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Author: Brandon Crilly

Nothing’s Perfect… Not Even Star Wars

Nothing’s Perfect… Not Even Star Wars

The Rise of Skywalker-small

I was chatting with one of my best friends after seeing The Rise of Skywalker, and as writers do inevitably, we critiqued it. She said something partway through the conversation that I think was meant half as a joke: “perfection is a myth created by the man to keep us line, Brandon.”

It’s rare to come across a story that’s close to perfect, and no Star Wars movie ever has been. I was reluctant to talk TROS here since online discussions of major fandoms are sometimes as vitriolic as anything else, especially when you want to resoundingly say, “That was awesome!” about a film while acknowledging the faults. But if the Resistance can face the First Order, I can face you, Internet. Because by Lucas, I agree with fellow columnist Bob Byrne that TROS was “an excellent ending to the epic cycle” that is Star Wars.

SPOILERS from here on out, folks. You’ve been warned.

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In 500 Words or Less: Lost Transmissions by Desirina Boskovich

In 500 Words or Less: Lost Transmissions by Desirina Boskovich

Lost Transmissions- The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy-small Lost Transmissions- The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy-back-small

Cover by Paul Lehr

Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy
By Desirina Boskovich
Abrams Image (304 pages, $29.99 hardcover, $13.99 eBook, September 10, 2019)

Did you know that Johannes Kepler wrote speculative fiction that got his mother imprisoned for witchcraft? Or that Weezer almost had an epic concept album to rival Pink Floyd and Rush? Or that Space Island One was even a thing?!

Maybe you did. We can’t quite use the excuse that an almost-thirty Millennial like myself obviously wouldn’t know a lot about the rich history of sci-fi and fantasy, however, since Lost Transmissions focuses on far more than the Golden Age. Desirina Boskovich has accumulated information on lesser-known SFF from across history, and I guarantee there are things in here you weren’t aware of. I had to tweet at Desirina while I was reading my ARC, for example, because the chapter “Speculative Music of the New Millennium” outlined artists and albums I’d never heard of, even though I should have grown up paying attention to them in the nineties and early 2000s. (My “To Listen” list doesn’t need to be any bigger, Desirina.)

My To-Read and To-Watch list doesn’t need to be any bigger, either, but too late now. After Charlie Jane Anders’ passionate and excited article about Space Island One, I’m determined to find a way to watch it, even though a DVD or streaming version doesn’t exist, apparently. Now that I’ve read the premise and background of Clair Noto’s The Tourist, I’m going to keep my fingers crossed for a Netflix or Amazon adaptation. I need to look into the Mellon Chronicles to explore Lord of the Rings fandom. I want to find a group of people to try Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play. And so on and so on and so on.

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In 500 Words or Less: Catfish Lullaby by A.C. Wise

In 500 Words or Less: Catfish Lullaby by A.C. Wise

oie_19192747vo7iIQCxCatfish Lullaby
By A.C. Wise
Broken Eye Books (118 pages, $14.99 paperback/eBook forthcoming, September 3, 2019)

You’d think stepping away from a regular column reviewing would make writing a new review easier, but apparently not. I’ve been struggling with how to start talking about A.C. Wise’s Catfish Lullaby because the first thing I want to start with how I didn’t get the story I expected from the back-cover blurb. But that sounds like a criticism, and it really isn’t; I loved the story I got, which feels like a tonal blend of Stranger Things and Netflix’s Haunting of Hill House, set in the Bayou with more diverse characters.

Maybe we base too much of our expectations on the blurb. Lullaby’s focuses on Lewis, a “town of secrets,” and the character Caleb stepping into his father’s role of sheriff to unravel the mysteries of the Royce family and legendary monster Catfish John. That sets the expectation that you’ll mostly follow adult Caleb as he deals with his past. Instead, the novella spends most of its time on young Caleb, affected by the Royce family’s traumas and getting to know Cere, the youngest Royce child and survivor of her family’s apparent destruction, only moving ahead to adult Caleb for the last third.

Normally that sort of long dwelling on a character’s past would throw me, but not the case here. Wise builds this ongoing mystery that’s compelling, I think, for two reasons. One is the way that Caleb struggles to make sense of what’s affecting Cere and how to help her, as well as dealing with 1980s and 90s prejudice and later living up to his father’s name. He has a genuinely pre-teen attitude that most writers can’t pull off. He and Cere are immediately interesting and likeable characters, and so I kept reading to see what choice they’d make, regardless of whether the mystery got solved.

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Wordsmiths: Live Interview with Ada Palmer at ConFusion 2019!

Wordsmiths: Live Interview with Ada Palmer at ConFusion 2019!

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted a live interview! Back in January, I had the pleasure of attending ConFusion, Michigan’s annual conference for authors and fans of science fiction, fantasy and horror. If you’ve never been, I highly suggest you check it out; it’s become one of my top two U.S. cons for writers (alongside Readercon) and is always a ton of fun.

