New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 new and forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about?

 

de Bodard, Aliette. Seven of Infinities [Subterranean]
Publisher's Description

Vân is a scholar from a poor background, eking out a living in the orbitals of the Scattered Pearls Belt as a tutor to a rich family, while hiding the illegal artificial mem-implant she manufactured as a student.

Sunless Woods is a mindship—and not just any mindship, but a notorious thief and a master of disguise. She’s come to the Belt to retire, but is drawn to Vân’s resolute integrity.

When a mysterious corpse is found in the quarters of Vân’s student, Vân and Sunless Woods find themselves following a trail of greed and murder that will lead them from teahouses and ascetic havens to the wreck of a mindship--and to the devastating secrets they’ve kept from each other.

Why We Want It: de Bodard's Xuya stories are consistently excellent and novella length is a sweet spot and always leaves us wanting more.

Drayden, Nicky. Escaping Exodus: Symbiosis [Harper Voyager]
Publisher's Description

The Compton Crook Award-winning author weaves her trademark blend of science fiction and dark humor in this dazzling story that continues the imaginative saga begun in Escaping Exodus, in which a society lives in the belly of a beast—and an entire civilization's survival depends on a pair of uneasy allies who must come together for one epic battle.

Nearly a thousand years removed from Earth, the remnants of humanity cling to existence inside giant, space faring creatures known as the Zenzee. Abused and exploited by humans for generations, these majestic animals nearly went extinct, but under the command of its newly minted ruler, Doka Kaleigh, life in the Parados I has flourished. Thanks to careful oversight and sacrifice by all of its crew, they are now on the brink of utopia, and yet Doka’s rivals feel threatened by that success.

The Senate allowed Doka to lead their people believing he’d fail spectacularly—a disaster that would cement the legitimacy of their long-standing matriarchy. Despite vocal opposition and blatant attacks on his authority, Doka has continued to handle his position with grace and intelligence; he knows a single misstep means disaster. When a cataclysmic event on another Zenzee world forces Doka and his people to accept thousands of refugees, a culture clash erupts, revealing secrets from the past that could endanger their future. For Doka, the stakes are bigger and more personal than ever before—and could cost him his reign and his heart.

He has fallen for the one woman he is forbidden to love: his wife, Seske. Doka and Seske must work closely together to sway the other Zenzee worlds to stop their cycles of destruction. But when they stumble upon a discovery that can transform their world, they know they must prepare to fight a battle where there can be no winners, only survivors.

Why We Want It: We love Nicky Drayden's novels around these parts. Each one is a wild ride as different from each other as can be. Escaping Exodus: Symbiosis is the first sequel from Drayden, following 2019's Escaping Exodus (Adri's review) and I loved that book at least as much as Adri, if not more.

Martin, George R.R. and Gardner Dozois. Songs of Love and Death [Saga]
Publisher's Description

From epic fantasy, post-apocalyptic America, to faerie-haunted rural fields in 18th-century England, to an intergalactic empire, join star-crossed lovers as they struggle against the forces of magic and fate.

A star-studded cross-genre anthology Songs of Love and Death features all-original tales from seventeen of the most prestigious names in romance, fantasy, and science fiction.

Why We Want It: Is this the last Gardner Dozois anthology? Regardless, even though I haven't read them all, I know that any anthology from GRRM and Gardner Dozois is a top notch anthology.

Robson, Justina (editor). Tales of Catt and Fisher [Solaris]
Publisher's Description

A brand-new collection of stand-alone stories featuring the return of two fan-favourite characters from the world of the critically acclaimed Redemption’s Blade and Salvation’s Fire novels.

Four new tales of Doctors Catt and Fisher…

Scholars, shopkeepers, collectors… aficionados. Obtainers of rare antiquities; relic hunters who can’t resist a lead, even when it takes them into terrible danger. There’s always an opportunity to be found amid the confusion, in the wake of the terrible Kinslayer War. There’s always a deal to be done, a tomb to open, a precious thing to… obtain.

From encounters with the monstrous Vathesk to exploring new worlds; from wielding great power to do great good, to unearthing dark things best left lost. If you need the experts, if you can find your way to their Cherivell shop, maybe you can hire Doctors Catt and Fisher.

Why We Want It: I've read the five volumes of Robson's Quantum Gravity, but I've only dipped my toes in the rest of her catalog. Somehow, up until the time I was putting together this article I was under the assumption that this was a collection of Robson's stories - but as you can see from the description above, it is not. With that said, I've been interested in the After the War world since it was announced so while I may not be dipping my toes into  more of Robson's fiction maybe this is the time to dip into After the War.

Vo, Nghi. When the Tiger Comes Down the Mountain [Tor.com Publishing]
Publisher's Description

"Dangerous, subtle, unexpected and familiar, angry and ferocious and hopeful. . . . The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a remarkable accomplishment of storytelling."—NPR

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.

Nghi Vo returns to the empire of Ahn and The Singing Hills Cycle in When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, a mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune.

Why We Want It: One of two books on this spotlight where I haven't read the preceding book, I've been excited to read The Empress of Salt and Fortune since it was first announced. 2020 has been a heck of a year and many of my reading goals and expectations have not quite come through - so my everlasting to-read pile is now one book deeper because the follow up to one of my more anticipated books of the year is naturally also highly anticipated.

Winter, Evan. The Fires of Vengeance [Orbit]
Publisher's Description

In order to reclaim her throne and save her people, an ousted queen must join forces with a young warrior in the second book of this”relentlessly gripping, brilliant” epic fantasy series from a breakout author (James Islington).

Tau and his Queen, desperate to delay the impending attack on the capital by the indigenous people of Xidda, craft a dangerous plan. If Tau succeeds, the Queen will have the time she needs to assemble her forces and launch an all out assault on her own capital city, where her sister is being propped up as the ‘true’ Queen of the Omehi.

If the city can be taken, if Tsiora can reclaim her throne, and if she can reunite her people then the Omehi have a chance to survive the onslaught.

Why We Want It: One of the most buzzed about books from 2019 which I haven't read is Evan Winter's The Rage of Dragons. I own it, I just still need to read the book. Regardless of that, this is shaping up to be an incredible fantasy series and the publication of the second volume should be all the inspiration I need to read the first. It's also the only book I haven't read off of my 2020 Summer Reading List.

POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

Nanoreviews: Mississippi Roll, The Last Emperox, The Ghosts of Sherwood

Martin, George R.R. (editor). Mississippi Roll [Tor]

The twenty fourth volume of the long running Wild Cards series doesn't have as high a barrier to entry as that might seem. While not as perfect an entry point as the eighteenth, Inside Straight, Mississippi Roll doesn't require as much knowledge of the full series. Sure, being familiar with the triad starting with Fort Freak would help - but that gives shading.

Mississippi Roll is a ghost story set on an old mississippi riverboat and it's very effective at the beginning of the story (where we learn the reason for the haunt) and it's effective in the last third - but the storytelling does fall flat a bit in that middle third. I'd have to check again to see which stories are the ones that didn't work as well as the others since this is a mosaic novel, but the overall story is coherent and fits together. There are moments and sections the novel hums along (there should be a riverboat metaphor here), but while the middle section doesn't quite sink the book (there it is), Mississippi Roll doesn't quite achieve the promise of the either the wonderful beginning or the ultimate payoff.
Score: 6/10

Scalzi, John. The Last Emperox [Tor]

Our own Paul Weimer introduced me to a concept he called "wrong book in the moment", which encapsulates my experience of reading The Last Emperox, which is that perhaps reading a novel dealing with the impending end of civilization as that universe knows it may not play as well during the time of a global pandemic when I am concerned about the future of employment, childcare, of the general state of life right now.

It's not that all literature is to be escapist or that John Scalzi is under any obligation to write the story that he meant to write - but I could never tell while reading The Last Emperox whether the novel didn't quite work for me or if the novel did not work for me now. There's a distinct difference.

Scalzi's writing is typically easy, breezy, and while perhaps not a cover girl it is often a refreshing and delightful reading experience. That is still the case in The Last Emperox, but somehow it doesn't all come together for me in ways that it did in The Collapsing Empire and The Consuming Fire. For a concluding novel The Last Emperox more seems like setting up yet one more book. The storylines here are wrapped up, but it all comes across as a bit of a rush. Also, and this is very much small potatoes, but the profanity in The Last Emperox seems far more excessive and forced here than in the previous two novels. The Last Emperox is better than my criticism suggests, but so many years of reading Scalzi has my expectations set higher. Or maybe I just need to read this again when there is not a perpetual level of stress and gloom overriding everything that I read.
Score: 7/10

Vaughn, Carrie. The Ghosts of Sherwood [Tor.com Publishing]

Relative to the above idea about reading a book that brings relief from the world and for which the experience of reading it is not overwhelmed by the aforementioned perpetual level of stress and gloom, I present to you The Ghosts of Sherwood, Carrie Vaughn's take on the Robin Hood mythos. Or rather, she continues on years after the standard Robin Hood mythos and answers the questions I never thought to ask - what would Robin and Marion's children be like? What adventures would they get up to?

Readers, The Ghosts of Sherwood was everything I ever wanted in a story and so much more. It's a friggin delight. I've loved Robin Hood stories for decades, whether it is Errol Flynn, Disney, or Kevin Costner (fight me) and what Carrie Vaughn does so well with The Ghosts of Sherwood is get at a raw sense of joy that is present in the best and most iconic Robin Hood stories. Even in the terrible moments of the story, there is still a pervasive sense of joy, wonder, and delight. There are so many more stories to be told with these kids and in and around Sherwood that I can't wait for the next novella (and hopefully the next and the next after that).
Score: 8/10


POSTED BY:  Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

The Hugo Initiative: Blogtable (1974, Best Short Story)

Adri: Welcome back to another installment of our Hugo short fiction retrospectives! We lost Paul to the Himalayas for this round but Joe and I are undeterred, and this time we’re moving ahead into the 1970s and specifically the short story category, with four interesting stories on the final list:

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, Ursula K. Le Guin (New Dimensions #3)
“With Morning Comes Mistfall” George R. R. Martin (Analog, May 1973)
“Wings”, Vonda N. McIntyre (The Alien Condition)
“Construction Shack”, Clifford D. Simak (If, Jan-Feb 1973)

Joe: Going into the 1974 Hugo Awards, Clifford Simak was a 7 time Hugo Award finalist (with two wins, including the novel Way Station) and Ursula K. Le Guin was a 5 time Hugo Award finalist (also with two wins for The Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for World is Forest). George R.R. Martin and Vonda McIntyre were relative newcomers. “With Morning Comes Mistfall” was Martin’s first time on the Hugo ballot (he would go on to win the next year for his novella “A Song for Lya”), though he had also been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award (now the Astounding Award) for Best New Writer in 1973. Vonda McIntyre was a two time finalist in 1974, winning for her novelette “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”, the precursor to Dreamsnake (1979, Best Novel).

1974’s Short Story was a blend of well established writers and exciting writers new to the field. Simak had been publishing for some forty years, Le Guin was at the height of her powers, while Martin and McIntyre were just starting out.

Adri: Agreed - and what’s interesting is that these are all authors who are known primarily, at least now, for novels rather than for short fiction (though of course all have written plenty of both). It’s definitely interesting to see the overlap of different eras, with George R. R. Martin and Vonda N. McIntyre entering for the first time and Simak and Le Guin being more established (though Simak’s career did start long before Le Guin’s!)

Joe: I’d like to start with Clifford Simak’s story “Construction Shack”, because the story is a bit of an outlier and in a way, it impacts how I think of the rest of the finalists and of the genre as a whole.

After years of puzzling over the differences between measurements made of Pluto and photographic evidence sent back from uncrewed probes, a crewed probe is sent to Pluto to investigate the distant planet. We could use the now outdated term “manned” when talking about “Construction Shack” as there is nary a woman to be seen in Simak’s story.

Upon arrival, the three astronauts (a chemist, engineer, and a geologist) discover that Pluto is even stranger than they had believed...

Even in 1974, “Construction Shack” feels like a throwback to an earlier time in science fiction. I’d believe you if you told me the story was published in 1953. The story just doesn’t come across as sophisticated or as modern as the other three stories on the ballot.

“Construction Shack” both benefits and suffers from the story being written before more information and more facts were known about the dwarf planet (heck, Pluto’s moon wasn’t even discovered until 1978) because Pluto being significantly lighter than estimated, being made out of steel, and functionally being the titular construction shack of the solar system just does NOT work today. It’s interesting enough, don’t get me wrong, but it severely dates the story in ways that makes it impossible to write today - similar to how stories of Venus being a steamy jungle world work as intentional throwbacks rather than truly modern stories now. Of course, a new story wouldn’t have to be Pluto. It could be anything. Pluto just adds a touch of “what if one of OUR planets wasn’t actually a planet?”, and that’s fun, as far as the story goes.

