Holy neutron stars, it’s the end of March, and you know what that means…. it’s time to announce the finalists for the 2018 Hugo Awards! Doubtless most of you paid close attention to Rich Horton’s suggestions for the best science fiction and fantasy of last year, did a lot of heavy reading over the last four weeks, and thoughtfully cast your nominating ballots. Or maybe not.
But either way, it’s time to see who all your fellow voters nominated. Ready? Here we go.
Best Novel
The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi (Tor) New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit) Provenance, by Ann Leckie (Orbit) Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris) Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit) The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
Two days ago I said Raymond Z. Gallun’s The Planet Strappers was an example of a long-dead sub-genre, the adventures of “space hobbyists,” in which enthusiastic amateurs, usually teens, were the ones to conquer space through pluck, courage and sheer inventiveness. While I still think that’s true, I don’t think the teen SF novel is dead at all. In fact, here’s a fine example, Alexandra Monir’s The Final Six, the tale of six teens sent on a desperate mission to Jupiter’s moon.
When Leo and Naomi are drafted, along with twenty-two of the world’s brightest teenagers, into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever changed. Overnight, they become global celebrities in contention for one of the six slots to travel to Europa — Jupiter’s moon — and establish a new colony, leaving their planet forever. With Earth irreparably damaged, the future of the human race rests on their shoulders.
For Leo, an Italian championship swimmer, this kind of purpose is a reason to go on after losing his family. But Naomi, an Iranian-American science genius, is suspicious of the ISTC and the fact that a similar mission failed under mysterious circumstances, killing the astronauts onboard. She fears something equally sinister awaiting the Final Six beneath Europa’s surface.
In this cutthroat atmosphere, surrounded by strangers from around the world, Naomi finds an unexpected friend in Leo. As the training tests their limits, Naomi and Leo’s relationship deepens with each life-altering experience they encounter.
But it’s only when the finalists become fewer and their destinies grow nearer that the two can fathom the full weight of everything at stake: the world, the stars, and their lives.
Alexandra Monir is the author of Suspicion (which I covered back in 2014) and the Timeless series. It was published by HarperTeen on March 6, 2018. It is 338 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. The beautiful cover was designed by Erin Fitzsimmons, with art by Getty Images. Read an excerpt at HappyEverAfter.com.
There are a lot of animals in Fantasy. Plenty of horses, for example, and similar four-legged transportation. Then there are magical and mythological animals of all kinds – and some that are just plain madeupical.
What there isn’t much of in either SF or Fantasy fiction is pets. I find this significant – not the least because, next to their families, there’s probably nothing – or no one – more important to people than their pets. So are pets just too “real life” for SF and Fantasy fiction?
Now I’m not talking about works where one of the main characters is an animal, so, not Temeraire in Naomi Kovik’s novels. Not Ratty or Mole, or even Mr. Toad in Wind in the Willows. I’m particularly not talking about cats who solve crimes – though it’s not at all unusual for protagonists of a cozy mystery to have either a dog or a cat as a pet. In fact, for a cozy, the presence of one or both is practically a requirement – check the cover art. One of the interesting things about dogs in mystery novels is that somewhere, in between all the sleuthing, the dog still has to be walked. You can’t get more real life than that.
Last month I wrote a brief article about Flotsam by RJ Theodore, an intriguing steampunk/first contact novel. It was the first book I’d ever seen from Parvus Press and, as I commented at the time, it seemed like I should be paying them more attention.
That paid off this month after I ordered a copy of their very first book, Vick’s Vultures by Scott Warren. It was released in trade paperback in 2016, and has been gradually winning an audience. It has an intriguing premise: mankind is one of many space-faring species in a crowded galaxy, and has used captured alien technology to establish a tentative foothold on a handful of colony worlds. Here’s H. Paul Honsinger, author of the Man of War series.
I was on board with Captain Victoria Marin and her multinational, multi-ethnic, multi personality type, mismatched crew from the first moment. Scott Warren gives us an uncommon premise, humans as technological inferiors to most of the galaxy, and follows the plausible consequences of that premise: from our race’s particularly human adaptation to that situation – becoming pirates and scavengers of technology while flying under the radar of the major civilizations – to the cultural and character traits that come to the surface in that event. It all comes together with a richly-imagined universe, three-dimensional characters, and a fast-moving plot… [a] swashbucklingly exciting tale from a talented emerging author.
The next volume in what’s now being called the Union Earth Privateers series, To Fall Among Vultures, arrived in August. Here’s a look at the back covers for both books.
