fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviews

Sue, the T-Rex

On this day in 1990, Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, is discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota. Sue may be the coolest discovery ever to result from a flat tire.

Writing, Editing, and Publishing

Saga is reprinting Catherynne M. Valente‘s Six-Gun Snow White this November–exciting news!

One of Kat’s favorite authors, Robin Hobb, did a Reddit Ask-Me-Anything last week. Want to find out about Hobb writing in roller-skates? Read on, MacDuff.

Uncanny Magazine is gearing up for another issue: Uncanny Magazine Year Two: Return of the Space Unicorn. Help them fund it here, at their Kickstarter (with lots of cool rewards).

For those of you like me who are fascinated with editors and the publishing world, this Fantasy Book Critic interview with editor and agent Julia Crisp is just lovely.

The 2015 David Gemmel Legend Award winners have been announced: Brandon Sanderson‘s Words of Radiance won Best Fantasy Novel, while Brian Staveley‘s The Emporer’s Blades won Best Newcomer. Sam Green’s cover of Word’s of Radiance won the Ravenheart Award for Best Cover Art.

Unidentified Funny Objects has just become SFWA’s first anthology series to be a qualifying market. I love SF humor, so I’m looking forward to reading (and possibly submitting to) this anthology!

Aliette de Bodard wrote for Tor.com about her favorite creepy monsters in fantasy. These are creepy, I’ll grant, but nothing I’ve ever read has out-creeped the slake moths in China Mieville‘s book, Perdido Street Station.

Internet Stuff

fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviews

Sue’s skull

Did you see the image that the Curiosity Rover took of the woman on Mars? Personally, I don’t think it’s such a striking resemblance–more of a smudge–but apparently the human ability to see familiar objects extends past human figures, to crabs and elephants and drunk octopi.

Want to hear Icelandic cave-singing?

A Stone-Age monolith has been discovered submerged in the Sicilian Channel. It dates back 10,000 years, to when the area was not underwater.

Speaking of archaeology, some archaeologists working on the mystery of the lost Roanoke colony think they may have found some clues to some of the colonists’ whereabouts.

Finally, Paul Mason writes for the Guardian about how e-books are changing the way people read, and subsequently, the way novelists write.

Author

  • Kate Lechler

    KATE LECHLER, on our staff from May 2014 to January 2017, resides in Oxford, MS, where she divides her time between teaching early British literature at the University of Mississippi, writing fiction, and throwing the tennis ball for her insatiable terrier, Sam. She loves speculative fiction because of what it tells us about our past, present, and future. She particularly enjoys re-imagined fairy tales and myths, fabulism, magical realism, urban fantasy, and the New Weird. Just as in real life, she has no time for melodramatic protagonists with no sense of humor. The movie she quotes most often is Jurassic Park, and the TV show she obsessively re-watches (much to the chagrin of her husband) is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.