6 Books with Olivia Waite

Olivia Waite writes queer historical romance, sff, and essays. She is the romance fiction columnist for the New York Times Book Review.

Today, she is here to tell us about her Six Books.

1. What book are you currently reading?

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses — been saving this as a post-deadline treat! Sci-fi and mystery and delicate relationship beats, my favorite combination.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

Enchanting the Fae Queen by Stephanie Burgis — the sequel teased at the end of Wooing the Witch Queen, starring my favorite terrifying character from that book. Burgis ranges from super-light supernatural romances (Austen plus dragons in Scales and Sensibility) to dark political supernatural romances (Congress of Secrets with its shadowy horrors and secret police), but her books are always a wonderful time.

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to re-read?

Prince of Midnight by Laura Kinsale — a washed-up highwayman in exile is brought back to England for revenge by a furious young woman whose family was murdered by a cult. I’ve been rereading a lot of Kinsale lately — some for the first time, like the exquisite For My Lady’s Heart — and this one was my favorite of hers from back when, so I’m dying to find out how it works for me now.

4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about – either positively
or negatively?

Two series: I recently reread both the full Hitchhiker’s Guide series and Ann Leckie’s Imperial Raadch trilogy back to back, and was very surprised to find that Adams’ comedy now feels nihilistically bleak, while Leckie’s far-future imperial civil war leaves breathing room for hope and resilience.

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that holds a special place in your heart?

Growing up as a kid, I never lost an opportunity to check a bookstore or library shelf for anything new or reprinted by Diana Wynne Jones — but the one I reread until it fell to pieces was A Tale of Time City. A bit of mystery, a bit of fantasy, incredible characters, and the impossibly delicious-sounding dessert 42-Century Butter-Pie.

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome?

My latest book is Murder by Memory — on a generation ship where you’re issued a new body every time your old one wears out, and your memories are saved in book form in the Library, ship’s detective Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers just as a murder is committed. It’s my love letter to classic mysteries, sapphic sci-fi, and utopias with problems because people are still people even if they have everything they need.

Thank you, Olivia!

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin

6 Books with Helen Marshall

Helen Marshall is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of two short story collections, two poetry chapbooks and her first novel, The Migration. Her stories and poetry have appeared in magazines and anthologies including Abyss & Apex, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Tor.com. She is the author of the forthcoming The Lady, The Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death.

Today she tells us about her Six Books.

1. What book are you currently reading?

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. I'm on a big speculative detective kick after working my way through Nick Harkaway’s Titanium Noir series. I love how science fiction melds with detective stories—they’re both fundamentally about investigating the way the world works, peeling back layers to reveal hidden truths. There’s something so satisfying about that combination of mystery and speculation, where the detective isn’t just solving a crime but uncovering how reality itself functions. Detective stories often end with “and this is how the world is—we’ve just uncovered the truth of it,” while SF stories end with “and here are the possibilities.” I find it fascinating to see which way an author is going to leap when they're combining both genres.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

Kathleen Jennings’ Honeyeater. Kathleen is one of the most interesting, curious, and creative people I’ve ever met. She has a poet’s attention to language, an artist’s attention to detail, and a novelist’s attention to world-building. Everything she touches becomes something extraordinary—her illustrations, her short fiction, her academic work. We’re actually working on a non-fiction book about writing speculative short stories together, and I snuck a peek at the first page of Honeyeater and immediately wanted to slip the book into my bag and abscond with it. I have a feeling this book is going to be something genuinely special and surprising.

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to read again?

Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta. I read it during the pandemic and it was absolutely perfect—that rare kind of fantasy that completely transports you to another world that’s strange, wonderful, and utterly immersive. It’s about two girls living in a whale made of dreams, which sounds impossible to pull off, but Tashan makes it feel inevitable. The book has this incredible sense of wonder mixed with deep emotional truth. I genuinely think this represents the future of fantasy writing—bold, inventive, unafraid to take risks that pay off beautifully.

