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| Photo by Cosette Carlomusto |
Martin Cahill is an Ignyte Award-nominated writer of fiction and non-fiction living just north of NYC, with over twenty short stories published across magazines such as Reactor, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and many others. He is a contributor to Critical Role: Vox Machina – Stories Untold and the author of Critical Role: Armory of Heroes. His debut book, Audition For The Fox arrives on September 16th from Tachyon Publications. You can find him online @mcflycahill90 and his website, martincahillwrites.com
Today they tell us about their six books.
For review, I’m reading Sarah Gailey’s Spread Me and C. L. Clark’s Fate’s Bane, both of which I’ve been looking forward to immensely. On my own time, I just finished The Practice, The Horizon, and The Chain by Sofia Samatar, which was even deeper, richer, and more brilliant than I had thought it would be, I’m halfway through Dead Hand Rule by Max Gladstone, fun and thoughtful and epic all at once, and I’m about to start Cadwell Turnbull’s last book in his Convergence Trilogy, A Ruin, Great and Free.
Oh man, where to begin! The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri, The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes, King Sorrow by Joe Hill, Queen Demon by Martha Wells, Happy People Don’t Live Here by Amber Sparks, Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine by Kristina Ten, and You Weren’t Meant To Be Human by Andrew Joseph white.
You know, I just found my original ARC of one of my very favorite books, All The Birds In The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders and having finished her newest (and spectacular!) novel, Lessons in Magic and Disaster, I have a real hankering to go back and remind myself of why I love this debut in particular so dang much.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Brilliant, beautiful, bittersweet, surreal, and so utterly human. It is relevant and timeless, both, and mesmerizing in the ways only great art can be, as page by page, she pulls you away from the world and into the many halls and tides and rooms that our protagonist occupies, and adores. Whew. A true masterpiece.
The Redwall series by Brian Jacques is what comes to mind immediately, and the more I think about it, the more true it becomes. From all those many books I learned much of the art of writing and storytelling in general; each book spoke to me in different ways but they all celebrated that you could balance serious storytelling with moments of bright whimsy, that you could look danger and hardship in the eye and still offer it a place at your table, that good and bad would always exist but they were not always equal, and not always so binary. That simple things were worth fighting for, and loving; that it was better to go together; that there is worth in rest and enjoying the taste of cherry and dandelion cordials, in spite of bad days and deep fear. And personally, it taught me that you could be a young mouse named Martin and that even if it didn’t happen that day, one day you would find the heart to stand tall and face your bad days.
Audition For The Fox is awesome because it is more than one thing at any given moment! Time travel? Yes. Trickster gods and other divine beings? Yuh-huh. In-world fables about said gods? Sure thing. Distinct prose styles in every section. Oh yes. Comedy in moments of great crisis? Quite! Epic storytelling and worldbuilding balanced against character? Indeed. Audition For The Fox has a little bit of everything, and I don’t know if it’s always perfect but I do think all of the above work hand in hand to tell a unique, heartfelt, sometimes funny story of proving oneself, resisting oppression, standing up for the little guy, and doing what you can when you feel you’re powerless. I hope you pick up a copy and enjoy!
