T A B L E o f C O N T E N T S April 2013 • Issue 627 • Vol. 70 • No. 4 CHARLES N. BROWN 46th Year of Publication • 30-Time Hugo Winner Founder Cover and Interview Designs by Francesca Myman (1968-2009)
LIZA GROEN TROMBI Editor-in-Chief KIRSTEN GONG-WONG Managing Editor MARK R. KELLY Locus Online Editor-in-Chief CAROLYN F. CUSHMAN TIM PRATT Senior Editors FRANCESCA MYMAN Design Editor HEATHER SHAW Assistant Editor JONATHAN STRAHAN Reviews Editor TERRY BISSON GWENDA BOND GARDNER DOZOIS AMY GOLDSCHLAGER CECELIA HOLLAND RICH HORTON RUSSELL LETSON I N T E R V I E W S ADRIENNE MARTINI FAREN MILLER Terry Bisson: Personal Alternate History / 6 GARY K. WOLFE Libba Bray: Eco-Friendly Fembot Who Survives on the Tears of Teen Girls / 57 Contributing Editors KAREN BURNHAM P E O P L E & P U B L I S H I N G / 8 Roundtable Blog Editor Notes on milestones, awards, books sold, etc., with news this issue about Alex Bledsoe, Ginjer WILLIAM G. CONTENTO Buchanan and Carl Sagan, Cherie Priest, Elizabeth Bear, Terry Pratchett, and many others. Computer Projects Locus, The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy M A I N S T O R I E S / 5 & 10 Field (ISSN 0047-4959), is published monthly, at $7.50 per copy, by Locus Publications, 34 Ridgewood Lane, Oakland CA 94611. Please send all mail to: Kiernan and Salaam Win Tiptree Awards • 2012 Kitschies Winners • 2013 Philip K. Dick Award Locus Publications, PO Box 13305, Oakland CA Judges • SFWA vs. Hydra • Antitrust Settlement Update • DRM Lawsuit • 2012 Stoker Awards 94661. Telephone (510) 339-9196; (510) 339-9198. FAX (510) 339-9198. E-mail:
Reviews by Faren Miller / 18 p. 16 The Salt God’s Daughter, Ilie Ruby; Thunder Road, Chadwick Ginther; The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker; SHORT TAKE: Grail of the Summer Stars, Freda Warrington. Reviews by Russell Letson / 21 A Very British History: The Best Science Fiction Stories of Paul McAuley, 1985-2011, Paul McAuley; Good- Bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories, John Varley. Reviews by Adrienne Martini / 22 Etiquette & Espionage, Gail Carriger; Wool Omnibus, Hugh Howey; NOS4A2, Joe Hill; We are all completely beside ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler. Sofia Samatar Short Reviews by Carolyn Cushman / 23 (2013) Written in Red, Anne Bishop; Frost Burned, Patricia Briggs; Etiquette & Espionage, Gail Carriger; Deep Down, Deborah Coates; A Turn of Light, Julie E. Czerneda; Undead and Underwater, MaryJanice Davidson; p. 21 Gameboard of the Gods, Richelle Mead; Midnight Blue-Light Special, Seanan McGuire. Divers Hands: Reviews by Cecelia Holland, Karen Burnham, Gwenda Bond, and Tim Pratt / 24 River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay; Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow; Level 2, Lenore Appelhans; The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, John Joseph Adams, ed.; Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, Wetware, Evolution and Revolution, Victoria Blake, ed.; Tenth of December, George Saunders. Locus Listens to Audiobooks by Amy Goldschlager / 27 Red Country, Joe Abercrombie; The Alchemist and The Executioness, Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell; Rip-Off!, Gardner Dozois, ed.; City of Dark Magic, Magnus Flyte; Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone; Devil Said Paul McAuley Bang, Richard Kadrey; The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman. (2010) Terry Bisson: This Month in History / 15, 17, 19, 21 p. 22 & 23 C O R R E C T I O N S TO L O C U S In our March 2013 ‘‘Forthcoming Books, Selected In our February 2013 obituary for Mary Gray, we Books by Author’’ section, we listed the publication misplaced Marscon. Marscon is held annually in date for Tina Connolly’s Copperhead as October Williamsburg VA, not in Maryland. 2011, instead of October 2013.