4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about—either positively or negatively?
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. It’s a book I reread every couple of years, but each time I discover more to appreciate—more depth arising from apparent simplicity, more emotional resonance hidden in what seems like a straightforward fairy tale. It reminds me again and again of the beauty of the form of the fairy tale, how it speaks to our longing and honours the craving we have for mystery and meaning—something fantasy is deeply interested in. Increasingly I have been thinking about how becoming a mother has changed me as a writer. Like, it rewrote the emotional landscape of my world and charged it in new ways, some of which have been quite confronting and difficult to manage. For example, I am so sensitized, so raw, that I find horror writing much more difficult than I have in the past. But this book brings me a sense of comfort and joy. My husband read it to me while I was pregnant to help me sleep, so it holds a very special place in my heart now.

5. What’s one book you read as a child or young adult that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

Impro by Keith Johnstone. As a university student, I was terrified of public speaking, so I took an improv course out of what I can only describe as a mixture of self-hatred and self-improvement. But this book taught me so much about creating narrative on the fly—how to understand the shifting balance between characters, how to build toward satisfying endings, how to say “yes, and...” to unexpected possibilities. The principles of improvisation—accepting offers, building on what others give you, finding the story in the moment—have become central to how I approach both writing and life. It’s not technically a writing book, but it’s one of the most useful books about storytelling I’ve ever read.

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome?

The Lady, The Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death follows two women across generations: Sara, a circus master’s daughter seeking revenge, and her granddaughter Irenda, who becomes entangled in a web of state-sponsored illusions decades later. It’s a story about how grief and love echo across time, set in a world where the line between political spectacle and magical performance has completely dissolved. At its heart, it asks whether stories liberate us or trap us—and whether we can tell the difference. But what makes it truly awesome is that it’s also narrated by a godlike talking tiger who may or may not be trustworthy. The tiger represents something wild that we think we might tame—which becomes this perfect unreliable guide through a world where nothing is quite what it seems. It felt like the ideal narrator for a story about the power and danger of storytelling itself.

Thank you, Helen!

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin

6 Books with K V Johansen

K. V. Johansen was born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, where she developed her lifelong fascination with fantasy literature after reading The Lord of the Rings at the age of eight. Her interest in the history and languages of the Middle Ages led her to take a Master’s Degree in Medieval Studies at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, and a second M.A. in English Literature at McMaster University, where she wrote her thesis on Layamon’s Brut, an Early Middle English epic poem. While spending most of her time writing, she retains her interest in medieval history and languages and is a member of the SFWA and the Writers’ Union of Canada. In 2014, she was an instructor at the Science Fiction Foundation’s Masterclass in Literary Criticism held in London. She is also the author of two works on the history of children’s fantasy literature, two short story collections, and a number of books for children and teens. Various of her books have been translated into French, Macedonian, and Danish.

Today she tells us about her Six Books

Six Books questions:

1. What book are you currently reading?

I'm currently reading RJ Barker's Gods of the Wyrdwood. I'm a bit behind, as the sequel to it has just come out and is sitting on my desk waiting, but although I started reading it quite some time ago, I had to set it aside for a while -- not due to anything to do with the book, really. It's been a rough year and RJ's a brilliant writer; his worlds are wildly fantastic and his characters are engaging while carrying a lot of shadows, people you really start to care about. I love his work, but when I'm stressed and exhausted myself, reading something where you're immersing yourself in a new, very unfamiliar world and in characters dealing with a lot of heavy stuff can take energy I just didn't have, and I wanted to enjoy my reading of the Wyrdwood. Now that I'm picking it up again, finding my way back into it, and am not quite so tired, I'm finding it utterly enthralling. Some aspects of the world are like a fever-dream half-remembered, strange and beautiful or strange and terrible, while the characters are always firmly rooted in their human nature, even when their actual humanity is debatable. 

