A “shivoo” (noun) is a raucous party.
Locus Awards were announced Saturday, June 26. Winners include:
Martha Wells, for Best SF Novel, Network Effect
N.K. Jemisin, for Best Fantasy Novel, The City We Became
Silvia Moreno Garcia, Best Horror Novel, Mexican Gothic
Kingfisher, Best YA Novel, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
June 30th, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
For the Good of the Realm by Nancy Jane Moore
2021’s For the Good of the Realm is a gender-swapped swashbuckler heavily inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers. Author Nancy Jane Moore creates a world of nation-states much like France and its neighbors of the Musketeers. Against this backdrop, Anna D’Gart, a swordswoman in the Queen’s Guards, serves the queen and the realm against enemies foreign and domestic — although one domestic adversary is powerful, and Anna finds herself swimming in very deep waters.
June 30th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Nancy Jane Moore | SFF Reviews | no comments |
We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker
Often in magical realism, a writer takes one little bit of magic and plunks it into an otherwise entirely realistic story, like adding a single drop of blue food dye into a glass of water that remains water, but water newly, wholly colored by that one tiny drop. In Sarah Pinsker’s novel, We Are Satellites (2021), we have what one might class science-fictional realism; she eschews building the usual futuristic world full of advances and instead offers up a single drop in the form of the Pilot,
June 29th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Sarah Pinsker | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Quest Crosstime by Andre Norton
Quest Crosstime (1965) is Andre Norton’s second and final story about Blake Walker, a man who has the precognitive ability to sense when he’s in danger. Quest Crosstime is combined with The Crossroads of Time (1956), the first novel about Blake Walker, in the Crosstime omnibus which was published by Baen books in 2008 and has recently been released in an audiobook edition by Tantor Media.
June 28th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Andre Norton | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Kat: I’m reading Machine by Elizabeth Bear. It’s slow-going so far. I’m more interested in the non-fiction book I’m reading: How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Dr. Michael Greger. It was recommended by two of my kids who are vegans. It’s very informative and full of scientific citations, though I suspect there’s a bit of cherry-picking going on (pun intended). But it’s clear that a whole-food plant-based diet is the healthiest way to eat and I’ve been moving that way in the past few months for both health and ethical reasons.
June 27th, 2021. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | no comments |
B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth (Vol. 1): New World by Mike Mignola (writer), John Arcudi (writer), Guy Davis (artist), Dave Stewart (colorist), and Clem Robins (letterer).
This volume jumps back and forth between Abe out in the field and what is going on at the B.P.R.D. base back in Colorado. At the base, Kate is trying to manage all the teams in the field, Johann is still obsessed with the possibility of getting another body so he can feel physical sensations again, and Devon is assigned his own mission in France. Meanwhile, come-to-life mummy Panya seems to be manipulating creatures on the base for her own secret purposes.
June 26th, 2021. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
A Genie. A golem. Nineteenth-century New York City. Boy, did I want to love this book. Drawn by its come-hither characters, its promise of poetry, and by its dark side in the form of a truly nasty character, I really, really wanted to love it. And truth is, I liked The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker. But in the well-trod words of middle school, I didn’t “like like” it.
June 25th, 2021. Bill Capossere, Marion Deeds, Ray McKenzie and Jana Nyman | Helene Wecker | Edge, Mythopoeic Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!
June 1 marked our FOURTEENTH birthday!
Yep, we’ve been hanging out together (well, some of us) since June 2007!
To celebrate, we’re giving away gifts!
FIVE commenters from the US will receive some FanLit BOOKMARKS (quite practical!) and a cozy FANLIT T-SHIRT (as long as supplies last, we have S,M,L,XL). Or, if you prefer, you may choose a book from our stacks, or a $5 Amazon gift card.
You can leave any sort of comment —
June 24th, 2021. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 39 comments |
This Virtual Night by C.S. Friedman
C.S. Friedman’s This Virtual Night (2020) is billed as book two in her OUTWORLDS/ALIEN SHORES series but these novels are, so far, stand-alone stories set in the same universe. Thus, you don’t need to have read the first book, This Alien Shore (1998), though I’d recommend doing so anyway because it was fabulous. All you need to know about Friedman’s world is that, long ago, the humans who left Earth to colonize other galaxies evolved in ways that their fellow humans who remained on Earth find repulsive.
June 24th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | C.S. Friedman | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
SMOFCon, a convention for people who want to run a convention, is offering three scholarships. The con will be held in December in Lisbon, Portugal.
File 770 addresses the Twitter announcement that the Hugo Administrative Committee for DisCon II (WorldCon) has resigned en masse. The issue may be about space limitations imposed by the Con Committee. Within the File 770 article is a link to one of the Pixel Scrolls that addresses that concern.
Dean Wesley Smith thinks that writers make things hard for themselves when they start thinking about making money too early in the writing process.
June 23rd, 2021. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 6 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.