PHOTO LISTING Terry Bisson...... (LT)1 Sharon Lee & Photos by (LT) Liza Groen Trombi, Libba Bray...... (F/SLJ)1 Steve Miller...... (DGH)30 (F/SLJ) School Library Journal Gail Carriger Guy Gavriel Kay...... (LT)4 Elizabeth Hartwell,
Random House has responded to pressure The complete letter may be read here:
LOCUS April 2013 / 5 Terry Ballantine Bisson was born February at The New School in New York and at Clarion finalists ‘‘Press Ann’’ (1991), ‘‘The Shadow so what’s the point?’ Then one day I thought: story I usually manage to avoid. At the same election, so much as the UN intervention later 12, 1942 in Kentucky. After attending Grinnell and Odyssey. He and Jensen moved to the Bay Knows’’ (1993), ‘‘Dead Man’s Curve’’ (1994), What if it turned out differently? Any Day Now time I realized it was sort of paradigmatic, not on. That utopian collapse of the USA was what College in Iowa from 1960-62, and batting Area in 2002, where he edits the ‘‘Outspoken ‘‘Get Me to the Church on Time’’ (1998); is definitely a science fiction novel, an alternate really my own story but a common, archetypal I was playing with. I did alternate history with around LA and NY, he received a BA from the Authors’’ series for PM Press, and hosts the SF Nebula Award nominees ‘‘They’re Made out of history, even though it’s more about political story, not just of that era but in all of Western some of the same politics once before, in a book University of Louisville in 1964. In 1962, he in SF reading series. Meat’’ (1991) and ‘‘Necronauts’’ (1995); Hugo, than technological change. The only device in literature: the kid goes from the boonies to the called Fire on the Mountain, about what might married Deirde Holst, mother of his two sons First novel Wyrldmaker appeared in 1981, World Fantasy, and Nebula Award finalist the book is the geodesic dome. It’s set in 1968, metropolis (Paris, London, New York) and flies have happened if John Brown’s raid at Harper’s and daughter; they divorced in 1966. From followed by World Fantasy finalist Talking ‘‘England Underway’’ (1993); Nebula Award the ‘hinge of the ’60s,’ you might say (though or flops or whatever. But mostly it’s the story Ferry had succeeded – a sort of breaking down 1966-70 he lived in New York with second Man (1986) and Fire on the Mountain winner and Hugo and Sturgeon finalist ‘‘macs’’ the ’60s really started in the ’50s, the breaking of a whole generation of young people. Where of Manifest Destiny. wife Mary Corey, scripting comics and saucer (1988). Other novels include Voyage to the (1999); and novellas Dear Abbey (2003) and wave of the postwar boom), and the ‘hinge’ of did 1968 come from? I got there on the same ‘‘I’m a pretty lean (some would say stingy) tales for tabloids and serving as editor of Web Red Planet (1990), Pirates of the Universe Planet of Mystery (2008). His short fiction has the novel is a disputed presidential succession. train as 150,000 others and I described the ride. writer, and I indulged that tendency in Any of Horror and True Intimate Confessions. He (1990), The Pickup Artist (2001), and Any been collected in Bears Discover Fire (1993), The idea was actually swiped from Philip Roth, ‘‘I got a little infatuated with the story. A Day Now by leaving out all the connective left the city to join the Red Rockers commune Day Now (2012). He completed the late Walter In the Upper Room and Other Likely Stories who apparently never knew The Plot Against reader from Kentucky sent me a letter saying, tissue. I was bored with the architecture of the in the Colorado mountains (world’s largest M. Miller, Jr.’s Saint Leibowitz and the Wild (2000), Numbers Don’t Lie (2003), Greetings America was alternate history. He thought he ‘Were you writing a memoir, and just got bored novel. I tried doing something a little different, hippy-built geodesic dome!) and other com- Horse Woman (1997), and has co-written YA & Other Stories (2005), Billy’s Book (2009), invented the form! with it and made it into science fiction?’ That’s formally: write scenes without setting them up, munes in the West and South while working as novels with Stephanie Spinner, written chil- and TVA Baby (2011). The Left Left Behind ‘‘Any Day Now started as an alternate his- not how it started, but it was personal – not only and don’t describe the characters.(All us hippies an auto mechanic. He returned to New York in dren’s books about NASCAR racing as ‘‘T.B. (2009) includes the title story, a play, and an tory, and then took on a little more weight for in terms of events, but in the politics. looked pretty much alike anyway.) In many 1976, serving as an editor and copy chief at Calhoun,’’ produced numerous film and TV interview and autobiography. me personally as the back story developed, ‘‘I’m told that Any Day Now doesn’t read ways, it’s very conventional – the timeline is Berkley and Ace until 1985, when he became novelizations and media tie-ins, and written • since the protagonist (the Dorothy, if you will) like science fiction. I guess that’s by design. totally straight, there are no flashbacks, and I a full-time writer. Meanwhile he was active non-fiction titles, notably On A Move: The ‘‘People used to say to me, ‘You were in- starts in small-town middle America, then It’s an alternate history from the beginning of don’t play with point of view. So it’s a deeply in the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee with Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal (2001). volved in the ’60s, the counterculture, the com- scoots off to college, veers through boho New the book, almost, though a lot of people don’t conventional book, as well as somewhat ex- his current wife Judy Jensen (with whom he Bisson rose to prominence in the SF field with mune scene, the anti-war movement, the New York, then lands in the hippy Southwest. He’s notice the ‘little’ stuff: James Dean doesn’t perimental. I hadn’t written a novel in seven or raised another son and two daughters). In the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Nebula Award- Left and all that. You should write something part of the whole ’60s mix of radical politics die, Edmund Hillary does. Things start to pick eight years, and I don’t really think of myself mid-’90s he was a consultant at HarperCollins winning story ‘‘Bears Discover Fire’’ (1990). about it.’ My answer was, ‘Me and a million oth- and counterculture. I began to feel that this up when Collins steps out onto the moon. The as a novelist. I always get in trouble – a little and Avon, and taught in the writing program Other notable short stories include Hugo ers. Plus everybody knows how it all turned out, was the book I should write, the more personal central image in the book is not the contested p. 46
6 / LOCUS April 2013 LOCUS April 2013 / 7 People & Publishing Milestones ALEX BLEDSOE, 50, suf- fered a minor heart attack on February 23, 2013 – ‘‘minor, in the sense that getting crushed by a one-ton boulder is minor compared to getting crushed by a ten-ton boulder. I was rushed to surgery, my pipes were cleaned out and reinforced, and... I feel fine.’’ KIM THOMPSON, 56, of Fantagraphics Books has been Nisi Shawl (2011) diagnosed with lung cancer, III to Pete Wolverton of Thomas though he does not yet know Alex Bledsoe (2010) Dunne Books via Scott Miller of how severe it is. ‘‘I’m relatively Trident Media Group. young and (otherwise) in good with an ax,’’ and a JON SPRUNK’s The Book of health, and my hospital is top-flight, second book sold the Black Earth quartet – Blood so I’m hopeful and confident that to Anne Sowards and Iron, Temple of the Sun, we will soon have the specifics at Roc via Jennifer Gods of Earth and Sky, and narrowed down, set me up with Jackson at the Don- The Hallows of the Night – sold to Lou Anders at Pyr via Eddie a course of treatment, proceed, ald Maass Literary Solstice Winners Ginjer Buchanan (2011) & Carl Sagan (1970s) and lick this thing.’’ His partner Agency. She sold YA Schneider of JABberwocky Liter- at Fantagraphics Gary Groth and I Am Princess X to Cheryl Klein at world, to Erika Tsang at Avon via ary Agency. other employees will handle his Scholastic via Jackson. Nancy Yost of Nancy Yost Literary PETER CLINE sold four books responsibilities there for now. ELIZABETH BEAR’s fantasy Agency. in the Ex-Heroes series about su- Editor, author, and fan PAUL Western Karen Memory sold to JOHN GLASBY’s Mythos perheroes in a zombie apocalypse WILLIAMS, 64, entered hospice Beth Meacham at Tor via Jennifer trilogy, The Coming of Cthuga, to Julian Pavia at Broadway via care in February. He suffers from Jackson of the Donald Maass Liter- Dawn of the Old Ones, and Dark David Fugate at LaunchBooks early-onset dementia, likely a result ary Agency. Armageddon, sold to Centipede Literary Agency. of the brain trauma he suffered in a NISI SHAWL sold steampunk Press via Phil Harbottle on behalf DAVID DALGLISH & ROB- 1995 bicycle accident. novel Everfair to James Frenkel of the Glasby estate. Dwellers in ERT DUPERRE sold fantasy tril- at Tor. Darkness and Other Tales of ogy The Breaking World to David Awards BEN WINTERS sold the third the Cthulhu Mythos and The Pomerico at 47North via Michael book in the Last Policeman trilogy Gods of Fear and Other Dark Carr of Veritas. GINJER BUCHANAN and the to Jason Rekulak at Quirk Books Entities went to Ramble House JEFF SOMERS begins a new late CARL SAGAN are this year’s via Joelle Delbourgo of Joelle via Harbottle. urban fantasy series with Trickster, recipients of the Solstice Award, Delbourgo Associates. AVERY HASTINGS sold sold to Adam Wilson at Pocket at created in 2008 and given at the dis- GAIE SEBOLD’s Shanghai Feuds, first in epic SF series with auction via Janet Reid of FinePrint cretion of the SFWA president with Sparrow, first in a new steampunk ‘‘echoes of Romeo & Juliet and Literary Management. the majority approval of the Board series, went to Solaris US and UK Gattaca,’’ plus a second book and TINA CONNOLLY sold the last of Directors to individuals who via John Jarrold. an e-book novella, to Jennifer Weis book in the Ironskin trilogy and have had ‘‘a significant impact on KELLY McCULLOUGH sold at St. Martin’s for six figures in a YA Seriously Wicked to Melissa the science fiction or fantasy land- the fifth and sixth books in the Fall- pre-empt via Stephen Barbara and Frain at Tor via Ginger Clark at scape, and is particularly intended en Blade series to Anne Sowards at Rachel Hecht at Foundry Liter- Curtis Brown. for those who have consistently Ace via Jack Byrne of Sternig & ary + Media on behalf of Paper ERIKA JOHANSEN’s fan- made a major, positive difference Byrne Literary Agency. Lantern Lit. tasy trilogy Queen of the Tearling within the speculative fiction field.’’ Bestselling Indian author PHILIP E. HIGH’s collection – ‘‘a female-oriented Game of The awards will be presented dur- AMISH TRIPATHI, who writes Guilty as Charged went to Borgo Thrones’’ – sold to Maya Ziv and ing the Nebula Awards Weekend as AMISH, sold South Asian rights Books via Phil Harbottle on behalf Jonathan Burnham at Harper for a in San Jose CA, May 16-19, 2013. to his new trilogy for a record 50 of High’s estate. reported seven-figure pre-empt via million rupees (about $900,000) TIM WAGGONER sold an Dorian Karchmar of William Mor- to Westland Books, an English- urban fantasy duology starting ris Endeavor. Books Sold language publisher in India. with Night Terrors to Lee Harris at NEIL WILLIAMSON sold The JIM BUTCHER sold Cinder GARY GIBSON sold books one Angry Robot via Cherry Weiner of Moon King to Ian Whates at New- Spires and two more in a new fan- and two of Touring the Apocalypse, the Cherry Weiner Literary Agency. con Press via John Jarrold. tasy series to Anne Sowards at Roc and delivered Marauder, to Bella GLENDA LARKE sold the Sor- YASMINE GALENORN sold via Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Pagan at Tor UK via Dorothy Lum- cery and Spice fantasy trilogy, be- three new Otherworld novels, a Maass Literary Agency. ley of Dorian Literary Agency. ginning with The Lascar’s Dagger, novella, and two books in new spin- JAMES MORROW sold a short ILONA & ANDREW GOR- to Jenni Hill at Orbit via Dorothy off series Fly By Night, to Kate novel to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon DON, writing as ILONA AN- Lumley of Dorian Literary Agency. Seaver at Berkley via Meredith via Emma Patterson of Brandt & DREWS, sold three books in a MATT FORBECK’s Loot Drop Bernstein of Meredith Bernstein Hochman. new fantasy series about a ‘‘tough sold to James Frenkel at Tor. Literary Agency. CHERIE PRIEST’s Maplec- female PI’’ in a setting where DAVID WONG sold novels LEXI GEORGE sold book roft, which the author describes as ‘‘paranormally-enhanced modern Futuristic Violence and Fancy four in the Demon Hunter series, ‘‘Lizzie Borden fighting Cthulhu Medici-like dynasties’’ run the Suits and John Dies at the End Demon Hunting with a Dixie
8 / LOCUS April 2013 Deb, and two more installments, novel Premonitions – ‘‘Stephen resold his first novel The Carpet to Alicia Condon at Kensington King meets Ocean’s Eleven’’ – and People to Anne Hoppe at Clarion via Publishing via Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra two more books to Jessica Wade at Colin Smythe. This collectable edi- Literary Agency. Ace via Lindsay Ribar of Sanford tion will include Pratchett’s illustra- GARDNER DOZOIS has EDMUND GLASBY’s collec- J. Greenburger Associates. tions and a story about the characters joined Clarkesworld magazine as tion The Ash Murders sold to New writer SARA B. LAR- written when the author was 17. reprint editor, where each month Borgo Press via Phil Harbottle. SON’s debut adventure romance KARL EDWARD WAGNER’s he will choose two stories from the ANTHONY A. GLUNN’s col- Defy, described as ‘‘in the vein of Kane novels and stories sold to Dar- past 30 years to reprint. lection Mystery in Moon Lane Kristin Cashore and Leigh Bar- ren Nash at Orion for digital pub- RACHEL FAGUNDES has went to Borgo Books via Phi dugo,’’ sold to Lisa Sandell at lication, and hardcover rights sold been promoted to associate editor Harbottle. Scholastic Press via Josh Adams of to Centipede Press, via Dorothy at Tachyon Publications. MATTHEW QUINN MARTIN Adams Literary. Lumley of Dorian Literary Agency sold thriller Nightlife to Parisa Zol- LIZ DE JAGER sold debut on behalf of the Karl Edward Wag- faghari and Abby Zidle at Pocket YA fantasy trilogy The Blackhart ner Literary Group. Media Star via Barbara Poelle of Irene Legacy to Bella Pagan at Tor UK via PAT MURPHY resold The J.G. BALLARD’s The Drowned Goodman Agency. Juliet Mushens of the Agency group. City, Not Long After; The Falling World has been optioned by War- BETSY FRANCO sold Naked, MARY BEHRE’s first novel, Woman; Max Merriwell’s Adven- ner Bros. for Heyday Films pro- about Rodin’s muse Camille Clau- paranormal