I am also slightly annoyed by the ending shout of what else the “bunglers” did that was found in the blueprints and what it might mean because Simak ends the story before that sort of reveal. I’m not the reader that needs everything spelled out, but the most fun bit of the story was the speculation that the whole solar system was manufactured and possibly manufactured poorly. Ending on the shout is a tease and a gimmick that comes across as older and more tired than other prominent stories of the 1970’s.

Adri: I don’t think that the “datedness” of the premise in a story like this is inherently a problem; while most of the time, reading about steamy jungle Venus or earth-but-red Mars tells you when a story was written, SF in space has such an ingrained element of the fantastic even when set in places that don’t challenge modern suspension of disbelief that having to accept a particular version of a solar system is fairly easy (see, for example, Catherynne M. Valente’s Radiance for a recent example). That said, this is an odd, shallow story, and not the type of fiction I expected to be reading from a 1974 shortlist. Simak’s prolific writing career spanned decades and this nomination comes towards the end, although he’ll win the 1981 Hugo (and Nebula and Locus) awards for one of his very last short stories. It’s therefore hard to see what exactly drew voters to this cursory-feeling space exploration story

Joe: Knowing what we do about the process, presumably a large enough contingent of Simak fans voted to get it on the ballot. It’s clearly out of step with the rest of the finalists.

Adri: The basic premise of Construction Shack is fun, but it’s hard not to imagine what the idea might achieve in different hands. We’re five years before the publication of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at this point, but here the “galaxy developed by sub-par bureaucrats and their contractors” bit gets very little time to shine, and when it does its hampered by the utter lack of personality in the narrative as a whole. The narrator- who gives his name, but the sentence that it was in was so boring that I forgot it and frankly don’t care to go back - is nothing more than a vehicle for plot, and his one defining trait (“useless geologist”) is left completely unexplored. The other two members of the crew also have extremely boring names (Orson and Tyler) and one defining characteristic (“a bit shouty when provoked”) between them.

Also, I’m not usually one to get into writing style and quality, but the switches between first, second and third person in a story this length are really jarring and add nothing to the story being told. It also uses the word “lostness” instead of “loss” which… I got nothing, people. In short, I don’t have anything good to say about this and I don’t even feel like the bad things I have to say are particularly interesting - so let’s move on!

Joe: Moving on!

Adri: “With Morning Comes Mistfall”, Martin’s debut Hugo appearance (I think this may even be pre Hugo losers’ party, but let’s not get into that...) concerns a journalist accompanying an expedition to a mostly-uncolonised planet finds himself in the middle of an ideological battle between Sanders, the owner of a mountaintop hotel which derives its attraction from the myth of "wraiths" living on the world, and Dubowski, the leader of the expedition, who is interested only in finding practical answers to the planet's mysteries. All of this takes place against a backdrop of otherworldly beauty, as the planet gets covered in mist at sunset that then gradually burns off during the day, and as well as the element of unsolved mystery there's also an attitude clash between Sanders and the narrator, who appreciate the natural beauty of the planet for what it is, and Dubowski's complete disinterest.

Joe: This was my second time reading George R. R. Martin’s “With Morning Comes Mistfall” and I rather like it. It’s a wistful story, not quite of the longing for a better or a different day, but more the wist of knowing that something you love and treasure is going to disappear.

Adri: I approve of the word “wist” in that sentence!

Joe: It’s also a story of the quiet war between a scientific fact that can be proved and the belief in something otherworldly, where it doesn’t quite matter if that something is true - it matters because of the belief, of the mystery and magic of something that could be true and it is that possibility that makes the exploration and the mystery meaningful. The behind the scenes of the story is the scientific expedition that’s going to take that magic and mystery away. The story itself is a series of conversations between a reporter and the owner of a resort who is angry that his way of life is going to disappear whether or not anything is found in the mists of his world.

Adri: While the personalities involved in these conversations feel somewhat two-dimensional, the overall result is a story which packs a lot of layers for what initially comes across as a straightforward set-up. Sanders and, increasingly, the narrator claim to appreciate the planet for the unanswered question of the wraiths, and are dismayed when Dubowski "definitively" resolves the issue by finding natural causes behind all of the sightings and disappearances which have taken place in the mist (the future, apparently, is free of random conspiracy theorists and spiritualists who keep believing and constructing their own evidence even in the fact of such facts), paving the way for mediocre capitalism to win out over the sublime. But the reader can't help noting that it's not the wraiths which the pair want to celebrate about the planet, but its spectacular scenery - the wraiths just serve as an excuse for people to visit, and even then the narrator's interest in the natural world appears to be unusual enough to draw Sanders to him as a potential kindred spirit. Then again, the fact that the spectacular scenery is literally composed of obfuscating mist means that it all fits well as an overall metaphor for things best left hidden. Also, the contrast between Simak's flat but serviceable blokes and the ones deployed here is very telling, with Morning Comes Mistfall coming off far better in the comparison.

Joe: Ignoring the cost of interplanetary travel, you’d think that a place as spectacular as Wraithworld would still get more visitors on general tourism - but maybe it really is just the hook of the wraiths that brought people and once that was gone from the general galactic consciousness - ghost tourism wasn’t enough to sustain the resort. I do think there were still conspiracy theorists and true believers, but sometimes that’s not enough.

“With Morning Comes Mistfall” is a lovely story, but I think that Vonda McIntyre’s “Wings” is closer to what I expected when we started on this category.

Adri:“Wings” is the story of two members of a winged species, one older and disabled, one younger and injured, and their relationship to each other in a world that has otherwise become empty. The "Keeper", who takes in and nurses the younger back to health, also has to deal with romantic and sexual thoughts about the "Youth" - and is unable to conceal this from his unconsenting charge. We find out fairly late in the story that this isn't because of the age gap, and the characters' species has an intergenerational mating pattern: during their youth, individuals take on a significantly older mate (and a binary sex), until the older dies; they then seek out a younger partner later in life. Instead, the Youth's rejection of the Keeper appears to stem from a taboo around disability, as well as a fear of not being able to leave and find out whether anything is left of the society they have both been separated from.

Wings is a slow, dreamlike story, which draws its strengths from the interactions between two very alien and yet relatable protagonists and their loneliness and unfulfilled needs even around each other - a story which I went straight back to reread to figure out if I'd really taken it all in.