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

At the time of my writing this, a forthcoming book I'm waiting for eagerly is Karla's Choice, by Nick Harkaway (though I expect it'll be out, purchased, and read, before this interview is posted). I have a lot of favourite books, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People are among them. I first read LeCarré as a teen and those two had a big influence on me. Usually I don't like people writing other people's people, as it were, but Harkaway has the connection with this that, for me, gives it a feeling of more rightness, and since he's an excellent writer on his own merits in the sff field, I'm very interested to see what he does with Smiley. 

3. Is there a book you're currently itching to re-read?

Last month I was rereading some of my Arthur Ransome collection and I had a great urge to reread We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea (published 1937, part of his Swallows and Amazons series and quite possibly the best of them all) but my only copy is a Puffin paperback from what I call the Bad Glue Era -- it's held together by being tied up with a piece of string. I decided to treat myself to a nice old hardcover copy, and wait to read that. Unfortunately the used and rare bookseller in the UK failed to seal the package, WDMTGTS fell out -- a first edition, though a later printing from the forties, and I am sick at the thought of that lost and tossed in some post office garbage can. I received an opened package in a plastic bag from the Royal Mail, with that book missing. The bookseller has a second copy (in worse shape, sadly) with which they're going to replace it, hopefully taping the package shut this time ... But meanwhile I am still itching to reread that one in particular. The Swallows -- John, Susan, Titty, and Roger Walker -- are spending some time with a young man on his yacht, Goblin, in harbour at the mouth of the River Orwell, but there's an accident while he's ashore, he ends up unconscious in hospital, and in fog and rising tide Goblin slips her anchor and they drift out into the North Sea. Once they realize what's happening, being sensible nautical children, they do all the right things to try to sail back, but between fog and shoals and storm they end up only able to go on, and cross to Flushing in the Netherlands, where -- because in stories some coincidence is allowed, due to narrativium -- their father is about to cross on his way back overland from a posting in Hong Kong. Not only is it a great adventure story, in which you really see the older two, John and Susan (who are probably about either side of thirteen in this one) coming into their own, having to stand in for the adults in a genuinely life and death situation, but it's one of the books from which I learnt most about sailing. You could read the part of The Last Road in which Moth sails alone and through storm back to the abandoned island homeland of her people as a tribute to We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea. 

4. A book that you love and wish you yourself had written?

One that comes to mind is Patricia A. McKillip's Kingfisher, which I'm currently reading for the nth time. It's an amazing book, fascinating and beautiful, and written with such a deft, light hand. It's a fantasy with a modern setting, though not a real world one, woven around Chretien de Troyes' twelfth-century Romance Perceval and the Mabinogion. The landscape is that of the Oregon coast of the US and the technological level is, or was at the time of its publication in 2016, slightly near-future, seamlessly combined with a world of magic. For all the motorcycles and cellphones and high-tech weaponry, it's a story of questing knights and young people, men and women, finding themselves deep in myth and mysteries. It's also very much a book celebrating cooking! The way McKillip was able to weave all these elements together and tell a story at once so solid and satisfying, and at the same time so poetic and full of dappled shadows and things half-seen, is awe-inspiring and perfect. The feel of the book is like reading a poem, and yet it's full of well-rounded, down-to-earth characters getting to grips with things even when those things are strange and half-seen at best. I don't so much wish I'd written it -- no one but McKillip could have done that -- as I wish I could achieve something that could leave readers feeling how I feel when I'm reading it. McKillip, like Diana Wynne Jones, is a writer who leaves me in awe. 