romance Precious Jew- tures in Time & Space; Nadya; ducers David Heyman and Jeffrey del coming back to life in 2008, to els, and a second book sold to Leis Points of Departure; The Shadow Clifford, with Jon Berg of Warner Ben LeRoy at Tyrus Books with Pederson at Berkley via Jewelann Hunter; and Wild Angel to Orion Bros. overseeing the project. Robyn Russell of Working Title to Cone of Cascade Literary Agency. in the UK via Greene & Heaton in JONATHAN LETHEM’s For- edit via Amy Rennert of the Amy JACQUELINE KOYANAGI association with Jennifer Weitz of tress of Solitude has been adapted Rennert Agency. sold first novelSurgery in the Sky the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. as a musical, and will premiere at the JUSTIN ROBINSON’s dark to Paula Guran at Prime via Rachel BRIAN LUMLEY sold e-book Dallas Theater Center in March 2014. fantasy City of Devils sold to Kate Kory of Scovil Galen Ghosh Liter- rights to all his backlist novels to IAN R. MacLEOD’s ‘‘Snod- Sullivan at Candlemark & Gleam. ary Agency. Darren Nash at Orion via Dorothy grass’’, an alternate history in SONYA CLARK sold Freak- MANUEL GONZALES sold Lumley of Dorian Literary Agency. which John Lennon left The Beatles town to Angela James at Carina first novel The Regional Office Is MICHAEL G. CONEY sold e- before the band became famous, Press. Under Attack, ‘‘part high-concept book rights to his entire backlist to has been adapted for the UK Sky JEFFE KENNEDY sold two sci-fi, part Shakespearean tragedy,’’ Darren Nash at Orion via Dorothy Playhouse TV series, and will run books in the Covenant of Thorns to Megan Lynch at Riverhead via PJ Lumley of Dorian Literary Agency. April 25, 2013. series to Angela James at Carina Mark of Janklow & Nesbit. GEOFFREY HUNTINGTON TERRY BISSON is co-writing Press via Pam van Hylckama Vlieg ELIZABETH HOLLOWAY sold his Ravenscliff series to Mary the screenplay for upcoming biopic of Foreword Literary. sold debut Call Me Grim and a Cummings at Diversion Books via Robeson, about African-American MATT ADAMS sold II Crim- second book to Georgia McBride at Tara Hart of the Jean V. Naggar professional football player, lawyer, sonstreak, sequel to superhero Month9Books via Lindsay Ribar of Literary Agency in association with activist, musician, and actor Paul novel I, Crimsonstreak, to Kate Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Malaga Baldi of the Baldi Agency. Robeson. Sullivan at Candlemark & Gleam. JAIME LOREN’s first novel JOHN BURKE’s The Black Film rights to KENDARE SAM PATEL’s The Data Run- Waiting for April and two more Charade and Ladygrove resold to BLAKE’s Anna Dressed in Blood ner sold to Mary Cummings at novels sold to Georgia McBride at Borgo Books via Phil Harbottle on were optioned by author STEPHE- Diversion Books. Month9Books. behalf of the Burke estate. NIE MEYER’s Fickle Fish Films JOSHUA ROOT sold urban fan- First novelist M.K. HUTCHINS SUSAN GATES resold middle via Jody Hotchkiss of Hotchkiss and tasy Undead Chaos and a second sold Drift to Stacy Whitman at Tu grade fantasy/mystery Zilombo Associates on behalf of Adrianne book to Angela James at Carina Books. to Stacy Whitman at Tu Books Ranta of Wolf Literary Services. press via Eric Ruben of The Ruben P.C. CAST’s novella Kalo- via Random TONE MILAZZO’s Picking Agency. na’s Fall, in the House of House UK. Up the Ghost was optioned by CHRISTINE FEEHAN sold Night series, went to Jennifer Breaking the Cycle Films, to three novels in the Dark series and Weis at St. Martin’s via Mer- be produced and adapted by one in the Sisters of the Heart series edith Bernstein. James Charleston, via pub- to Cindy Hwang at Penguin via Ste- STEPHEN JONES will lisher ChiZine Publications. ven Axelrod