A brand new story in the Mongolian Wizard universe.
Murder in the Spook House
A Rare Win for Wheelchairs in Game of Thrones’ Final Episode
Courtesy of HBO
It’s the next day and I’m still quivering.
Spoilers follow for the series finale of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
[Major spoilers for Episode 806, “The Iron Throne,” below the cut.]
Series: HBO’s Game of Thrones
Rereading the Vorkosigan Saga: Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, Chapter 10
In Chapter 10 of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, Cordelia is preoccupied with her impromptu visit from her grandchildren.
Cordelia’s grandchildren are amazing. Taura is my favorite. There’s nothing wrong with the rest of them, I just appreciate a person who knows a good hopscotch opportunity when she sees one. I’m ride or die for a tile floor. We’d get along.
Series: Rereading the Vorkosigan Saga
Empress of Forever Sweepstakes!
From Hugo Award finalist Max Gladstone comes a smart, swashbuckling, wildly imaginative adventure; the saga of a rag-tag team of brilliant misfits, dangerous renegades, and enhanced outlaws in a war-torn future – and we want to send you a copy!
A wildly successful innovator to rival Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Vivian Liao is prone to radical thinking, quick decision-making, and reckless action. On the eve of her greatest achievement, she tries to outrun people who are trying to steal her success.
10 Unanswered Questions From the Game of Thrones Finale
Courtesy of HBO
It’s difficult to conclude a massive epic like Game of Thrones without leaving some unanswered questions behind. Now that we know who lives, who dies, and who gets the throne, we naturally want to stop and take stock of everything. And maybe, just maybe, tease out where the story of the Starks and Westeros may lead to next.
Spoilers ahead for all of Game of Thrones and the Song of Ice and Fire books.
Tracking Evil in Andre Norton’s The Scent of Magic
After the manifold frustrations of Mirror of Destiny, this sequel is, as the saying goes, a breath of fresh air. It’s the work of a mature and confident author who has mastered her personal formula and still managed to keep it from getting stale.
The third of the magical senses in this series is the sense of smell, and magic here is contained in a full range of scents both good and bad. Our main protagonist is the traditional Norton orphan, in this case a survivor of plague, Willadene, who has a most remarkable nose—it’s very nearly as keen as a hound’s. Willadene has a hard life at the beginning of the novel, indentured to her horrid relative Jacoba, who runs a dirtbag tavern frequented by thieves and scoundrels.
Equal and Opposite: 9 SFF Duos That Bring Out the Best and Worst in Each Other
Screenshot: Netflix/Dreamworks
“We’re not so different, you and I.” Those simple words can horrify, illuminate, even break characters when uttered in the right moment. Not all enemies are truly evil, after all, and not all heroes are virtue personified. Here are a few of our favorite stories where a seemingly perfect pair operate on opposite sides of a chasm… then get locked in the same room, or stranded on the same planet, and subsequently discover the strange bonds that they share. When opposites attract (in all versions of the word), we can’t get enough.
Five Books Featuring Terrible Monsters That Tug on Our Human Heartstrings
If the loss of Opportunity the Mars Rover demonstrated anything, it is that human beings have a great capacity to form weird attachments to stuff that shouldn’t elicit our pity. The poetic translation of Oppy’s last words—“My battery is low and it’s getting dark”—had me ready to abandon writing in favour of aerospace engineering. Someone needs to bring that brave robot home. It will be lonely and cold out there!
But really, that’s just scratching the surface when it comes to the ridiculous ways in which human empathy manifests. Given a compelling narrative, we can find ourselves caring for just about anything.
Series: Five Books About…
Silver in the Wood Sweepstakes
Cover art and design by David Curtis
Old gods, new gods, and the deep dark woods are all weaved with magic in Silver in the Woods, a lush new novella by Emily Tesh, available June 18 from Tor.com Publishing—and we want to send you a copy!
There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads.
The Importance of Batwoman’s Feminine Costuming Choices
Screenshot: CW
The first trailer for the CW’s Batwoman has dropped, and despite a number of complicated feelings everyone is bound to have around superheroes, CW shows in general, and Greg Berlanti’s DC television empire, there was one aspect that really stood out to me:
Kate Kane’s choices around her armor—specifically, her choice to alter it.
Read Gideon the Ninth: Chapter 8
PREVIOUSLY ON GIDEON THE NINTH:
Having landed on the waterlogged planet of the House of the First, hero G. Nav deals with some tiny Dumbledore-looking motherfucker called Teacher and gets a first look-in on the Third House, which consists of Tweedledee, Tweedledum, and a poser. She also heroically intervenes on the part of the lady of the Seventh House, who turns out to be quite cute but has Captain Trips, and is menaced by the lady’s cavalier primary, who is trepidatiously hench. Harrowhark is a useless goth as per usual.
Game of Thrones Series Finale Discussion/Review: “The Iron Throne”
How ready are we for the last episode of Game of Thrones ever?
I’m still processing my feelings about last week’s episode, so I’m a bit conflicted. Like, I’m wearing my Lady Olenna T-shirt and I made lemoncakes, but I’m also thinking about fear of female power, corrupt rulers, and men who fail upward. It was really hard not to dwell on these aspects of the show, over the course of this very long week.
On a scale of Dexter (the worst) to Six Feet Under (still the gold standard,) where will Game of Thrones rank on the series finale continuum?
Series: HBO’s Game of Thrones
Announcing the 2018 Nebula Awards Winners
Presented in May 2019, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America are pleased to announce the 2018 Nebula Awards winners, as well as the winners for the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.
The winners were announced at SFWA’s 54th annual Nebula Conference in Los Angeles, CA, which takes place from Thursday, May 16th through Sunday, May 19th at the Marriott Warner Center in Woodland Hills, CA.
Read an Excerpt from R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War
R.F. Kuang’s debut novel The Poppy War is one of our favorite books of 2018—and now it’s nominated for a Nebula Award! An epic historical military fantasy inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century, The Poppy War is published by Harper Voyager. Read an excerpt below!
Subliminal Visions and Secret Manuscripts: Masande Ntshanga’s Triangulum
Sometimes it can help to begin with the text behind the text. Masande Ntshanga’s Triangulum is a surreal puzzle box of a novel, presented as a series of found documents spanning both the recent past and the near future—but its first few lines come via a quartet of epigraphs, encompassing everything from the fiction of Kōbō Abe to the history of South Africa. Triangulum doesn’t lack for ambition and, as it gathers momentum, it conveys a sense of approaching dread, of events both historical and metaphysical approaching some horrific end point. This is a paranoid novel about the end of the world; this is also a novel about the power and ambiguity of apocalyptic narratives.
Triangulum opens in 2043, with a Foreword by Dr. Naomi Buthelezi. An acclaimed writer (with Hugo and Nebula wins to her credit), she is recruited by her colleague at the University of Cape Town, Dr. Hessler, for her assistance in reviewing a series of anonymous manuscripts suggesting that the world will end in 2050. This wouldn’t necessarily be something that merits an investigation, except that, in Hessler’s words, “[i]t predicted the present.” A bombing has taken place, one which created a trianglular symbol that features prominently in the manuscript.
Now is the Time to Choose a Side in the New His Dark Materials Trailer
Screenshot: HBO
HBO keeps teasing that His Dark Materials, its television adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy, is “coming soon”—but if they keep releasing trailers like this, then they’re gonna have to hurry up and give us a release date. The latest teaser is tense and excellent, with glimpses of Iorek Byrnison, the Silver Guillotine (!), and Ruth Wilson acting wonderfully creepy as Mrs. Coulter.
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