5. What's one book, which you read as a child or young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing? 

There are a lot of those! Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills, taken as one for this answer, are among them. (The concluding book about Merlin, The Last Enchantment, is excellent but didn't have as much of an impact on me as a child.) The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills are about Merlin as a child and young man in post-Roman Britain. They're part of the long tradition of the "historical" Arthurian matter rather than the Romance tradition -- if you're interested in that distinction, I'd direct you to my fellow CMS alumnus Richard Moll's book Before Malory: Reading Arthur in Later Medieval England. For me, Stewart's Merlin and Arthur remain the only true and definitive versions! When I wrote an Arthurian story myself ("The Inexorable Tide" in The Storyteller), I couldn't get away from some of her facts -- Merlin and Arthur as first cousins, for instance. Her narrative style, too, was an impressive example of how to handle the first person, though I was reading other first person narratives at the time, particularly John Buchan. Merlin's reflective approach, looking back on his own life, a conscious telling that catches up with itself partway through The Last Enchantment, has, I think, always made me aware of the constructed frame, present or not in the story, implicit in using the first person, so that I need to know who the audience within the book is, and at what point the character is telling any particular part of their story. It's not something unique to Stewart -- Treasure Island has a definite "now" from which Jim is looking back on his story, though in contrast Buchan doesn't usually do that, you're never told from what point in his life Hannay is narrating his adventures -- but it was through Mary Stewart's Merlin that I first became aware of that device and absorbed how it worked, and why you would choose do it. The setting, too, influenced me, that lingering post-Roman world of multiple languages and old buildings falling into ruin or being repurposed, the worship and rites of old gods and new mingling, that sense that there is a wider world beyond the horizon and that what happens there will spread ripples across the lands and years between. 

6. And speaking of that, what's your latest book, and why is it awesome?

The Wolf and the Wild King: snow, swordfights (Mairran, armed, on horseback = Ladyhawke vibes), and dragons.

To expand on that, my latest book is The Wolf and the Wild King, out from Crossroad Press's Mystique imprint. It's the first part of a duology, The Forest. For a long time, I had been wanting to write something that captured -- call it a particular mood, or maybe a mode, of fantasy, something elusive that I was missing in my current reading. I wanted that feeling of things unseen, of mystery, of ancient rites and remnants of older powers still there if only you know how to call on them, and forests and dragons and the intense mythic mood. I wanted a winter book that acknowledged the depth of winter and used it, not just a delicate southern set-dressing of snow. The Wolf and the Wild King is my attempt to capture some of that, writing about protagonists, Mairran and Lannesk, Nowa and Sage, who may have grown out of some ur-characters who've been with me a long, long time, but who are their own people now, and a pleasure to write. Mairran, who is wolf, raven, and the prince who serves as his mother executioner for ritual sacrifices, and Lannesk, the mute outlaw and musician, are younger than my usual adult main characters, being just twenty-one or so, warriors and musicians both, full of confusion and strong emotions -- mostly, in Mairran's case, anger that he's not admitting to but which is affecting everything he does; he's kind and savage, the latter not least to himself. To balance the intense mythic background, Mairran has a first-person narration that can, if not undercut the air of folkloric mystery and ancient legend, act as a foil to it. He's angry and snarky and hurting, and a lot of the time he pretends none of that is there in himself and he's just being a dutiful child, serving the Queen his mother and it's not strange at all that she's as old as her reign and has no name and no past. Lannesk's story unfolds a couple of centuries earlier, at a time before the Queen's rule, when the Forest is being invaded by dragon-kin led by sorcerer-priests whose magic is fuelled by human sacrifice; he and his brother are reprieved from death at the hands of their stepfather's cousin and slayer by their oath to follow two of the Immortals, the Wild King and the Grey Hunter, in fighting the invaders. Through battle and loss and death, Lannesk's story intersects with Mairran's. Nowa is Mairran's shield-companion, an older woman who's been with him since he was a boy. She was captain of a company of the Queen's road-wardens, then his tutor; now he calls her his keeper. She's constrained in what she can protect him from, but she's made it her personal mission to keep him sane and keep him from becoming the unthinking, uncaring knife that the Queen would have him. Sage is a girl of around fourteen, a Forest-dwelling outcast Mairran captures when she tries to rob his camp. She's also a fox, in an era when such Forest-blessings are so rare they've become the stuff of legend and fear. Being captured by the Queen's son, about whom little is known among the folk generally except that he's the priest of the solstice sacrifices and probably mad, is not Sage's idea of a rescue at first, even when the alternative seems to be dying in the winter Forest. All these characters are brought together around Mairran's quest to find a murderer, but that's not really the story at all -- it just takes Mairran quite a while to realize it.

