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In 500 Words or Less: Robots vs Fairies, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe

In 500 Words or Less: Robots vs Fairies, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe

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Robots vs Fairies
Edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe
Saga Press (384 pages, $16.99 paperback, $7.99 eBook, January 2018)

When I asked Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe, the editors of Robots vs Fairies, on Twitter if I absolutely had to decide between Team Fairy and Team Robot, I was hoping they’d let me off the hook. Here’s what Dominik told me instead:

 

Dominik tweet

 

Apparently, I have no choice. It doesn’t help that Team Fairy and Team Robot both offer up truly remarkable stories. I mean, take one look at the table of contents and you’ll see that this is a stacked deck of established legends and talented up-and-comers. That said, I have heeded the instructions of my overlords and picked a side.

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New Treasures: Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi

New Treasures: Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi

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Beasts Made of NIght-smallTochi Onyebuchi lives in Connecticut. His first short story was published in 2011; since then he’s appeared in Asimov’s SF, Ideomancer, and a number of small press anthologies.

Beasts Made of Night is his debut novel, and I’ve heard a lot about it over the last few months. VOYA called it “Unforgettable,” and Caitlyn Paxson at NPR says it’s “The beginning of a great saga… Tochi Onyebuchi conjures up a busy market city inspired by his Nigerian heritage and populates it with a group of outcast kids who shoulder the sins of the rich and powerful.” And Buzzfeed called it a “compelling Nigerian-influenced fantasy has a wonderfully unique premise and lush, brilliant worldbuilding.” Here’s the description.

Black Panther meets Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch in Beasts Made of Night, the first book in an epic fantasy duology.

In the walled city of Kos, corrupt mages can magically call forth sin from a sinner in the form of sin-beasts — lethal creatures spawned from feelings of guilt. Taj is the most talented of the aki, young sin-eaters indentured by the mages to slay the sin-beasts. But Taj’s livelihood comes at a terrible cost. When he kills a sin-beast, a tattoo of the beast appears on his skin while the guilt of committing the sin appears on his mind. Most aki are driven mad by the process, but Taj is cocky and desperate to provide for his family.

When Taj is called to eat a sin of a member of the royal family, he’s suddenly thrust into the center of a dark conspiracy to destroy Kos. Now Taj must fight to save the princess that he loves — and his own life.

Debut author Tochi Onyebuchi delivers an unforgettable series opener that powerfully explores the true meaning of justice and guilt. Packed with dark magic and thrilling action, Beasts Made of Night is a gritty Nigerian-influenced fantasy perfect for fans of Paolo Bacigalupi and Nnedi Okorafor.

Beasts Made of Night was published by Razorbill on October 31, 2017. It is 304 pages, priced at $17.99 in trade paperback and $10.99 for the digital edition. Read a lengthy excerpt at NPR.

Birthday Reviews: Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Part of Us That Loves”

Birthday Reviews: Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Part of Us That Loves”

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Cover by Peter Stallard
Cover by Peter Stallard

Kim Stanley Robinson was born on March 23, 1952.

Robinson won the Hugo Award for his novels Green Mars and Blue Mars. He won the Nebula for Red Mars, the first novel in the series, as well as for 2312 and for his novella “The Blind Geometer.” Red Mars also won a British SF Association Award, the Ignotus Award, and the Seiun Award. Green Mars won the Ignotus Award, the Italia Award while Blue Mars won the Prix Ozone. He won a World Fantasy Award for the novella “Black Air” and his novel Pacific Edge received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

“The Part of Us That Loves” was originally published in Full Spectrum 2, edited by Lous Aronica, Shawna McCarthy, Amy Stout, and Pat LoBrutto in 1989. Robinson included the story in his 1991 collection Remaking History and that same year it was translated into French.

The city of Zion, Illinois was founded in 1901 as a religious community. Although it has become a more traditional community over the years, Robinson uses its religious background as an effective setting for “The Part of Us That Loves.” The tale feels like two completely separate stories, though the first half provides the means of understanding the second.