Joe: I liked it. I wanted more from this story, whether it was a novelette, a novella, or just more set in this world. The setting is rich, though so quickly drawn. “Wings” deals with death and connection and mortality. It’s a science fiction story that reads as fantasy, or at least some light blending of the two.

Adri: You’re right that there's not much in the world itself, but what there is is something that could easily fill out stories way beyond these two specific characters - indeed, I understand that there’s at least one more story in this world, which I assume fleshes out the disappearance of the rest of the characters’ race a bit more.

It's interesting that you say it fits in with the time period, because I think this is the story I could most see being published today - its glimpse at epic worldbuilding through a short story lens would fit right in at Beneath Ceaseless Skies despite the slightly alien nature of the protagonists.

Joe: I can see that. I just happened to read the story very shortly after finishing “Construction Shack” and considering both stories in context of this category, “Wings” was refreshing in that it felt like it belonged and that the short fiction 1970’s were far more modern than the short fiction of the 1950’s - or even of 1968 when we discussed that year’s short story finalists. But you’re right, “Wings” does feel the most modern of all four.

Adri: My only niggle in this story is with the portrayal of disability, and of the inability to move as something to die for. It is somewhat called out in the story, as we see the Youth’s rejections of the Keeper, and the Keeper’s own negative self-identity, are shaped by his lack of flight in ways that the story implies are unfair and have negative impacts on the characters. However, the ending, and the emphasis on the cultural importance of what basically amounts to ritual suicide by flying into the sun (a metaphor that never gets old), is sort of portrayed as something that excuses the prejudice, and the characters basically overcome it by finding a way to commit ritual suicide together which I didn’t love. Its a story which draws tragedy from characters with disability not having a place, rather than allowing them to push to find a place together.

Finally, we come to the winner, and the story of this quartet that has probably had the most cultural resonance to date: Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.

Joe: Though ostensibly describing a “Festival of Summer”, an unnamed narrator describes what he or she knows of the city of Omelas, a city that initially feels utopic but is revealed to have an underlying horror which permits the “utopia” to exist. Many of the initial details are vague, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks but to assume that what the reader imagines could be possible and that whatever it is, it is the best of all things - except that the driver of all of that goodness is the absolute isolation and degradation of a child.

The story is a thought experiment and a philosophical challenge.

I *may* have read this before, though if pushed I’d probably tell you that I have not. It’s familiar, but I’ve recently read N.K. Jemisin’s “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” and I’m sure I’ve read one or two others that play with Le Guin’s form, so it may be that I’ve read enough around Omelas that it’s imprinted on me. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is somewhat of a foundational science fiction story at this point and it has shaped some of the genre around it.

Unsurprisingly, Omelas is an increasingly unpleasant story (as it should be) because it raises questions (and points a finger) at how easy it is to look away, to make excuses, and accept that our comfort in the aggregate is more important than a single individual. There are plenty of stories that use the idea of the importance of the group over that of the individual, but it’s so stark here.

Adri: Yes, it’s been a couple of years since I last read “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” in its entirety, and it was interesting to revisit it in light of some of the recent stories that respond to it - as well as the Jemisin, I’m thinking of P.H. Lee’s “In The House By the Sea”, which interrogates what we will and won’t believe about the fate of the children themselves, and is also well worth a look. I think I appreciated it even more this time around, in the context of this particular category: the tone, the way the speculative city is set up and the role of the narrator in doing so, the constant needling at audience disbelief, all come together for a thought experiment that rises far above its simple utilitarian roots, hitting at the stories we tell ourselves about our societies and how they are organised and who needs, and deserves, dignity and comfort.

I could spend an entire essay picking apart the different elements here (given a time machine so I could make the time to write, of course), but for now I particularly want to draw attention to the last line of the story: “They seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas”. I think, given the differences between when this story was written and the moment we’re living now, its important to interrogate why the story focuses on individuals who opt out from a system, rather than trying to change it - but I was struck, on this readthrough, by the fact that these aren’t portrayed as people throwing in the towel to go and aimlessly wander the wilderness: they know where they’re going, and it doesn’t involve this particular system. Then again, I do feel much more sympathetic to the people and the mindset of Jemisin’s Um-Helat than I do to the ones who walk away from Omelas - even while it doesn’t change my opinion on how brilliant and important the story that sparked them both is.

Joe: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is not a story I want to read all that often, but I’m not surprised that it won the Hugo. It’s a story with wide ranging importance that I think would have been evident when it was first published (it *did* win the Hugo). Interestingly, Omelas was not on the Nebula ballot, though the Martin and McIntyre stories were.

Adri: So, now we’ve read all four of 1974s short story ballot entries, what do you think should have won? Or rather, what would you have voted for?

Of the stories here, I think I liked the McIntyre most - its got a beautiful tone to it and offers a window into a very strange world that nevertheless makes sense within the story. However, for all the limitations of its thought experiment - and is just one thought experiment - I can’t fault the voters of 1974 for opting for The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. It’s a big idea story whose big idea is about ethics and anthropology and even about the nature of story itself, and it does what all the best Le Guin stories do by offering a deceptively simple outer layer to suck you into something much deeper and highly thought provoking.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have Simak, which didn’t do much for either of us, and which I can’t really understand being award worthy in any year, and a Martin story which is highly readable enjoyable, but probably isn’t going to stay with me. So my vote at Discon II (if I’d been alive and reading science fiction) would have gone to Le Guin, then McIntyre, then Martin, then Simak, with clear water between all four and possibly even No Award above Simak if I was feeling especially grumpy on ballot submission day.

Joe: I like the double layer of the question because it’s the push and pull between how I think I would have voted then compared to how I would vote today if these four stories were put in front of me.

I sort of wish we had a big disagreement here, but we don’t. “Wings” is the story I like best, but “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is the most important and I think that would have come across to me back in 1974 when I was negative five years old. The power and the depth of Omelas still very much resonates today, and it is a story that can spark conversation today.

I think my vote would have been tighter than yours, at least for Le Guin - McIntyre - Martin in that order, but it would be a distant fourth for Simak and like you, “Construction Shack”’s placement above No Award would depend entirely on my generosity when I mailed in my ballot.

I wish I could find something definitive about how the stories placed on the final ballot. ISFDB suggests it was Le Guin - Martin - Simak - McIntyre, but I don’t see a link to the actual voting details anywhere and that would be really nice to have for confirmation purposes.

Adri: Ah well, we shall have to agree to agree this time...

