ignored is due to a discrepancy of taste and not to a conspiracy or affirmative action voting or any such nonsense.
Ian Mond also asks what the purpose of awards shortlists in general is (found via File 770), whether it’s a) to sell books, b) create buzz, c) honour the nominees, d) serve as a recommendation list, e) create a discussion about the state of the genre/literature or f) a combination of all of the above.
Personally, I choose option f), all of the above. a, b and c are obvious. d is rather obvious as well, since a lot of people – myself included – use awards shortlists as a recommendation list. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I will automatically read everything on a given shortlist (e.g. I won’t go out of my way to read Raising Caine, because it doesn’t sound like my thing at all), but I usually check out the nominees, particularly if they’re books I’ve never heard of. And if something sounds interesting, it makes me more likely to buy it.
As for option e, awards shortlists do create discussion, even in years that are not marred by one controversy or another. They also serve as snapshots about where the genre is going. Note how the Hugos went from only one woman (Naomi Novik) among the twenty nominees in the fiction categories in 2007 to nigh parity in 2013, though sadly the ratio has declined in subsequent years due to canine influence. Note how we are seeing more women and writers of colour on awards shortlists in recent years. Note how the Nebulas boasted only female winners for the first time in history in 2015. Note how some writers whose names frequently appeared on awards shortlists maybe ten years ago are no longer nominated, even though they are still alive and writing, because their brand of SFF is falling out of fashion. Note how the short fiction shortlists show the rise of the online zines and the decline of the traditional print magazines. Note how self-published works gradually make inroads onto the various genre awards shortlists.
So in short, awards shortlists offer a lot of material for debate, even if it is only, “How the hell did that crap get nominated?” and “Why was my favourite not nominated?”
Though Ian Mond is also correct in pointing out that the two weeks between the announcement of the Kitschies shortlist and the announcement of the winners are too short for any useful discussion, let alone to allow people to read the works (I presume the judges have already read them). But then, Ian Mond also points out that the Kitschies shortlist was usually announced earlier in the year, which suggests that there might be behind-the-scenes reasons at work here.
I already shared my thoughts on the 2015 Nebula Award nominees in my last post. At the time, I also mentioned that I couldn’t find a whole lot of other analysis and reaction apart from discussion in the comments at a few genre sites.
There are a few more reactions now, though a lot of places are still conspicuously silent.
Chaos Horizon, who pretty accurately predicted this year’s Nebula nominees based on the SFWA suggested reading list, engages in some analysis of the Goodreads and Amazon ratings of the seven Nebula nominees for best novel.
At the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, Joel Cunningham shares his thoughts about the 2015 Nebula nominees and is particularly impressed by the diversity of the nominees, both with regard to gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, but also with regard to style, subgenre and subject matter.
Meanwhile, Nebula nominee Amal El-Mohtar shares her pesonal favourite reaction to the 2015 Nebula nominees, courtesy of former Locus reviewer Lois Tilton:
brb, printing out this reaction to the 2016 Nebula Nominees to have framed forever pic.twitter.com/o9bjpS8zag
— Amal El-Mohtar (@tithenai) February 23, 2016
Personally, I’m more inclined to agree with Joel Cunningham than with Lois Tilton, but then I’ve found that Ms. Tilton’s reviews rarely match my personal impression of the stories in question.
At Inverse, Lauren Sarner tackles one particular Nebula category, namely the Ray Bradbury Award for best dramatic presentation and points out that the Nebula nominees kick the Oscars’ arse in that respect.
The only problem with the post is that the Ray Bradbury Award and the Oscars aren’t really comparable at all, because the Oscars are for all motion pictures, regardless of genre, released within the eligiblity period, whereas the Ray Bradbury Award is for dramatic presentations, regardless of type, in the science fiction and fantasy genres, released within the eligibility period. Hence, Jessica Jones can be nominated for a Nebula Award, but is not eligible for the Oscars, since it is a streaming video series and not a motion picture, whereas this year’s Oscar darlings The Danish Girl and The Revenant are not eligible for the Nebulas (or the Hugos, for that matter), since neither is SFF, even though the title of The Revenant suggests a horror film.