Like in 2018, the con-com let me sit down for a live interview with one of their GoHs, in this case the talented and insightful Ada Palmer. If you’re unfamiliar with her, Palmer is the author of the Terra Ignota series, which started in 2016 with Too Like the Lightning and is planned to conclude with book four, Perhaps the Stars, in 2020. Lightning earned Palmer the Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2017, and it was also nominated for the Hugo. It is an intricate, literary exploration of a future Earth shaped by the end of nation states and a set of Universal Laws.

I’ve gotten very lucky in who I’ve been able to interview lately, but talking with Palmer was fascinating. In 50 minutes we barely scratched the surface of what I wanted to discuss, and we easily could have continued for another couple of hours, mostly so I could keep learning. I hope you enjoy the interview below and encourage you to check out her work.

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In 500 Words or Less: The Gossamer Mage by Julie E. Czerneda

In 500 Words or Less: The Gossamer Mage by Julie E. Czerneda

The Gossamer Mage-smallThe Gossamer Mage
By Julie E. Czerneda
DAW Books (416 pages, $27.00 hardcover/$12.99 eBook, August 6, 2019)

In the words of the great Mr. Spock, Julie Czerneda’s forthcoming novel The Gossamer Mage is fascinating.

To be fair, everything I’ve ever read from Julie is fascinating in some way. But Gossamer is a different brand of cool than either The Clan Chronicles or Web Shifters. Not only is it a jump from science fiction to fantasy, but it brings along the intricate detail and clever wordplay that you can find in any of Julie’s other works.

What mainly fascinated me here was the magic. I’m not the sort of reader or writer who needs a magic system to have strictly defined rules that can’t be broken and need to see explained in detail (although I enjoy that when it’s done well, like in The Dresden Files). What I definitely need, though, is magic that has consequences, so you don’t need to come up with complicated reasons to prevent mages from laying waste to every opponent. Julie’s presented a really cool brand of consequence: magic that siphons years off a mage’s life, aging them as they perform their works, in this case through ink and parchment.

She goes one better to make that aging somewhat up to the whim of the Deathless Goddess, to which (almost) every scribemaster gives their allegiance. And then on top of that, she’s layered a complex world built around the idea of mages who literally spend their life to achieve success. Scribemaster Saeleonarial, for example, worries that every new magical script will make him a decrepit old man, and looks down on young people who burn through that youth too quickly going after glory. There’s a vested interest in producing new mages through promoting powerful bloodlines, but the power to control that rests with the hold daughters, who represent the Deathless Goddess who allows magic to exist. And so on.

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In 500 Words or Less: Titanshade by Dan Stout

In 500 Words or Less: Titanshade by Dan Stout

Titanshade-smallTitanshade
By Dan Stout
DAW Books (416 pages, $26.00 hardcover, $7.99 paperback, $12.99 eBook, March 12, 2019)
Cover by Chris McGrath

Jake Peralta and I have something in common: a deep love for Die Hard. That was what got me into cop-centered stories (moving on from Pokemon and Power Rangers), leading me to the likes of Lethal Weapon, Nash Bridges and more. The reason I still love those stories is because of the focus on a dysfunctional, imperfect hero trying to grapple with internal and external pressures, and sometimes not handling them very well. That’s part of why one of my favorites shows of all time is Fringe – none of the characters are perfect, they all have demons, there’s a procedural element, and it’s a weird-frightening-amazing science fiction show.

Dan Stout manages to give the procedural a fresh twist with Titanshade, which centers on police detectives in a northern town trying to transition from oil to renewable energy, in a world populated by humans and other races. The cover looks like a rehash of Bright, which is just unfortunate timing, apparently, since this novel sold to DAW earlier. More importantly, Stout’s story is way more original and engaging (though I actually enjoyed Bright). It’s not just orcs and elves running around with humans; it’s Mollencampi, with multiple mouths and an array of expressions using their pincers, and Gillmyn, sort of like bipedal whales who more easily adapt to Titanshade’s cold. Oh, and they aren’t running around what’s basically present-day Los Angeles with fantasy creatures thrown in; Titanshade is built around a mountain formed from a dying god whose lifeblood gives the community heat, which is good since the material component for magic is running out even faster than the old oil reserves.

Between the 8-track players, disco music and pagers, the rampant police politics and focus on a detective past his prime paired with a young go-getter, Titanshade reads a lot like a love letter to shows like Miami Vice or Hawaii Five-0. But at the same time there’s a ton of nuance and breaking of traditional molds. Carter, our past-his-prime detective, is far from a carbon copy of Martin Riggs or Sonny Crockett, and the problems he and his partner Jax deal with are more X-Files than Blue Bloods. Limiting magic makes it a subtle tool throughout this novel, but a crucial component for the story, and the focus on moving away from oil makes me wonder if we can classify this as a solarpunk story (or maybe solarpunk-adjacent?).

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In 500 Words or Less: Flip, Volume 1, edited by Jack Briglio

In 500 Words or Less: Flip, Volume 1, edited by Jack Briglio

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Flip: Volume 1
edited by Jack Briglio
Markosia (74 pages, $14.99 paperback, $6.99 eBook, December 21, 2018)

What’s that line from The Twilight Zone? “Imagine if you will…” or something, right?

