Vander-interview

Aidan Moher interviews Jeff VanderMeer over at A Dribble of Ink.  Interesting and entertaining interview.  It gets a bit wonky at times, but decent reading.  What works is that it comes across as a conversation. 

Nnedi Okorafor interview

Matthew Cheney has an excellent interview with Nnedi Okorafor over at Omnivoracious.  Much of it focuses on her new novel Who Fears Death.

2010 World Fantasy Award Nominees

Via Pyromania and Locus Online

Nominees for the 2010 World Fantasy Awards.

As always with the World Fantasy Awards, there is some quality stuff nominated and this is generally my favorite nominee list of the three I pay the most attention to.  It's a great chance to discover stuff I never would have heard of. 

Congratulations to all the nominees, but I would like to also highlight Jeff VanderMeer, Genevieve Valentine, Jonathan Strahan, John Klima, Susan Groppi, and the Clarkesworld folks. Outstanding!

And double congratulations to Genevieve. That’s friggin cool!

Novel
Blood of Ambrose, James Enge (Pyr)
The Red Tree, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
The City & The City, China Miéville (Macmillan UK/ Del Rey)
Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)  (review)
In Great Waters, Kit Whitfield (Jonathan Cape UK/Del Rey)

Novella
The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean)
“The Lion’s Den”, Steven Duffy (Nemonymous Nine: Cern Zoo)
The Night Cache, Andy Duncan (PS)
“Sea-Hearts”, Margo Lanagan (X6 )
“Everland”, Paul Witcover (Everland and Other Stories)

Short Story
“I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said”, Richard Bowes (F&SF 12/09)
“The Pelican Bar”, Karen Joy Fowler (Eclipse Three)
“A Journal of Certain Events of Scientific Interest from the First Survey Voyage of the Southern Waters by HMS Ocelot, As Observed by Professor Thaddeus Boswell, DPhil, MSc, or, A Lullaby”, Helen Keeble (Strange Horizons 6/09)
“Singing on a Star”, Ellen Klages (Firebirds Soaring)
“The Persistence of Memory, or This Space for Sale”, Paul Park (Postscripts 20/21: Edison’s Frankenstein )
“In Waiting”, R.B. Russell (Putting the Pieces in Place)
“Light on the Water”, Genevieve Valentine (Fantasy 10/09)

Anthology
Poe, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Solaris)
Songs of The Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Subterranean/Voyager)
Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations, Danel Olson, ed. (Ash-Tree)
Eclipse Three, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)  (review)
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny: From Poe to the Pulps/From the 1940s to Now, Peter Straub, ed. (Library of America)
The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology, Gordon Van Gelder, ed. (Tachyon)  (review)

Collection
We Never Talk About My Brother, Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon)  (review)
Fugue State, Brian Evenson (Coffee House)
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Penguin)
Northwest Passages, Barbara Roden (Prime)
Everland and Other Stories, Paul Witcover (PS)
The Very Best of Gene Wolfe/The Best of Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe (PS /Tor)

Artist
John Jude Palencar
John Picacio
Charles Vess
Jason Zerrillo
Sam Weber

Special Award – Professional
Peter & Nicky Crowther for PS Publishing
Ellen Datlow for editing anthologies
Hayao Miyazaki for Ponyo
Barbara & Christopher Roden for Ash-Tree Press
Jonathan Strahan for editing anthologies
Jacob & Rina Weisman for Tachyon Publications

Special Award – Non-Professional
John Berlyne for Powers: Secret Histories
Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, & Sean Wallace for Clarkesworld
Susan Marie Groppi for Strange Horizons
John Klima for Electric Velocipede
Bob Colby, B. Diane Martin, David Shaw, and Eric M. Van for Readercon
Ray Russell & Rosalie Parker for Tartarus Press

catching up with my anticipated reading list

Back in December I posted a list of the 19 books I was most looking forward to in 2010. It's time to take a look to see how I've done in actually reading them. I can be sketchy like that, and not read stuff I want to.