So if we remove any nominees that aren’t eligible, there is actually quite a bit of overlap between this year’s Oscar nominees and Ray Bradbury Award nominees. The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road and Inside Out are all nominated both for the Ray Bradbury Award and the Best Picture or respectively Best Animated Feature Oscar and are also nominated in several other categories, both technical as well as Best Screeplay, Best Actor and Best Director. Since Jessica Jones is not eligible, this means that of the Ray Bradbury Award nominees only The Force Awakens (Ryan Britt takes exception to this at Tor.com) and Ex Machina have been snubbed by the Academy, though The Force Awakens has been nominated in a couple of technical categories, while Ex Machina has been nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Special Effects. And even though the original Star Wars was nominated for Best Picture back in 1978 (and promptly lost out to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall in one of the great WTF? decisions of Oscar history), Star Wars isn’t really the sort of movie to win Oscar nominations, while Ex Machina was simply too obscure.
In conclusion, the Nebula and Oscar nominees don’t really differ all that much. However, Lauren Sarner makes an important point, namely that the Oscars tend to reward a particular type of movie – referred to as “Oscar bait” by many of us – that isn’t really all that popular among the general audience nor all that daring and innovative. If anything, the same sort of movies that used to win Oscars in the 1930s are still winning Oscars today (including the same appalling lack of diversity among the nominees), even though both film making and society itself have changed drastically in the intervening eighty years. And it’s very likely that today’s Oscar-bait “prestige” pictures will no more stand the test of time than those of the 1930s, whereas many of the snubs of today will become the timeless classics of tomorrow.
Finally, in his announcement of the Nebula nominees at Black Gate, John O’Neill makes a brief remark that 2015 was “a good year for Tor.com and Asimov’s“, which in the comments turns into discussion of the conspiracy theory, quite widespread among the Sad and Rabid Puppy crowd, that Tor allegedly manipulates the Hugo and Nebula Awards in favour of its own authors and books. The discussion is surprisingly civil, given how contentious these debates can become, and Nebula nominee Charles E. Gannon even pops in to say that the fact that the alien antagonists in his nominated novel Raising Caine are called the K’Tor is not intended as a jab against Tor. And of course, K’Tor is pretty typical for the names of alien species in the space opera and military SF genres.
Regarding the supposed Tor domination of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, it is notable that the name Tor shows up a lot on genre awards shortlists. However, Tor is a big imprint and publishes a lot of books. What is more, Tor.com is a popular genre site, which publishes approx. one piece of short fiction per week. And then there is their new novella line. So in short, the reason why the name Tor pops up a lot on awards shortlists is because they publish a lot of stuff in several categories.
What is more, for short fiction, the traditional print magazines such as Asimov’s, Analog and Fantasy & Science Fiction are difficult to access outside North America. For example, I have never seen Asimov’s, Analog or F&SF at a single newsstand in Germany. I have seen Asimov’s and Analog for sale in the UK – in London in the SFF basement of the late lamented Murder One – but that’s the only place in Europe where I have ever seen the so-called “big three” SFF magazines. As a result, I only ever see fiction from Asimov’s, Analog or F&SF when it is put online (which is how I read Eugene Fisher’s “The New Mother” and Sam J. Miller’s “Calved”) or shows up in a Year’s Best anthology. Meanwhile, I can read the various online magazines right here at my computer.
So if online magazines seem to dominate the genre awards shortlists of late, a large part of the reason is that they are more accessible to greater numbers of readers, particularly those outside the US. Now this is not that relevant to the Nebula, since I suspect that a sizeable number of Nebula voters subscribe to the print magazines (and note Asimov’s strong showing at the 2015 Nebulas). But it’s certainly relevant to the Hugos.
As for Tor.com, they don’t just publish a lot of good stories (though looking through my own list, I find that Lightspeed dominates, followed by Tor.com, Uncanny and Clarkesworld, whereas for novels, my list is dominated by Ace, followed by Orbit with Tor in third place), but they’re also pretty good at marketing them.
Years ago, I signed up for the Tor.com site. I haven’t posted there in ages and I’m not sure if I even still remember my log-in. However, I still get their newsletter every week with links to notable articles at Tor.com. This newsletter almost always also includes a link to a piece of short fiction. I usually click on that link and I often read the story. If I enjoy it, it goes on my personal “potential Hugo nominees” list. I doubt I’m the only SFF reader who does this and the result is that you see a lot of Tor.com stories on the various awards shortlists.