Regardless of my feelings about Construction Shack, I’m glad to have taken a look at this category: Wings was a great find, and With Morning Comes Mistfall was also an enjoyable look at an author who I’ve never previously read outside of (very very) longform. And the opportunity to reread “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” was, if not exactly a pleasure, then a welcome engagement with a pretty masterful piece of writing.

Thanks as always for the chat.

Joe: Thank you!



Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 3x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan

Adri is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Twitter at @adrijjy. 

Ode to GoT Nihilism

When a genre accumulates enough history, traditions, tradition-conscious fans and demolition-ready clichés, a certain kind of work will emerge: something that takes everything a little further, makes it a little more believable and makes everything that came before look a little silly.

That's what happened to superhero comics in 1980s with Watchmen (by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, 1986-87) and Dark Knight Returns (by Frank Miller, 1986), and now it has happened to audiovisual epic fantasy. Or, well, to be fair it probably happened almost a decade ago in 2011 when we first found out that unexpectedly decapitating the show's protagonist is indeed possible and not all dwarfs in fantasy have to be small fake Scots who are heavily invested in the mining industry.

For those in the audience who had read Martin's books there was nothing unexpected in Ned Stark's death (or any of the other Stark deaths), of course, but majority of the millions of viewers (including me) has never read a single line of Song of Ice and Fire. 

So, Game of Thrones is finished. What are we left with?

A monumental piece of work that all future fantasy shows will probably be compared to, whether that makes any sense or not. Just as any morally complex superhero work interrogating its genre and history will always be measured against Watchmen, any piece of fantasy television that tries to look beyond the Manichean moralities of Tolkien is going to be evaluated with Game of Thrones at the back of everyone's head.

Whereas Watchmen was "the superhero story to end all superhero stories" (which it of course didn't do), Game of Thrones maxed out everything in the epic, post-Tolkien fantasy: more characters, more exquisitely constructed world, more nihilist politics and royal succession play-offs, more mysterious religions, more brutal battle scenes (nevermind the goofy military tactics in season 8), more sex and incest. It's a "fantasy TV show to end all fantasy TV shows", in the sense that all future fantasy entertainment will be informed by GoT on some level.

Watchmen seemed like the ultimate takedown of superhero lore. Wholesome, child-friendly superheroes were exposed as reactionary superjerks, alienated superhumans or in the very least a bit unstable people with unorthodox sex drives — that is basically the history of superhero comics in 1987-2019. I can safely predict that going forward, heroes in epic pseudo-medieval fantasy shows will have to make difficult and morally grey choices, suffer brutality and brace themselves for some complex, deadly scheming.

For me, the special ingredient of the show was always the nihilist outlook, something quite nonexistent in pre-GoT audiovisual fantasy. Despite all pompous talk about honor, gods or good and evil, there's no getting around the fact that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun (or it's medieval counterparts), as Mao Zedong opined. Nobody is safe and cruel things happen to people who don't deserve them. These themes will probably be developed further in post-GoT shows. Hopefully they'll be a little more thoughtful than the bulk of "edgy" 90s superheroes and choose to emulate other aspects than just tone-deaf brutality and sexual violence.

One can perhaps make the case that it was in some sense visionary to butcher children, soon-to-be mothers, old women and animals on-screen in the most popular and most expensive TV show of all time to underline that nobody is ever safe. However, I was more impressed with less bombastic lessons of nihilism, like Littlefinger's plot (in season 4, I think) featuring Ser Dontos Hollard, the fat lord who Joffrey wanted to kill but Sansa Stark saved by making him the court fool in some earlier season. Dontos's thank you speech to Sansa about his house's demise is heart-breaking — we think we know the character and sympathize with his bleak circumstances — but later it turns out that it's all part of an elaborate hoax put together by Littlefinger.

Playing with characterization and audience expectations, it's the small details like this that made the show really memorable for me. Sadly, poignant details cleverly playing with the characterization and audience expectations are exactly what was missing from the final season. What also seems to have disappeared somewhere along the way is the show's nihilist attitude altogether. Sure, Daenerys becomes a cruel despot in the end, but that is easily fixed with a knife through her heart, and justice and harmony prevail.

What in seven hells is that?

This was supposed to be a world in which Hollywood morality is challenged and everything is complex and precarious. I really feel we would have deserved an end in which all the good lords and ladies of Westeros are ready to stab each other in the back to get just a little more power. Instead, all we get from the final minutes of the great struggle for power is the phrase "Uncle, sit down" — like the democratic presidential primaries needed any more weaponizable pop culture quotes at this point.


POSTED BY: Spacefaring Kitten, an extradimensional enthusiast of speculative fiction, comics, and general weirdness. Contributor since 2018. 

How to End a Game of Thrones

It was the best of times; it was the blurst of times...

[Warning: Spoilers Everywhere]

The year was 2006. My fiction reading list was maybe 60% science fiction but 0% fantasy. It had been this way for years, after my love for second world fantasy died on a hill called The Wheel of Time. Subsequently, I had internalized normative cultural discourses that devalue fantasy unless packaged as “magic realism.” Former NOAF contributor Jemmy, however, had other ideas.

At that time we were working for the same company, our offices strategically located in a neighborhood famous for its second-hand bookstores. We would often visit them during our lunch hour; without fail, Jemmy would pester me about this fantasy series that he claimed “changed everything.” But I was resistant, that is, until he bought me a copy of George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones and I relented.

So I read the first chapter, and then the next, and then the next. Within a few days I had devoured A Game of Thrones in its entirety, proceeding to devour its sequels, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. I couldn’t get enough, so I moved on to other series; I was most definitely back on the fantasy train.

I have issues with those 3 books, some quite serious, but for my money the worldbuilding, character development and punctuated narrative moments are as good as any in the genre. Furthermore, despite their heft, these books feel meticulously planned, tightly plotted and rich with narrative detail. Most importantly, they revived my interest in fantasy and led me to discover a range of authors I otherwise might not have read: Andrzej Sapkowski, Gene Wolfe, Elizabeth Bear, N.K. Jemisin, Steven Erikson, Kate Elliot, Django Wexler and many others.

I like to think of those first three books as a complete trilogy with an ambiguous ending. It’s a coping mechanism that helps me deal with the fact that the next two books - A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons - are such disappointments; a single, bloated novel in two 1,000-page installments; a failed attempt to “get to Mordor” that aptly demonstrates the importance of a good editor in no uncertain terms. And it helps me deal with the fact that Martin may never finish the series.


Enter the Series...