1.  Towers of Midnight, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (fall 2010)
2.  A Dance With Dragons, by George R. R. Martin (2011?)
3.  The Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch (2011)
4.  Shadow Unit: Season One, by Emma Bull and Elizabeth Bear (editors)
5.  Prince of Storms, by Kay Kenyon
6.  Swords and Dark Magic, by Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan (editors)
7.  Fort Freak, by George R. R. Martin (editor) (2011)
8.  Dreadnought, by Cherie Priest (fall 2010)
9.  The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
10. The Sea Thy Mistress, by Elizabeth Bear (fall / winter 2010)
11. Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal
12. Horns, by Joe Hill
13. Eclipse Four, by Jonathan Strahan (editor) (2011)
14. Gardens of the Sun, by Paul McAuley
15. The Best of Joe R. Lansdale
16. Lesser Demons, by Norman Partridge
17. The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, Volume 4, by Jonathan Strahan (editor)
18. Who Fears Death, by Nnedi Okorafor
19. Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld (fall 2010)

The GRRM and the Lynch were my "oh, wouldn't that be nice" spots on the list.  The Lynch is almost definitely coming out next year.  We'll see about GRRM.  Fort Freak is set for next year, as is Eclipse Four. 

A handful are still slated for later this year, which means I'm only being slack of six presumably excellent books.  For me, that's not bad.  I own Strahan's Best Of and the McAuley. 

Very Short and Non-Specific Thoughts on Kay Kenyon and Ken Scholes

Prince of Storms: I find myself not knowing how to talk about Kay Kenyon’s Entire and the Rose series, and, as such, it’s been a couple of months since I finished the book. With each volume, the series becomes increasingly complex in terms of who the characters are and what, exactly, is going on in the world(s). Check out my reviews of the first three books to get a sense of what’s going on. If you’re not into it after the first two books, there’s not much reason to read the fourth. The third book, City Without End, was probably the high point of the series, but Prince of Storms provides solid resolution to the story arcs and offers unexpected delights and surprises. (reading copy provided courtesy of Pyr)


Antiphon: I really wanted to like this. I think Scholes has great potential with Psalms of Isaak series and he had a decent enough start with Lamentation (a book that doesn’t quite live up to the hype. The setting is fantastic, several millennium past a higher tech society fallen after at least one apocalypse. There’s magic, but there is also uncovered tech. If you read the book, the ending offers a strikingly discordant contrast with one particular event and everything else happening around it. Though, if you really think about the world Scholes has created, that contrast is ALL over the place and is likely to become even more stark in the final two books. My problem (and I think this really is my problem) is that as great as the underlying ideas behind the series and the setting are, the execution of the storytelling grates on me and frequently comes across as clunky. There is a marked improvement in Scholes’ craft from the first to the third book, but something in here just isn’t working for me. The thing is that I just can’t figure out what. (reading copy provided courtesy of Tor)  (reviews of Lamentation and Canticle)


Regarding Antiphon, you probably want to read "A Weeping Czar Beholds the Fallen Moon" first.  It provides a bit of background to stuff that is referenced several times in the novel and, if I understand the novel correctly, will become increasingly important in the next two books.

CSM's "5 Great Books About Obscure Presidents"

I stumbled across this article listing out "5 great books about obscure presidents."  I don't read as much nonfiction as I really want to, but I have a soft spot for presidential biographies and early American history. 

Which means: NEW READING LIST!

Because I don't have enough of those.

I have, however, read #2 on the list, Fraud of the Century.  It's one hell of a story, but it felt like Morris took too long to get to the actual fraud of the century.  So it goes.  

The Last Run

Pretty Sweet!

The news isn't new anymore, but I just read that Greg Rucka has a third Queen & Country novel coming out this fall! 

I'm a huge fan of the Queen & Country graphic novels and I thought Rucka's previous two novels (A Gentleman's Game, and Private Wars), expanding the series into straight prose, also were excellent. 

So, given the ending to the series (or, what was the ending to the original storyline), I am very curious to see what Rucka has for us here.  And getting more Tara Chace and Q&C?  Always a good thing. 

