Salipa and Telo have perfect lives in the virtual reality world that humanity has retreated to after bacteria and viruses resistant to all medications take over the outside world. But when the robots that take care of their necessities in the dirty outside world start glitching, Salipa must figure out what it means to truly live if they can never return to the outside world.
Security through physicality. Security through redundancy. Security through obscurity.
How do immortal artificial intelligences defend themselves? With an air gap. With a security force that has no connection to anything that can harm them. With a young woman, trained to fight and to die who, along with her cohort must keep them safe. But In Xanadu things don’t always go as planned…
FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror—to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place—some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.
An alternate history short story looking at decisions and consequences, and what it takes to pull the trigger.
The Wild Cards universe has been thrilling readers for over 25 years. “Naked, Stones and Stabbed” is an fantastic new tale from acclaimed sci-fi writer Bradley Denton, about the hidden truths revealed when a Who concert goes haywire.
Freddie’s looking for answers. Freddie’s also a bit unconventional: in his looks, in his music tastes, and oh yeah, he’s also a nascent ace who can manipulate sound. But he’s got a gig as a roadie for The Who and the opportunity of a lifetime in New York City. See, the only thing Freddie wants is the opportunity to meet his older half-sister — and not even a suspicious fire at the Bowery Ballroom can stop him.
The planet of Quányuán is arid to the point of being uninhabitable. Wetness is a concept left back on Earth. That doesn’t stop one elderly woman from stepping outside the safety of the colony whenever she can for the brief opportunity to fully experience the outside world.
Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.
This is the story of what happened first.
Each month, the Tor.com eBook Club gives away one (or two, and sometimes five? You can’t pin us down!) free sci-fi/fantasy eBook to club subscribers. For November 2019, the eBook Club pick is Seanan McGuire’s novel Down Among the Sticks and Bones.
A standalone story suitable for adult and young adult readers of urban fantasy, and the follow-up to the Alex, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning, World Fantasy Award finalist, Tiptree Honor List book Every Heart a Doorway. And the first in the series to focus on fan-favorite characters Jack and Jill!
I get the problems that come with including mothers; I really do. No self-respecting mother would allow her daughter to carry the ring back to Mordor, and no young woman—say Katsa in Graceling—would want her mother to come along on her missions. (When my sons were self-conscious middle-schoolers they would squirm with embarrassment if I even talked to anyone at the bus stop.)
If our stories trace journeys of self-discovery, our protagonists may need to be free of the fetters of family.
When I was a child, I had no idea what was coming when Susan and Lucy snuck out of their tents. Aslan seemed sad, and the girls wanted to see why. Aslan told them how lonely he was, and invited them to join him on his long walk—on the condition that they will leave when ordered. My first time reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan’s words filled me with a deep and unshakeable dread. Aslan seemed to feel the same thing, walking with his head so low to the ground that it was practically dragging. The girls put their hands in his mane and stroked his head, and tried to comfort him.
When they reached the Stone Table, every evil beast of Narnia was waiting, including Jadis herself, whose long winter had begun to thaw at last. To Susan and Lucy’s horror (and mine!), Aslan had agreed to be murdered—sacrificed—upon the Stone Table, so that their brother Edmund could live.
Amazon has officially ordered its adaptation of William Gibson’s 2014 novel The Peripheral to series, with Scott B. Smith and Westworld showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy producing, according to Variety.
Hulu recently picked up a book for an anthology series that should please horror fans: Nathan Ballingrud’s debut collection, North American Lake Monsters. It’s a fantastic collection of short horror stories that is perfect for the format.
Hulu ordered the show earlier this year, and Ballingrud noted that the series will be called Monsterland, and that production has begun on the series.
Welcome back to the Lovecraft reread, in which two modern Mythos writers get girl cooties all over old Howard’s sandbox, from those who inspired him to those who were inspired in turn.
This week, we’re reading John Langan’s “Technicolor,” first published in Ellen Datlow’s 2009 Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe anthology. Spoilers ahead (but go read the whole creepy thing for yourself).
Sigourney Rose has a plan, one she has been honing for years. When she was a child, the Roses held dominion over an island in the kingdom of Hans Lollik. They were the only Black islander family ever to rise above slavery to the ranks of the kongelig, or nobility. Centuries before, the Fjern left their northern kingdom and conquered the southern islands, enslaving the dark skinned islanders and forcing them to work on plantations and as guards. After Sigourney’s family are slaughtered by Fjern kongelig, she and a slave woman, Marieke, escape the islands. As they travel the world, Sigourney crafts her plan to return to Hans Lollik and take the throne. The best way to save her people is to remove the Fjern from power and rule them herself, or so she believes.
Remembrance… It’s a rumor, a whisper passed in the fields and veiled behind sheets of laundry. A hidden stop on the underground road to freedom, a safe haven protected by more than secrecy…if you can make it there.
Ohio, present day. An elderly woman who is more than she seems warns against rising racism as a young woman grapples with her life.
Haiti, 1791, on the brink of revolution. When the slave Abigail is forced from her children to take her mistress to safety, she discovers New Orleans has its own powers.
1857 New Orleans—a city of unrest: Following tragedy, house girl Margot is sold just before her 18th birthday and her promised freedom. Desperate, she escapes and chases a whisper…
Preview an excerpt from Remembrance, the breakout historical debut from author Rita Woods—available January 21, 2020 from Forge Books.
The Wheel of Time cast keeps rolling out! Variety has reported that Peaky Blinders star Daryl McCormack has been cast in an undisclosed role, and will appear in three episodes.
Mission Gamma, Book One: Twilight
Written by David R. George III
Publication Date: September 2002
Timeline: May—July 2376; following Gateways #4: Demons of Air and Darkness and “Horn and Ivory”
Progress: As best I can determine, at just over five hundred pages of small print, this is the second longest Star Trek novel ever published. It’s comprised of seventy-two chapters divided into four main sections.
Deep breath.
Netflix’s adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novel The Witcher is set to debut on December 20th, but series showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich announced today that it will already be back for a second season!
You’re enjoying a lush door-stopper fantasy series and all the lavish descriptions therein, and then there’s a banquet scene, and all of a sudden you’re overcome with a huge craving for Stewed Salamander or Roast Phoenix, only to discover that such a thing does not exist.
Luckily, you’re not alone. Over the weekend, Reddit user u/vannybros alerted fans to the existence of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook and asked what other fantasy cookbooks they’d like to see.—and the response was overwhelming! It seems like there’s a great hankering among us for lembas bread, oat farls, scone of stone, Otik’s Spiced Fried Potatoes, and, yes, even Luke’s blue milk.
Here are our favorite suggestions from the thread, including cookbooks that actually exist, recipes from fans, and fantasy cookbooks that are (thus far) just wishful thinking.
Here’s a funny thing about “action reads:” a lot of people would equate that to mean a whole lot of running and chasing and swordplay. They wouldn’t be wrong, of course, but all the physical action in the world can’t liven up a bland tale, or make boring characters interesting, and there’s actually plenty of forward momentum and tension to be had in some fantasy adventure stories without the more obvious blood-letting. And then of course there’s lyrical prose. Me, I prefer to see my action with great characters and some lovely writing, and today I’m going to share a few favorites that deliver all those things.
With Game of Thrones off the air and its replacement a couple of years away, there’s a bit of a vacuum in the television world for grim fantasy shows. That could change at some point in the nearish future, as two authors revealed yesterday that they’ve had their books optioned for the small screen.
When I was a child, I had no idea what was coming when Susan and Lucy snuck out of their tents. Aslan seemed sad, and the girls wanted to see why. Aslan told them how lonely he was, and invited them to join him on his long walk—on the condition that they will leave when ordered. My first time reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan’s words filled me with a deep and unshakeable dread. Aslan seemed to feel the same thing, walking with his head so low to the ground that it was practically dragging. The girls put their hands in his mane and stroked his head, and tried to comfort him.
When they reached the Stone Table, every evil beast of Narnia was waiting, including Jadis herself, whose long winter had begun to thaw at last. To Susan and Lucy’s horror (and mine!), Aslan had agreed to be murdered—sacrificed—upon the Stone Table, so that their brother Edmund could live.
I get the problems that come with including mothers; I really do. No self-respecting mother would allow her daughter to carry the ring back to Mordor, and no young woman—say Katsa in Graceling—would want her mother to come along on her missions. (When my sons were self-conscious middle-schoolers they would squirm with embarrassment if I even talked to anyone at the bus stop.)
If our stories trace journeys of self-discovery, our protagonists may need to be free of the fetters of family.
Stuck in a run-down apartment in the Middle of Nowhere, Margot has spent her whole life trying to get closer to her secretive, mercurial mother. She thinks she’s found the key when she discovers the name of her mother’s hometown: Phalene, still the home of Margot’s grandmother. But Phalene is also home to a hundred secrets, hidden beneath the floorboards of Gram’s sprawling farmhouse, buried under the golden cornfields. And if Margot’s not careful, she’ll end up buried there, too.
We are thrilled to share the beautiful cover for Burn Our Bodies Down, a gothic thriller full of twists and turns from New York Times bestselling author Rory Power! According to the author, the book includes “grandmother/mother/daughter angst, a lesbian main character who stays single, fake science, and a lot of corn.” Power also calls the book “the most personal thing [she’s] ever written.”
Salipa and Telo have perfect lives in the virtual reality world that humanity has retreated to after bacteria and viruses resistant to all medications take over the outside world. But when the robots that take care of their necessities in the dirty outside world start glitching, Salipa must figure out what it means to truly live if they can never return to the outside world.
