Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Terry Weyna


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A Conspiracy of Truths: Interesting debut novel from a writer to watch

A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland

Marion: We never know the name of our first-person narrator in Alexandra Rowland’s 2018 novel A Conspiracy of Truths. People call him Chant, but that is his vocation, not a name (he abandoned his name when he became a Chant). Chants gather stories and retell them. They go from place to place pursuing their craft, and in the isolated and insular country of Nuryevet, Chants offends the wrong people, and is put on trial for witchcraft.


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Head On: Fast-paced, funny, heart-breaking

Marion and Terry discuss Head On. Marion’s words are in black and Terry’s are in blue.

Head On
by John Scalzi

Marion: John Scalzi’s 2018 novel Head On brings back FBI team Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, this time investigating a murder that should be impossible. Hilketa is a violent game where the objective is to tear off the head of a specific opposing player and throw it through the goal posts, while defensive players whale on each other with swords and chainsaws.


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SHORTS: 2018 Locus Award finalists

Today’s SHORTS column features all of the 2018 Locus Award finalists for short fiction. The Locus Award winners will be announced by Connie Willis during Locus Award weekend, June 22 – June 24, 2018.

NOVELLAS:

In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle (2017)

Claudio, a middle-aged curmudgeonly farmer living in a remote area of the Italian countryside, has been a standoffish loner since his wife left him decades ago. He’s satisfied with his current lifestyle,


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The Grip of It: Compelling and scary

The Grip of It by Jac Jemc

TerryJac Jemc’s The Grip of It (2017) made the long list for the Bram Stoker Award for 2017, and for good reason: it’s delightfully frightening, and refuses to be set down before the reader has finished it. We both loved it.

Here’s the premise: James and Julie have decided to leave the city for a small town a good distance away, looking for a clean break from financial problems (though Julie has determined she is not going to harp on how James gambled all of his nest egg away;


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Chimes at Midnight: We love this series!

Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire

I have enjoyed Seanan McGuire’s OCTOBER DAYE urban fantasies, but a few of her more recent novels in the series seemed to introduce too many characters and bring too many different magic systems into play. However, the latest two novels, Chimes at Midnight and The Winter Long (which I’ll review soon), have knocked my socks off with tight plotting and memorable characters. Now I once again find myself impatient for the next one to arrive,


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HawaiiCon 2017 Overview

This year’s HawaiiCon offered an array of events in the fields of science fiction and fantasy. We’d like to share our thoughts on the convention, with input from Fred White who was a presenter and is Terry’s husband.

Marion: Marqueeda LaStar of Black Girl Nerds interviewed Nnedi Okorafor. They started off with the acerbic observation that after publishing for more than ten years, Okorafor is now an “overnight success” with HBO’s acquisition of her novel Who Fears Death. “After a lengthy career, you’re suddenly brand now because HBO picked you up,” LaStar said.


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WWWednesday: August 16, 2017

The Hugo Awards were awarded on August 11 at WorldCon in Helsinki, Finland. N.K. Jemisin won for the second year in a row for The Obelisk Gate, the second in her BROKEN EARTH trilogy. The third book in the trilogy, The Stone Sky, just came out yesterday, so anyone who likes to wait until trilogies are complete before reading any of their parts can now dive in!  Oh, and here’s some late-breaking news:  TNT is developing the first book in the trilogy,


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The Library at Mount Char: We all love it

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

Ever wonder what might happen if a god went missing? The Library at Mount Char is Scott Hawkins’ fiction debut, and in my personal opinion, it is flawless. There are no wasted words, no unnecessary plot digressions, no moments in which a character says, “Wow, this crisis is important! We should respond right away!” and then tootles off to fold laundry for ten paragraphs. Each detail is crucial, even if the reader doesn’t realize it for a hundred pages or more,


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Blackout: If you think you’re fed up with zombies, make an exception

Blackout  by Mira Grant

This review contains spoilers for the first two books in the NEWSFLESH trilogy, Feed and Deadline.

Mira Grant’s Blackout (2012) ends almost exactly where Deadline (2011) ended. Georgia — George — Mason has awakened to find that she has made a miraculous recovery from being shot in the brainstem, and without retinal Kellis-Amberlee (the virus that causes people to become zombies, named for the discoverer of a cure for the common cold and the discoverer of a cure for cancer,


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Deadline: Couldn’t stop reading

Deadline by Mira Grant

I advise against reading this review if you haven’t yet read Mira Grant’s Feed, the first volume in her Newsflesh trilogy, but intend to. The review necessarily contains spoilers, without which discussing the second volume, Deadline, would be impossible.

Deadline (2011) picks up several months after the end of Feed (2010). The first-person narrator, Shaun Mason, is not the same since the death of his sister by his hand,


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

We have reviewed 8404 fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and films.

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