Thank you, Krista!

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin

Six Books with Gareth Powell

Gareth L. Powell is the author of 20 published books. He is best known for The Embers of War trilogy, The Continuance Series, the Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy, Light Chaser (written with Peter F. Hamilton), and About Writing, his guide for aspiring authors. He has twice won the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel (previous winners include J. G. Ballard and Arthur C. Clarke) and has become one of the most shortlisted authors in the award’s 50-year history. He has also been a finalist for the Locus Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Seiun Award, and the Canopus Award.

Today he tells about his Six Books.

1. What book are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka (translated by Sam Malissa). Five killers find themselves on the same train from Tokyo to Morioka. Why are they all on the same train, and which of them will survive the journey? The book was recently adapted into a movie starring Brad Pitt, so I’m curious to understand that process by reading the original story and seeing what was changed and what wasn’t.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

My wife Jendia Gammon and I both have several forthcoming books we’re really excited about, including ones we’ve written ourselves and an anthology of work by other authors that we’re publishing through our own imprint. But if I’m not allowed to choose one of those, I’ll go for The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey. I enjoyed The Expanse and am looking forward to seeing how they tackle a far future space opera setting.

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to re-read?

I read Dune as a teenager. I think I bounced off it a couple of times before I really got into it, but I remember enjoying it. Now, having seen the recent movie adaptation, I’d like to re-read it so that I can go on to read Dune Messiah, but it’s such a hefty brick of a book, I’m not sure I can commit the time and attention it requires, as there are so many great books out there I haven’t read yet.

4. A book that you love and wish you yourself had written?

I have re-read Excession by Iain M. Banks at least half a dozen times. Inspiring, fearless science fiction that’s so inventive and so much fun, you sometimes have to take a step back to realise just how creative and skillful it all is. Excession follows an “Outside Context Problem” from the perspective of the Culture’s hyper-intelligent ship Minds. As all the ships have long and witty names, it can be hard to keep track of which ship is which, but the gradual uncovering of a vast conspiracy drives the plot unstoppably forwards.

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

I found this book in the school library at the age of eleven. It was the first adult science fiction I’d ever come across. Up until that point, I’d been reading books aimed at children, such as Brian Earnshaw’s Dragonfall 5 series for younger readers, which used their otherworldly settings as backdrops for rollicking adventures. The stories in Of Time and Stars were different. A lot of people talk about science fiction having a “sense of wonder”. The stories in Of Time and Stars blew into my brain like a whirlwind. To this day, I can still remember the awe I felt as I read “The Nine Billion Names of God”, “If I Forget Thee O Earth”, “All the Time in the World”, and “The Sentinel”. Sitting there in my school uniform, clutching the paperback, I felt my mind expand and the scope of my imagination widen. Suddenly, I knew that it was possible to articulate strange philosophical questions; that ideas could be communicated through fiction; and that the world was larger and more outlandish than I could possibly have hoped. I only read the book once, but it was an important turning point for me; it was my own personal Damascus moment, and it set me firmly on the path that would eventually lead to me writing my own science fiction. It opened the door of my imagination and showed me wonders, and I was never quite the same after that.

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome?

I have two books coming out from Titan next year. There’s a new standalone space opera called Future’s Edge, that comes out in February, and in September, a short story collection called Who Will You Save? I’m very excited about both these books and can't wait for people to be able to read them. However, if you can’t wait that long, my most recent release is Descendant Machine, also from Titan. It’s set in the same universe as my earlier novel Stars and Bones but is a standalone story. You don’t have to have read the first one in order to read this one (but obviously, I hope you do!). In Descendant Machine, humanity has been banished from the Earth and set adrift to roam the universe in a fleet of a thousand sentient arks. When Nicola Mafalda’s scout ship, the Frontier Chic, comes under attack, she’s left deeply traumatised by the drastic actions the Chic takes to save her. Months later, when an old flame comes to her for help, she realises she has to find a way to forgive both of them in order to stop a giant machine from destroying history.

