When an illicit trade deal goes wrong and Quandary is blamed for it, she goes on the run to avoid the crosshairs of a bioengineered killer that only lives for 24 hours. If Q can evade it for that long, she just might survive.
A night of food, fun, and festivities quickly turns sour. But what else can you expect when your ancestors say you will choke?
An unexpected encounter with a mysterious life form turns a simple trip to Mercury into a historic event. Both for ship Captain Victory Citrus and human civilisation as we know it.
The Hero journeys across the desert to capture The Thief Of Memory and retrieve her stolen memories. What she finds in the end may destroy her.
When the elitist institution of Ozymandias Academy and its headmaster, Vamon Kinctuarin, can’t find a solution to the city’s worsening drought, 2 self-taught magicians, Noah and his partner Manny, take it upon themselves to find a solution to the crisis.
An artist’s work attracts the eye of Andrey Porgee, a notorious gangster, who becomes her best customer.
But when he commissions a painting based on a childhood photograph, the artist fears his reaction to the final product.
Being an inveterate optimist, I have a natural tendency to look on the bright side of even the biggest disasters and feel compelled to inspire similar hope and optimism in the world (or at least, the Twitterverse). We all know that everyone loves an optimist, but for some reason, not everyone seems to find my point of view convincing. Take, for example, a recent discussion of possible outcomes of the various crises currently facing the human species in which I made the following points about our ability to endure…
The story of how I came to write Origins of the Wheel of Time begins with my first reading of Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World as a lad, not long after it came out. I didn’t see the whole picture at that point, but it was enough to have an inkling that there was a bigger story behind the story of the Wheel.
There’s a particular subgenre of speculative fiction that scratches an itch for me like no other. It’s where you find yourself in a world very much like our own, except one thing is slightly… off. Perhaps there’s a movie theater that plays only memories, or the story centers on a child who learns the language of cats. Or in this familiar-yet-unfamiliar world, everyone wears electronic bracelets that monitor their moods.
These stories place the fantastic alongside the mundane, yet their speculative elements feel subtle compared to other works classified as fantasy or science fiction. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, for example, has a contemporary setting that features one distinct speculative element: the titular midnight library, which is a manifestation of purgatory that allows the main character to travel along alternate life paths.
It’s a fantasy novel, certainly, but to group it with the fantasy worlds of Brandon Sanderson or Robin Hobb feels akin to calling cereal a soup. They’re related but distinct categories.
Welcome to another installment of Please Adapt! I hope you’re ready to snuggle up and enjoy a warm cuppa, because we’re putting our feet up after last month’s massive Cosmere discussion.
Today, we turn our sights to Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes, a fascinating viral indie success that bypasses the “epic” lane of fantasy and sets off on its own road, leaving readers with warm and fuzzy feelings from dawn to dusk.
Another Victor LaValle story is headed to a screen near you. The author’s The Changeling is in the works at Apple TV+, and now, AMC Networks has opened a writers’ room for The Devil in Silver, which Variety reports is “envisioned as the first installment in a potential anthology franchise.” LaValle is the creator of the series, which he’ll co-executive produce with Halt and Catch Fire co-creator Christopher Cantwell.
Alternate timelines, alien civilizations, hallucinatory realities, and histories of the future. Those are among the things you’ll find in the books featured in this guide to some notable speculative fiction released (or reissued) by indie presses in September and October. Stylistically, tonally, and thematically, these cover a lot of ground—and you might well find your next favorite read here.
Never say never. Sure, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine died in Logan, which came out in 2017. But that movie was set in 2029, which is years from now! A fact Ryan Reynolds and the Deadpool team may be taking advantage of: Yesterday, Reynolds took to social media to share his feelings on the next Deadpool film. And to let us all know that Jackman will be in it.
These last two episodes of The Rings of Power sure did some things, didn’t they? Have they changed my overall opinion of the show? Only a little, because I’m still compartmentalizing this thing. Have episodes 4 and 5 made my trust in the showrunners waver somewhat? Yes. Do I retain hope that the show will “survive” this recent stumble, and go on to still be excellent overall? Yes, I’ve still got some hope. But it’s Amdir hope, not Estel hope. I’ll explain.
So here follows another opinion-riddled discussion of the last two episodes, filled to the brim with spoilers.
A house with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family…
We’re thrilled to share the cover and preview an excerpt from Trang Thanh Tran’s She Is a Haunting—publishing February 28, 2023 in both the US and UK from Bloomsbury YA.
Growing up, my family never told ghost stories around Christmas. We did, however, have a couple of Krampus-themed ornaments on the tree—one with a chain, one with a large bundle of sticks—courtesy of my father’s Austrian cousin. (Who was also my cousin, albeit of my dad’s generation.) I don’t want to say that I was into Krampus before Krampus was cool, but—I regret to say that that statement is also not untrue.
Netflix’s live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender has been in production since last November—but new cast members are still being announced. And the latest round is delightful on multiple fronts. One, the legendary George Takei, Prey star Amber Midthunder, Community‘s Danny Pudi, and Teen Wolf‘s Arden Cho are among the new additions. And two? Well, they couldn’t possibly leave out the cabbage merchant!
Yo soy quien soy. I am who I am.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Desideria Mesa’s Bindle Punk Bruja, an historical fantasy inspired by an ancient Mexican folktale—out now from Harper Voyager.
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.
The science fiction world was robbed of a major talent when early star Stanley G. Weinbaum died from cancer at the age of only 33. His stories had taken the magazines by storm, and writers like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke were quick to sing his praises. One of his rare longer works, The Black Flame, did not appear until after his death, and even then, in a significantly revised form. It was not until 1995 that a copy of the original manuscript was located, allowing Tachyon Books to put it out in the form intended by the author.
Being an inveterate optimist, I have a natural tendency to look on the bright side of even the biggest disasters and feel compelled to inspire similar hope and optimism in the world (or at least, the Twitterverse). We all know that everyone loves an optimist, but for some reason, not everyone seems to find my point of view convincing. Take, for example, a recent discussion of possible outcomes of the various crises currently facing the human species in which I made the following points about our ability to endure…
I can’t believe we’ve actually made it to the end of Lord of Chaos! I must say, after getting through these last two chapters, I feel like I’m almost as tired as Rand and Perrin and the rest of them. Figuratively speaking, anyway. Onward to the recap!
[They will pay, Lews Therin growled. I am the Lord of the Morning.]
The story of how I came to write Origins of the Wheel of Time begins with my first reading of Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World as a lad, not long after it came out. I didn’t see the whole picture at that point, but it was enough to have an inkling that there was a bigger story behind the story of the Wheel.
They’ll scare you straight to hell…
We’re thrilled to share the cover and preview an excerpt from Camp Damascus, the debut horror novel from Chuck Tingle—publishing July 18, 2023 with Nightfire.
In Kerstin Hall’s debut, The Border Keeper, we met Eris (the border keeper in question), and a man named Vasethe who needed her help crossing the border she kept. Which border is that, you ask? Why, the ways into Mkalis, the 999 realms of the afterlife—a multiverse replete with gods, demons, monsters, magic. Each realm is ruled by larger than life figures of myth, all involved in a delicate balance, lest the entirety of Mkalis fall in on itself.
Hall’s second installment in the realms of Mkalis focuses on a handful of new characters, but this is a sequel, not a standalone. Tyn, a soul who in death has found herself the Second Spear to a demon ruler, questions who she used to be in life, and what she must do now to save her ruler and realm.
