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New Treasures: Nebula Awards Showcase 2015, edited by Greg Bear

New Treasures: Nebula Awards Showcase 2015, edited by Greg Bear

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Nebula Awards Showcase 2015-smallThere are a lot of new anthologies released every year, including around a dozen Year’s Best volumes. I frequently get asked which is the best single-volume collection showcasing the finest science fiction and fantasy of the year. And year after year, I always suggest the same book: the annual Nebula Awards Showcase, which contains the stories selected by the Science Fiction Writers of America for the prestigious Nebula Awards. It also includes many of the runners-up, author appreciations, yearly wrap-ups, novel excerpts, and other fascinating articles.

The annual Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published every year since 1966. The 2015 volume contains some of the most talked-about fiction of the past several years, including Rachel Swirsky’s “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,” Sophia Samatar’s “Selkie Stories Are For Losers,” Aliette de Bodard’s “The Waiting Stars,” and many others. Here’s the description.

The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published annually since 1966, reprinting the winning and nominated stories of the Nebula Awards, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). The editor, selected by SFWA’s anthology Committee (chaired by Mike Resnick), is American science fiction and fantasy writer Greg Bear, author of over thirty novels, including the Nebula Award-winning Darwin’s Radio and Moving Mars. This year’s volume includes the winners of the Andre Norton, Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, Rhysling, and Dwarf Stars Awards, as well as the Nebula Award winners, and features Ann Leckie, Nalo Hopkinson, Rachel Swirsky, Aliette de Bodard, and Vylar Kaftan, with additional articles and poems by authors such as Robin Wayne Bailey, Samuel R. Delany, Terry A. Garey, Deborah P Kolodji, and Andrew Robert Sutton.

We covered the previous volume, Nebula Awards Showcase 2014, edited by Kij Johnson, last May (and the TOCs for the now-classic first three volumes are here). Read all about this year’s Nebula winners here.

Nebula Awards Showcase 2015 was published by Pyr Books on December 8, 2015. It is 347 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by John Harris.

Future Treasures: City of Light by Keri Arthur

Future Treasures: City of Light by Keri Arthur

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City of Light Keri Arthur-smallKeri Arthur is the New York Times bestselling author of the Souls of Fire and Dark Angels novels. Next month she introduces a brand new futuristic fantasy with City of Light, Book 1 in the Outcast Series, the tale of an invasion of wraiths, demons, and death spirits, and the super-soldiers who form Earth’s last defense.

When the bombs that stopped the species war tore holes in the veil between this world and the next, they allowed entry to the Others — demons, wraiths, and death spirits who turned the shadows into their hunting grounds. Now, a hundred years later, humans and shifters alike live in artificially lit cities designed to keep the darkness at bay….

As a déchet — a breed of humanoid super-soldiers almost eradicated by the war — Tiger has spent her life in hiding. But when she risks her life to save a little girl on the outskirts of Central City, she discovers that the child is one of many abducted in broad daylight by a wraith-like being — an impossibility with dangerous implications for everyone on earth.

Because if the light is no longer enough to protect them, nowhere is safe…

The second novel, Winter Halo, is scheduled to arrive November 2016.

City of Light will be published by Signet on January 5, 2016. It is 368 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital versions. Learn more at Keri Arthur’s website.

Barnes and Noble Picks the Best SF and Fantasy of 2015

Barnes and Noble Picks the Best SF and Fantasy of 2015

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Twelve Kings in Sharakhai-small2The closer we get to the end of the year, the more Best of the Year lists start popping up. Some are more reliable than others, however.

I’ve had good luck with Barnes & Noble’s lists, which have steered me towards some excellent fiction in years past. This year their Best Science-Fiction & Fantasy of 2015 is authored by Joel Cunningham, and it includes the acclaimed first volume in Bradley P. Beaulieu’s ambitious new fantasy series, Twelve Kings in Sharakhai.

Beaulieu launches his second epic fantasy trilogy (following The Lays of Anuskaya) with the story of 19-year-old Çeda, a gladiator in the fighting pits of Sharakhai, a desert kingdom ruled over by 12 immortal lords who live in luxury while their subjects must scrape to survive. Determined to avenge her mother, who was executed by the Twelve Kings, Çeda schemes and searches for a way to upset their ironclad rule — and comes to uncover hidden truths about the source of their power, and her own destiny, that could upset the balance of the entire world. Beaulieu’s intricate world-building and complex characters are quickly becoming the hallmarks of his writing, and if this opening volume is any indication, The Song of the Shattered Sands will be one of the next great fantasy epics. Read our review.

The list also includes Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente, The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher, Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear, Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, by Kai Ashante Wilson, Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older, and many others.

See the complete list here.