I’ve been teaching a high school creative writing course recently, and one of the things I’ve loved is encouraging my students to explore the question of “What If?” as they’re brainstorming ideas. Once we get past the cliched stuff like “What if Germany won the Second World War?” they come up with some really powerful ideas, since “What If” can lead you in all sorts of crazy directions.

Mind you, all speculative fiction has a “What If” quality, so to say that I’ve been reading a lot of that kind of book lately is a bit redundant. For this post though, I’m thinking of the kind of story that twists things just slightly into the unknown, whether it’s Mary Robinette Kowal lobbing an asteroid into the United States in The Calculating Stars or Guy Kay turning the early Renaissance a “quarter turn to the fantastic” in A Brightness Long Ago. Sometimes it’s historical fiction, and sometimes it’s turning our world slightly askew, which is what’s intrigued me about the first volume of Flip, a new comics anthology edited by Jack Briglio.

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Wordsmiths: Interview with Award-Winning Author Rebecca Roanhorse

Wordsmiths: Interview with Award-Winning Author Rebecca Roanhorse

New-Suns-Original-Speculative-Fiction-by-People-of-Color-smallerBeing a reviewer and interviewer definitely has its perks some days, especially when I get the chance for a one-on-one chat with one of my new favorite fantasy authors. I’ve mentioned Rebecca Roanhorse quite a bit in my column here, which made it extra exciting to be able to chat with her about her previous work and what might be on the horizon. Hope you enjoy!

ME: I read your story “Harvest” in New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color and I loved the vague and unsettling nature of it, which is struck me differently than the other work of yours I’ve read. Can you tell me a little about where the idea for that came from, and how it developed?

REBECCA: Interestingly enough, I think “Harvest” has a lot in common with my other works. The style is more lyrical, but the themes it explores like identity and community are similar. Also similar is the exploration of what makes one a monster and what makes one human, and how sometimes the difference is a matter of perspective. I was also striving to capture a feeling in the story for the kind of love that leads to infatuation and self-destruction and whether that’s always a bad thing. And, of course, the ending of the story, much like “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience(TM)” should call into question the protagonist as reliable narrator and what is real and what is not. To me, at least, it’s very much a “Roanhorse” kind of story.

Everything that I’ve read of yours — this story, “Indian Experience(TM)”, Trail of Lightning — carries undertones about a variety of indigenous issues. Why discuss these topics through fantasy as opposed to contemporary literature?

I’m a nerd. I’ve always been a Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF) reader and writer from my earliest memories of reading Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander as a kid and then Eddings and Jordan and Herbert as I got into high school, and as an adult Butler and Le Guin, among many, many others. I’ve always written SFF, too, from my very first stories in middle school. It’s what I love. What else would I write?

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In 500 Words or Less: The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty

In 500 Words or Less: The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty

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The Kingdom of Copper (Daevabad Trilogy #2)
By S.A. Chakraborty
HarperCollins (640 pages, $26.99 hardcover, January 2019)

No joke, I just wrote what would have been the opening two paragraphs for this post, and followed it immediately by typing the words, Wow, that sounds like a boring, stereotypical book review and I’m a hack. That’s a sign my brain is running low on capacity for anything other than novella and podcast revisions. Or, more likely, it’s run out of patience for reading anything that doesn’t immediately catch and hold my attention.

Luckily, the book I’m trying to extoll in this review is an easy sell. You might remember my review of S.A. Chakraborty’s debut novel The City of Brass, which I’ll admit I wasn’t totally enamored with because of the way the plot seemed to drag. Chakraborty’s follow-up novel The Kingdom of Copper, though, is exactly what you want from an author’s second book: even more of the elements you love, and an improvement in everything else.

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Wordsmiths: An Interview with Diane Walton of On Spec Magazine

Wordsmiths: An Interview with Diane Walton of On Spec Magazine

downloadAs promised, readers, I’ve got a few more interviews coming down the pipe this year with writers and editors in the SFF community. Recently I had the opportunity to chat via email with Diane Walton, managing editor of On Spec Magazine, after meeting her in person at Can*Con. Had a blast digging into her past and the history of the magazine. Check it out below!


Brandon: This is going to sound like a slightly generic question to start, but it genuinely interests me. What first got you into science fiction and fantasy? Was there a particular work or author that hooked your interest, and when was that?

Diane: It sort of began in Grade 7. The kids in my class all seemed to be voracious readers — the girls had their Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden and Dana Girls mysteries, while the boys had Hardy Boys and Tom Swift. At a certain point, we just naturally began to trade books, to get a fresh supply. So I kind of started reading SF with Tom Swift by default.

Interestingly enough, at that time, there was no stigma of the “these are ‘boy books’ and those are ‘girl books'” kind. We were equal opportunity readers.

The following year when I was 13, my family moved to a new community, the charming city of Belleville, ON.  My dad and I both took out library cards at the branch down the street from our house, and made a once a week jaunt to get the 8 books we were each allowed.

I can’t recall precisely when it happened, but one day I was bored with the “girl and her horse” stories, and so I curiously picked up a book with a rocket ship on the cover. The author was Andre Norton, and the book was called The Stars Are Ours!

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