No More Best American Fantasy

I'm a little bummed as a reader.  I found out via Larry Nolen's blog that the Best American Fantasy series is being discontinued after three volumes. (see my review of volume 2 here)

That led me to the official announcement from Jeff VanderMeer, one of the co-founders of the anthology series.

After three volumes, we’re discontinuing the Best American Fantasy series founded by me, Ann VanderMeer, and Sean Wallace, along with Matthew Cheney. The amicable move from Prime to Underland following the publication of BAF2 was meant to rejuvenate the series and to finally achieve stability for it. Unfortunately, this didn’t occur, for a variety of reasons. BAF did not having a wide margin for error. A cross-genre fantasy year’s best that focused not just on genre magazines but also on literary magazines, that required sympathy and generosity from both the mainstream and genre, as well as the right placement in the chains, was always going to be a difficult sell.

This is to say that I am disappointed, but I have to say that I am also to blame.  As interested as I am in the series, I did not purchase Volume 3.  So if sales weren't what they needed to be, where was my contribution?  It's a book that somehow slipped off my radar and now we've lost the series.

For a taste of what almost was, check out Larry's post one more time for a list of the 65 stories he, as series editor for Volume 4, recommended to the guest editor, Minister Faust.  The stories I am familiar with are, across the board, quite good.  I'm also chuffed to see Leah Bobet and Kelly Barnhill lined up right next to Peter Beagle.  That's pretty sweet. 

New Apex Issue

I’ve been slack on my ‘zine reading for the last year or so, but I noticed that the new issue of Apex Magazine is out.  I’ve enjoyed Apex for several years now.  They’ve been big supporters of Jennifer Pelland and had a Mary Robinette Kowal issue not too long ago and have also published Cherie Priest.  The newest issue is the first under the helm of the new fiction editor, Catherynne Valente. 

What does Valente have for us? 

 

Original fiction from Theodora Goss and Nick Mamatas, as well as the reprint of Jeff VanderMeer’s “Secret Life”

Not bad at all. 

Fort Freak Excerpt: Rat Race

Via Cherie Priest

Y’all,

Since I know you are readers of discriminating taste and, as such, are avid fans of BOTH Cherie Priest and the Wild Cards series; you will be very interested to check out an excerpt of “The Rat Race”, part of Cherie Priest’s contribution to the next Wild Cards novel: Fort Freak.  You know you want to.  It’s okay.  We won’t judge. 

Priest’s authorial excitement is also rather delightful. 

I was going to wait until this afternoon to blog this, but I lost my saving throw vs. self-restraint – so here goes! It is with great and terrible squee that I present part one of The Rat Race … an introductory sample of Wild Cards XXI: Fort Freak, live on George R. R. Martin’s website.

[:: Snoopydances like a Snoopy ::]

(Fort Freak is a production of the Wild Cards consortium, edited by Mr. Martin. It is slated for publication in the summer of 2011.)

The Mirrored Heavens, by David J. Williams

The Mirrored Heavens
David J. Williams
Spectra: 2009

With blurbs from Jack Campbell and Peter Watts calling out how exciting, frantic, and action packed The Mirrored Heavens is, expectations are raised for the sort of debut novel this is from David J. Williams. From one perspective, they are correct. The actual action of the narrative kicks in to high gear at the start and remains an “action packed” novel through the end, with interludes of explanation between the ass-kicking and the cyber-battles. It would probably make a great action movie if you cut down on the exposition. The problem is that The Mirrored Heavens does not read like a kick-ass fast paced novel. It just doesn’t.


David J. Williams imagines a 22nd Century where the political lines and balances of power are redrawn after a century of various conflicts over energy and the environment have left the globe in another Cold War. With the destruction of a Joint US / Eurasia Space Elevator, several teams of Special-Op agents are dispatched to do…something. Williams is always clear that the various agents are fighting for their lives and fighting to complete a mission, but it is seldom clear as to exactly what that mission is. The characters themselves are ciphers. Bits of background on them are leaked out, but even those tidbits are not reliably factual. One of the primary characters is identified in the text as The Operative, which is as honest of an identity as the reader is likely to get. The Operative is named by other characters, but remains The Operative when referred to by the narrator.