She won the World fantasy Award and the Nebula Award for her novella “Last Summer at Mars Hill.” She has won an additional Nebula for her short story “Echo” and three more World Fantasy Awards for her novellas Ilyria and The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon, which was also a Hugo nominee. Her collection Bibliomancy also earned her a World Fantasy Award. Hand received the James Tiptiree Jr. Memorial Award and the Mythopoei Award for her novel Waking the Moon and she has won three Shirley Jackson Awards. Her stories “Pavane for a Prince of the Air” and “Cleopatra Brimstone” have both won the International Horror Guild Award.
“Calypso in Berlin” was originally published by Ellen Datlow in the July 13, 2005 issue of Sci Fiction. Paula Guran included it in her Best Paranormal Romance anthology the following year. It is included in Hand’s collection Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories. In 2007, the story was translated into German for publication in the Spring issue of Pandora.
In Greek mythology, Calypso was a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia and kept Odysseus captive for seven years. Her name is a variation of the word “concealed.” In Elizabeth Hand’s “Calypso in Berlin,” the nymph has survived into the modern era and taken as her lover a man named Philip, whose business requires him to travel, so they only see each other occasionally. Philip is also married, which doesn’t particularly seem to bother Calypso.
When Philip ends their relationship, Calypso decides to relocate to Berlin, a city he loved. Once there, she realizes that Philip has become something of a muse to her, inspiring her paintings of him and without his presence, she can no longer paint. Using an old sweater of his and sympathetic magic, she draws him to her, regaining her muse. The magic Hand describes as Calypso ensures that he will always be in Berlin to inspire her feels very much in keeping with the motifs of Greek mythology.
Ilana C. Myer’s debut fantasy novel Last Song Before Night made a pretty big impression; David Mack said “It’s one of the most impressive debut novels I’ve ever read; I am in awe,” and Jason Heller at NPR called it “A beautifully orchestrated fantasy debut… an intoxicating mix of the familiar and the fresh.” See our earlier coverage here and here.
Her follow-up is a standalone novel set in the same world as Last Song Before Night. It arrives in hardcover next month from Tor. The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog has a fine appreciation; here’s a snippet.
Nearly two years ago, Tor Books released Last Song Before Night, a lyrical epic fantasy set in a world where magic is created through the melding of music and poetry. A striking conceit to say the least, and Ilana C. Myer’s debut gave us much more than that: memorable characters, beautiful prose, and a complex plot, full of politics and history worthy of comparisons to Guy Gavriel Kay.
Myer returns to that world with Fire Dance, a standalone sequel inspired by Al Andalus and medieval Baghdad.
Fire Dance will be published by Tor Books on April 10, 2018. It is 368 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. Get all the latest at Myer’s website.
Space Pirates, Stowaways, and a New Frontier: Rich Horton on The Planet Strappers by Raymond Z. Gallun
Over at his website Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton continues to do excellent work highlighting books old and new. Check out his review of John Crowley’s new novel Ka earlier this week to see what I mean. Rich calls it “Wonderful… I feel humbled by my inability to truly capture the wonder of this book.”
Of course, for crusty old vintage paperback fans like myself, the real joy of Rich’s blog is in his almost whimsical selections of older titles. While he makes a focused effort to read the major new novels each year in preparation for Hugo voting (see his detailed thoughts on the 2018 Hugos here), when it comes to older books he seems perfectly content to review whatever library discard falls into his hands each week.
That gives his blog a delightfully unpredictable quality. No one in their right mind, for example, would review Raymond Z. Gallun’s The Planet Strappers, an undistinguished novel that was hurriedly forgotten a few short weeks after it appeared in 1961. But Rich would. You have to salute that kind of undaunted faith in the genre.
The truly marvelous thing about Rich’s exploration into the dimmest recesses of science fiction is how he manages to find so much genuine enjoyment in it all. And it ain’t generally due to the books. Rich has an almost unique ability to make fascinating connections between writers, pick up the nearly invisible threads of evolving tropes, and find enjoyment in the echoes of great ideas lost in muddled plot lines. A ridiculous plot, Rich has taught me, needn’t trouble you so much when it’s paired with a fascinating setting or a clever idea — especially when you can see how that idea was harvested and put to use years later by the writers that follow.
Last week I received an e-mail from someone named Mark Bradley. He said he’d gotten my address from Gordon Van Gelder, publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and that he’d recently self-published a collection of stories written by his grandmother, Mildred Clingerman, in the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. It contained all of the stories from her 1961 collection A Cupful of Space as well as many unpublished works.
