SFF Author: Elizabeth Bear

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Undertow: Mediocre

Undertow by Elizabeth Bear Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest (1976) is a (novella extended into a) novel that features an alien planet invaded by humanity and exploited for its resources, the natives forced into labor. An open allegory regarding the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, it is a compact novel that remains focused […]

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Seven for a Secret: Skillful blend of alternate history, fantasy, macabre

Seven for a Secret by Elizabeth Bear In 1938, in an alternate London occupied by the conquering German-Prussian empire, the ancient vampire Sebastien, attended by his ‘court’ of servants, awaits the death of his lover, the venerable sorceress, Abigail Irene. One night, however, two teenage girls — cadets in one of the empire’s schools and each […]

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The White City: It’s all very civilized and decadent

The White City by Elizabeth Bear The vampire-detective Don Sebastien de Ulloa and his small ‘court’ visit the White City of Moscow on two occasions, in 1897 and 1903, both before and after his sojourn in an alternative America. On both occasions, someone closely linked to a politically-active young artist, Irina Stephanova, is murdered. As […]

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A Companion to Wolves: Monette + Bear = richly crafted fantasy

A Companion to Wolves by Elizabeth Bear When I first started A Companion to Wolves I thought it was just going to be another run-of-the-mill fantasy. I mean you had humans who bonded telepathically with wolves, trolls and wyverns for enemies, and Norse culture/mythology as a major influence in the naming of characters, places, and […]

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An Apprentice to Elves: A primer in in-depth worldbuilding

An Apprentice to Elves by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette An Apprentice to Elves, the third installment of the ISKRYNE series, is a book that depends on its thick world-building. Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette have created realistic cultures that take some cues from Norse and Roman history and dramatized a cultural conflict between them, at […]

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Bone and Jewel Creatures: A lovely trifle

Bone and Jewel Creatures by Elizabeth Bear Elizabeth Bear appeared on the scene in 2004 as if she were Athena, sprung fully formed from Zeus’s forehead to be a major player in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Her first project was the science fiction thriller Jenny Casey space opera series beginning with Hammered, but […]

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The Origin of Storms: Wraps up a good trilogy in mostly strong fashion

The Origin of Storms by Elizabeth Bear The Origin of Storms (2022) is Elizabeth Bear’s mostly satisfying conclusion to her generally excellent LOTUS KINGDOM’s trilogy, continuing the prior books’ strengths of strong characterization and sharp social commentary. Spoilers to follow for books one (The Stone in the Skull)  and two (The Red-Stained Wings). After the events […]

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SHORTS: Vernon, Sloan, Parker, Poe, Wood, Bear

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about. “Jackalope Wives” by Ursula Vernon (2014, free at Apex Magazine, podcast available) Ursula Vernon’s “Jackalope Wives” is the winner of this year’s Nebula Award and World Fantasy Award […]

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SHORTS: Shepard, de Bodard, Bear, Jemisin, Parker, Holland

Our weekly exploration of free short fiction available on the internet. This week’s theme, just for fun, is stories dealing with dragons.  The Man Who Painted The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard (1984, free online at Baen.com (sample from the Bestiary anthology), originally published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, also collected in The Dragon Griaule). 1985 Hugo and 1984 Nebula […]

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SHORTS: Yap, Lee, Bear, Jemisin, Okorafor

SHORTS: Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few more Locus-nominated stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about. “How to Swallow the Moon” by Isabel Yap (2018, free at Uncanny magazine, $3.03 Kindle magazine issue). 2019 Locus award nominee (novelette). “How to Swallow the Moon,” […]

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SHORTS: Roanhorse, Liu, Lee, Goss, Kingfisher, Bear

SHORTS: Our column exploring free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. This week’s post reviews several more of the current crop of Locus Award nominees in the short fiction categories. “A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy” by Rebecca Roanhorse (2019, anthologized in The Mythic Dream, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe). […]

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Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams John Joseph Adams assembles a wide variety of apocalypse-related fiction in Wastelands. some of which are older than I am, while others are more recent. What you end up with is a diverse anthology covering topics such as religion, war, and exploration while containing horror, […]

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Fast Ships, Black Sails: Pirates and adventure!

Fast Ships, Black Sails edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer I was never a big fan of pirates (ninjas, on the other hand…) but nonetheless, the very word evokes adventure and the high seas. Fast Ships, Black Sails doesn’t really stray far from that expectation and delivers eighteen stories marked with action, treachery, and a sense of […]

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METAtropolis: It’s just maybe something that sucks a little less

METAtropolis edited by John Scalzi It’s not a utopia. It’s just maybe something that sucks a little less. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it turns out that all those eco-freaks were right all along. We humans destroyed the planet and now we’ve got to live with the mess we’ve […]

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Wings of Fire: I thought I didn’t like dragons

Wings of Fire edited by Jonathan Strahan & Marianne S. Jablon I don’t like dragons. This is probably not the first sentence you’d expect to find in a review of Wings of Fire, an anthology devoted exclusively to dragon stories, but I thought it best to get it out of the way right from the […]

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Sympathy for the Devil: A collection of bedtime stories

Sympathy for the Devil edited by Tim Pratt Please allow me to introduce Sympathy for the Devil, a fine new anthology filled entirely with short stories about the devil… who is, as we all know, a man of style and taste. However, you won’t just find the smooth-talking stealer of souls here. In addition to […]

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Supernatural Noir: A Datlow anthology

Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow Ellen Datlow suggests in her introduction to Supernatural Noir that noir fiction and supernatural fiction, with its roots in the gothic, have a lot in common. The main character in each tends to be a hard-living guy, usually down to his last flask of scotch, haunted by a sexy […]

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Twenty-First Century Science Fiction: Packed full of excellent SF stories

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell Twenty-First Century Science Fiction is packed full of excellent science fiction stories. I’ve been reading anthologies lately, partly to improve my own short story writing, and this is the best I’ve found so far. It contains stories by authors such as Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, Catherynne […]

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Magic City: Recent Spells: A solid urban fantasy anthology

Magic City: Recent Spells edited by Paula Guran Things you should know: 1. This is a reprint anthology. If you read a lot of anthologies in the field, you will probably have read some of these before. I had read three, though two of them were among the best ones, and I enjoyed reading them […]

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Old Venus: An over-long, narrowly-themed anthology

Old Venus by Gardner Dozois & George R.R. Martin George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois’s themed anthologies are some of the most popular on the market these days. Soliciting the genre’s best-known mainstream writers, selecting highly familiar themes, and letting the length run to 500+ pages, Rogues, Warriors, Dangerous Women, Songs of the Dying Earth, Old Mars, and others are […]

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World Fantasy Convention 2011: Day Two

I’m reporting about Day 2 today. Read about Day One here. There were lots of interesting panels today, and it was frustrating to try to boil them down into the ones I wanted to see. My first choice was “Retelling Old Stories: The New Fairy Tales.” I’ve got all the modern fairy tale collections edited by Terri […]

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