A View from the Stars, Cixin Liu (Tor 978-1250292117, hardcover, 224pp, $27.99) April 2024 Most authors segregate their fiction from their non-fiction, compiling the two classes of work into separate collections. I always recall one exception I read as a teen, a minor Frederik Pohl volume titled Digits & Dastards, which featured two essays along with the stories. And I suppose that Harlan Ellison’s inclusion of long anecdotal ...Read More ..read more

The Truth of the Aleke, Moses Ose Utomi (Tor­dotcom 978-1-2508-4905-2, $24.99, 112pp, hc) March 2023. Cover by Alyssa Winans. Among the more fascinating things that Moses Ose Utomi seems to be doing with his Forever Desert series is looking at how worldviews change with experience. The protagonist of The Lies of the Ajungo, a young teenage boy, cut through the titular deception with a heroic self-sacrifice. Generations later, ...Read More ..read more

In Universes, Emet North (Harper 978-0063314870, hardcover, 240pp, $26.99) April 2024 I never would have predicted that the fantastika genre would be graced in 2024 with a novel that resonated so vibrantly with two classics from the 1970s: Joanna Russ’s The Female Man and Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time. And yet that is precisely the vibe that I feel confident in proclaiming emanates from Emet ...Read More ..read more

Cascade Failure, L.M. Sagas (Tor 978-1-25087-125-1, $17.99, 416pp, tp) March 2024. Clearly this is the month for me to discuss debut novels. Cascade Failure is the first novel from L.M. Sagas: a science fiction adventure in the high-octane tradition. Stories set in futures ruled by soulless corporations have multiplied in recent years, perhaps as the naked greed of unfettered capitalism has grown more blatant since the de­cade-defining financial crash ...Read More ..read more

Japanese science fiction website VirtualGorillaPlus (VG+) has announced the winners of its 2021 Kaguya Sci-Fi Contest, judged by Kanata Inoue, Tatsuya Isogami, Hakka Kishitani, and Mahiro Saeki. Grand Prize: “Magic Ball”, The Carrier of Violence and Ruin Readers’ Prize: “The Multiverse Scavenger Hunt race, which was held in the afternoon of the Jonan Elementary School Sports Day”, Dainei Makino Judge’s Special Prize: “Screams”, Noe Itokawa Winners were chosen from 381 ...Read More ..read more

The 2024 Aurora Awards ballot for works by Canadians has been announced. The Aurora Awards are nominated by members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. The top five nominated works were selected, with additional works included when there was a tie for fifth place. Best Novel The Valkyrie, Kate Heartfield (HarperVoyager) Bad Cree, Jessica Johns (HarperCollins Canada) Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey) Moon of ...Read More ..read more

The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey 978-1-9848-2070-9, $28.99, 432pp, hc) Feb­ruary 2023. Robert Jackson Bennett’s previous fantasy works – The Divine Cities and Founders trilogies – were immensely and somewhat unexpectedly delightful for me. I don’t often seek out fantasy series anymore. So, when I encounter an author who writes the kind of fun, propulsive work that kept my teenage self scouring the shelves for the next ...Read More ..read more

Fiyah 1/24 Flash Fiction Online 1/24 GigaNotoSaurus 1/24 Diabolical Plots 1/24 The first Fiyah of 2024 is unthemed, but as guest editor Nelson Rolon describes, that doesn’t mean certain motifs and elements didn’t end up run­ning through most or all of the pieces – most engaged with death and what comes after. In N. Romaine White’s “D.E.I. (Death, Eternity, and Inclusion)”, a group of vampires meet to ...Read More ..read more

Recipients were announced for the 2024 Windham-Campbell Prizes, including authors of genre interest. Christopher Chen was honored for drama and Kathryn Scanlan was honored for fiction. The Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize was established in 2013 “to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.” The prize is administered by Yale University, with a new nominating committee ...Read More ..read more

Clever Creatures of the Night, Samantha Mabry (Algonquin 978-1-61620-897-4, $18.99, 240pp, hc) March 2024. Cover by Kayla E. Samantha Mabry’s Clever Creatures of the Night is a master class in atmosphere with a literary bent and a few surprising turns up its creepy sleeve. At once a murder mystery, a postapocalyptic narrative, and a story about friendship, this novel about a missing friend and some strange young people living ...Read More ..read more