When I feel a bit sad about my reading/blogging focus having shifted to focus so heavily on recent releases, I comfort myself with a reminder that reading recent releases gets me in on the ground floor of new authors. This is fun because when they hit it big, I get to be a hipster about it (in a few years I’m going to be a nightmare about Micaiah Johnson and y’all will all be tired of me), but it’s also fun because I get to see their development as writers. Ideally, with supportive agents and editors, and the sales to…
Leave a CommentTag: science fiction
It’s a buddy read! My lovely pal Jeanne, of Necromancy Never Pays, suggested recently that we do a buddy read, so I proposed one of the books that has languished for ages and ages on my TBR list: Joan Vinge’s classic SF novel The Snow Queen, which was published in 1980 and won a Hugo Award. Here’s our conversation. Jeanne: There are lots of good things about Vinge’s classic science fiction novel The Snow Queen (published in 1980). There are also lots of less good things. There are just lots of things, as it’s 465 pages long. Jenny: The thesis…
Leave a CommentAaaaaaaaand romance continues to get all its romance kissing cooties all over the genre of science fiction. Glorious! Long may it reign! Winter’s Orbit is about the rakish prince Kiem, who gets tapped to be part of an arranged marriage with his cousin’s widower, Jainan. Though neither of the two men is particularly interested in getting married, the alliances among their world’s nations depends on their engagement. But soon it comes to light that Jainan’s late husband, Taam, may not have died accidentally; and worse than that, Jainan may be a suspect in Taam’s death. Let’s start with the romance!…
Leave a CommentOR: Elisabeth House, by Catherine Thomas, which is what I kept calling this book in my mind. Also sometimes Catherine Thomas, by Elisabeth House. Elisabeth and Catherine are both very lovely saint names that I would totally name a child, and this engendered confusion in my quarantine-fogged mind. Ines has gotten a second chance in the form of acceptance to Catherine House, a nontraditional, highly exclusive private university with a specialty in the mysterious “new materials.” All tuition, fees, and housing are paid, but students must agree to give themselves up entirely to Catherine House for the three years of…
Leave a CommentNote: Riot Baby is published by Tor, an imprint of Macmillan. Macmillan has established a policy of embargoing its ebooks to libraries. It’s a policy that hurts authors, libraries, and readers, and the American Library Association is sponsoring an initiative to promote fair library ebook policies. You can support that initiative here! Riot Baby is a primal scream of a novella, ranging through America’s racist history into a near-future version of the country that continues the climate emergency and militarization of the police. Our protagonists are siblings Ella and Kev, both of whom are gifted — Ella more noticeably than…
Leave a CommentOn the run from a dangerous father, Steph has never lived in one place long enough to make real friends; but her clowder (group chat) on CatNet supplies most of what she needs. But one day she complains to her clowder about a teacher bullying a classmate, Rachel (whom Steph has a crush on), and the next day, the teacher has left the school permanently. She chalks it up to confusing coincidence, but the reality is that one of the members of her clowder is a benevolent AI who likes her and wants to help improve her life. When one…
Leave a CommentI figured out nonrepresentational art in the spring of 2009 at the Tate Modern. I was there with my mother and a close friend, and the friend asked my mother– (Bear with me; I will get to Time War in a minute.) –what a particular piece of art meant. My mother said, “You don’t have to worry about that. You just have to look at what the artist made, and see if it resonates anything in you. And if not, maybe you weren’t the audience for it.” This advice was not directed at me, a person too proud to admit…
Leave a CommentIn the year of our Lord 2017 (of unfond memory), I read these two stories about sweet little bots doing their best, and it launched me into a new state of being in which I read short fiction so much that I have had to commission a logo about it. The main one, admittedly, was “Fandom for Robots,” but a very close second was Suzanne Palmer’s very sweet “The Secret Life of Bots.” So it was with great pleasure that I learned she has her debut novel out this year: Finder! Fergus Ferguson is a finder, and he’s been tasked…
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