Videos:
Kid-focused: Easy crafts for young kids. I liked the cotton swabs and the fork! Despite the name, it’s about 10 minutes long.
Kid-Friendly: The Cincinnati Zoo has a series of videos from 2017/21018 featuring Fiona the baby hippo. This is the first one. It’s 8.14 minutes long. It does show a hippo giving birth
Kid-Friendly: Here’s a 14-minute travel video on Iceland.
No foul language, but more fun for adults. From a fundraised for the late Jay Lake,
April 1st, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed
If you’ve had the good fortune to read any of Premee Mohamed’s short fiction, you know it is strange, beautiful and often horrifying. In Beneath the Rising (2020), her first full-length novel, all these things are true. This adventure novel with tentacular monsters and evil Ancient Ones will sweep you along and get deeply under your skin.
Joanna Chambers, who goes by Johnny, is more than a genius and more than a prodigy. She might be a miracle.
March 31st, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Premee Mohamed | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
This week, a few videos for you, including two that your sequestered kids might enjoy:
Kid-friendly! John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton perform a staged reading of a section from Redshirts, at Burbank Library, in 2012. It’s about 11 minutes long. At 5.30 minutes, Scalzi loses it.
Kid-friendly! From the Georgia Aquarium, a 6 minute video about a handler and an orphaned otter.
From January, 2019, here is Rebecca Roanhorse being interviewed at the San Francisco Public Library. It’s about 33 minutes long. Your teens might get a lot from this.
March 25th, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |
Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias
I’m giving 2018’s Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias five stars, and I’m going to recommend it highly here. Then I’m going to post warnings, because this is one of those “this book is not for everybody” things.
On Twitter, Iglesias describes his writing as “barrio noir,” and also “a mix of horror and noir.” Coyote Songs follows several characters on either side of the Mexico/USA border as a mysterious rage-filled entity comes into their lives.
March 25th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Gabino Iglesias | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
2020’s Stormsong, in THE KINGSTON CYCLE is the long-awaited sequel to C.L. Polk’s wonderful Witchmark. This review may contain spoilers for Witchmark.
Witchmark followed Miles, a doctor and former prisoner of war, and a member of his world’s faerie race, the Amaranthine, as they solved a murder, uncovered a plot to assassinate Aeland’s queen, and revealed the murderous corruption that lay at the root of Aeland’s magical progress.
March 19th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | C.L. Polk | SFF Reviews | no comments |
I hope you are all safe, healthy, and, if you live in the USA, you have toilet paper.
This is the CDC’s COVID-19 site. Much of the information is general, but it’s all in one place.
Books and Writing:
The Minecraft virtual “loophole” library holds works by banned and murdered journalists. An inspiring story.
LitHub shares indie booksellers’ recommendations.
Publishers Weekly takes a look at the state of diversity in the conventionally-published romance field,
March 18th, 2020. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, SFF Reviews, World Wide Wednesday | 6 comments |
The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman
The Secret Chapter (2019) is the sixth book in Genevieve Cogman’s THE INVISIBLE LIBRARY series. Librarian Irene and her former apprentice Kai, who is a dragon prince, hop between realities, trying to maintain a balance between order (personified by the dragons) and chaos (exemplified by the Fae). “Maintaining a balance” often involves the judicious theft of books from different realities. In this outing, Irene must barter for a book in order to save a world she spent her childhood in,
March 18th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Genevieve Cogman | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Awards:
Books:
BBC Culture asked well-regarded writers to give their recommendations for overlooked novels. Here are the results. I was surprised at how many I had read. (Thanks to File 770.)
Nerds of a Feather discusses six books with K.B. Wagers.
Reed Exhibitions plans to go forward with Book Con and Book Expo,
March 11th, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |
Not genre at all, but interesting: The Washington Post explores the need for, and implications of, the “momcation.”
Awards:
File 770 is gathering information to help people vote on the Hugos. This column discusses those eligible for Best Editor, Long Form.
World:
The Centers for Disease Control have issued guidelines for prevention of contracting the novel coronavirus COVID-19. These guidelines are similar to many if not most viruses, but it’s reassuring to have it all in one place.
March 4th, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |
Juliette Wade is a native Californian who has traveled extensively and lived in Japan on three occasions. She has advanced degrees in anthropology and linguistics and knows several languages. Her short fiction has appeared in Analog and Clarkesworld. “The Persistence of Blood,” a novella set in the world of Mazes of Power, following characters that appear in the novel, was published in Clarkesworld in March, 2018.
Juliette is working hard on the second book in THE BROKEN TRUST series but she took some time to answer some questions for us.
March 3rd, 2020. Marion Deeds | Juliette Wade | Author Interviews, Giveaway!, SFF Reviews | 10 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…