Thank you, Gareth!

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

6 Books with Suzan Palumbo

Suzan Palumbo is a Trinidadian - Canadian, dark speculative fiction writer and editor. Her work has been nominated for the Nebula, Aurora, World Fantasy and Locus awards. She also co-founded the Ignyte Awards with L.D. Lewis. Her debut dark fantasy/horror short story collection Skin Thief: Stories is out now from Neon Hemlock. Her queer, Caribbean, space opera novella Countess will be published by ECW Press on September 10th 2024. She is represented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. When she isn’t writing she can be found gardening or being a goth.

Today she tells us about her Six Books:

1. What book are you currently reading?

I’ve just begun Witch King by Martha Wells. The opening has grabbed me by the throat. If an author writes the words: “…a drop of his blood hardened into a red pearl buried in her heart…” on the first page of their book, I am going to sit up and be ready to be told a story! It’s a super goth line!

I recently got to meet Martha while she was in Toronto at a signing event. She was incredibly gracious. I’ve been a fan of Murderbot for some time but I’m excited to read a fantasy book about revolution by her. I think she will deliver a narrative I don’t expect and I’m a big fan of people surprising me. Throw me a curve ball and I am happy.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

I’m excited to read Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera. My mother practices Hinduism and the concept of reincarnation was one she spoke about a lot while I was growing up. As a result, I’m always keen to read speculative work about transmigration by writers who grew up with similar belief systems. I think Vajra’s book is going to be epic, profound and thought provoking. Again, give me the unexpected and the unpredictable. I’m here for all of that!

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to re-read?

I tend not to re-read many books these days, though I did reread books often when I was younger. I read 1984 several times as a teenager. If I do re-visit a book now, it’s to look up a paragraph or phrase that struck me as well written, insightful or pertinent to a situation I’m encountering in the present. Sometimes, I’ll reread a text for research purposes.

A friend once said, “We only have the capacity to read a certain number of books during our lifetime.” That struck a chord with the absurdist in me. So, while I’m all for everyone re-reading generally, I tend to always be working on my new TBR pile so I can experience as many new books as possible. After Witch King, I plan to read The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills.

4. Is there a book that you love and wish that you yourself had written.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. I have to preface this by saying I don’t think I could write The Empress of Salt and Fortune. I think what Vo accomplished with that novella was stunning and unique and only she could have done it. What was so revolutionary about it for me was Vo’s ability to tell the stories of characters who are often given little space or notice. She showed how ordinary people can have a profound impact on the course of history and she did it so elegantly. It is probably the best novella I’ve ever read.

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that holds a special place in your heart?

I read Jane Eyre when I was fourteen and it blew my mind. I had never before related to a character as strongly as I did with Jane. Her hopes, struggles and loneliness seemed so visceral to me. I was shocked that I could connect with a book that was written almost one hundred and fifty years before I was born. That book’s earnestness informs all of my work. The writing felt so confessional and heart wrenching. It is indelibly part of who I am as a person and writer.

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome?

My latest book, Countess, is a queer, Caribbean, space opera novella with a gothic arc at its core. It is full of Caribbean food and culture as well as romance, space chases and curses. It is also a deeply anticolonial story about a Trinidadian descended lieutenant in the future who must come to terms with what she has been taught about empire and the self-hate empire has fostered within her.

I’ll add that the protagonist, Virika Sameroo, is one of the first, if not the first (I could be wrong), femme Indo-Caribbean space officers to be written and published in a novella or novel. I have never encountered a character from my demographic in this type of story before. Virika is passionate and has a temper but she also has a good heart and she cares for her community and people. Her story isn’t an easy one but she is brave despite the odds. That is what makes her and the book awesome. I hope Countess will resonate with those who have never, or rarely, seen themselves and their point of view represented in science fiction and space operas. I hope everyone walks away from the book with indomitable hope in spite of the odds.

Thanks so very much for having me here and letting me talk about some books I love, Paul!

Thank you, Susan!

