Lis Carey review Chaos on Catnet, (looks like Audio only) over at I.
Neil Gaiman was interview by the New York Times. Here’s part of the article. It may be behind a paywall. (Thank you to File 770.)
Flory Jagoda wrote “Ocho Kandelikas” in 1983, in Ladino, a Spanish language used traditionally by the Sephardic Jewish community.
Tor.com has a detailed recap of the Doctor Who specials which I will probably not see since they’re on Disney and I don’t subscribe. It’s sounding more comic-booky than I remember, but I’m really glad Donna is back.
And would it be Tor.com without a List of Five? I think not. Here is a list of games for fantasy fans (just in time for the holidays!)
Entertainment Weekly has a list of upcoming Season and Series premieres. Why does this matter? Because the strikes are over and there will be shows!
Those imaginary yet remarkably persistent islands! Atlas Obscura takes a look at water-surrounded land masses that don’t actually exist.
Tor also has their reviewers’ picks for best books of the year at https://www.tor.com/2023/12/13/tor-com-reviewers-choice-the-best-books-of-2023/. (I forget if there is some special markup needed for that link here.) If you count James Davis Nicoll’s first comment in the mix, there are 17 reviewers recommending 59 different books (with some overlap between choices).
Out of that bunch I’ve only read 4, and none of those would make my best of the year list. In order from most liked to least they were: Treacle Walker (Alan Garner), a little maddening as to what the surreal goings-on mean…but in a good way; Witch King (Martha Wells), which I previously summarized as Martha Wells channeling Elizabeth Bear channeling Roger Zelazny; Red Rabbit (Alex Grecian), a weird western that had some interesting elements but too few characters that I felt much sympathy for; and Lone Women (Victor LaValle), another weird book set on the prairie, which started off very involving but wound up in a “kill them all and let God sort out the innocent” denouement. At the moment, I don’t have plans to read any of the other books that the Tor reviewers liked, based on their descriptions, but if my huge TBR pile ever gets a lot smaller, a couple might sound more appealing.
THE WITCH KING is on my “want to read” list but I probably won’t purchase it until after the holidays.
By the way, the links works just fine.