When Game of Thrones launched in 2011, I was excited. Early indications suggested HBO would go all out adapting the series. Like many fans of the book series, I hoped this it would serve as a catalyst for Martin to finish the series. Instead, it has finished the story for him. But more about that in a bit.

The initial season was a masterful adaptation of the first novel, which is far tighter in both narrative and geographic scope than its sequels. Many of the actors looked and felt exactly like their written counterparts; some – like Jorah Mormont and Tyrion Lannister – were an improvement.

The second through fourth seasons captured much of what made A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords effective as novels, though they also amplified the shock value of their punctuated moments. In truth, there’s nothing in the show that isn’t also represented in the books, but the show frequently makes explicit what is relayed secondhand or merely suggested in the books. To put it another way, the books already make it clear how common murder, rape and torture are in this world, but the show positively revels in it. The effect is to cheapen their impact; we are frequently shown how grim and dark this world is, but little or no time is spent on exploring the implications and consequences of all the grim darkness. Not in any meaningful way, at least.

On the other hand, the show pulls off a fairly remarkable feat: adapting a sprawling fantasy epic for a medium that can do plot and character, but routinely struggles with the kind of myth- and world-building that are essential to second-world fantasy.

As with the books, though, things degenerate once the moves on to interpreting A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. Though mercifully eliminating the horrid Quentyn Martel storyline, nearly everything else that made those books a tedious slog is recreated for television (only now with more rape and torture!). The low quality of storytelling from these books mars seasons 3 and 4, and (in my view) outright ruins seasons 5 and 6.

In season 7, Benioff and Weiss officially moved past the source material altogether (though apparently with some input from Martin). Like many fans, I was deeply skeptical of their ability to right the ship. In fact, I probably would have quit the series if I hadn’t been worried that this was the only ending we’d ever get. Only, I found the experience oddly liberating – for the first time since season 2, I wasn’t comparing the show negatively to the books, even to the books I didn’t care much for.

Season 7 has its share of head scratchers - most notably, Jon Snow’s incredibly stupid plan to risk half the elite warriors under his command on a commando mission to bag a wight to show Cersei (who, predictably, is unmoved). But it was dirty fun.

The narrative decisions in season 8 are better, but nearly all require more exposition than they are given. Danaerys becoming the “Mad Queen” is a perfect example: history is replete with individuals who begin as idealists and end as ideologues; who through struggle come to believe the ends justify the means; or who believe the justice of the cause confers infallibility onto its avatar.

By the season finale, It is clear Danaerys has become all these things - only we haven’t made that journey with her. Rather, it happens so fast that you’re left wondering if it was something Tormund said, or that time Jon didn’t want to kiss her. It would have been much better, and much more believable if we’d had a few more episodes of developing paranoia and anger.

The season finale is, in a word, polarizing. Long-anticipated series finales often are, and several times I’ve been on #TeamKvetch (e.g. BSG). But I found this denouement quietly gratifying.

Bran becoming king is a bit weird, until you realize the whole point is to devalue kingship. And I was neither here nor there on Arya the Pirate (though what a great spinoff that would make). On the other hand, I Ioved Sansa asserting the independence of the north - regardless of the fact that her brother sits on the proverbial Iron Throne. Jon rejoining Tormund and Ghost felt equally appropriate, as did Brienne honoring Jaime in the annals of the Kingsguard - a touching act that almost helps you forget that bizarre moment when their friendship became gratuitously (and unnecessarily) sexual.

My favorite moment, though, comes when Tyrion waits for the new Small Council - which includes Brienne, Sam and new Lord of Highgarden and Master of Coin Bronn - and nervously keeps adjusting the chairs. It’s a tiny detail, but one that speaks volumes to the endurance of hope.

I don’t know if Martin will end his books the same way, or if he will ever end them at all. I certainly hope he does. But if he doesn’t, then at least we have this - a poignant and cathartic end to the journey we started so long ago.

George R.R. Martin is Still Not Your Bitch, and other stories

When Neil Gaiman wrote his famous and infamous essay "Entitlement Issues" (most well known for the pull quote "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.") in 2009, it had been four years since the publication of A Feast for Crows and it still would be another two years before Martin published A Dance With Dragons.

In his essay, which was really more a response to a reader question, Gaiman noted that Martin (or any author) is not working on contract to the reader, that buying an earlier volume in a series does not entitle the reader to a later volume at any time other than which the author is ready to produce it.

I'm sympathetic to both the frustrated reader as well as the frustrated writer. I've been online for too long as I've gotten older and I'm aware of many of the issues preventing writers from getting that next book out, whether it is health issues, publisher issues, or just that book just being really fucking difficult to write, I get it. As much as someone can who doesn't actually write fiction can get it, I get it. It can still be frustrating for the reader when the next series volume doesn't come out when previous books were on a more predictable timeline.

It has now been eight years since the publication of A Dance With Dragons and in that time HBO will have begun and finished all eight seasons of Game of Thrones, the television show based off of Martin's novels (on the off chance any reader of Nerds of a Feather was not aware of the show or its source material)

I'm not here to legislate a single thing regarding what GRRM should or should not do with his time, how long it should take to write a book, or make any demands. I've seen the comments readers make online when Martin dares to mention Wild Cards or any ancillary project he might be working on or even any aspect of his personal life that doesn't involve the completion of The Winds of Winter. Frankly, those readers are assholes and I want no part of their vitriol. It is toxic. It is unhealthy. It is not what I'm about.

Ever since the show surpassed the books, I've been in the same place as every other reader who is watching Game of Thrones - uncertain as to how closely the show will mirror the novels and in what ways the show and books will be different. Will the series end at the same point the show does? Does Arya still kill the Night King? I've already lamented (in private) the difference in Sansa's storyline from the book to the show, and many readers have been disappointed by the absence of Lady Stoneheart in the show.

I still want to know how those stories will resolve, perhaps now more than ever. How close is the show to Martin's original plan? Assuming Danaerys putting King's Landing to the dragon was GRRM's idea, will the (mostly) vitriolic response to "The Bells" change Danaerys's story arc in the books at all?  Does it matter?

Of course, waiting for the next book in a series is nothing new to genre readers. In the eight years
since A Dance With Dragons, I've lost much of my eagerness and rapt anticipation for The Winds of Winter (which is not to say that a real announcement won't ratchet my excitement level up to eleven in a third of a second). It's been eight years since Patrick Rothfuss published The Wise Man's Fear and I've seen the same frustration (and hate) online directed at Martin also directed at Rothfuss. But fans of Melanie Rawn have waited twenty two years for The Captal's Tower, the concluding volume in her Exiles trilogy. The Mageborn Traitor was published in 1997. Even twenty two years isn't all that unusual in the genre, though.