So you see, there is no conspiracy necessary, just a combination of wide market penetration, good works and clever promotion.
Meanwhile – just so they won’t be forgotten – a couple of other awards shortlists have been announced as well in the past few days. And so the nominees for the 2015 Kitschies, the 2015 Bram Stoker Awards and the 2015 Ditmar Awards have also been announced. Some very good and interesting choices are to be found on all three.
But then, 2015 was a strong year for SFF and at least so far, the various awards shortlists reflect that.
It’s been a sad day for the literary world, because on Friday we lost both Harper Lee and Umberto Eco.
Of the two, the death of Umberto Eco probably affects me more, because I vividly remember reading (and shuddering at) my mother’s copy of The Name of the Rose as a teenager. Of course, I didn’t get the many literary allusions until many years after. Except for William of Baskerville – I got that reference, only that I didn’t understand it was a literary allusion and instead assumed it meant Baskerville was a real place. I was also thrilled that Eco had mentioned Melk, where our partner school was located (the Abbey school in fact, the bus of our school musical group infamously got stuck while passing through the gates). References to Melk aside, I enjoyed the book as a straightforward historical thriller about murder and execution in the Middle Ages. Coincidentally, I’m pretty sure my Mom didn’t get the literary allusions either. But the genius of Umberto Eco was that his novels worked on multiple levels – you could read them as straightforward thriller or adventure novels or you could get so much more out of them.
By the way, the film version of The Name of the Rose also has the distinction of being the first “adult” movie I watched in the theatre. I enjoyed it, too, except for the sex scene between Christian Slater and Valentina Vargas (fairly tame by current standards and focussed on the bobbing backside of Ms. Vargas), which squicked out my thirteen-year-old self and caused me to vow that if sex looked like that, I’d never ever have any. I still think it’s a badly shot sex scene, by the way.
Unlike most of my American friends, Harper Lee means less to me than Umberto Eco did, because I came of age in the 1980s, at a time when To Kill a Mockingbird had fallen out of fashion in Germany and was little read in schools. I eventually encountered the novel, while at university, and though I enjoyed it, I was also keenly aware that I was past the age where you should discover the book.
Interestingly enough, in the twenty plus years since I graduated, To Kill a Mockingbird has experienced something of a renaissance and is once again read in grade 11 or 12, usually in the context of a unit on the American South and sometimes substituted by or complemented with John Grisham’s A Time to Kill (WTF?) and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. The teens usually enjoy To Kill a Mockingbird a whole lot, but then they are at the right age for it. At least one loved it so much that he voluntarily read Go Set a Watchman once it came out (as well as The Help).
***
In happier news, the nominees for the 2015 Nebula Awards have been announced.
Once again, I could just recycle my Nebula reaction posts from last year and the year before, because my comments are quite similar. For the Nebula shortlist is once again pleasantly diverse, with women, writers and colour and international writers well represented (though as Joyce Chng pointed out on Twitter, we tend to see the same few writers of colour and international writers pop up again and again, even though they are hardly the only marginalised writers out there). And once more, I suspect that the Nebula shortlist will be a lot more representative of my personal tastes than the Hugo shortlist.
More detailed analysis under the cut: Continue reading
One of the 31 stories I wrote during the July short story challenge last year was a science fiction short called “Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime”. It was a story about a young couple celebrating their first Valentine’s Day on a newly settled planet and was inspired by a piece of SF art showing two spacesuited figures standing hand in hand on an alien beach.
Until now, “Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime” remained unpublished and uncollected, because it didn’t really fit in with any of the other stories I wrote during that challenge.
However, with Valentine’s Day approaching, I dug up the story again and expanded it somewhat (the original was very short) so it could stand alone as a science fiction holiday story. Because on of the strengths of indie publishing is that it allows us to put out stories to coincide with holidays, etc… without months of preparation.
I had planned to announce the story on Valentine’s Day, but unfortunately two major vendors decided to take their time in putting the story online – apparently, there was a public holiday in the US and another in Canada just that very weekend.
And so here it is, Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime – a bit late, but still a nice story about a couple trying to hold on to their personal traditions in a radically different environment. Oh yeah, and it has Welsh people. In space.
By the way, Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime is also today’s featured new release at the Speculative Fiction Showcase, the indie speculative fiction blog I run together with Jessica Rydill. We featzre new indie speculative fiction releases, author interviews, guest posts, link round-ups and much more several times per week, so check it out.
