Veterans Day:
From 2010, then Vice-President Joe Biden honors veterans at Arlington National Cemetery.
Books and Writing:
C.C. Finlay is retiring from editing The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction to direct his energy toward his own writing. With the March/Apr, 2021 issue, Sheree Renee Thomas will take the reins.
To no one’s surprise, the Odyssey writers workshop will be online in 2021. It looks like they have some good offerings. The registration deadline is December 7,
November 11th, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
… and we watched the willow branches bow outward from the passing, and it was invisible except that invisible was not the right word, because its not-there-ness hung in the air like an afterimage.
The Hollow Places (2020), by T. Kingfisher, reminded me a lot of the other folk-horror novel of hers I read recently, The Twisted Ones. Both take place in or close to small southern towns,
November 10th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | T. Kingfisher | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Obituaries:
File770 has an obituary for actor Sean Connery. While he wasn’t big in our genre (except for Zardoz!) he certainly had an impact on movies. Sir Sean was 90 years old.
Roxanne Conrad, who wrote the MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES series under the name Rachel Caine, passed away.
Books and Writing:
The Mary Sue gives us 8 new-to-me horror novels. Some good ones!
A few days late, but still funny, Crime Reads mentions several writers of note who may have come back as ghosts.
November 4th, 2020. Marion Deeds | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
Our Daddy never taught us shit, except what a fox teaches chickens — how to run, how to tremble, how to outlive the bastard — and our mama died before she could teach us much of anything. But we had Mama Mags, our mother’s mother, and she didn’t fool around with soup-pots and flowers.
Once upon a time there were three sisters, in a world where women’s magic was outlawed and driven underground. They had to battle an evil man and rediscover their own power,
October 30th, 2020. Marion Deeds and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Alix E. Harrow | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Obituary:
He may not be known to many of you. Richard Lupoff, New Wave writer and later a comic writer, passed away earlier this week. Lupoff won a Hugo in 1963 and was a Nebula finalist in 1977. In the 2000s, he was best known for his work with his wife Pat Lupoff in the comics genre. He hosted a radio show on Berkeley, California’s KPFA. Personally, Lupoff was someone who had encouraging words for emerging writers and was a source of inspiration for many of us. Author Marta Randall calls him “one of the good ones.”
Books and Writing:
MacMillan is shuttering one of its imprints,
October 28th, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Security Breach:
Locus Online signal-boosted the Barnes and Nobel announcement that they were hacked on October 10, 2020.
Conventions:
Also from Locus: I didn’t know Iceland had a biannual SF convention, but it does. They are apparently hoping for an in-person conference in November, 2021.
Giveaway:
One commenter with a USA mailing address will get a copy of C.L. Polk’s new fantasy novel The Midnight Bargain.
Books and Writing:
Ah,
October 21st, 2020. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 19 comments |
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
When I was a kid growing up in Montana, hunting was a steadfast part of my family’s life. Elk, deer (mulies and white-tails), antelope, pheasant — if you wanted to eat it, you had to go out into the snow-covered woods before the break of dawn and hope that you would find something early enough that you wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the day dragging the cleaned carcass back to your truck. There were rules, of course: respect nature to the point of veneration;
October 15th, 2020. Jana Nyman and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Stephen Graham Jones | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Conventions:
World Fantasy Con 2020 submitted a draft program that was riddled with problematic language and assumptions, to put it politely, and not for the first time. This is an increasingly troubled event with a history of sexual harassment, sexism, racism, other bigotry and accessibility errors. The conference is online this year, but the WFC is seeing a dramatic, public drop in participation.
While I was browsing some other material for the column, I stumbled over the Sirens Conference, being held next week. It’s online, free and it looks interesting.
October 14th, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Last week interesting enough for you all?
Books and Writing:
Lois MacMaster Bujold fans, especially those who like the Penric stories, will be pleased by this announcement on Bujold’s Facebook page. (Thanks to File770.)
The Illinois Science Fiction in Chicago organization (ISFIC) is holding its annual writing contest even though WindyCon has been postponed to 2021.
The Speculative Literature Foundation continues its Portolan Project with help from the Illinois Art Council.
Thanks to Kat for the link to this event;
October 7th, 2020. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 10 comments |
Netflix adapted Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon into a series which has now run for two seasons. This review of Season One, which I watched via Amazon Prime, might contain spoilers for the show. In this column, my goal is to review the show without comparing it to the book.
One commenter chosen at random will win a hardcover copy of Harrow the Ninth by Tamsin Muir.
Altered Carbon, Season One is a hyper-violent, hyper-male noirish adventure set in a moody Blade-Runneresque world.
September 30th, 2020. Marion Deeds | Giveaway! | 9 comments |
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…