The Sorcery Club by Elliott O’Donnell
1912 was something of a banner year in the field of fantastic literature. Here in the U.S., Edgar Rice Burroughs jump-started his writing career with the releases of Tarzan of the Apes and A Princess of Mars, while Jack London came out with one of his finest fantasy creations, The Scarlet Plague. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond,
Heaven’s Queen by Rachel Bach
Heaven’s Queen (2014) is the final book in Rachel Bach’s PARADOX trilogy. I read the first two novels, Fortune’s Pawn and Honor’s Knight nine years ago in audio format, but this final installment, though published in print in 2014, wasn’t available in audio format until November 2022 (I didn’t look into the reason for this). Not surprisingly, I had to go back and read the first two novels again to refresh my memory because I didn’t remember the story very well.
The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II by Peter S. Beagle
It’s a good time to be a Peter S. Beagle fan. In short order this mid-year, we’ve been gifted The Way Home — two novellas set in the world of the beloved classic The Last Unicorn — and two collections of Beagle’s short stories: The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II. And true gifts they are. You can see my review of the novellas here,
It’s the first Thursday of the month. Time to report!
What’s the best book you read in May 2023 and why did you love it?
It doesn’t have to be a newly published book, or even SFF, or even fiction. We just want to share some great reading material.
Feel free to post a full review of the book here, or a link to the review on your blog, or just write a few sentences about why you thought it was awesome.
And don’t forget that we always have plenty more reading recommendations on our Fanlit Faves page and our 5-Star SFF page.
Neil Clarke, publisher and editor of Clarkesworld, is developing a Statement of Beliefs around the use of AI and LLMs in the world of writing. Here are his thoughts.
I’m sure it’s been at least a couple of weeks since I’ve published someone Best Of Something list, so here’s one; the 100 “best children’s books.”
Variety takes a moment to break down the costuming of Andor.
Karen Gillan “smuggled” her iPad into filming of GOTG3 and created an “unfiltered” behind-the-scenes video.
The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle
This is a glorious month for Peter S. Beagle fans, with The Way Home (2023) offering up two novellas set in the same world as The Last Unicorn, and not one but two retrospective collections of stories: The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II. Even better, one of those two novellas is brand new and serves to show that Beagle remains one of our most elegant of fantasists.
The Whispering Gorilla by Don Wilcox & Return of the Whispering Gorilla by David V. Reed
By my rough count, the publisher known as Armchair Fiction currently has, in its constantly expanding catalog, something on the order of 317 “double-novel” volumes for sale, not to mention its “single-novel” and short-story volumes. But of all those many two-novel volumes, which usually incorporate an unrelated pair of shortish but full-length pieces under one cover, the potential buyer would have to look long and hard to find a wackier pairing than is to be found in the publisher’s D-119: The Whispering Gorilla and Return of the Whispering Gorilla.
Marion: I’m about one third of the way through Matthew Pearl’s 18-year-old novel The Bookaneer, which I’m liking more now that our narrator has arrived in Samoa and we’ve met Robert Louis Stevenson and his family.
Bill: Since our last update I read:
Revivial (Volume Two): Live Like You Mean It by Tim Seeley (writer), Mike Norton (artist), Mark Englert (colors), and Crank! (letters)
Wasau, a small town in Wisconsin, is our locale for strange happenings in Revival: The dead are coming back to life. And not in some zombie-like fashion, either. In fact, if you did not know they were dead to begin with, and they had died fairly recently, you would not even know that they were dead watching them move around. There are also ghost-like figures in the woods,
The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castell
Sebastien de Castell’s 2023 antihero novel The Malevolent Seven has good magical action and lots of sarcastic banter. It has an emotionally tortured male main character in a world that is filled with suffering, death, betrayal and a sense of hopelessness that swamps every action. Generally, I enjoy de Castell’s work, but while this book had enough to keep me reading, ultimately, it doesn’t rank among my favorite works of his.
I say, “enough to keep me reading,” because I very nearly put this book down during the first 50 pages.
Cora Buhlert shares her thoughts on the Nebula winners. Like me, she hasn’t read many of them. Unlike me, she’s probably going to.
The universe might be bigger on the inside.
There is a Dyson Sphere science fiction writing contest, hosted by the SciFiIdea Writing Center of Singapore. The deadline for submissions is August 31. The word count is 30,000 to 100,000. Yes, that’s what it says. Read the part about publication rights carefully. (Thanks to File770.)
