Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: October 2016


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Peace: Mysterious, atmospheric and tinged with nostalgia

Peace by Gene Wolfe

Although virtually unclassifiable, Gene Wolfe’s 1975 novel, Peace, was chosen for inclusion in both David Pringle’s Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels AND Jones & Newman’s Horror: Another 100 Best Books. While the novel certainly does have shadings of both the horrific and the fantastic, it will most likely strike the casual reader — on the surface, at least — as more of an autobiography, telling, as it does, the story of Alden Dennis Weer,


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Opera: Caws and Effect

Opera directed by Dario Argento

Numerous friends have tried to get me to appreciate opera over the years; all these many attempts have failed. Call me a philistine if you like, but for me, opera has always meant a fat lady in a Viking helmet yodeling at full blast, or a bearded guy or off-putting prima donna shrilling away in a language that I don’t understand. Thus, it was with a feeling of decided trepidation that I approached Italian director Dario Argento’s 1987 offering, Opera. On the one hand, for this aspiring Argento completist,


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WWWednesday: October 5, 2016

This week’s word for Wednesday is fandangle, a noun, meaning a frivolous or useless item. How in the world did we let this great word go out of use?  Fandango, whose origins might be African although the word means a specific Spanish dance, is not related, but it seems like it should be. 

Awards:

WorldCon 75 is running a trial Hugo Award for “best series.” Tor has the details. I think this came from the attempt to give the WHEEL OF TIME series a Hugo a few years ago.


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Fated: A solid, enjoyable urban fantasy

Fated by Benedict Jacka

It was a slow day, so I was reading a book at my desk and seeing into the future.

Ah. A fine first sentence told me this was going to be my kind of book. Alex Verus, the first-person protagonist, owns the London magic shop in which he works. This isn’t the kind of magic shop where you can buy interlocking rings or a box for sawing your assistant in half; think more New Age, with crystal balls and herbs. And Alex isn’t the kind of mage who concocts potions and waves a wand around.


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An Angel for Satan: A winning end to an historic streak

An Angel for Satan directed by Camillo Mastrocinque

Although cult actress Barbara Steele appeared in 14 frightening films during the course of her career, the nine Italian Gothic-style pictures that she starred in during the early to mid-’60s are the ones primarily responsible for her current title: the Queen of Horror. Starting with the Mario Bava wonder Black Sunday in 1960, and then on to The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, its sequel The Ghost, Castle of Blood, The Long Hair of Death,


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Hugo Winner N.K. Jemisin talks THE FIFTH SEASON and THE OBELISK GATE

Today, Fantasy Literature is honored to talk to N.K. Jemisin, who, in 2016, became the first Black author to win the Hugo in the Best Novel category for her work The Fifth Season, book one in the BROKEN EARTH series. In addition to writing the INHERITANCE trilogy, the DREAMBLOOD series, and the BROKEN EARTH series, N. K. Jemisin is also a speculative short fiction author. She has also won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and has been nominated for numerous other awards such as the World Fantasy Award.


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Bright Blaze of Magic: Monsters and magic spice up a deadly feud

Bright Blaze of Magic by Jennifer Estep

Note: some spoilers for earlier books in this series.

The hair-raising adventures of Lila Merriweather conclude in Bright Blaze of Magic, the third volume of Jennifer Estep’s BLACK BLADE young adult urban fantasy series. Lila, age seventeen, is not only a highly skilled thief, but also has amazing sword-fighting abilities and extraordinary magical powers, not to mention championship snarking abilities. In the town of Cloudburst Falls, where magical power is so prevalent that the town attracts tourists who want to see magical people and creatures,


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Chocolat: Pure indulgence and a hint of magic

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

I love stories that feature outright magic, fantastical worlds and mythical creatures — but sometimes all it takes is a tiny dabble of enchantment to turn a story into something really special. That’s what Joanne Harris achieves with her bestseller, Chocolat, a timeless story about love, motherhood and, best of all, chocolate.

Chocolat takes place in the picturesque, fictional village of Lansquenet Sous Tannes in France. Vianne and her young daughter Anouk arrive with the wind on the day of the annual carnival.


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Magic: Atta boy, Shmucko!

Magic directed by Richard Attenborough

A good 13 years before scaring the bejeebers out of audiences by portraying a certain fava-bean-and-human-flesh-eating cannibal, Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins was playing a demented wackadoodle really almost as frightening, in the 1978 film Magic. As far as I can tell, Magic was the sixth film to deal with a ventriloquist and his relationship with an alter-ego dummy (not counting the 1954 Danny Kaye COMEDY Knock on Wood). Lon Chaney had starred in The Unholy Three in 1925 and in its remake of 1930;


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SHORTS: Slatter, Tolbert, Pratt, Pinkser

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about. 

Finnegan’s Field by Angela Slatter (Jan. 2016, free at Tor.com, 99c Kindle version)

This grim story of a mother’s love for her child taps into a rare feeling of collective folklore from a shared history. Finnegan’s Field is a dark fantasy tale about a missing girl returning home after having disappeared three years prior.


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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