And now get ready to celebrate…
Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime
Kai and Maisie are about the celebrate their first Valentine’s Day on the planet Iago Prime. However, the holiday traditions they established back on Earth such as celebrating Valentine’s Day with a picnic on the beach are impossible to maintain in the hostile environment of their new home. But in spite of the many limitations imposed by living on Iago Prime, Kai pulls out all the stops to give Maisie an unforgettable Valentine’s Day.
This is a science fictional Valentine’s Day story of 2200 words or approx. 10 print pages.
More information.
Length: 2200 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, txtr, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, Libiro, Nook UK, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books, Casa del Libro, Flipkart, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.
I have a new release to announce for today. Though it’s not quite that new anymore, I just forgot to announce it and only remembered, because I have another new release to announce in the next few days.
It’s a bumper edition of two crime shorts which deal with issues of faith, fate and coincidence. “Our Lady of the Burning Heart” is another of the stories to come out of the July short story challenge, while “Lucky Harry” is the English language version of “Harry im Glück”, my contribution to the German indie anthology Kurz Geschichten für Zwischendurch.
Our Lady of the Burning Heart
Two stories of crime, chance and coincidence
Our Lady of the Burning Heart
Liam is a small time criminal in a world of trouble. Cause he owes twenty thousand dollars to local gangster Dan “the Man” O’Brien and if Liam doesn’t pay back him within twenty-four hours, he’s in for a whole world of pain.
Liam does not have twenty thousand dollars. All he has are four dollars and forty-seven cents and a plan. For there is a horse running tonight, a horse sure to win him the missing twenty thousand dollars and more. If Liam only had enough money to bet on it.
So when Liam passes the church of Our Lady of the Burning Heart and finds the door open late at night, he does what a good Catholic boy like him should never even consider. He ventures into the church, intending to rob the collection box.
But a statue of the Virgin Mary with an eerily glowing heart, a forgetful priest and a lost bus ticket conspire to rescue Liam from Dan “the Man” and return him to the path of righteousness…
Bonus story: Lucky Harry
In former East Germany, Dennis has robbed a bank and has found the perfect hiding place for the loot, an old soap factory deserted since the unification. But his plan is thwarted by homeless Harry, a bottle of Soviet era vodka and Lenin’s birthday…
More information.
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Length: 4900 words
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, txtr, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, Libiro, Nook UK, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books, Casa del Libro, Flipkart, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.
It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.
So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some December books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.
Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. We have space opera, military science fiction, science fiction romance, paranormal romance, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, post-apocalyptic science fiction, dystopian fiction, young adult fiction, short fiction anthologies, shapeshifters, demons, time travel, questing knights, captive princes, wish granting djinni, drug-smuggling gnomes, hospital ships, were-squirrels, adventures on Mars, the battle of the sexes and much more.
Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.
As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.
And now on to the books without further ado:
Zero Hour Part 3: Revelations by Eamon Ambrose:
The acclaimed post-apocalyptic saga continues as our two heroes continue their journey, but it soon becomes clear that the odds are against them. Will they reach the Facility and find the answers they need?
Caught in the Rush by Eva Chase:
Fiona Wilde has always lived up to her last name, but a night in the emergency room was more than she bargained for. Now six months clean and sober, she’s thrown herself back into the only job she feels qualified for—guarding the emerging stars of L.A. from the demonic Glowers—while getting the rush she craves from casual encounters, always leaving before anyone can leave her. When her teen TV star client’s hot older brother Will arrives home for spring break, she sees the perfect opportunity for a fling with a built-in end date.
Then the Glowers launch an unexpected attack, leaving Fiona scrambling to keep her client safe even as Will steals past the walls around her heart. With the demons closing in and the starlet rebelling, the stability Fiona has clung to is slipping away. Her growing connection with Will might be the thing that saves her—or the thing that tears her apart.
The second book in The Glower Chronicles, a steamy New Adult paranormal series.
Each book in The Glower Chronicles contains a stand-alone romance, but it is recommended that you read them in order to best appreciate the ongoing subplots.
Singularity by Taitrina Falcon:
The Temporal Response Unit (TRU) has one purpose: find time travelers and stop them in their tracks. It’s not because there is a timeline to protect, for the future is unwritten. The time travelers can’t change their past, but their actions impact our future in ways we can only guess.