Conspiracies abound at the highest levels and Williams generously peppers The Mirrored Heavens with explosions, physical conflict, and massive destruction and loss of life. It is everything a fellow should want out of a novel, except that something is lacking in the execution. The narrative fails to drive the reader along and the constant action comes across as flat, lifeless, and unengaging. Because the characters involved are so empty, the reader will likely struggle to engage with them or care about what happens. The impact of this is most strongly felt in the ending, which throws a strong twist on the novel and on the direction of the Autumn Rain trilogy. The ending is the sort that should, to commit cliché, “blow the mind of the reader”. It doesn’t. The ending does intrigue enough for the reader to potentially pick up The Burning Skies to see what happens next, but it isn’t a priority. It’s easy enough to forget.


What works is the revelations of the political interplay that forms the background of the conflict. There just is not enough of it to prop up the story. This is a story that is more conceptually interesting than it is one to recommend. The Mirrored Heavens is a novel that promises quite a bit, but fails to deliver on much of it.


Reading copy provided courtesy of David J. Williams and Bantam Spectra.


For a rather excellent and positive review, check this one out.  I don't agree, but it is well argued. 

new bear interview

There's an excellent interview with Elizabeth Bear over at Tor.com.  Totally worth checking out.  Go do so now. 

Haul

Let me tell you about the haul of books I have added to my collection today.

It had been a while since I last visited Uncle Hugo's, the wonderful independent SFF bookstore in Minneapolis, and it was time to check out what I've been missing.

First, I found a used copy of Jeff VanderMeer's Shriek: An Afterword.  I'm backing my way into VanderMeer's work after just loving his newest novel Finch (review)

Then, strolling around into the used mmpb section, I hit a solid load of Steven Brust novels.  Phoenix, Athyra, Orca, Dragon, and Dzur.  My library is a touch sketchy in the Brust department, and this now gives me the next set of Vlad Taltos novels, in publication order (minus Issola, which should be between Dragon and Dzur).

Then...then...folks, I'm excited about this next one.  I've been looking for a copy of Glen Cook's Red Iron Nights for over a year now.  It's out of print and will run me $20+ for a used copy elsewhere online.  Found it!  $3.  Hell yeah!  This lets me back into the Garret PI series.  I don't like skipping books in a series and this was the next one for me.

The only thing that could have made the trip better would be if I was able to score a copy of Death Draws Five.  It's the only Wild Cards novel I don't own and is over $100 at various online locations.


Bonus news: Shades of Milk and Honey (review), Mary Robinette Kowal's debut novel, has been spotted out in the wild.  You know you want to read this! 


And finally, I received a review copy of The Greyfriar from Pyr.  It's written by Clay and Susan Griffith. I don't know who they are either.

Here is how you know a publishing house is quality and owns a great reputation.  When you see that the a book is the first volume of the Vampire Empire and you don't immediately scoff.  This should cause me to scoff.  I am not immediately sold by notions of alternate histories or vampire empires.  But because Lou Anders have built such a strong reputation for picking outstanding novels, I am instead intrigued.

My 2010 Hugo Ballot

Just for the curious, here are the works I nominated for the Hugo. There's some overlap with what actually made the ballot, though perhaps not as much as I would prefer.

Below is my ballot, in rank order of how I voted. Brief category commentary follows. I've linked to what reviews I managed to write up.

Best Novel
1. Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest (review)
2. The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
3. Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente (review, sort of)
4. Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer
5. The City & The City, by China Mieville
6. Julian Comstock, by Robert Charles Wilson

I loves me some Cherie Priest. Big fan of Boneshaker and of Priest. I can flip-flop Bacigalupi and Valente's novels and be okay with that decision, too. Both are ambitious novels that didn't quite connect with my reader-brain to get excited by, but they are quality. Palimpsest, in particular, may be more rewarding on a second or third read, which makes me wonder if my vote should have gone the other way. I actually "enjoyed" Wake more than the Bacigalupi or Valente novels, but at the same time, it wasn't as "good" as either. That's more than a bit vague, but it'll do. I think it makes sense. I wish I had read the Mieville novel because I think I would have rated it higher, possibly as high as #2 (Boneshaker is tough to beat). I don't wish I had read Julian Comstock. I've read the original story and am fairly disinterested in an expansion.

