As the Cold War stalls and the threat of nuclear warfare dominates the news, small-town misfits Laurie and Fell bond over a shared love of music and the mystery of the erratic radio messages that hint at the existence of a future worth reaching out for.
For over 25 years, the Wild Cards universe has been entertaining readers with stories of superpowered people in an alternate history.
When a mysterious stranger approaches Wally Gunderson, a.k.a Rustbelt, about running for Jokertown City Council, he doesn’t think twice about it. His first move? Hiring an unlikely campaign manager – Mordecai Albert Jones, the Harlem Hammer. Together they’ll discover the ins and outs of local politics, and whether conspiracy theorist Sparkjob is actually crazy… or just on to something?
A man sets out to tell a story of his ex, which in turns becomes a story of the world. If only he could change that story—find the moment where it all began and alter the past. But what if he can’t find the beginning—or even the end?
An academic’s whimsical decision to take a DNA test leads her into uncharted territory, where she discovers some extraordinary truths about herself and new possibilities for her future.
No vampire is ever innocent…
The wandering Judge Dee serves as judge, jury, and executioner for any vampire who breaks the laws designed to safeguard their kind’s survival. This new case in particular puts his mandate to the test.
Every Halloween, an elderly woman hands out candy to a young trick-or-treater who’s dressed as a witch each time, looking exactly the same age. With each passing year, the woman grows more attached to the little witch and her odd nature. But she is no ordinary child, and an uncanny relationship develops between the two of them that may prove dangerous and deadly.
In this spell-binding tale, a Pakistani storyteller captivates a group of wide-eyed tourists with a nesting doll of interlocked stories about a trickster and a hidden city ruled by the Queen of Red Midnight.
Whilst watching an episode of The Mandalorian, I noticed something in the background that was odd enough that I should have taken note of it ages ago: the Star Wars universe sure has a lot of large apex predators for a setting that has been civilized for tens of thousands of years.
For the first time since the shuttle program ended in 2011, two American astronauts went to space on an American spacecraft, SpaceX’s Dragon. The astronauts hung out at the International Space Station and returned safely back home. Next, NASA launched a new rover called Perseverance to Mars. And, of course, the United States officially has a Space Force now. There’s a nifty logo and motto: “Semper Supra” (Latin for “Always Above”). With all eyes turned to the stars, I began to wonder: should we bring a cat to space?
Everyone loves a smart ass. Whether it’s Loki from Norse mythology or Deadpool and his wise-cracking girlfriend Vanessa, tricksters are an important archetype. In novels, they lend a sense of unpredictability to the plot and in myth they challenge accepted norms, even gender norms. They teach us that human beings can survive by their wits. That can be reassuring during a time when the use of money and power—both physical and political—are in the forefront of everyone’s minds.
Tricksters are the vehicle through which human beings question and sometimes mock authority and the status quo. They’re quintessential rule breakers and can take the place of the hero or the villain—in some cases, they occupy both roles at the same time.
“One”
Written by Jeri Taylor
Directed by Kenneth Biller
Season 4, Episode 25
Production episode 193
Original air date: May 13, 1998
Stardate: 51929.3
Captain’s log. Seven is on the holodeck, trying to learn how to have conversations with people, under the supervision of the EMH. However, she treats “getting to know you” questions as an interrogation, and barely gives Torres and Kim time to answer the questions she asks before moving on. The EMH castigates her for her behavior, and she decides she’d rather go to sickbay to perform medical maintenance than keep going through this program.
So long 2020. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. 2020 may have been a trash fire of epic proportions, but at least the short speculative fiction was good. These ten science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories were some of my favorites of the end-of-the-year crop. Genderqueer knights, resurrections, people made of fungi, sentient robots, it’s all here, and then some.
In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.
One of my favorite science fiction writers has always been Jerry Pournelle. His politics were the polar opposite of my own, and he could be a curmudgeon at times, but he sure could write an engaging adventure story—especially one centered on military characters. One of his enduring creations is the series begun with the book Janissaries, which follows a group of mercenaries kidnapped from Earth by aliens and taken to fight on a far-away world. Author Jo Walton is also a big fan of this book, writing about Pournelle’s work in this review a few years ago on Tor.com, “He’s the best, especially when he’s writing on his own. He can bring tears to my eyes…”
Okay, my favorite part of the the third-season finale of Discovery is the ending: the closing credits, which employs the closing-credits music from the original series. This probably would’ve been even niftier last week, which was the 800th installment of Trek onscreen, but it’s still a nifty little call-back to end this season, and as we just completed a year that had three new seasons of Trek in it.