TRU Agent Lucas Weiss is on his first case, charged with finding the time traveler and stopping him. Within an hour of the time traveler’s arrival, the town has its first murder of the year. On the eve of announcing a new cancer miracle drug, the victim is none other than prominent Leomins BioTech cancer researcher Dr. Lowe.
Finding the time traveler and learning his motives will require more ingenuity and know-how than Weiss may be prepared for, especially when the clues lead him to an even more elaborate scheme with far more operatives at play. As the TRU team searches, a showdown begins with potentially devastating consequences.
The Nexus has been formed.
Wit Fallo, a white gnome, is a shiftless and lazy boat captain who loves money, but hates working.
The boat captain thinks he is presented with an opportunity of a life time to live the free and easy life when a drug kingpin hires him to be part of his narcotics trafficking operation. All Wit has to do is a four or five drug smuggling runs a week between three islands in the Brown Triangle on the Earth Realm, and in no time he would have more than enough money to do whatever he wanted without any worries or consequences.
Unfortunately, things do not work out as well as Wit hoped when three of the drug kingpin’s more senior people are killed in his office and he is the only survivor.
Instead of seeking revenge, the drug kingpin decides to retire and sells his narcotics trafficking network to Tom Bolden, a halfling, and crime lord based in the Fairy Realm.
Wit realizes with the retirement of the drug kingpin that the possibility of the free and easy life will not become a reality, and he will remain a boat captain in the Brown Triangle.
Tom Bolden, however, has other plans for the white gnome. Tom paid a lot of money to acquire the narcotics trafficking network, and someone has to pay him back. Wit is the person who has to pay Tom back because of what happened in his office.
Wit has no choice but to agree to become a messenger and enforcer for Tom as a way to pay him back.
The problem is Wit is ill-equipped and does not have the necessary skills and talent to be of any use for Tom.
The even bigger problem for Wit is despises living in the Fairy Realm because everything is based on magic. He hates magic. Pixies, brownies, fairies, and other types of fairy folk because they are made of magic and use magic. He hates pixies, brownies, fairies, and the rest of the fairy folk because of their connection to magic. Wit, unfortunately, has to work these fairy folk because they are trusted members of Tom Bolden’s organization.
The biggest problem for Wit, even with how he hates living in the Fairy Realm, is he still has to pay the money he owes Tom Bolden.
Nuts About You by Kate Lowell:
Nathan’s been crushing on one of his regular Bulk Mart customers for a while now. In squirrel form, he sits on Vince’s bird feeders, munching on seeds and enjoying the eye candy. Until the day Vince notices him raiding the feeder…
Three Wishes by Lisa Manifold:
Who wouldn’t want a do-over?
That is the question that twenty-six year old Tibby Holloway is asking herself. After a long night of eating too much ice cream and going over all her missed chances, she’s surprised by a visitor. A free-lancing djinn who makes her the offer of a lifetime. He’ll give her three chances, three wishes, to go back and change her life. She can change her career, find the man she loves.That could be a problem as there’s at least two in the “man she loves” category.
There’s also a catch. A Really Big Catch.
She can’t stay in any of these new lives her wishes create. Once she’s gone back three times, the djinn will decide where she ends up. He’s firm on this – she’ll have no say in the matter. After deciding which points in her life she wants to do over, she must then decide if it’s worth risking all she may achieve. Because to find out what might have been, she has to give up all control over what will be. Would it be better to not even know?
It will all come down to her
Three Wishes
Valley of the Shadow by Christina Ochs:
A captive prince. A desperate princess. An alliance that will shake the foundations of an empire.
In the wake of battle, Kendryk finds himself the prisoner of Empress Teodora. As war ravages Terragand, Kendryk’s guilt is matched only by his fear that he will never see his family again. Gwynneth, in possession of a valuable captive but sworn to keep him close, faces Teodora’s wrath as she waits in anguish for relief.
But when Gwynneth’s rescue comes, the empire will never be the same again.
A tide of religious upheaval sweeps across the land, bearing men and women toward their fates. The delicate joy shared by Janna and Braeden will be shattered; the king of a neighboring kingdom will walk the edge of madness; and an oath of vengeance will bind three unlikely allies together in a desperate attempt to curb Teodora’s ambitions once and for all.