Best Novella
1. The God Engines, by John Scalzi (review)
2. The Women of Nell Gwynne's, by Kage Baker (review)
3. "Palimpsest", by Charles Stross
4. "Act One", by Nancy Kress (review)
5. Shambling Towards Hiroshima, by James Morrow (review)
6. "Vishnu at the Cat Circus", by Ian McDonald

If I had to guess, I would say that Kage Baker will win this category. It's a combination of the story being quite good and Baker's passing earlier this year. I just don't think it is as good as what Scalzi did - and The God Engines was Scalzi stretching beyond his familiar writing style and still nailing the landing. Stross surprised me here. I'm not a big fan of his work, and how the prose connects to the storytelling is unremarkable, but Stross's "Palimpsest" (no relation to Valente's) has ideas that really draw the reader in. Alternate history and time travel has been done before, and the possible futures has, too, but it's just so damned interesting and smartly conceived.

Best Novelette
1. "It Takes Two", by Nicola Griffith
2. "Eros, Philia, Agape", by Rachel Swirsky
3. "One of Our Bastards is Missing", by Paul Cornell
4. "The Island", by Peter Watts
5. "Overtime", by Charles Stross
6. "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast", by Eugie Foster

Griffith and Swirsky are far and away ahead of the class here. Nicola Griffith is mostly known as a novelist, but I would very much like to see more short fiction from her. Swirsky is on the cusp of winning a crapload of awards and is one of the best emerging writers working today. The only thing preventing Swirsky from gaining wider recognition is that she has been working exclusively in short fiction - but a Swirsky story is worth seeking out.

Best Short Story
1. "Spar", by Kij Johnson (review)
2. "Bridesicle", by Will McIntosh (review)
3. "Non-Zero Probabilities", by N.K. Jemisin (review)
4. "The Bride of Frankenstein", by Mike Resnick
5. "The Moment", by Lawrence M. Schoen

"Spar" is not the sort of story that one gets excited about and exclaims how much one "loved" it. It's uncomfortable and there is a level of squick involved. But, it is one of the best short stories published in 2009 and it is very, very good. "Bridesicle" doesn't quite hit the mark like "Spar" does, but it is conceptually fascinating and well executed.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
1. Moon
2. Up
3. District 9
4. Star Trek
5. Avatar

Part of me wanted to put Up as #1 based solely on the first ten minutes of the movie. Those ten minutes were good enough to win an Oscar, let alone the entertaining rest of the movie. Squirrel! I thought of this category in the sense of the actual story and storytelling, and not just the visual and visceral responses I had. Avatar was a marvelous experience, but if you actually think about the story - it's kind of weak. Moon is minimalist, but is an outstanding movie with a well-written and well thought out story.

Best Editor, Short Form
1. Jonathan Strahan
2. Ellen Datlow
3. Sheila Williams
4. Gordon Van Gelder
5. Stanley Schmidt

Call this Jonathan Strahan and company. Jonathan Strahan's name on a book is enough for me to take notice and often, buy a copy. Datlow consistently produces quality work. Williams, Van Gelder, and Schmidt? The editors of the Big Three? When you highlight one story or another, they are able to identify some of the best work of the year. But I can do that with a number of other editors who aren't on this ballot, too. When I look at their magazines as a whole, I'm disinterested. They don't publish enough fiction that I want to read. I've subscribed to Asimov's and let it lapse. I've done several trial issues of F&SF and it doesn't work for me. Stanley Schmidt is the one getting a slightly raw deal here, though. I'm not familiar enough with Analog to be able to speak about it, but I also did not want to throw a "No Award" in front of Schmidt.