It's not the most of original thoughts to say that even though I'm (fairly) patiently waiting for The Winds of Winter and The Captal's Tower and that year 948 Deryni novel from Katherine Kurtz that she hasn't even announced she's working on, I'm not really waiting for them. There's a LOT to read out there. I'm working my way through this year's Hugo Award finalists. I finally caught up on the Vorkosigan novels from Lois McMaster Bujold, which only means that I have three more Chalion novels and all of the Sharing Knife to go. Also, do you have any idea how far behind I am on Kate Elliott's work? Feminist Futures has reshaped what I want to read and when, and there's an ocean of great stuff out there.

I'm not saying that it isn't worthwhile to be frustrated when a favorite writer is taking longer than you'd like with your favorite series. I get it. But I also tell my four year old son that throwing a fuss isn't going to make the time go by faster. If he knew how to spell and type, he'd probably be on twitter complaining that having to wait three days to see grandma is an excessively long time. Everything is relative.

I've long disagreed with Gaiman, at least in part, with the idea that purchasing book one in the series only entitles the reader to that one book purchased. I agree with Gaiman that purchasing a book is purchasing a book and that yes, you are only entitled to the one book you purchased. There is, however, an implicit promise by the author that when a book is "Book One of The Gibbelhead Fountain" that there is an intent to deliver a complete story that provides an ending.

For those keeping score at home, I don't include a series where each novel stands on its own even if it is building a larger world and gradually a greater story on top of the individual discrete stories of the novel. Think Seanan McGuire's Incryptid or Diana Rowland's White Trash Zombie series.

This should go also without saying, but tied to that implicit promise is that besides the reality of the entire publishing industry is an understanding that life is a very good reason for a novel to not come out when "expected" - whether it is health, family, or simply because writing a novel with excellence is really fucking difficult.

What I don't care about is how long it takes for my favorite writer to publish the next novel in my favorite series.


Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 3x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Hutchinson, Dave. Europe at Dawn [Solaris]
Publisher's Description

The phenomenal conclusion to the Fractured Europe sequence.

Alice works at the Scottish Embassy in Tallinn in Estonia as a member of the Cultural Section. When two men bring her the jewelled skull of a Scottish saint her world gets turned on its head, and she becomes the latest recruit to Les Coureurs des Bois.

On a Greek island Benno is just one of hundreds of refuges dreaming of a new life in Continental Europe. After hatching an audacious escape plan, he may just get his dream, but at the price of serving some powerful mysterious new masters.

Rudi and Rupert, the seasoned Coureur and the scientist in exile from a pocket universe, discover that someone they thought long dead is very much still alive. Not only that, but the now defunct Line – the railway that once bisected the European continent – may be being used for nefarious means.

Why We Want It: Dave Hutchinson has been a favorite of the flock here at Nerds of a Feather. Each of his three previous Fractured Europe novels have been very highly reviewed (Autumn, Midnight, Winter). Of course we're super excited about a new Fractured Europe novel.

Jemisin, N.K. How Long Til Black Future Month [Orbit]
Publisher's Description

Three-time Hugo Award winner N. K. Jemisin’s first collection of short fiction challenges and enchants with breathtaking stories of destruction, rebirth, and redemption. 

N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption.

Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

Why We Want It: It's like this: N.K. Jemisin was awarded three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel for each volume of her Broken Earth trilogy. It was a monumental achievement and one richly deserved because those novels are the new benchmark of what excellence looks like. We're much more familiar with those novels than we are Jemisin's short fiction. How Long Til Black Future Month is our opportunity to remedy that. This is her first short story collection and we're ready for it.

Kress, Nancy. Terran Tomorrow [Tor]
Publisher's Description

Nancy Kress returns with Terran Tomorrow, the final book in the thrilling hard science fiction trilogy based on the Nebula Award–winning novella Yesterday's Kin. 

io9—New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books You Need to Put on Your Radar for Fall 

The diplomatic mission from Earth to World ended in disaster, as the Earth scientists discovered that the Worlders were not the scientifically advanced culture they believed. Though they brought a limited quantity of the vaccine against the deadly spore cloud, there was no way to make enough to vaccinate more than a few dozen. The Earth scientists, and surviving diplomats, fled back to Earth.

But once home, after the twenty-eight-year gap caused by the space ship transit, they find an Earth changed almost beyond recognition. In the aftermath of the spore cloud plague, the human race has been reduced to only a few million isolated survivors. The knowledge brought back by Marianne Jenner and her staff may not be enough to turn the tide of ongoing biological warfare.

Why We Want It: We've been following Nancy Kress's Yesterday's Kin trilogy since the first novel Tomorrow's Kin (review) and while it has never quite reached the heights we had hoped for, the first two books have been solid and enjoyable reads and we're looking forward to seeing how she wraps up the story with this third volume.

Martin, George R.R. Fire and Blood [Bantam]
Publisher's Description

The thrilling history of the Targaryens comes to life in this masterly work by the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the inspiration for HBO’s Game of Thrones.

With all the fire and fury fans have come to expect from internationally bestselling author George R. R. Martin, this is the first volume of the definitive two-part history of the Targaryens in Westeros.

Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire & Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

What really happened during the Dance of the Dragons? Why was it so deadly to visit Valyria after the Doom? What were Maegor the Cruel’s worst crimes? What was it like in Westeros when dragons ruled the skies? These are but a few of the questions answered in this essential chronicle, as related by a learned maester of the Citadel and featuring more than eighty all-new black-and-white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley. Readers have glimpsed small parts of this narrative in such volumes as The World of Ice & Fire, but now, for the first time, the full tapestry of Targaryen history is revealed.

With all the scope and grandeur of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Fire & Blood is the ultimate game of thrones, giving readers a whole new appreciation for the dynamic, often bloody, and always fascinating history of Westeros.

Why We Want: Okay. This is not The Winds of Winter, but it is a return to Westeros. Fire and Blood is not a novel, rather a history of the Targaryens. I'll take what I can get.

Suri, Tasha. Empire of Sand [Orbit]
Publisher's Description

A nobleman’s daughter with magic in her blood. An empire built on the dreams of enslaved gods. Empire of Sand is Tasha Suri’s captivating, Mughal India-inspired debut fantasy. 