The first half focuses on Naomi and Tom, two teenagers in the community band preparing for a concert in honor of two residents who are both celebrating their one hundredth birthday. The two are interested in each other, although they aren’t sure how to pursue that interest.

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Future Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume Three edited by Neil Clarke

Future Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume Three edited by Neil Clarke

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year 3 Neil Clarke-smallNeil Clarke has only had produced two volumes of his Best Science Fiction of the Year, but it’s already become one of my favorite Year’s Best anthologies — and considering the competition (Dozois, Strahan, Horton, Guran, Kelly, Adams, and Afsharirad, among others), that’s really saying something.

For 2018, in addition to being one of the best, he’s also the first. His Year’s Best anthology will be the first to go on sale, in just two weeks. Here’s the description. (And yes, they’re talking about Rich Horton in that first line. Isn’t it obvious?)

To keep up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more ― a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a new yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy award–winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor in chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year’s writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome “sensawunda” that the genre has to offer.

Neil’s volume includes stories by Alastair Reynolds, Nancy Kress, Sarah Pinsker, Linda Nagata, Greg Egan, Kelly Robson, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Yoon Ha Lee, Aliette de Bodard, Robert Reed, Rich Larson, Peter Watts, Suzanne Palmer, and many others.

Here’s the complete table of contents.

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Birthday Reviews: Terry Dowling’s “The Last Elephant”

Birthday Reviews: Terry Dowling’s “The Last Elephant”

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Cover by Nick Stathopoulos
Cover by Nick Stathopoulos

Terry Dowling was born on March 21, 1947. Most of Dowlings fictional output is at short story length, although the stories about Tom Rynosseros are connected and have been collected in four volumes. Dowling has also published the novel Clowns at Midnight. He edited the anthology Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF with Van Ikin and worked with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont to edit The Essential Ellison.

Dowling has received four Aurealis Awards and twelve Ditmar Awards. In 1988, he won the Ditmar for Best Long Fiction for his story “For as Long as You Burn” and the Ditmar for Best Short Fiction for “The Last Elephant.” His collection Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear won an International Horror Guild Award and the collection Wormwood received a Readercon Award. Basic Black was also nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, and Dowling has three World Fantasy Award nominations.

“The Last Elephant” first appeared in Australian Short Stories issue #20, published in 1987 and edited by Bruce Pascoe. In 1994, Paul Collins included it in his Metaworlds: Best Australian Science Fiction and Dowling has reprinted the story in three collections, An Intimate Knowledge of the Night, Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling, and Make Believe: A Terry Dowling Reader.

Dowling tackles endangered species in “The Last Elephant,” describing the festivities and hoopla around Terrence Harm, whose job it is to inspect Caza, believed to be the last living elephant. While Harm cares about the creature and understands the importance of preserving it for as long as possible, he also understands the quality of life issues that come into play and realizes that the more humane course of action may be to announce that Caza is ready to die.

However, when Harm finally visits the last elephant, it is not quite the situation Dowling has prepared the reader for. The questions of ecology Dowling appeared to be setting up are not the issues that Harm actually faces, and Caza is important to the culture in a very different way. Dowling’s story shows that while preservation is important, it can be achieved in different ways, and although they may not be entirely satisfying, they carry their own significance.

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Nazis and Superheroes Warring in the Shadows: An Interview with Kay Kenyon

Nazis and Superheroes Warring in the Shadows: An Interview with Kay Kenyon

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At the Table of Wolves Kay Kenyon-small Serpent in the Heather-small

The Dark Talents novels by Kay Kenyon

I was lucky enough to hear Kay Kenyon read from her novel At the Table of Wolves in 2016, and I was immediately captivated. Her tale of a young English woman with superhuman abilities in the late 1930s who is drawn into the world of intelligence services warring in the shadows — and who stumbles on a chilling Nazi plan to invade England, utilizing their own superhuman agents — was one of my favorite novels last year. I jumped at the chance to interview Kay for Black Gate last week; the transcript of our conversation is below.

The next book in the series, Serpent in the Heather, arrives in hardcover on April 10th, and Saga Press is offering a Goodreads Giveaway which runs until March 27. Check it out here!

Kay, thanks so much for joining us! I first became acquainted with your work through your marvelous standalone SF novels from Bantam Spectra beginning in the late 90s, like The Seeds of Time, Rift, and Maximum Ice, which was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. More recently you’ve embraced series fiction, starting with The Entire and The Rose from Pyr, and now the Dark Talents books from Saga. Why the switch?

Do you want the deep artistic reason or the crass marketing one? I mean, I’m tempted to go all artistic on you with the vision thing and growth as a writer, but I know you too well to lie that brazenly.

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Tales of the Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson

Tales of the Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson

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Tales-of-the-Thieftaker-smallerIf I needed any more proof that there is a TON of fantasy being published these days, I need look no further than the case of D.B. Jackson, aka David B. Coe. He’s written nearly twenty novels, and the first time I heard of him was John O’Neill’s post about the book I’m reviewing today: Tales of the Thieftaker (2017). As Coe he’s written several epic fantasy series.

As Jackson, he’s written four novels about Ethan Kaille, a thieftaker and conjuror in pre-Revolutionary-era Boston. Historically, in a time before police forces, thieftakers were individuals who recovered stolen goods. By summoning up a spirit, conjurors have the ability to cast magic spells by drawing on “the power that dwelt between the living world and the realm of the dead.”

After his service in the Royal Navy Ethan went to sea as second mate on the Ruby Blade, a privateer out of Boston. His participation in a failed mutiny led to a sentence of 14 years penal servitude on Barbados. Upon release he made his way back to Boston. He has lost the woman he loved, lost his reputation, and as we learn in this collection, struggled to find a new purpose to his life.

Tales of the Thieftaker collects eight stories, two not-quite stories, and a novella. Except for the last, all the pieces were previously published. Most star Ethan and the rest focus on other important series characters. Despite one drawback, it serves as a fine introduction to Jackson’s character and his world.

The opening story stars Sephira Pryce, Ethan’s ongoing series antagonist. “The Cully” introduces Sephira as the twelve-year-old scout of a pickpocket. There are none of the supernatural elements that typify the later stories; here is a study of Boston as a city of significant divisions between rich and poor.

“The Tavern Fire” takes place before Ethan has returned to Boston and tells the “true history” of the Great Fire of 1760. It stars another series regular, Janna Windcatcher, proprietor of the Fat Spider tavern.

While the first two stories are well done, my unfamiliarity with the series’ characters meant they didn’t carry as much weight as I imagine they do for veteran readers. That was not the case with Ethan’s origin story, “A Memory of Freedom.” Ethan has only recently come back to Boston and is a bit of a broken man. He’s taken employment with an ill-tempered and unpleasant tavern-keeper. Fourteen years of enslavement have turned him into a subservient and extremely cautious man.

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The Latchkey Revelation: An Interview with Nicole Kornher-Stace

The Latchkey Revelation: An Interview with Nicole Kornher-Stace

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Latchkey Nicole Kornher-Stace-small Latchkey Nicole Kornher-Stace-back-small

O long, long have I anti…cipated (yes, just like that) the sequel to Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Archivist Wasp. A book about ghosts and girls, ferocity and friendship, catastrophe and cataclysm and katabasis and a whole badass bunch of other alliterative nouns, Archivist Wasp published in 2015 by Big Mouth House, an imprint of Small Beer Press.

So you see, that was ALMOST THREE WHOLE YEARS AGO! I’ve been WAITING and WAITING and WAAAAIIIITIIINNNGGG!

But fear not. That time of endlessly unfulfilled appetite has not been wasted. I have not waited in vain. For now — at last! — the day I have yearned for is AT HAND!

(*cues Phantom of the Opera synthesizers and a falling chandelier*)

Nicole Kornher-Stace has done her job, and done it well. And Mythic Delirium has abetted her by publishing it. Soon! In July! This year! And you can PRE-ORDER IT HERE!

