Ironskin by Tina Connolly

The cover of Tina Connolly’s debut fantasy novel Ironskin describes it as a “… beauty and the beast tale, beautifully and cleverly reversed.” Is it Beauty and the Beast? Not really. Is it a re-telling of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre? No, not really. Is it good? Heck, yeah.

Jane Eliot comes to Silver Birches, a war-damaged house on the moors, at the edge of a sinister, fey-filled wood. She has accepted a position as governess to a little girl who has a “delicate situation.” Jane understands the nature of this situation better than most. Beneath her gently fluttering white veil Jane wears an iron mask that covers one side of her face. It is her ironskin, designed to keep the power of her wound from a fey bomb, her curse, contained.

The place is England, and the time seems to be about the 1920s. It is after the ... Read More

Copperhead by Tina Connolly

Copperhead is the second in Tina Connolly’s Bronte-themed fantasy novels. In the first, Ironskin, Jane Eliot, badly scarred during England’s war with the Fey, worked as a governess for the artist Mr. Rochart. Jane uncovered the Fey Queen’s plot to possess the wives of the richest and most powerful men in London — wives who had all had their faces re-made to match ethereal Fey beauty. Jane’s own sister Helen Huntingdon was one of the women who had a magical face-lift.

Jane managed to save Helen from possession. The Fey Queen was defeated and the non-corporeal Fey are in disarray. Now, though, bits of Fey drift through London like sinister flower petals. All of the One Hundred, those who had their faces changed, must wear iron masks when they go outside to avoid the risk of possession. Iron repels the... Read More

Silverblind by Tina Connolly

Tina Connolly gives us a third book in the world of Ironskin, and continues to follow the women of the Rochart family with Dorie, Jane Rochart’s stepdaughter. In Silverblind, Dorie follows in the tradition of her stepmother Jane and her aunt Helen, fighting for the underdog, struggling to determine the right course of action when circumstance seem to pit humans against the incorporeal fey. In this book, we get a few more magical critters, too, including wyverns and a basilisk.

Adora Rochart, who goes by Dorie, is half fey, a secret she has kept from all but her closest friends. After the Great War between humans and fey, which the humans won, there were two conspiracies designed by the fey to achieve control or possession of humans. Now, however, the fey are completely defeated, except for a few who have managed to possess humans. A... Read More

Our exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few recent stories we've read that we wanted you to know about.

 

“Meat And Salt And Sparks” by Rich Larson (June 2018, free at Tor.com, 99c Kindle version)

Al Huxley and Cu are detectives and partners in this near-future SF tale. Cu is a chimpanzee whose intelligence has been enhanced to human-level through a company’s cruel and illegal experimentation. Granted "personhood" rights ― and a hefty settlement ― in a court case, Cu still feels isolated. She’s most comfortable alone in her Washington state home, off Puget Sound, usually working with Huxley on a remote basis, and using sign languag... Read More

Women Destroy Science Fiction! Lightspeed Magazine Special Issue: The Stories edited by Christie Yant, Robyn Lupo, Rachel Swirsky

Last June, Hugo-winning Lightspeed Magazine, which is edited by John Joseph Adams, devoted an entire issue (Women Destroy Science Fiction!, June 2014, issue #49) to female science fiction writers and editors. Under Christie Yant’s and Robyn Lupo’s editorial leadership, they accepted 11 original short science fiction stories and 15 original pieces of SF flash fiction. Rachel Swirsky chose and reprinted 5 stories previously published elsewhere. Last month, Skyboat Media and Blackstone Audio released an audio version of the stories from Women Destroy Science Fiction. They gave these their usual excellent attention, casting each story’s narrator perfectly and creating a high quality... Read More