6 Books with Samantha Mills

Samantha Mills is a Nebula, Locus, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winning author living in Southern California. You can find her short fiction in Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and others, as well as the best-of anthologies The New Voices of Science Fiction and The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2023. Her debut science fantasy novel, The Wings Upon Her Back, is out now! You can find more at www.samtasticbooks.com..

Today she tells us about her Six Books.

1. What book are you currently reading?

I am about halfway through Road to Ruin, a debut fantasy novel by Hana Lee. I saw it described as a high fantasy bisexual Mad Max: Fury Road and had to check it out. And so far, it is delivering on that promise! The main character, Jin, is a magebike courier delivering questionable cargo across the monster-filled wasteland, including some ill-advised love letters. The action kicks off when a high-born client begs Jin to help her escape the city, and they set off into the storm-torn wastes together. I’m digging the action and worldbuilding and am eager to see where it goes.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

I am really looking forward to Countess by Suzan Palumbo. I have been a fan of Suzan’s short fiction since “Tara’s Mother’s Skin” appeared in PseudoPod in 2020, and snapped up her short story collection Skin Thief last year. I was pretty excited to find out she has a novella coming out this September! Her work is always weird, unsettling, and tragic. Countess is undoubtedly going to be in that camp as well—it’s being described as a queer Caribbean space opera version of The Count of Monte Cristo. I love all of those things so that’s an auto-buy for me.

 

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to re-read?

The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty. I read the first book, The City of Brass, in 2019. It was a ton of fun, with evocative worldbuilding, fun characters, and lots of drama, and I wanted to know what would happen next. But, in classic Sam fashion, I kept chipping away at the other first-books-in-series on my towering TBR pile and didn’t immediately pick up the rest of the series. In late 2020, when I was losing my mind with cabin fever and pandemic stress, I nabbed The Kingdom of Copper from the library and found myself fully immersed and blessedly distracted for the first time in months. I devoured that book, immediately dove into The Empire of Gold, devoured that book, screamed in delight that it actually stuck the landing, convinced my sister to read them all, screamed with her a bit… Anyway, it was a real bright spot in an awful year and reminded me of the power of escapism and big, ambitious storytelling. 

I don’t often have time to reread books, especially beefy trilogies, but I just convinced my husband to start the series and join the family fan club. Watching him read it is giving me the itch to pick them back up so we can discuss all those twists and turns!

4.  A book that you love and wish that you yourself had written.

I wish I could write anything like The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi. The initial setup is straightforward: a scholar marries a beautiful, mysterious woman. She has only one rule: do not ask questions about her past. He tries to keep his promise, but when circumstances bring them both to her childhood home, he can no longer resist the urge to learn the truth about his wife and the crumbling manor in which she grew up. It is a gorgeously written novel that unfolds like a fairytale. Does that make it fantasy? I don’t know! But it revels in language and atmosphere and storytelling in a way I found enthralling. It does something I am not yet capable of doing: be quietly compelling. By the end I was clutching the book in my hands muttering, “I want to do that. Why can’t I do that??”

 

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that holds a special place in your heart?

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett will always hold a place of honor in my heart. I stumbled onto it in junior high. I had picked up Good Omens on a whim in some Christmas or birthday book buying spree, and it was so funny I had to go check these authors’ other work out. Neil Gaiman’s books did not look funny, but Terry Pratchett’s sure did (sorry Neil, I did come back later!) The first solo Pratchett book I grabbed was The Last Continent. I had no idea who any of these characters were or why this random wizard was stranded in fake Australia, but I was still so entertained that I begged for more of them, this time paying more attention to publication date!

Death quickly became one of my favorite characters, and Hogfather was the bludgeon I used to recruit my school friends and siblings into joining my new obsession. Some of my fondest memories are of reading the entire book to my younger brother and laughing over it together. When I spot that dogeared copy on my shelf, I remember all those evenings sitting in his bedroom sharing this new world I had discovered by accident, and I can’t wait till I can foist it upon my kids.

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome?