Best Editor, Long Form
1. Lou Anders
2. Juliet Ulman
3. Liz Gorinsky
4. Ginjer Buchanan
5. Patrick Nielsen Hayden

This was one of the more difficult categories to vote for. Ulman edited some excellent novels in 2009, but Lou Anders IS Pyr and for its size, Pyr is publishing some of the best work year in and year out. 2009 was no exception. Gorinsky's best two or three books for Tor last edged out Ginjer Buchanan's books from Ace. While I would have considered Neilsen Hayden for Editor, Short Form (Tor.com is excellent), if the list I found is at all accurate, most of what he edited in 2009 was paperback reprints of previous Tor hardcovers. It's stuff that he already acquired and published and would have been a stronger list on first publication. PNH is a fine editor (again, love what he's doing with Tor.com's fiction), but this wasn't a Hugo year.

Best Professional Artist
1. Daniel Dos Santos
2. Stephan Martiniere
3. John Picacio
4. Shaun Tan
5. Bob Eggleton

Thanks be to the Hugo Voters Packet for highlighting the 2009 work of each artist. I admire Picacio's work and am always happy to see a new Picacio cover (his work on the Chadbourn editions from Pyr is outstanding), and I think that he is very much due to pick up a Hugo very soon, but I thought (in my uneducated fan perspective) that the 2009 work from Dos Santos and Martiniere was just a touch stronger. The Warbreaker cover from Dos Santos, especially, was a year's highlight.

Best Semiprozine
1. Weird Tales
2. Clarkesworld
3. Interzone
4. Locus
5. Ansible

I like the fiction 'zines. What can I say? Weird Tales and Clarkesworld consistently publishes some of the finest fiction you're likely to find, and if there was a "Best Prozine" category (Editor Short Form, I know), I would honestly put Ann VanderMeer and Neil Clarke above any of the Big Three editors. I probably should have put "No Award" above Ansible.

Best Fan Writer
1. Frederik Pohl
2. James Nicoll
3. No Award

This is the first of the categories for which I wonder if I did the right thing. I'm familiar with the work of Pohl and Nicoll, and I think they are deserving of the slots, but I never familiarized myself with the other three nominees. Are they really worse than a No Award? Probably not, but I didn't feel comfortable ranking them, either.

Best Fanzine
1. File 770
2. StarShipSofa
3. No Award

Here you can repeat much of what I said for Fan Writer, except that the whole concept of a "Fanzine" I think is a touch outdated. I don't know if File 770 still publishes a print edition, but I follow it like a blog. StarShipSofa runs a podcast, and I think that's a perfect example of what the modern fanzine is.

Best Fan Artist
1. Brad W. Foster
2. Dave Howell
3. No Award

Unlike Fan Writer and Fanzine, my vote perfectly reflects how I feel about the nominees. Foster's work is head and shoulders above the other nominees and Howell's design of the Hugo Award base is outstanding. The other three? Honestly, they shouldn't be on the same ballot.


Best Related Work
Best Graphic Story
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
John W. Campbell Award

The Hugo for Short Form aside, these are the categories I semi-regret not voting for (as far as true regret goes for something like this). I'm a big fan of the John W. Campbell Award. I think it's a great way to recognize some of the Up-And-Coming or Newly Arrived talents. Except for maybe a couple of stories, I haven't read these writers. It's a shame, but I can't vote for what I don't know.

Likewise, I think the Best Graphic Story is a wonderful category that I made sure to familiarize myself with enough to nominate - but I've only read Fables: The Dark Ages and it wasn't good enough to actually vote for it blindly. Despite having the Hugo Voters Packet, which includes all of the nominees, I just never got around to reading them. Alas.

Blood in the Fruit, by L. Timmel Duchamp

Blood in the Fruit
L. Timmel Duchamp
Aqueduct Press: 2008

Blood in the Fruit is a novel which deserves a more meticulous review than I am able to give at this time, but I also do not want the book to go unremarked on. So here we are.