Vintage Treasures: The Etched City by K.J. Bishop

Vintage Treasures: The Etched City by K.J. Bishop

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The Etched City-smallThe Etched City, the debut novel by Australian writer K. J. Bishop, was published in a small print run by Prime Books in 2003. It rapidly accumulated a lot of attention — not to mention stellar reviews — and was nominated for both the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award. Publishers Weekly said it combines “equal parts of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and China Mille’s Perdido Street Station,” and James Sallis, in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, called it:

An ambitious and casually brilliant debut, erudite, lavishly written… Though it borrows from both, this is neither heroic fantasy nor romance-fantasy chockfull of magic swords, witches, and wizards unaware. It’s fantasy as high literature, our world skewed to a hard right angle…

Here’s the book description:

Gwynn and Raule are rebels on the run, with little in common except being on the losing side of a hard-fought war. Gwynn is a gunslinger from the north, a loner, a survivor… a killer. Raule is a wandering surgeon, a healer who still believes in just — and lost — causes. Bound by a desire to escape the ghosts of the past, together they flee to the teeming city of Ashamoil, where Raule plies her trade among the desperate and destitute, and Gwynn becomes bodyguard and assassin for the household of a corrupt magnate. There, in the saving and taking of lives, they find themselves immersed in a world where art infects life, dream and waking fuse, and splendid and frightening miracles begin to bloom…

The Etched City was first published by Prime Books in 2003, and reprinted by Bantam Spectra in December 2004. It is 382 pages, priced at $14 in trade paperback. The cover is by Paul Youll. It is still in print, and there is also an $11.99 digital edition.

Interzone #261 Now on Sale

Interzone #261 Now on Sale

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Interzone 261-smallThe November-December issue of Britain’s longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine is now on sale. The cover, “Sleepy Hollow,” is by Martin Hanford (click the image at right for a bigger version.) This issue offers some fascinating ideas. Here’s Lois Tilton at Locus Online on Malcolm Devlin’s “Five Conversations with My Daughter (Who Travels in Time).”

One night, after yet another fight with his wife, Dad’s six-year-old daughter comes to join him on the sofa and begins to speak in the voice of an adult woman. It seems that from time to time her future self can rejoin herself as a child, in moments when two points converge — whatever that means. She’s come now to ask a favor, later… He does, of course, promise, and as the years pass he comes more and more to believe her. But the favor she asks, when the time comes, isn’t what he would have chosen.

And on Rich Larson’s “We Might Be Sims”

The three disposable convicts on an experimental trip to Europa [“We’re cheap enough already,” Mack says. “We’re a tin can full of human detritus.”] have long since gone stir-crazy, each in different ways. Jasper has decided it’s all a simulation, that they’re really locked in a bunker somewhere on Earth. He wants to open the hatch, to prove it.

Read Lois’ complete comments on the issue here.

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New Treasures: The Redemption’s Heir Series by Anne M. Pillsworth

New Treasures: The Redemption’s Heir Series by Anne M. Pillsworth

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Summoned-small Fathomless-small

Here’s something interesting: a two-volume Young Adult series of Lovecraftian horror and mystery. I don’t often see YA fiction labeled “Lovecraftian,” but when I do, I pay attention.

The first volume, Summoned, was published in hardcover in June of last year, and just released in paperback by Tor in October. It’s the tale of a teenage boy in Arkham, who finds an ancient book in a rare book store… with an ad from a sorcerer seeking an apprentice, and an e-mail address. When he replies, the boy finds himself quickly drawn into strange secrets from Arkham’s history. And parts of Arkham’s history are very dark indeed.

The standalone sequel picks up the tale as Sean is offered a chance to study real magic, with a proper teacher. Fathomless arrived in hardcover from Tor in later October.

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Future Treasures: The Alchemy of Chaos by Marshall Ryan Maresca

Future Treasures: The Alchemy of Chaos by Marshall Ryan Maresca

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The Alchemy of Chaos-smallMarshall Ryan Maresca’s debut novel, The Thorn of Dentonhill, followed the adventures of Veranix Calbert, diligent college student by day and crime-fighting vigilante by night, in the crime-ridden districts of the port city of Maradaine. Library Journal said, “Veranix is Batman, if Batman were a teenager and magically talented,” and that’s not far off. Now comes word that the seqel, The Alchemy of Chaos, arrives from DAW in February, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

Veranix Calbert is The Thorn — the street vigilante who became a legend to the people of Maradaine, especially the gangs that run the neighborhood of Aventil. The Thorn continues to harass Willem Fenmere, the drug kingpin of the Dentonhill neighborhood. Veranix is still determined to stop Fenmere and the effitte drug trade, especially when he discovers that Fenmere is planning on using the Red Rabbits gang to bring the drug into Aventil.

