Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Marion Deeds

WWWednesday: August 25, 2021

File 770 shared the announcement of the nomination period for the Sara Douglass Book Series Award. I think the idea of an award strictly for series is great.

A new C.L.Polk book! A novella, due out next fall.

Giveaway: one commenter chosen at random, with a USA or Canadian address, will get a copy of C.M. Waggoner’s The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Winzardry.

At LitHub, Heather Cass White examines the primal sin of literacy in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Stephanie Meyers’s famous TWILIGHT series has new covers—that look like mistaken versions of the old covers.

August 25th, 2021. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 14 comments |

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry: Witty, rollicking good fun

The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner

Dellaria Wells is an untrained fire witch, living hand-to-mouth in the slums of Leiscourt, trying to keep track of her drip-addicted mother. Behind on rent and threatened with a curse by her landlady, Delly plans to answer a mysterious advertisement recruiting various women to protect a Lady of Some Importance. When she is interviewed — through the bars of a cell, as it happens — Delly gives a succinct summation of her skills to the interviewer:

“… Why on earth would I be willing to interview a criminal for a position in my employer’s household,

August 24th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | C.M. Waggoner | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: August 18, 2021

CONvergence is reporting that someone who attended has notified the Con Committee that they now have Covid. (Thanks to File 770.) If you attended the in person events you may want to get tested.

The Dragon Award finalists have been announced.

DragonCon is requiring proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test done no more than 72 hours before admittance to the Con.

Jon del Arroz has been permanently suspended from the Twitter platform.

From File 770,

August 18th, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

WWWednesday: August 11, 2021

Debris premiered on NBC in 2021. The network canceled it after one season. (You can find it On Demand if you really want to.) I’m not surprised they canceled it. The show never gained traction with the audience, and this was because it never found its footing as a story.

There are several good things about the show, which I will list. You can decide if they are enough to make you watch.

The pluses include:

Excellent special effects
Some good performances
John Noble (plus and minus)
Beautiful and strange “Debris” pieces—kudos to the props department
Great use of ending credits to advance the story (plus and minus).

August 11th, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |

WWWednesday: August 4, 2021

I said this would be a single-issue column, but it will be a short links column instead.

Tordotcom Books has revealed the beautiful cover of Comeuppance Served Cold, here! And you can preorder it. You’re thinking, “She’s going to get obnoxious about this,” and you’re right.

Randall Plunket, Baron of Dunsany, descendent of the Lord Dunsany, has “rewilded” a large portion of his huge estate.

Here is a long and very interesting article about the genesis of Marvel’s Dr.

August 4th, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |

Ring Shout: The horrors of racism and hatred made tangible

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

In Ring Shout (2020), P. Djèlí Clark melds two types of horror, Lovecraftian monsters and the bloody rise of the Ku Klux Klan in 1922 Georgia, as a group of black resistance fighters take on an enemy with frightening supernatural powers.

As Ku Klux Klan members march down the streets of Macon, Georgia on the Fourth of July, Maryse Boudreaux, who narrates the story, watches from a rooftop with her two companions, sharpshooter Sadie and former soldier Cordelia “Chef” Lawrence,

WWWednesday: July 28, 2021

Next week’s column will probably be single-topic, because I will be leaving for the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference earlier in the week.

The Ladies of Horror Fiction announced their annual award winners.

Mari Ness had a fun story in Daily SF this week.

The British Fantasy Awards short list is out, and included Alix Harrow, Premee Mohamed, N.K. Jemisin, T. Kingfisher and Silvia Moreno-Garcia (and many more!)

For people planning to attend WorldCon AKA DisCon Two,

July 28th, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

The Midnight Bargain: A charming frolic of a book

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk

By the bottom of the second full page of text, when the protagonist of The Midnight Bargain (2020) walked into Harriman’s Bookshop, I was hooked. When Beatrice Clayborn entered the second-hand shop and I saw it through her eyes, the book claimed me, not unlike the way a spirit might claim a sorceress in Beatrice’s magical world.

It’s bargaining season, or marriage season in Beatrice’s world, and young women of the upper classes, like Beatrice, jostle and compete for the hand of a suitable husband.

WWWednesday: July 21, 2021

Charlotte Nicole Davis writes about getting her first Harry Potter tattoo at 21—and getting it removed. A moving essay about the things that get us through childhood, and the things we leave behind.

On Kalimac’s Corner, DB thinks about what they loved about Tolkien, and what other writers they found it in. (Thanks to File 770.)

There’s a new Shirley Jackson biography coming out.

Coincidence, or curse? You decide. Just like the original CW show, in the reboot of Charmed,

July 21st, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |

A Broken Darkness: Nick’s in more trouble than ever

A Broken Darkness by Premee Mohamed

At the end of Beneath the Rising, the first book in Premee Mohamed’s cosmic horror trilogy of the same name, I thought narrator Nick Prasad couldn’t be worse off. Yes, he and his prodigy friend Joanna “Johnny” Chambers had closed an interdimensional rift and stopped the Ancient Ones from invading earth, but at the end Nick is left heartbroken, betrayed and disillusioned by what he has learned about Johnny. Like I said, I didn’t think it could get worse for him.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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