The Desolate Empire, Christina Ochs’ epic fantasy series, continues in Book 2:Valley of the Shadow.
Of One Skein, Part 2 by P.J. Post:
This romance brought to you by the end of the world…
The Del Ray Motor Inn isn’t real.
Zombies, they aren’t real either.
But Jem and Pixie, they’re real, and so is their pain.
Last night he was torn between saving the lost children, and selfishness, ignoring everything and racing back to Emily, to Sam, but none of that matters now.
He’s infected and isn’t ever going to see his friends again, his reason, his love.
But now, in his last days, Fate has given him one final chance at redemption; to get Jem and Pixie somewhere safe before the fever comes, before the black-eyed sickness comes – before he comes for them.
Author’s Note: Feral is an ongoing serialized story.
The End of the Trail by Louis Rakovich:
A barren land of salt and snow; a castle where underground paths twist and turn in endless circles and a reclusive king has not shown his face in years; a forest where few things are what they seem. An unnamed hero must navigate through these places as he takes on the task of tracking down a supposed witch, in a story that blends dream and reality, rumor and truth, danger and hope.
Love Hurts: A Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Tricia Reeks:
Twenty-six brilliant speculative fiction stories about love, and the pain that so often accompanies it. Enjoy a cornucopia of imaginative tales, wondrous settings, and unforgettable characters—such as the disillusioned time traveler who visits ancient Japan to experience a “Moment of Zen,” the young woman from planet Kiruna who can only communicate in song when the moonlet Saarakka is up, and the sorcerer who loses their happiness in a bet with a demon.
Rich and wonderfully diverse, this collection spans many speculative fiction genres: from SciFi to Dystopian, from Fantasy to Magical Realism, from Steampunk to Superhero, from Horror to Weird. Sometimes funny, occasionally happy, frequently gut-wrenching—these stories will take your heart on a wild emotional ride.
Stories by Jeff VanderMeer, Hugh Howey, Karin Tidbeck, Charlie Jane Anders, Holly Phillips, Aliette de Bodard, A. Merc Rustad, Steve Simpson, Mel Paisley, J. D. Brink, Matt Leivers, Michael Milne, Michal Wojcik, Carla Dash, Terry Durbin, Michelle Ann King, Kyle Richardson, Leah Brown, G. Scott Huggins, Dan Micklethwaite, Victoria Zelvin, Shannon Phillips, Keith Frady, Jody Sollazzo, David Stevens, and Morgen Knight.
“After exploding with rage and injuring some Caliphate marines, Tanner is sent to the Barony Hospital ship on a ninety day observation to see if he’s really sane. At the same time, he is challenged by his doctors and psychiatrist to see if he can defeat his alcohol addiction and to combat his PTSD too.
Also on the ship is the Barony Secure labs where the research teams are trying to find the Ikarian virus vaccine to give longevity to the RIM—and the Baroness is interested in their success.
While the Caliphate continues to try to find a way to steal the vaccine, they end up using a vacjumper—someone who can go right out into outer space with no suit and attempt to break into the lab that way.
Called on to forget about his illness, Tanner must rise to heed the call to defeat the vacjumper and to do that he must jump out into space on his own. Death, virus vaccines and love all play a part for him and his quest…”
The Last Giant by Frances Smith:
Corona is besieged. Princess Ameliora can see her enemies gather beyond the walls. It has been many years since Ameliora abandoned the Captain-Generalcy of the Corona Firstborn, years since she donned her armour or took up her sword. Now, with all the warriors dead and the city gripped by terror, the aged warrior must take up arms and armour one last time, and usher an age of heroes to its close.
A story of 10,000 words.
With Aydia lurching ever closer to a general war, old loyalties are being stretched to the breaking point, even while radical new allegiances are taking shape.
Now on the run together, Rayson and Saira desperately strive to form a coalition opposing the dark forces sweeping their planet. Forced to work directly with both the Kax and the Alliance governments, the two former lovers must also finally acknowledge the scandal of their high-profile past.
Meanwhile, the details of that history continue to assert themselves. Fifteen years before, the Save Saira movement nearly destroyed the young Srendian. How can Saira possibly hold everyone at bay, even as the most damning fallout from her innocent college liaison remains secret?
Fusion is the second book in The Aydian Series, with the story picking up right where it left off at the end of Aydia.