The episode’s ending prior to the credits also isn’t a cliffhanger, which is a welcome relief, frankly.
Welcome back to the Stormlight Archive ongoing reread project! We hope you had a thoroughly fantastic holiday season, and wish you all the very best in the coming year. Now that you’ve had a chance (we hope!) to read Rhythm of War—
L: And Dawnshard, and hopefully the rest of the Cosmere given how Cosmere-connected this book is—
A: we’re almost ready to plunge into the detailed chapter-by-chapter discussion, with spoilers for the whole kit and caboodle. This week, we’re just going to talk about Part One a bit more, and introduce the set-up for future discussion.
Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches.
This week, we continue with Chapter 6 of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, first published in 1959. Spoilers ahead.
[“Her eyes hurt with tears against the screaming blackness of the path…”]
There was a moment toward the end of The Empress of Salt and Fortune where Chih learns the truth about the new empress when I realized just how supremely talented Nghi Vo is. I experienced that realization again in When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, the second book in her Singing Hills Cycle, with the resolution of the story of the foxes. Tiger proves that all the praise thrown her way is warranted.
We’re excited to share an excerpt from Samantha Shannon’s The Mask Falling, the fourth novel set in the world of Scion—available January 26th from Bloomsbury.
“Don’t you want to go to a more crowded one?” is the first line of dialogue in the trailer for Kourosh Ahari’s hotel horror film The Night. Of course the answer should be yes! Do not stay in the creepy empty hotel!
Needless to say, the tired couple and their tiny child join in the grand cinematic tradition of staying in the creepy empty hotel.
Last year, Hulu debuted a new series from Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland, Solar Opposites, about a family of aliens that crash-lands on Earth. The series is coming back for another season, which will debut on March 26th on the streaming service.
Usually I love nothing more than peeling apart the layers of Expanse episodes, separating the storylines and what they have to say, thinking about what the action means for the characters, how they’re shaped by their choices, and how neatly all these things fit together. “Tribes” is beautifully structured, from a shaking Avasarala at the outset (still in that blue jacket!) to a rattled Amos realizing how much he needs his crew.
But this week, I just keep wanting to see it as a single piece: a long, affecting moment of survival, grief, and arrogance. In that sense, it feels so close that it’s hard to look at straight-on.
Spoilers for episode six, “Tribes,” follow!
Netflix’s next big science fiction movie is set to debut next week: Outside the Wire, a military science fiction thriller starring Damson Idris as a soldier assigned to assist a classified military robot (played by Anthony Mackie) in a war zone.
Just ahead of the film’s release, the streaming service has dropped a new trailer that shows off what to expect.
Last year, Tim Pratt launched a Kickstarter for a new book, one set in the same world as his Axiom (The Wrong Stars, The Dreaming Stars, and The Forbidden Stars) trilogy: The Alien Stars: and Other Novellas.
The project was ultimately successful, and according to The Bookseller, it was enough to attract the attention of Angry Robot’s Commissioning Editor, Eleanor Teasdale, who picked up the book for a release later this year.
It is a regrettable fact that authors are mortal. This year has seen at least sixty SFF-related authors, artists, and editors die, some of natural causes, some due to the ongoing pandemic. Here are five books of interest by five different authors we lost in the last few months.
The last time I read The Magician’s Nephew was thirty years ago.
Before I sat down to read, I tried to bring to mind all the things I could remember, and I was surprised by how many there were: Aslan singing, the Wood Between Worlds, the witch grabbing Polly’s hair (yes, okay, that one is on the cover of my edition). I had a vague memory of the rings, and of Strawberry coming into Narnia, as well as the illness of Digory’s mother and the adventure to get the apples.
When I finally started reading, I was delighted by the relatively straightforward adventure, the piercing commentary on the sort of people who become magicians, the terrifying world of Charn, as well as the largely humorous tone of so much of the book. The White Witch was—at least to me—more terrifying and much funnier in this book than in her earlier appearance. Lewis’s commentary both on people and the way we interact with Nature was more piercing and overt than I remembered.
