I’m going to break form to close off 2016, to give a few recommendations from everything I read this past year. Despite the claim by a lot of people that 2016 was the worst year ever (bear in mind the years where tons of people died of the Black Plague) at the very least we weren’t hurting for great reading material. I’ll be posting my Top Ten Novels later, but today I want to focus on short fiction, which doesn’t…
Chasing the Dragon By Nicholas Kaufmann ChiZine Publications (170 pages, $10.95 in trade paperback, $7.99 digital, March 15, 2010) Chasing the Dragon is the sort of novel that you would probably never see from a big publishing house. It’s a tiny paperback at only 133 pages, an urban fantasy/mythology/horror blend with an added literary focus on the topic of addiction – the sort of combination that fits right in with the kind of excellent, outside-the-box work that ChiZine Publications produces….
I first met Patrick Swenson, publisher and editorial mastermind at Fairwood Press, back in the late 90s. I think it might have been James Van Pelt who introduced us, after I wrote a review of Patrick’s magazine, TaleBones. I helped Patrick negotiate with a squatter who was sitting on the address he wanted for his website (unsuccessfully, as I recall.) At the time, Fairwood Press was a small press underdog, with only a handful of titles to its name, but a fast-growing reputation….
In September, Word on the Street takes place in major cities all over Canada, though not necessarily on the same day. In fact, if you live in Ontario, as I do, you could conceivably participate in both Ottawa’s and Toronto’s events. I’m sure this kind of festival happens elsewhere, but the only other place I’ve experienced it is in Spain, for the Dia National del Libro The purpose of the festival is to celebrate the written word. All kinds of…
The winners of the 2016 British Fantasy Awards have been announced by the British Fantasy Society. Tea and crumpets for everyone! Since we forgot to report on the nominees three months ago, we’ll make up for it here by listing both the winners and the nominees in each category. Ready? Here we go. Best Fantasy Novel — The Robert Holdstock Award Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Macmillan) Half a War, Joe Abercrombie (Harper Voyager) Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho (Macmillan) Signal…
Last weekend I attended Can-Con as a Special Guest. The Guests of Honour were Eric Choi (Science), Tanya Huff (Author), Sam Morgan (Agent, JABberwocky Literary Agency), and Sheila Williams (Editor, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine). It’s a small con, as these things go, and as the full name of it indicates, its mandate limits it to speculative arts and literature in Canada – though I don’t think the attendees felt much in the way of limitation. There were workshops, and panels, and…
Madeline Ashby is the author Vn and its sequel iD, the first two novels in the The Machine Dynasty trilogy from Angry Robot. She lives in Toronto and writes articles for my hometown paper, the Ottawa Citizen, which automatically makes her cool in my eyes. Her third novel Company Town, a near-future mystery, is getting a lot of early attention. Locus calls it “Worthy of the best Heinlein…. a terrific ride,” and Chuck Wendig says “This is brave, bold, crazy…
I’ve been following Brendan Detzner’s work with keen interest for the past few years. He’s published a number of tight, razor-sharp horror stories in places like Podcastle, ChiZine, Pseudopod, One Buck Horror, and other fine venues. When I heard he was turning his hand to adventure fantasy, I jumped at the chance to be an early reader, and I’m glad I did. Here’s my enthusiastic blurb, which ended up on the finished novella, The Orphan Fleet. The Orphan Fleet is terrific adventure…
Horror and comedy are a tough mix — but it can be a great combo when done right. Jonathan Wood seems to have the touch… his debut novel No Hero, the first book in the Arthur Wallace series, was called “a funny, dark, rip-roaring adventure with a lot of heart” by Publisher’s Weekly, and listed as one of the 20 best paranormal fantasies of the past decade by Barnesandnoble.com. Starburst called the third installment, Anti-Hero, “A gripping tale of dark comedic horror.”…
Formerly a film critic, teacher, and screenwriter, Gemma Files is a Canadian horror author who’s published four novels, two short fiction collections, a story-cycle, and two chapbooks of speculative poetry. Five of her stories were adapted into episodes of The Hunger, an erotic horror anthology series made for Showtime by Tony and Ridley Scott. Her story “The Emperor’s Old Bones” won the International Horror Guild’s 1999 Best Short Fiction award. She’s a two-time Shirley Jackson Award nominee, and has twice…