Blood in the Fruit is the fourth volume on the Marq’ssan Cycle written by L. Timmel Duchamp. The first three are Alanya to Alanya, Renegade, and Tsunami. The Marq’ssan Cycle, as a whole, is a series of social and moral ideas played out in bold and clear strokes with characters actively conscious of motivation, identity, and theory. The ideas here are what is important.

As I mentioned in my review of Tsunami

This is a highly political novel filled with depth of thought. Duchamp uses dialogue and the inner narration of the characters to explain political and power philosophy. Duchamp may be a bit blunt and obvious in the handling of this political discourse, but by this point it is part and parcel of the story Duchamp is telling. She is telling a political and feminist story, and if that was going to be a problem it would have been a problem in Alanya to Alanya.

With a lesser writer this would be a flaw. With Duchamp it is simple intent and purpose, though nothing is truly “simple” with L.Timmel Duchamp’s writing.

Set some ten years after the events of Alanya to Alanya, Blood in the Fruit focuses on Hazel Bell (assistant to Elizabeth Weatherall, a major player in this series), Celia Espin and Alexandra Sedgewick (daughter to Robert Sedgewick, the primary antagonist of Alanya to Alanya, though that term does not quite convey his role in the series).

With Elizabeth Weatherall’s defection in the previous book, the ruling Executive of the United States is in shambles and fighting to come to grips with its growing ineffectiveness in doing anything to stop the “alien agenda” or protect its grasp of power, and to combat this, the formerly retired (and broken) Robert Sedgewick is stepping back into a position of clear authority. Through the eyes of his sixteen year old daughter, Alexandra, the extent of his character is laid clear. Sedgewick is grooming Alexandra, much to her dismay, to assume a greater degree of authority and power in the Executive.

While the other characters experience their own personal traumas (none moreso than Celia), Alexandra’s story is a painful bit of “coming-of-age”, shaped as it is by Robert Sedgewick.

Alexandra’s story is on the verge of being the simplest and the easiest part of the narrative, but though Duchamp tells her story in a straightforward manner, Alexandra’s “coming-of-age” is deeply problematic from a moral perspective, as grotesque in its way as anything in the previous novels – the torture of Kay Zeldin included (though, perhaps not to that extent).

By no means should one attempt to read Blood in the Fruit without having read the previous three volumes. This is almost a standalone volume, in the sense that the events of the novel can be understood without prior history with the Marq’ssan Cycle, but it is a richer story with deeper meaning if the reader has taken the full journey thus far.

Duchamp builds socio-political change in this series and does so in very stark terms. While not to every reader’s taste, Blood in the Fruit is an excellent and powerful novel. Very well done.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Aqueduct Press.

Previous Reviews:
Alanya to Alanya
Renegade
Tsunami

Sybil's Garage Number 7

Where can you find a television that sees five minutes into the future? Where can you find dragons trapped in a jar and an illness which turns people into glass? Where might you find families who sell their brainpower to corporations for penny wages, or dead relatives that sit down for family meals?

Why, in the pages of Sybil’s Garage No. 7, of course.

In this seventh issue of the highly acclaimed series, you will find twenty-seven original works of fiction and poetry from today’s top talent, with suggested musical accompaniment, our trademark design aesthetic, and much more. But be sure to leave a trail of breadcrumbs on your way into Sybil’s Garage, or you may not find your way out.

The newest issue of Sybil's Garage is now on sale and features fiction from Amy Sisson, Hal Duncan, and Kelly Barnhill.  You will want this. 

Lucius Shepard news from SubPress

To prove that if I come up with an awesome idea, someone else with the means of doing something about the idea will also come up with it: If I was ever put in the position of editing an anthology or collection, I wanted to edit a collection of Lucius Shepard’s Dragon Griaule stories. Shepard is an absolute master and it was a shame that there wasn’t a place to get all of the Dragon Griaule stories in one place.


So, it should come as no surprise that the good people at Subterranean Press will publish just that very collection that I’ve been thinking about for more than a year.