Writer Beware shares another scam,
King Bullet by Richard Kadrey
With 2022’s King Bullet, Richard Kadrey brings the novel series about Hellion wizard James Stark, AKA Sandman Slim, to a conclusion. As Kadrey once said, Stark is a monster who wonders if he can become human. We readers figured out that answer a while ago, but in King Bullet, Stark faces the answer himself, along with an adversary who may defeat him once and for all.
L.A. (if not the USA and/or the world—we don’t know) is hunkering down in the throes of a devastating virus,
Reposting to include Bill’s new review.
Deadly Memory by David Walton
In 2023’s Deadly Memory, by David Walton, the challenges humanity faces have never been higher. A virus so deadly it can kill nearly every species on the planet is loose, and a pheromone-based drug that allows the wearer to dominate everyone who smells it is in the hands of authoritarians from more than one global power. The source of the substance, and the possible antidote to it, is hidden away,
All the Traps of Earth by Clifford D. Simak
Looking back, it strikes me with some surprise that, up until very recently, I had not read any of sci-fi Grand Master Clifford D. Simak’s shorter work in over 40 years. Oh, I had read any number of the author’s novels during those four decades, but since reading his 1968 collection So Bright the Vision back in 1981, none of his work of a shorter length. Coming to my rescue in this regard was the Wisconsin-born writer’s All the Traps of Earth,
SFWA announced the 2023 Nebula winners on Sunday. R.F Kuang took home Best Novel for Babel; C.L. Polk’s Even Though I Knew the End won for Best Novella; Jon Chu won the Best Novelette award for “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You.” “Rabbit Test,” by Samantha Mills, won for Best Short Story.
I think I’ve posted about the origin of the word “blurb” before, but LitHub’s article is so engaging I’m including it here.
You know what I was not remotely interested in?
The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence
A topical, deeply thoughtful, and wonderfully written love letter to books, to libraries, to the power of storytelling, to fantasy, and to epigrams, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence will be appearing on my best of 2023 list at the end of this year. That’s not to say it’s perfect. After all, I now have to wait for book two in this new series. And, well, I don’t wanna wait. Me want. Me want now.
At nearly 600 pages,
Corpus Earthling by Louis Charbonneau
As revealed in David J. Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen’s essential reference book The Outer Limits: The Official Companion (1986), that TV series’ producer and co-creator, Joseph Stefano, was laboring with some pretty serious concerns before the airing of Season 1’s ninth episode, “Corpus Earthling.” To quote from the book: “’When “Corpus Earthling” was finished and the music added, I sat there wishing I could say don’t air this,’ said Joseph Stefano. ‘I had never thought it could be that scary,
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
Justin Cronin burst onto the big scene with his apocalyptic vampire doorstopper The Passage (first of a trilogy), a fantastically harrowing blockbuster of a novel that still maintained amidst its action/thriller/horror aspects the quietly intimate elements of his earlier literary novels. His newest, The Ferryman, while not quite as strong and despite having a few more noticeable issues, shares some of the same strengths that made The Passage so successful, as I imagine this one will be.
The story takes place on an archipelago isolated from the rest of the world by something known as The Veil,
File 770 asked SFWA to expand on the qualifications for the Infinity Award, and Rebecca Gomez responded. It seems clear to me but there is still plenty of room for discussion apparently.
The MTV Movie Awards were not live this year because of the WGA strike, but several performances “of genre interest” were nominated.
The Hollywood Reporter has an article about the strike and the issue the writers face with the studios. (Thanks to File 770.)
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 introduces a new character,
Darkness Below by Barbara Cottrell
2023’s Darkness Below is the first book in Barbara Cottrell’s new THE SHADOWS OF MISKATONIC series. We’re heading into warmer weather, with the promise of road trips and vacations. Here’s a shivery tentacle-horror story for fans of Lovecraftia, complete with a sprinkle of dark academia on top, that’s perfect for the road or that lounge chair by the pool.
Ellen attends Miskatonic University and lives in the town of Arkham with her guardian, Uncle Joshua (who probably isn’t her uncle.) Ellen is a strong psychic whose past is a mystery.
That was my view as well, as you'll see in my soon-to-post review
Thanks, Marion! This past academic year was so hectic that I read hardly anything for fun. I'm looking forward to…
It's great to read a review from you again, Kat!
Witch King! Although I really wanted more information/story from between the two timelines.
Only read 5 in may but managed to finally finish 2 series. Three of my reads were NetGalley advance reads…