Gen was angry and she knew it. Angry about her overprotective parents, angry about the way she was teased about her height, and angry about the dirt and grime that infested every corner of Mars. But soon, she’d be on rotations. Too few went Outside on purpose anymore, just to shiver against the icy cold or feel the pressure in the slowly thickening air. But an ancient prophecy of destruction came to her in haunting visions, and now it’s up to Gen to warn them all – and maybe even save worlds.
Falling As She Sings by C.J. Sursum:
In the not-so-distant future, the rise of terrorism leads to a new and chilling subjugation of women. But as civilization breaks down, one wealthy woman builds a massive, walled-in enclave, and outfits it with the technology to be completely self-sustaining.
Her sole stipulation: only women are allowed in. Within the enclave walls, these women—Vestals—lead lives of culture and ease, free of the burden of husbands and children. Outside the walls, men have devolved into feral, violent Brutes roaming the surrounding wilderness. The Vestals need them for one purpose only—to reproduce themselves.
But Menna, a beautiful Vestal scientist in charge of breeding, makes a disastrous mistake while extracting one captured Brute’s seed. Disturbing interactions with him shatter her preconceptions of Brutes, and her image of herself. Ultimately, she is forced to choose between her comfortable, sterile existence and a harsh, brutish unknown.
Powerful and profound, Falling as She Sings is at once science fiction adventure, spiritual thriller, and visionary love story. It’s a searching, funny commentary on the eternal, yet ever fresh and compelling forces driving relationships between the sexes.
Burned by Magic by Jasmine Walt:
In the city of Solantha, mages rule absolute, with shifters considered second-class citizens and humans something in between. No one outside the mage families are allowed to have magic, and anyone born with it must agree to have it stripped from them to avoid execution.
Sunaya Baine, a shifter-mage hybrid, has managed to keep her unruly magic under wraps for the last twenty-four years. But while chasing down a shifter-hunting serial killer, she loses control of her magic in front of witnesses, drawing the attention of the dangerous and enigmatic Chief Mage.
Locked up in the Chief Mage’s castle and reduced to little more than a lab rat, Sunaya resists his attempts to analyze and control her at every turn. But she soon realizes that to regain her freedom and catch the killer, she must overcome her hatred of mages and win the most powerful mage in the city to her side.
Reckoning in the Void by J.T. Williams:
The world falls towards darkness.
Magic is awakening in the north and the Grand Protectorate retreats after its bloody defeat at Srun. Sviska stands with the Island Nation against the evils of The Order and the Itsu Priest as the allies of magic make plans for their push against the capital city of their enemy. But all is not as it seems.
The Itsu Priest is tightening his grip on the legions of the north changing them from men to unholy beasts. The Saints of Wura must move quickly to save Garoa’s daughter from his evil clutches but some fear she could already be dead. Furthermore, hundreds have been kidnapped as sacrifices for a dark ritual and the time for the incantation draws near.
Sviska is moving closer to unlocking the powers of his Dwemhar ancestry but as the blood curse ensnares his mind, he can only pray he is powerful enough to resist the will of The Order.
He made a stand against a dark evil in the icy mountains of Elinathrond but now his life, and that of those he has grown to call friends, may be forfeit.
The snow and frost that held most of Germany in its grip last week is gone by now, but before it left, it still gave us a beautiful morning with bright blue skies and hoarfrost covered branches.
Hoarfrost usually doesn’t last long and indeed it was gone by noon. However, I was able to take some photos beforehand. No special locations, just my weekly grocery haul.
The view from my front door this morning.
Every tree along the street is covered in hoarfrost.
It’s the same in the other direction. Hoarfrost covered trees all along the street.
Hoarfrost covered trees.
Another hoarfrost covered tree.
Hoarfrost most typically forms on bare branches, but this oak tree next to my home, which doesn’t lose its leaves until spring, got frosted over as well.
The Groot colony that has taken root on Brinkum cemetery, got frosted as well.
A close-up look at some hoarfrost covered branches.
Hoarfrost covered trees, a parking lot and a long defunct Chinese restaurant in Brinkum-Nord.
Hoarfrost covered trees surround this 1950s house in the Bremen neighbourhood of Kattenturm.
Wolfskuhle (wolf pit) Park in Bremen-Kattenturm looks like something out of a fairy tale.
A look at some hoarfrost covered branches.
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