Even though I’m not getting paid for it, good on them and good for us to get all the Dragon Griaule stories in one collection. MUST BUY.

Not five minutes ago I set pen to paper on three different contracts for projects with Lucius Shepard. They include:

– A collection gathering all of his Dragon Griaule stories and novellas, including “The Skull,” a novella original to the volume.
– A collection which will feature four uncollected novellas, including one, “Repairman” written especially for the book.
– A Dragon Griaule novel, titled Beautiful Blood, on which Lucius is already working.

We’ll announce more details and post ordering info as appropriate.

starting

I've just started work to put together my Hugo ballot for this year. It's due by the end of the month if I want to actually vote (which I do).

I've been very distracted for the last several months and that's made me a bad blogger. I don't normally talk about anything that smacks of my personal life here, but I'll make an exception in about a month to explain - because the explanation ties into some other things for the future. It's not at all bad, and actually quite good for me, it's just one of several things occupying my mind and focus that has messed with my blogging.

I've also been a distracted reader lately with my monthly counts dropping significantly. It's hurt my Hugo reading, but luckily I've already covered most of the nominated stories. The novels are a problem. I've only read three of them, and I have another on the way from the library (the Sawyer, if you must know). Not sure if I'll be able to jam out the Mieville or the Robert Charles Wilson. On the other hand, I've read the original RCW story the novel is expanded from and, well, it didn't quite ring for me. So we'll see. Some of the other categories might get somewhat short shrift. Which is a shame, because I wanted to be a great and informed voter this year...and my focus has shifted a bit. Shrug. Not much I can do about that now.

(this parenthetical is here just so that each paragraph doesn't begin with the word "I've". Ugh)

Choir Boats E-book

Okay, y'all. I've been sitting on a review copy of Daniel Rabuzzi's debut fantasy novel The Choir Boats for way, way too long. So - maybe you can help assuage my reviewer's guilt and go check out the book.

For folks who like free stuff, The Choir Boats is being offered as WOWIO's July Book of the Month and is available for free download through the end of July.

I can't tell you a thing about it, but this page right here has a bunch of reviews and stuff.

The Blog You Wish Your Blog Could Be

If you think you really want to be reading something awesome but you just don't know what it is, I've got your answer. You want to be reading Rachel Swirsky's guest posts on Jeff VanderMeer's blog about what she is learning at the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop.

I'm going to cheat just as much as Swirsky did and quote the Launch Pad website:

Launch Pad is a free, NASA-funded workshop for established writers held in beautiful high-altitude Laramie, Wyoming. Launch Pad aims to provide a “crash course” for the attendees in modern astronomy science through guest lectures, and observation through the University of Wyoming’s professional telescopes.

There are twelve students at this year's Launch Pad, and if I'm paying sufficient attention to Rachel's posts the students include: Carrie Vaughn, Kelly Barnhill, Marjorie Liu, and, in Rachel's words

The other class members have an impressive array of backgrounds. We’ve got people who write non-fiction articles, non-fiction books for kids, fantasy novels, erotica novels, Buffy the Vampire novels, hard-science fiction short stories and novels, non-fiction about science fiction, who write movies and tv and video games (including the man who wrote the dialogue for Spore… oooh, shiny), comic books, graphic novels, who fact check for magazines, who edit anthologies and novels and articles, who publish anthologies and novels and articles, and teach writing or teach science, who try to launch commercial projects to the moon… lots of variety, although the preponderance of us have written science fiction or fantasy at some point.

What Rachel is writing about is the science of what she's learning. It's kind of the cliff notes version of actually going to Launch Pad (not as awesome as reading the book, but you get a general sense of what just happened).

If you don't read Jeff's blog on a regular basis (and you should), you'll want to check out the Launch Pad tag on the posts, and that'll keep you up to date. Take this recent post from Swirsky on stuff in our solar system. Interesting as hell. This is why you want to be following her posts over this next week. It's smart stuff taught by really smart people and reported by a smart person. Smart all around.

Check it out. It's probably the coolest thing I'm going read this week.