I remember Mildred Clingerman! I’d tracked down A Cupful of Space decades ago, and her name popped up frequently in the vintage science fiction magazines I obsess over. I asked Mark for more info, and this is what he sent me.
First off, Mildred is my grandmother on my mom’s side. A few years ago I was contacted about renewing a copyright on one of Mildred’s stories from a school book company. I started rooting around on the internet and saw that Mildred still had a fairly active following. During a visit to San Diego I saw my cousin who had a stack of old F&SF magazines that I had never seen. I talked to my mom about possibly re-releasing her stories because maybe there was still a fan base. My mom had a good many stories that had never been published and sent them to me. At some point I started talking to Gordon about publishing possibilities. We went down a road with a university press that didn’t work so I looked to self publish. I put the book together, my wife did the cover art, had it printed in Austin and here we are. My mother and I participated on a panel at the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio and the reception was very gratifying. We are very excited about the project and our hope is to re-introduce Mildred to an entirely new audience as well as give long time fans some new stories.
This is exactly the kind of project we heartily endorse here at Black Gate, and I’m delighted to have the opportunity to showcase Mark’s new book The Clingerman Files.
Patricia C. Wrede was born on March 27, 1953. Her novel Calling on Dragons was nominated for a Mythopoeic Award for Best Children’s Fantasy and her story “Utensile Strength” was long-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award.
“Rikiki and the Wizard” was written for the Liavek shared world series edited by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull. It appeared in the second volume, The Players of Luck, published in 1986. Wrede included the story in her collection Book of Enchantments and in Points of Departure: Liavek Stories, which collects Wrede and Pamela Dean’s Liavek stories.
Wrede tells a fable with the story of “Rikiki and the Wizard,” a pleasant take on a traditional lesson. Extremely powerful and lucky (for luck is magic in Liavek), the Wizard can never satisfy his need for fame and decides to trade his daughter Ryvenna to any god who will grant him the enduring fame he desires. In his hubris, the Wizard failed to consult with his daughter about this plan, which annoyed the gods, who feel that she should have some say in her own fate, and they agree to ignore his summons.
Rikiki, however, while a god, is also a blue chipmunk, with a short attention span about anything except his quest for nuts. Forgetting the bargain of the gods, Rikiki seeks out the Wizard and asks for nuts. While the Wizard tries to get rid of the chipmunk (causing the creation of the world’s geographic features, the way it happens in fables about gods), his daughter eventually gives Rikiki nuts.
Of course, there are different types of luck and different types of fame and in the end the Wizard gains his fame (although Wrede cleverly never gives him a name), and Ryvenna lives happily ever after.
Superhero fiction is tricky. It’s hard to get right. Superheroes rule in comics and at the box office, but in print…. not so much. Why is that? If I’d cracked that puzzle I’d be a Manhattan super-agent. The best I can tell you is that in visual media like comics and film, superheroes naturally draw all the attention. But in the more studied medium of print, away from the fast-action visuals of comics and movies, superheroes require a more thoughtful touch to really be appealing.
There have been successful superhero novels, of course. Like Vicious by V. E. Schwab (which Matthew David Surridge reviewed for us here), Carrie Vaughn’s After the Golden Age, Sarah Kuhn’s Heroine Complex trilogy… and Paige Orwin’s The Interminables (2016), the tale of two powerful agents of a wizard’s cabal in a drastically altered Earth on a mission that lands them in a very dark place. No truly successful superhero novel stands alone for long, of course, and late last year the sequel Immortal Architects arrived in paperback. Here’s the description.
Edmund Templeton, a time-manipulating sorcerer, and Istvan Czernin, the deathless spirit of WWI, are the most powerful agents of the magical cabal now ruling the US East Coast. Their struggle to establish a new order in the wake of magical catastrophe is under siege: cults flourish and armies clash on their borders. Perhaps worst of all the meteoric rise of a technological fortress-state threatens their efforts to keep the peace.
As if that weren’t enough, a desperate call has come in from the west. A superstorm capable of tearing rock from mountains is on its way, and [it’s] acting unlike any storm ever seen before. Who better to investigate than two old friends with the sudden need to prove themselves?
The Interminables may be the breakout series that finally proves the superhero novel can be serious genre literature — and seriously entertaining. Immortal Architects was published by Angry Robot on September 5, 2017. It is 479 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Amazing15. Read the complete first chapter at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Bloghere.