The Amrithi are outcasts; nomads descended of desert spirits, they are coveted and persecuted throughout the Empire for the power in their blood. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor and an exiled Amrithi mother she can barely remember, but whose face and magic she has inherited.

When Mehr’s power comes to the attention of the Emperor’s most feared mystics, she must use every ounce of will, subtlety, and power she possesses to resist their cruel agenda.

Should she fail, the gods themselves may awaken seeking vengeance…

Empire of Sand is a lush, dazzling fantasy novel perfect for readers of City of Brass and The Wrath & the Dawn.

Why We Want It: We're always excited about a debut. There's so much promise and so much unknown. This could be our new favorite writer and a career we'll avidly follow for decades. We love us some epic fantasy here at Nerds of a Feather and it's always thrilling to see one take another path away from standard European inspired epic fantasy. We're here for Empire of Sand.

Willams, Sheila. Asimov's Science Fiction: A Decade of Hugo & Nebula Winning Stories, 2005-2015 [Prime]
Publisher's Description

Veteran editor and two-time Hugo winner Sheila Williams picks the best of recent award-winning stories first published by Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, the world's leading science fiction magazine. 

Why We Want It: The Hugo Awards are on brand for Nerds of a Feather. So are the Nebula Awards, though we haven't spent much time talking about them in recent years. If you've followed the Hugo Awards for any length of time, you'll have seen the shift of stories on the final ballot from the traditional print magazines to online only magazines which have made their fiction available for free. It's about ease and accessibility (and a slightly changing demographic of voter), but that's a conversation for another time. Asimov's hasn't gone anywhere, but the recognition of the fiction published there has dipped. Sheila Williams wants to remind everyone just how kick ass Asimov's is. Details are weirdly hard to find, but there should be plenty of excellent award winning stories to be found here.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. 

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Corey, James S. A. Persepolis Rising [Orbit, 2017] 
Publisher's Description

AN OLD ENEMY RETURNS

In the thousand-sun network of humanity’s expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace.

In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices. On the lost colony world of Laconia, a hidden enemy has a new vision for all of humanity and the power to enforce it.

New technologies clash with old as the history of human conflict returns to its ancient patterns of war and subjugation. But human nature is not the only enemy, and the forces being unleashed have their own price. A price that will change the shape of humanity — and of the Rocinante — unexpectedly and forever… 

Why We Want It: Persepolis Rising is the eighth volume of The Expanse and at this point you're either all in or you're never going to get this far. If you're in, you know what's up. The duo behind James S. A. Corey puts out winner after winner with this series and it's some delightful science fiction. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they do with Persepolis Rising.

Grant, Mira. Into the Drowning Deep [Orbit, 2017]
Publisher's Description

New York Times bestselling author Mira Grant, author of the renowned Newsflesh series, returns with a novel that takes us to a new world of ancient mysteries and mythological dangers come to life.

The ocean is home to many myths, 

But some are deadly…

Seven years ago the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a tragedy.

Now a new crew has been assembled. But this time they’re not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life’s work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost.

Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves.

But the secrets of the deep come with a price. 

Why We Want It: I'll be straight up with you. I've already read this and it is so very good. So very good. Grant's Newsflesh series was a delight, but Into the Drowning Deep is on another level entirely. It is deeply compelling, unsettling, and I did not want to put it down.

Martin, George R. R., ed. Wild Cards: Mississippi Roll [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Perfect for current fans and new readers alike, Mississippi Roll is an adventurous journey along Ol’ Man River, featuring beloved characters from the Wild Cards universe. 

Now on its final voyage, the historical steamboat Natchez is known for her super-powered guest entertainers. But after the suspicious death of a crewmember, retired NY police detective Leo Storgman decides to make this incident his personal case. His findings only lead to a growing number of questions. Is there some truth behind the ghostly sightings of the steamboat’s first captain Wilbur Leathers? What secret does the current captain seem to be hiding? And could the Natchez be ferrying mysterious – and possibly dangerous – cargo onboard?

 Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin, Mississippi Roll features the writing talents of Stephen Leigh, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Carrie Vaughn (Martians Abroad), Hugo-Award winning author David D. Levine (Arabella of Mars), and Hugo and Nebula Award finalist Cherie Priest (Boneshaker). 

Why We Want It: We may be a touch behind on our Wild Cards, but a new novel is always a good thing and a reminder that it's time to jump back into the series. Though the 24th volume, Mississippi Roll looks to be a good entry point into the series for new readers as well as those who may be lapsed.

 
Sanderson, Brandon. Oathbringer [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description

The eagerly awaited sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling Words of Radiance, from epic fantasy author Brandon Sanderson at the top of his game. 

In Oathbringer, the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their thirst for vengeance.

Dalinar Kholin’s Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar’s blood-soaked past and stand together—and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past—even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization. 

Why We Want It: Brandon Sanderson has proved himself to be a fantasy institution and each new novel, especially those of The Stormlight Archive are big event books, tentpoles of the fantasy reading year. Oathbringer has been one of my most anticipated fantasies since I closed the last page of Words of Radiance three years ago.

Scholes, Ken. Hymn [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Ken Scholes completes his five-book epic that began with his acclaimed first novel Lamentation. The battle for control of The Named Lands has captivated readers as they have learned, alongside the characters, the true nature of world called Lasthome.

Now the struggle between the Andro-Francine Order of the Named Lands and the Y’Zirite Empire has reached a terrible turning point. Believing that his son is dead, Rudolfo has pretended to join with the triumphant Y’zirite forces—but his plan is to destroy them all with a poison that is targeted only to the enemy.

In Y’Zir, Rudolfo’s wife Jin Li Tam is fighting a war with her own father which will bring that Empire to ruin.

And on the Moon, Neb, revealed as one of the Younger Gods, takes the power of the Last Home Temple for his own. 

Why We Want It: After a five year wait, Ken Scholes is back and has delivered the fifth and final book in his Psalms of Isaak sequence. There's a lot going on here, with plots upon plots and, astoundingly, even a trip to the moon. I'm interested to see how he wraps this one up.

Weir, Andy. Artemis [Crown, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.

Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.

So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down.

The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself.

Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city.

Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal.

That’ll have to do.

Propelled by its heroine’s wisecracking voice, set in a city that’s at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem-solving and heist-y fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir. 

Why We Want It: You've read The Martian, right? Weir's story of an astronaut marooned on Mars was charming and thrilling enough that we want to see what he does next.



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan.