Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: September 2017


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Robot Universe: A quick and fun tour through the world of robots real and imagined

Robot Universe: Legendary Automatons and Androids from the Ancient World to the Distant Future by Ana Matronic

Ana Matronic is a huge fan of robots: “I love robots … The reflection off highly polished metal, the red glow of a light-emitting diode, the sound of a vocoder: these are a few of my favorite things … doesn’t everybody love robots?” Just in case some don’t, or aren’t sure if they do, she’s gathered together over a hundred of her personal favorites in a lavishly illustrated compendium titled Robot Universe: Legendary Automatons and Androids from the Ancient World to the Distant Future.


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Rocannon’s World: Ursula K. Le Guin’s debut

Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. Le Guin

Rocannon’s World, published in 1966, is Ursula Le Guin’s debut novel and the first in her HAINISH CYCLE. The story describes how Rocannon, an ethnographer, became stranded on the planet he was charting when a spaceship from Faraday, a rogue planet that is an enemy to the League of All Worlds, blew up his spaceship and the rest of his crew. Rocannon thinks he’s trapped forever until he sees a helicopter and realizes that Faraday must have a secret base on the planet.


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WWWednesday: September 6, 2017

Today’s word for Wednesday is neocracy, a noun, meaning a government of amateurs.

Awards:

The Dragon Awards were announced on Sunday, September 3, at DragonCon. Here are the winners. Congratulations to James S.A. Corey, Victor LaValle, Larry Corriea and John Ringo, Rick Riordan, Cory Doctorow and all the others who took home Dragons this year.

Gaming:

According to Eurogamer, the strategy board game Scythe is coming to Steam.


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House of Names: Thoughtful and strongly-voiced

House of Names by Colm Tóibín

The Ancient Greeks didn’t invent murder, sex, and vengeance, but they did realize the staying power of stories centering on them. As, apparently, does Colm Tóibín, whose newest work, House of Names (2017), is a retelling of the House of Atreus tale involving Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Electra, and Orestes (spoiler alert — it’s not a happy story). Nor does Tóibín bother to dress it up in contemporary garb, eschewing the usual “updating” into modern times and dress. Though perhaps that’s not wholly accurate.


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Like Water for Chocolate: Recipes and romance

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

A bit of classic magical realism today. First published in 1989 in installments, Like Water for Chocolate was a bestseller in Laura Esquivel’s native Mexico and subsequently around the world. A popular film version earned the story a place in yet more hearts (if you are tempted to watch it, don’t watch the version with the English voice-over, stick with the Spanish). The story is a heady combination of love, passion, family drama, food, recipes, and magic, all set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution.


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The Emperor and the Maula: Laylah, you’ve got me on my knees

The Emperor and the Maula by Robert Silverberg

As of this writing, in September 2017, Grand Master Robert Silverberg has come out with no fewer than 78 sci-fi novels, almost 450 short stories and novellas, around 70 books of nonfiction, and around 185 novels of, um, “adult fiction,” in addition to having edited over 130 anthologies. He has garnered for himself four Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards in the process. The man’s prolific work pace is understandably legendary. Thus, it might strike some that his fans’ clamoring for more,


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Red Sister: Magic nuns. Need we say more?

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

Mark Lawrence‘s previous six novels have been interesting and unique in their own ways, but have also formed part of a recognizable corner of the genre. That is, Lawrence’s name often appears alongside those of Joe Abercrombie and R. Scott Bakker on lists with titles like “So You’ve Just Finished A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE — What Next?” This isn’t to say that the books set in Lawrence’s Broken Empire aped George R.R.


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Tales of Falling and Flying: Not my cup of spacefaring squid

Tales of Falling and Flying by Ben Loory

Ben Loory’s collection Tales of Falling and Flying (2017) falls into that category of “just not for me” books, meaning this will be a relatively brief take on the collection. It’s the sort of writing where I can see where some people would enjoy it, can note the author’s talent, can acknowledge the wit and bright originality, but overall it just doesn’t do it for me. In this case, it begins with my being a tough audience for short stories,


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Snowspelled: A Regency magician without her magic

Snowspelled by Stephanie Burgis

Snowspelled (2017), the first book in the new HARWOOD SPELLBOOK fantasy series by Stephanie Burgis, is a fun, light read, right at the intersection of magical fantasy and Regency romance, with a twist of alternative history. We are in Angland, not England, and there’s a time-honored treaty between humans and elves, with the humans paying a toll to live on elven lands. Cassandra Harwood, her brother Jonathan, and sister-in-law Amy travel to a week-long house party at Cosgrove Manor,


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The Accelerators Vol. 2: Momentum by R.F.I. Porto, Gavin P. Smith, Tim Yates

The Accelerators Vol. 2: Momentum by R.F.I. Porto, Gavin P. Smith, Tim Yates

The Accelerators Vo. 2: Momentum picks up right after the end of The Accelerators Vol. 1: Time Games, which introduced readers to an intrepid group of accidental time-travelers leapfrogging toward an unknowable future. In this second volume, the group visits the same location on Earth in different epochs — some friendly, though most are hostile or outright dangerous — gaining precious few answers along the way as to how any of this is possible or how it’s all come to pass.


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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