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Future Treasures: The Sisters Mederos by Patrice Sarath

Future Treasures: The Sisters Mederos by Patrice Sarath

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The Sisters Mederos-smallPatrice Sarath’s story “A Prayer for Captain LaHire” appeared in Black Gate 4 and was reprinted in Year’s Best Fantasy 3 (2003). She published the Gordath Wood trilogy (Gordath Wood, Red Gold Bridge, and The Crow God’s Girl) between 2008 – 2012. Her latest is something brand new, the tale of a once-great family that has fallen on hard times, and the two sisters — one who becomes a masked bandit, and another with secret supernatural powers — who set out to reverse their family’s downfall. Publishers Weekly praised it saying,

The young women, newly returned from boarding school to a fantasy version of a preindustrial European port city, are determined to restore their family’s fortune and revenge themselves on the corrupt Merchant’s Guild, whose machinations lie behind House Mederos’s downfall. Yvienne, “the smartest girl in Port Saint Frey,” provokes through newspaper editorials, takes a governess job as an entrée into the houses of the powerful, and eventually discovers the excitement of committing armed robbery. Tesara, who conceals supernatural powers that she blames for the shipwreck that ruined her family, ingratiates herself with the upper classes at gambling tables… [The] heroines are entertaining company, and the dynamic between the two sisters — occasionally contentious, often secretive, always loving — is the most enjoyable part of this effervescent tale.

Here’s the official description.

Two sisters fight with manners, magic, and mayhem to reclaim their family’s name, in this captivating historical fantasy adventure.

House Mederos was once the wealthiest merchant family in Port Saint Frey. Now the family is disgraced, impoverished, and humbled by the powerful Merchants Guild. Daughters Yvienne and Tesara Mederos are determined to uncover who was behind their family’s downfall and get revenge. But Tesara has a secret – could it have been her wild magic that caused the storm that destroyed the family’s merchant fleet? The sisters’ schemes quickly get out of hand – gambling is one thing, but robbing people is another…

Together the sisters must trust each another to keep their secrets and save their family.

The Sisters Mederos will be published by Angry Robot on April 3, 2018. It is 368 pages, priced at $12.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Paul Young. Read an excerpt at the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, and a brief discussion at Patrice’s website.

Sublimity, Decadence, and Pulp: Venera Dreams, by Claude Lalumière

Sublimity, Decadence, and Pulp: Venera Dreams, by Claude Lalumière

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Venera Dreams-smallThere’s magic in the linked short-story form. A series of interrelated short fictions can examine a setting from many angles, build a character through a range of perspectives, establish a set of overlapping histories, and create a whole world with multiple centres: many heroes, many protagonists, together making a world bigger than can live in any one of their stories. Claude Lalumière’s Venera Dreams is the most recent example of the form I’ve seen, an exploration of the past (and future) of a mysterious island in the Mediterranean not far from Italy that’s home to a range of powerful and subversive artists — as well as the mysterious sacred spice vermilion, and a variety of myths and goddesses including the fabled Scheherazade.

I know Lalumière well (so well I’d never normally refer to him by his last name, but such is the nature of a book review), and interviewed him for Black Gate seven years ago; as he was already engaged on the Venera Dreams project back then, the interview’s surprisingly relevant. He’s edited or co-edited seven anthologies, and had two collections of his own short fiction published (Objects of Worship in 2009 and Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes in 2013). In 2011 his book The Door to Lost Pages came out, a set of linked stories revolving around a magical bookshop. That store tuns up in Venera Dreams, notably in the opening story, but the first book is in no way necessary reading for this one.

The subtitle of Venera Dreams proclaims the collection “A Weird Entertainment,” and that’s accurate in just about every sense. It is strange and it is entertaining. But it’s weird in a more profound way; weird in the way of the pulps, in the way of Weird Tales. And it is an entertainment in the way the first English version of the One Thousand And One Nights called itself The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment. It’s a series of reveries about storytelling and art, about ecstasy and myth, about cities and history and yearning. About Venera the venerable: about venery and veneration.

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