The Tolkien Awards were announced on Saturday, April 13. The Writers Guild announced their awards as well, and there are some genre-related winners here. Here’s a fun article on an amateur, non-profit Doctor Who film being filmed in Wales (because where else?) (Thanks to File770.) Molly Templeton asks the question; “Can a Book Really Be for Everyone?” and proceeds to answer it. I’m not sure I completely agree, but it’s a great essay. I’m not disappointed in this article, but I was startled to read it and see that each depiction of history-shaping librarians is a snapshot. Still, it provides en ..read more

City of Bones by Martha Wells Tordotcom Books has reissued Martha Wells’s 1995 fantasy novel City of Bones, updated and expanded. In an interview, Wells explained that she took a few opportunities to make the writing better but didn’t change the book substantially for this edition. I knew who Martha Wells was, but until the MURDERBOT series I hadn’t read anything by her. This is the second fantasy novel of hers I have read. City of Bones is a pleasing read, with solid characters, intriguing magic and a plausible world that exists after an ecological disaster. Our protagonist, Khat, is nonhuman ..read more

Empty Smiles by Katherine Arden What is it that makes funfairs and carnivals so scary? Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari both take place in carnivals, as do a few significant chapters of Stephen King’s It and several third season episodes of Stranger Things. I even recall that the third book of L.J. Smith’s The Forbidden Game ended in an abandoned funfair. Maybe it’s the contrast of bright lights against the darkness all around, or the fact the rides can be quite overwhelming and intimidating if you’re a child, or maybe it’s just the liminality of it all – carn ..read more

Oliver K. Langmead shares six books with Nerds of a Feather, including a collaboration between China Mieville and… Keanu Reeves, an adaptation of Reeves’s comic. Interesting. Haruki Murakami has a new book coming out in November, The City and its Uncertain Walls. Angry Robot has opened its submission window and is utilizing an AI sorting program. They have providing an FAQ page and are trying to get ahead of any concerns writers might have. (Thanks to File770.) Reactor announced that Tor will be publishing a new “Gatsby” themed novella from Nghi Vo. I, for one, am thrilled! Also in Reactor, Jo ..read more

The Morningside by Téa Obreht The Morningside by Téa Obreht is set in a post-climate change near-future in a partial drowned city called Island City (maybe Manhattan?) that is accepting refugees to repopulate the city with promises of newly constructed/renovated homes for those who come to work. The novel is a mostly successful mix of genres, a sort of magical realist/cli-fi Harriet the Spy if Harriet were also a refugee. Our main character is eleven-year-old Sylvia, who has arrived with her mother in the titular rundown high-rise where Sylvia’s Aunt Ena works as the super (there is a frame an ..read more

The Magic Order (Book 3) by Mark Millar (writer), Gigi Cavenago (artist), Valentina Napolitano (colorist), Clem Robins (letterer)  Book Three of The Magic Order by Mark Millar features wonderful art by Gigi Cavenago and takes us further along on the journey started in the first two books: The focus is still on the Moonstone family, particularly on Cordelia Moonstone, who is the leader of the Magic Order. This book ends on a cliffhanger, so Book Four will be important to read to get a full conclusion to the story. In this book, we get a lot of backstory about quite a few key characters. Ma ..read more

The Hugo finalist list is out. Any surprises? I’m pleased to see that fans of Chinese SFF didn’t let last year’s mess discourage them. Not too surprisingly, several people declined nominations and a few of them gave statements. Here’s Camestos Felapton’s.  Natasha Bardon, nominated for Best Editor, Long Form, declined. Bardon edited Babel, an award-winning book that was deemed ineligible for the Hugos last year for no discernible reason. Martha Wells declined a nomination for Best Novella for System Collapse. This is not the first time Wells has declined a nomination for one of the MURDER ..read more

The Haunted Stars by Edmond Hamilton At the tail end of my review of Edmond Hamilton’s The Star of Life (1947), I mentioned that this was the finest novel that I’d read by the Ohio-born author so far, and added that I now looked forward to reading Hamilton’s The Haunted Stars, which seems to enjoy an even greater reputation. Take, for example, these two sources that I have always trusted: The Science Fiction Encyclopedia, in writing of Hamilton’s more mature, post-1946 novels, tells us “The best of them is probably The Haunted Stars, in which well-characterized humans face a shattering mystery ..read more

A single-topic column today. Fifteen years after Johannes Cabal the Necromancer came out, to acclaim, I finally read it, along with Johannes Cabal the Detective, the second book in Jonathan L. Howard’s series. While I’m not quite sure how I missed them the first time around, I thoroughly enjoyed these first two and the astringent wit with which they are written. I was completely entertained by Johannes Cabal, scientist, necromancer, intelligent and cold-blooded anti-hero who is just human enough to make really big, and really funny, mistakes. When your brother the bloodsucking undead vampire ..read more

Reposting to include Marion’s new review. System Collapse by Martha Wells The first thing to know about Martha Wells’ System Collapse is that if you can’t dredge up memories of its (chronological) predecessor, Network Effect, you’re going to want to refresh yourself either by a reread (fun enough) or skimming a few reviews, as System Collapse picks up directly afterward and really feels like it could have just been part of Network Effect (you know, had it been written at the time). The reasons are multiple for wanting to remind yourself of events: the plotting, as noted, starts nearly immediat ..read more