But it’s also Exam Week at the University of Maradaine, where Veranix is a magic student. With his academic career — and future as a mage — riding on his performance, Veranix needs to devote himself entirely to studying and participating in a fellow student’s thesis experiments. There’s no time to go after Fenmere or the Red Rabbits.

Then a series of strange pranks begin to plague the campus, using a form of magic that Veranix doesn’t recognize. As the pranks grow increasingly deadly, it becomes clear that there’s someone with a vendetta against the university, and The Thorn may be the only one capable of stopping them. Between the prankster, the war brewing between the Aventil gangs, and the flamboyant assassins Fenmere has hired to kill him, Veranix may end up dead before the week is out. Which just might be preferable to taking his exams….

Maresca’s second novel, A Murder of Mages, began a second series set in Maradaine. The sequel, An Import if Intrigue, the second novel of The Maradaine Constabulary, is coming Fall 2016.

The Alchemy of Chaos, the second volume of The Maradaine Series, will be published by DAW on February 2, 2016. It is 400 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the print and digital versions. The cover is by Paul Young.

The Robot’s Voice Goes Silent

The Robot’s Voice Goes Silent

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The Robots VoiceIt hasn’t been a good month to be a genre media site.

Less than a month after io9 announced it would be absorbed by Gizmodo, pop-media site The Robot’s Voice (formerly Topless Robot) abruptly announced late yesterday that was shuttering its doors. In his goodbye message, “So Long, and Thanks For All the WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS,” editor Luke Y. Thompson wrote:

I’ve given this site formerly known as Topless Robot three years of my life and hard work, and I wouldn’t trade them. I hoped that covering the subjects and culture that I love would sustain the site. For three years, it has — the three years it took to make The Force Awakens, no less. But all things must end. Today is the The Robot’s Voice’s final day of publication. After years of trying, we couldn’t make this work financially…

To my competition in the nerd-blogging world: I was mostly a one-man show, and I managed to go toe-to-toe with all of you for three years. That’s not too bad, right?

I don’t know where I’ll land next. I own a couple of URLs that I might use to start a project of my own, and no doubt somebody can put me to work writing about movies somewhere.

Topless Robot was founded in 2008 by Rob Bricken and Bill Jensen, and was renamed The Robot’s Voice in September 2015 in an attempt to become more mainstream. It is owned by Village Voice Media, the holding company that once owned The Village Voice. Read Thompson’s goodbye message here.

Vintage Treasures: The Good Stuff by Gardner Dozois

Vintage Treasures: The Good Stuff by Gardner Dozois

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The Good Old Stuff-small The Good New Stuff-small

Gardner Dozois is one of the most accomplished and prolific editors in our field. He’s produced scores of anthologies, including 31 volumes of The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor 15 times in 17 years from 1988 to 2004, as editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction.

In addition to championing countless new writers (as well as older and more neglected writers), he’s shown a lot of love for adventure SF and space opera over the years, which he calls “center-core SF.” In 1998 and 1999 he released two anthologies with the subtitle Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition, both with St. Martin’s/Griffin. They are probably my favorite of his numerous books:

The Good Old Stuff (434 pages, $17.95 in trade paperback, December 1998; cover by Ed Emshwiller)
The Good New Stuff (450 pages, $16.95 in trade paperback, February 1999; cover by Bob Eggleton)

The first volume collects fiction from 1948-1971, and the second from 1977-1998. Together they constitute the finest survey of adventure SF our field has seen.

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December GigaNotoSaurus Features “Quarter Days” by Iona Sharma

December GigaNotoSaurus Features “Quarter Days” by Iona Sharma

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giganotosaurus logo-smallOne of my frequent complaints about the current crop of genre magazines is that they don’t publish enough novella-length fiction. As page counts shrink and more magazines announce they’ll only consider fiction below 8,000 words, the market for novellas — generally any fiction between 17,500 words and novel length — has dramatically shrunk.

But what if there was a market that published only SF and fantasy novelettes and novellas? That would be totally fabulous, right?

Well, there is such a market, and as a matter of fact, it is fabulous. GigaNotoSaurus, edited by Rashida J. Smith and published since November 2010, is a free online magazine that offers readers one story, between 5,000 and 25,000 words, every month. It has published multiple Nebula-nominated works, including Ken Liu’s “All the Flavors” and Ferrett Steinmetz’s “Sauerkraut Station,” as well as Judith Tarr’s “Dragon Winter,” S. Hutson Blount’s “The Taking of Book 257,” and C.S.E. Cooney’s marvelous “How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain With the Crooked One.”

This month’s story is Iona Sharma’s “Quarter Days,” which Stompydragons called “utterly delightful. I loved the world she’s built, her characters felt fresh, and the plot used all of that to great effect.” Read it free here.