I have a book! It’s called The Wings Upon Her Back and it just came out this April. On one level, it is a fantasy novel told in two timelines, about a warrior who is cast out of her sect and must fight the system she once upheld. On another level, it is about hero worship, intergenerational trauma, and how to come back from utter disillusionment in the ideals of one’s youth. There are sleeping gods and an entire city caught in the clutches of an abandonment crisis. There are towers built to the heavens, a fight for the right to be heretical, and also a bunch of body modification.

To put it another way: if this book were being recommended by a dramatically deep-voiced action movie trailer narrator, he would declare: Zemolai did terrible things to earn her wings. How far would she go to get them back? And then right when you settled in like, oh ok this is an action movie, he’d break character and yell: bam! here’s a philosophical treatise on the nature of cities and gods. That’s The Wings Upon Her Back.

Thank you, Samantha!

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

6 Books with Francesco Dimitri

Francesco Dimitri is a prize-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction, a comic book writer and a screenwriter. He published eight books in Italian before switching to English. His first Italian novel was made into a film, and his last was defined as the sort of book from which a genre 'starts again'. His first English novel, The Book of Hidden Things, a critical and commercial success, has been optioned for cinema and TV. After his second, Never the Wind, the Fortean Times called him 'one of the most wondrous writers of our time.'

Today he tells us about his Six Books.

1. What book are you currently reading?

I am reading a few books at once, which these days I find myself doing more and more. One is Anthony Grafton's Magus, a splendid cultural history of the figure of the magician from the Renaissance on. Then I'm almost at the end of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, an ingenious book on the ways in which indigenous knowledge and a modern understanding of nature could go hand in hand: this kind of thinking is necessary, with an environmental crisis unfolding around us. We have read and written tons of books about saving the world, and it's time to start doing just that. Also, on the novel front, I'm halfway through Jennifer Thorne's Diavola, and I'm having the time of my life with it.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

That must be Paul Tremblay's Horror Movie. It's Paul Tremblay plus horror movies. Come on. You know that feeling that a book was written just for you? There you go.

3. Is there a book you're currently itching to re-read?

I am always itching to re-read old favourites! Re-reading a book is like going back to an earlier stage of your life, and look at it from the point of view of now: it is a form of time-travelling only for readers. The next one is One Hundred Years Of Solitude. That novel is a Tardis: bigger on the inside. It has so much humanity, so much magic, so much humour, so much tragedy—you read it and you're having a parallel life, for a while.

4.  A book that you love and wish that you yourself had written.

Clive Barker's Imajica, hands down. It is large, meandering, sensuous, violent, esoteric, magical, strange, political, queer, ahead of its time. A story of our world, other worlds, magicians, gender, and So. Much. Sex. Barker was doing more than thirty years ago what far too many lesser epigones are trying to do now. And yet his name has been almost forgotten, outside of a small circle of people. I wish folks had better memory. And selfishly, I wish I'll write something as good as Imajica one day.

5. What's one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

The Lord of the Rings; and it's also the book that has a special place in my heart. I read it when I was ten. I had to insist with the bookseller to buy it, and I only managed because my parents helped me out: he thought I was too little to appreciate it. But appreciate it I did, massively. My writing is nothing like Tolkien's, and I'm not especially interested in writing that sort of fantasy. The influence of The Lord of The Rings runs deeper than that. Tolkien showed me the beauty of reality reshaped, and I've been chasing after that beauty forever after.

6. And speaking of that, what's your latest book, and why is it awesome?

The Dark Side Of The Sky. It's a strange, hopefully immersive, book. It is centred on a commune living on a Southern Italian beach. They might or might not be a cult, and they might or might not be humankind's last hope. The book is written like an oral history, told by a few key members of the commune. I have real-world experience researching both cults and magic, and I poured all of it into this book, to make it feel as real as possible—like a true oral history. It's somewhere between horror, magical realism, and thriller. More than a few episodes in the book are quite close to things I have seen and done. Now that I think of it, that probably only goes to show that I did lead an odd life so far.

Thank you, Francesco!

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin