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Author: John ONeill

Vintage Detectives: Supernatural Sleuths, Sci-Fi Private Eye, and Isaac Asimov’s Detectives, edited by Gardner Dozois, Sheila Williams, Charles G. Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg

Vintage Detectives: Supernatural Sleuths, Sci-Fi Private Eye, and Isaac Asimov’s Detectives, edited by Gardner Dozois, Sheila Williams, Charles G. Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg

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Supernatural Sleuths and Sci-Fi Private Eye (Roc, 1996 and 1997), and
Isaac Asimov’s Detectives (Ace, 1998). Covers by Romas Kukalis, uncredited, and Andy Lackow

Science fiction detectives have been a popular theme for anthologies for a couple of generations now. We’ve covered a few (including Tin Stars, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh), but there’s lot more out there for the curious and the collector alike.

I’ve recently been dipping into some themed anthologies from the 80s and 90s, and three that have impressed me all have themes of detection: Supernatural Sleuths and Sci-Fi Private Eye (both published by Roc, in 1996 and 1997), and Isaac Asimov’s Detectives (Ace, 1998). They gather a fabulous cross section of 20th Century cross-genre fiction, including a John the Balladeer tale by Manly Wade Wellman, a Black Widowers story by Isaac Asimov, a Solar Pons mystery by August Derleth and Mack Reynolds, a Carnacki adventure by William Hope Hodgson, a Jules de Grandin novelette by Seabury Quinn, and a pair of Gil Hamilton novellas by Larry Niven, plus a rich range of major award-winning and nominated SF from Nancy Kress, Greg Egan, Kate Wilhelm, John Varley, and more.

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Future Treasures: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Future Treasures: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

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Some Desperate Glory (Tor.com, April 11, 2023). Cover by Cynthia Sheppard.

I’m hearing good things about Emily Tesh’s debut novel Some Desperate Glory, coming next month from Tor.com.

Tesh won a World Fantasy Award for Silver in the Wood, the first novella in her Greenhollow Duology, also published by Tor.com. Some Desperate Glory is the tale of the warrior Kyr, raised among the scraps of humanity to avenge the death of the planet Earth, and what happens when she’s thrust into a universe far more complicated than she was taught. Library Journal proclaims it “A monumental journey,” and Booklist says it’s “One of the best sf novels of 2023… with an action-packed pace full of exciting battles and gut-wrenching twists.”

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New Treasures: Ion Curtain by Anya Ow

New Treasures: Ion Curtain by Anya Ow

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Ion Curtain (Solaris, July 19, 2022). Cover by John Harris

I love Space Opera but, wow. Why does is exclusively seem to come in 5-book series? Aren’t there any bite-sized nuggets of Space Opera out there that don’t require a three-month commitment? Something that I could enjoy in, say, a weekend in early March?

Solaris Books to the rescue. Anya Ow’s second novel Ion Curtain is a fast-action slice of Space Opera that includes sinister machine intelligences, derelict spacecraft, galactic war, and a plucky crew of space rogues. Publishers Weekly calls it an “addictive space opera… Unexpected humor and thrilling action punctuate this space opera adventure,” and that pretty much tells me everything I need to know.

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Vintage Treasures: Poseidonis by Clark Ashton Smith

Vintage Treasures: Poseidonis by Clark Ashton Smith

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Poseidonis (Ballantine Adult Fantasy #59, July 1973). Cover by Gervasio Gallardo

I’ve been collecting Clark Ashton Smith recently, and I keep coming back to the wonderful Ballantine Adult Fantasy editions edited by Lin Carter in the early 70s.

It’s not nostalgia (well, maybe it’s a little nostalgia). And it’s certainly not that the stories aren’t available in other editions — Smith’s work has been annotated and collected by more than half a dozen publishers this century alone, including Night Shade, Penguin Classics, Hippocampus Press, Prime Books, Bison Books, Centipede Press, and others. It’s not even the great cover art — great as it is (and it’s pretty darn great), Smith has benefitted from some truly excellent cover art for most of his reissues.

What draws me to these editions is Lin Carter’s excellent commentary and editorials. When Carter was assembling these books in the early seventies most of Smith’s work was long out of print, available only in moldering pulp magazines (and a handful of expensive hardcovers from Arkham House), and Carter was introducing one of the greatest pulp writers of the 20th Century to an audience that was woefully unfamiliar with his work. He did a fabulous job of preparing readers for the wonders that awaited them.

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Interzone 204 now on Sale

Interzone 204 now on Sale

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Interzone 294 (MYY Press, January 2023)

Last summer I reported that Interzone, the leading British science fiction magazine, had been sold. After 19 years and exactly 100 issues. Andy Cox at TTA Press brought his storied reign as editor to a triumphant close — though he does continue to produce his excellent magazine of modern horror, Black Static.

Interzone was acquired by MMY Press in Poland, and the new editor is Gareth Jelley. I ordered a copy of issue #294, the first with Jelley at the helm, for €15 (about $16.70 US, including shipping to the US), and was astonished when the massive 256-page issue arrived in my mailbox about a week later.

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New Treasures: Burrowed by Mary Baader Kaley

New Treasures: Burrowed by Mary Baader Kaley

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Burrowed (Angry Robot, January 10, 2023). Cover by Apostolos Gkantinas

We’re not that far into 2023, and there’s already been a fine crop of debut novelists. The latest to show up on my radar is Mary Baader Kaley, whose first novel Burrowed, a far-future tale of a genetic plague that splits humanity in two, was published by Angry Robot last month. I bought it the week after it came out at Barnes & Noble.

There’s lot of cool ideas in Burrowed (Booklist proclaims it “A great read for fans of postapocalyptic novels,” and Publishers Weekly says it “captivates with inventive science and adventure… [a] riveting thriller”), but the book didn’t really catch my eye until I read the author’s Big Idea post at John Scalzi’s blog, in which she explains that the idea for the novel arose out of the challenges of raising an autistic son.

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Flood of AI-Written Fiction Shuts Down Clarkesworld Submissions

Flood of AI-Written Fiction Shuts Down Clarkesworld Submissions

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Recent issues of Clarkesworld magazine, edited by Neil Clarke

If you’re active on social media, or if you follow the major science fiction magazines, you’ve probably seen the headlines. It’s not every day that Neil Clarke, Sheila Williams, and Sheree Renée Thomas (editors of Clarkesworld, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, respectively) are quoted extensively in The New York Times. But that’s exactly what happened on Thursday.

It started with Neil, who reported on Twitter earlier this week that a sudden flood of AI-generated submissions, likely triggered by get-rich-quick schemes “making claims of easy money with ChatGPT,” had caused him to temporarily close submissions to Clarkesworld. (ChatGPT is the most popular of the new crop of chatbots capable of rapidly creating long-form text based on short prompts from users.)

As you can imagine, the news that a leading science fiction magazine had to close submissions because it was overwhelmed with AI-generated subs captured enormous attention, and that tweet garnered over 8 million views and, within a matter of days, national attention from press outlets like The Guardian and NYT.

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Future Treasures: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Future Treasures: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

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The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
(Harper Voyager, February 28, 2023). Cover by Ivan Belikov

I met Shannon Chakraborty at the 2018 World Fantasy Convention in Baltimore, where she conducted a delightful reading from her second novel The Kingdom of Copper, the sequel to her bestselling debut The City of Brass. Back then she went by the very cool name “S. A Chakraborty.” For her new book The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, she has changed her name slightly to “Shannon Chakraborty,” which is much easier to shout at somebody when you’re trying to get them to hold an elevator.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi will be published by Harper Voyager next week, and I’m going to go on record here as recommending you clear the end of the month for this one. Publishers Weekly calls it a swashbuckling adventure with “playful plot twists and thrilling action sequences [with a] charmingly crooked cast and dry humor,” and BookPage sums it up as “A swashbuckling high seas quest that’s rousing, profound and irresistible.” This sounds like the book I need.

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Vintage Treasures: The Plenty Trilogy by Colin Greenland

Vintage Treasures: The Plenty Trilogy by Colin Greenland

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Take Back Plenty, Seasons of Plenty, and Mother of Plenty (AvoNova, January 1992 and
January 1996, and Avon Eos, June 1998). Covers by Glenn Orbik, Jim Burns, and uncredited

Colin Greenland’s Take Back Plenty was one of the major British SF novels of the 90s. It won the British Science Fiction Award and the Clarke Award for Best SF Novel, and was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. Writing about its heroine, Tabitha Jute, in Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, John Clute said:

Colin Greenland, one of the sharpest and most innovative young British critics and novelists, had a bright idea. The old SF was joyous. So why not enjoy it, even now? Why not write Space Opera whose heroine – Tabitha Jute – may not change the universe, but who is superabundantly alive? So he did.

Greenland followed Take Back Plenty with two sequels, Seasons of Plenty, and Mother of Plenty, and one collection, The Plenty Principle, which included a prequel tale using the same setting, a derelict planet-sized starship “populated by gamblers, militarists, and space trash” known as Plenty.

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Repackaging a Classic: The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Repackaging a Classic: The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

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Cinder, Volume One of The Lunar Chronicles (Square Fish, February 2020). Cover by Tomer Hanuka

I don’t usually hang out in the young adult section at Barnes & Noble. OK, that’s a blatant lie. I gawk at the colorful table displays like a starving zombie at a Springsteen concert. Let me start over.

I love the young adult section at Barnes & Noble, but I don’t usually buy a lot of stuff. On the other hand, I don’t often come across book descriptions like this one.

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move…. Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction.

A Cinderella retelling dressed up as cyberpunk noir, described as “a cross between Cinderella, Terminator, and Star Wars” by Entertainment Weekly? That’s worth twelve bucks. I totally missed Marissa Meyer’s Cinder when it was released in hardcover a decade ago, but I was delighted to bring the new paperback edition home with me, and you know what? I’m glad I did.

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