Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse…
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in System Collapse, the next installment in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries series—out from Tordotcom Publishing on November 14th. Read the third chapter below—and if you missed the first chapter, you can catch up here!
Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse…
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in System Collapse, the next installment in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries series—out from Tordotcom Publishing on November 14th. Read the second chapter below (if you missed the first chapter, you can catch up here) and check back for chapter three next week!
Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse…
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in System Collapse, the next installment in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries series—out from Tordotcom Publishing on November 14th. Read the first chapter below, and check back for more Murderbot in the coming weeks!
A remarkable story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.
We’re thrilled to share an extended excerpt Witch King, the first new fantasy from author Martha Wells in over a decade—available May 30th from Tordotcom Publishing. Read an excerpt below, or check out the first three chapters here. You can also download a sneak peak preview for your preferred ereader!
A remarkable story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.
We’re thrilled to share an extended excerpt Witch King, the first new fantasy from author Martha Wells in over a decade—available May 30th from Tordotcom Publishing. Read an excerpt below, or check out the first three chapters here. You can also download a sneak peak preview for your preferred ereader!
A remarkable story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.
We’re thrilled to share an extended excerpt Witch King, the first new fantasy from author Martha Wells in over a decade—available May 30th from Tordotcom Publishing. Read the first three chapters below, or download a sneak peak preview for your preferred ereader here!
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory was originally given free to readers who pre-ordered Martha’s Murderbot novel, Network Effect. The story is set just after the 4th novella, Exit Strategy.
The latest Murderbot book, Fugitive Telemetry, is published next week (4/27/21). Pre-order it here.
I read a lot, though not nearly as much as I’d like to. Not only because I love reading, but because I feel it’s important for me as a writer to stay current with the SF/F field, and to read the work of as many new-to-me writers and debut writers as I can. And there’s so many excellent books out there.
Others have called these past several years the beginning of a new golden age of science fiction and fantasy, ushered in by all the diversity of voices who are now publishing exciting and category-defying work. I think that’s true; I just hope the current pandemic and all its consequences doesn’t kneecap this new age before it can reach its full potential.
“As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.”
We’re pleased to encore the first chapter of Martha Wells’ award-winning novella All Systems Red, the first entry in the bestselling science fiction series, The Murderbot Diaries. One of our favorite books of 2018, All Systems Red is now available in hardcover from Tor.com Publishing!
One of my absolute favorite books when I was a kid in the 70s was Star Gate by Andre Norton, published in 1958. I found it first in the junior high school library, then managed to buy a used paperback copy—probably secretly; my father didn’t believe in letting me buy books I’d already read, even when they were only $1.00 or so. Even as a kid I was careful with books no matter how many times I read them, and it’s on my shelf today.
It’s one of those books that I didn’t realize was deeply encoded in my writing DNA until I went back and looked at it recently. It’s not like I ever forgot about the book, but it and the others like it were so deep under my skin I forgot there was a time before I read them. They formed my understanding of what SF/F should be. I read Tolkien and other epic fantasies, but Andre Norton got to me first, and planted seeds that eventually grew into mountain-trees.
It has a dark past—one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.
Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.
What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…
Artificial Condition—the follow-up to Martha Wells’s sci-fi action and adventure All Systems Red—is available May 8th from Tor.com Publishing.
The convention defines “secret history” as tales which uncover an alternative history of our world with the aid of fantasy literary devices. Like alternate histories or secret tales of the occult.
A secret history might also mean a lost history, something written in a language that died with the last native speaker. It might mean something inaccessible, written in a medium too fragile to last. Like the science fiction and fantasy stories published in U.S. newspapers in the late 1800s. We know a few of those authors, like Aurelia Hadley Mohl and Mollie Moore Davis, but how many others were there? Those stories were proof that everybody has always been here, but the paper they were printed on has turned to dust.
We might know that C.L. Moore wrote for Weird Tales, but I grew up thinking she was the only one, that a woman fantasy writer from that time period was like a unicorn, there could only be one, and that she was writing for an entirely male audience. But there were plenty of other women, around a hundred in Weird Tales alone, and many of them, like Allison V. Harding and Mary Elizabeth Counselman, didn’t bother to conceal their identity with initials.
One of my absolute favorite books when I was a kid in the 70s was Star Gate by Andre Norton, published in 1958. I found it first in the junior high school library, then managed to buy a used paperback copy — probably secretly; my father didn’t believe in letting me buy books I’d already read, even when they were only $1.00 or so. Even as a kid I was careful with books no matter how many times I read them, and it’s on my shelf today.
It’s one of those books that I didn’t realize was deeply encoded in my writing DNA until I went back and looked at it recently. It’s not like I ever forgot about the book, but it and the others like it were so deep under my skin I forgot there was a time before I read them. They formed my understanding of what SF/F should be. I read Tolkien and other epic fantasies, but Andre Norton got to me first, and planted seeds that eventually grew into mountain-trees.
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
A tense science fiction adventure, Martha Wells’ All Systems Red is available May 2nd from Tor.com Publishing.
I’ve always loved books that take place in unfamiliar worlds, places with no creative or physical boundaries, as wide or wider than our own world. And the more territory that the characters and the reader can explore, the better! So here are five of my favorite books that use unconventional magical or super-science methods of travel.
