Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
Fans of Tarma and Kethry shouldn’t hesitate to pick up Oathblood (1998), a short story collection featuring all of Mercedes Lackey’s tales about the female sword and sorcery duo. A couple of these stories appeared in The Oathbound and Oathbreakers, the other two books in Lackey’s VOWS AND HONORS series (part of the larger VALDEMAR saga), but most did not (though published elsewhere previously).
April 1st, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Mercedes Lackey | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Bill and Tadiana both weigh in on a few more of this year’s Nebula nominees (and one other excellent short story that Tadiana thinks should have been nominated), and Tadiana comments on the 20Booksto50K Nebula controversy.
“STET” by Sarah Gailey (2018, free at Fireside magazine)
“STET” is in the form of a draft of a scholarly article by a woman named Anna, in which she and her editor exchange increasingly agitated (at least on Anna’s side) written comments about the article’s references and footnotes.
March 25th, 2019. Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere | Rhett C. Bruno, Sarah Gailey, Sarah Pinsker | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. This week’s column features more of the 2018 Nebula award-nominated novelettes and short stories.
“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by P. Djeli Clark (Feb 2018, free at Fireside magazine). 2018 NEBULA AWARD WINNER, 2019 LOCUS AWARD WINNER (short story)
P. Djeli Clark takes the historical idea of George Washington’s teeth (not wooden, as lore has it) and creates around them a series of vignettes detailing, as the title tells us,
March 18th, 2019. Bill Capossere, Tadiana Jones and Skye Walker | Alix E. Harrow, P. Djèlí Clark | Nebula Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Haunting of Tramcar 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
P. Djèlí Clark’s 2019 novella (140 pages in print) is a genial paranormal mystery tale set in a wonderfully evocative alternative Cairo at the beginning of the 20th century. The title pretty much sums up the plot. Tramcar 105 is indeed haunted, as is quickly established in humorous fashion by the two agents sent to investigate by the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities. Hamed Nasr is the veteran of the pairing, with a sharp investigative eye and an equally sharp lack of patience for having his time wasted.
March 13th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | P. Djèlí Clark | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Since I fell in love with Sylvain Neuvel’s giant robots and sardonic narrator in Sleeping Giants, I’ve been curious to see what he would write next. The Test (2019) is an excellent novella, quite different from THE THEMIS FILES trilogy, though some similar themes are touched on and there are similarities in the narrative technique.
I went into reading The Test totally cold,
March 11th, 2019. Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Sylvain Neuvel | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about, including three 2018 Nebula nominees.
“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” by Alix E. Harrow (2018, free at Apex magazine, $2.99 Kindle magazine issue). 2018 Nebula nominee (short story).
Our narrator is both a librarian and a witch (all good librarians are, she claims), and one of her joys is giving library patrons the book they “need most.” So when the black teenager with the red backpack comes into the Maysville Public Library,
March 4th, 2019. Tadiana Jones, Skye Walker and Bill Capossere | Alix E. Harrow, Lawrence M. Schoen | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers edited by Victor LaValle & John Joseph Adams
In reaction to the Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States as well as to the rhetoric spewed by his far-right supporters such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, Victor LaValle & John Joseph Adams wrote to a diverse set of speculative fiction authors with this charge: “We are seeking stories that explore new forms of freedom, love, and justice: narratives that release us from the chokehold of the history and mythology of the past… and writing that gives us new futures to believe in.”
The “mythology” they refer to is the history we learned in school which taught us about all the great white men who accomplished all the significant events in American history.
February 25th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Ashok K. Banker, Catherynne M. Valente, Charles Yu, Charlie Jane Anders, Daniel José Older, G. Willow Wilson, Hugh Howey, Justina Ireland, Malka Older, Maria Dahvana Headley, N.K. Jemisin, Sam J. Miller, Seanan McGuire, Tobias Buckell, Victor Lavalle | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
A Voice in the Night by Jack McDevitt
Jack McDevitt is one of the numerous authors whose work I know because my dad said, “Hey, read this!” In McDevitt’s case, the “this” was The Engines of God. Having thus been introduced to recurring protagonist Priscilla Hutchins, I read several others of McDevitt’s novels and I’ve always enjoyed them. So I was interested to pick up this book of short stories to see how McDevitt does them.
Overall, I think I prefer McDevitt’s work at novel length;
February 20th, 2019. Nathan Okerlund´s rating: 3.5 | Jack McDevitt | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
“Do Not Look Back, My Lion” by Alix E. Harrow (2019, free in Beyond Ceaseless Skies, Issue #270, Jan. 31, 2019; 99c Kindle magazine issue)
“Do Not Look Back, My Lion,” begins and ends with Eefa leaving home — she cannot bear to see her daughters and wife march to war any longer, is tired of her wife’s promises that this child (and this child and that child) will be the last marked at birth for service in the Emperor’s endless armies, is tired of being the only worshipper in the lonely Temple of Life while the Temple of Death’s “floor is gummed with the blood of hens and calves and the air is heavy with char.” Eefa,
February 18th, 2019. Jana Nyman, Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere | Alix E. Harrow, Mary Robinette Kowal | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about.
“Double or Nothing” by Alter S. Reiss (free at Daily Science Fiction, March 27, 2018)
A man has an android made that is an exact copy of himself, so the android can do all his work and tedious chores while the man enjoys his newfound free time. He’s actually not surprised when the android gets deeply annoyed with the system,
February 11th, 2019. Bill Capossere and Tadiana Jones | Martha Wells, Terry Bisson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.