of the Axelrod Agency. edit Weirder Shadows Over Film rights to LISA DONNA GRANT sold two more Innsmouth for Fedogan & DESROCHER’s Personal Dark Kings paranormal romance Bremer, and sold paperback Demons trilogy were op- novels to Monique Patterson at rights to anthologies Shadows tioned by Ineffable Pictures St. Martin’s via Louise Fury at L. Over Innsmouth and Weird via Pouya Shahbazian of Perkins Agency. Shadows Over Innsmouth to New Leaf Literary & Media T.J. BENNETT’s paranormal ro- Steve Saffel at Titan Books, on behalf of FinePrint Liter- mance Dark Angel – ‘‘Beauty and all via Dorothy Lumley of ary Management and Suzie the Beast meets Lost’’ – went to Liz Dorian Literary Agency. Jones Townsend. Pelletier at Entangled via Lucienne will edit Fearie Tales for Jo LIANE MERCIEL sold Diver of the Knight Agency. Fletcher of Jo Fletcher Books a novel based on the video CHRISTINE D’ABO’s steam- via Lumley. game Dragon Age: Origins punk romance Shadowbox and a [‘‘Books Sold’’ continues in to Tor via Marlene Stringer second book sold to Latoya Smith at ‘‘The Data File.’’ See page 46.] of Stringer Literary Agency. Forever Yours via Courtney Miller- DAVE GROSS delivered Callihan at Sanford J. Greenburger Pathfinder Tales novel King Associates. Books Resold of Chaos to James Sutter at JAMIE SCHULTZ sold first TERRY PRATCHETT Gardner Dozois (2008) Rachel Fagundes (2012) Paizo.
LOCUS April 2013 / 9 Antitrust DRM Lawsuit Three independent booksellers are seeking class e-book market (estimating a 60% market share) Settlement Update action status in New York Federal Court on behalf because their DRM is ‘‘specifically designed to Judge Denise Cote has announced a proposed of ‘‘all independent brick-and-mortar bookstores limit the use of digital content after sale for all of schedule to review Macmillan’s antitrust who sell e-books.’’ The plaintiffs – Book House the e-books published by the Big Six.... None of settlement with the Department of Justice, 49 of Albany NY, Posman Books of New York City, the Big Six have entered into any agreements with US states attorneys, and the civil class-action and Fiction Addition of South Carolina – accuse any independent brick-and-mortar bookstores or lawsuit. The DoJ is required to file all public Amazon and the Big Six trade publishers of ‘‘un- independent collectives to sell their e-books.... comments by May 30, 2013, with any motions reasonable restraint of trade and commerce in the Consequently, the vast majority of readers who due by June 13; responses to motions are due market for e-books.’’ They also accuse Amazon of wish to read an e-book published by the Big Six June 27; and the government’s reply is due by monopolization and violations of sections one and will purchase the e-book from Amazon.’’ There is July 8. No hearing date has been set. two of the antitrust Sherman Act. The booksellers a current arrangement between e-book distributor Penguin settled with the DoJ in late 2012, but want the court to order removal of Amazon’s digital Kobo and the American Booksellers Association, they have yet to achieve a settlement in the price- rights management (DRM) software from their e- but the plaintiffs don’t appear to consider the fixing lawsuit brought by US states attorneys. books, to be replaced by some unspecified ‘‘open ABA an ‘‘independent collective.’’ They petitioned Judge Cote to exclude them source DRM’’ that would allow indie stores to sell Attorney Alyson Decker of Blecher & Collins from the upcoming June 2013 trial – despite e-books readable on the Kindle. That’s actually says they chose to go after the Big Six because being named as the lead defendant by the states possible now, in many cases, but it can admittedly they ‘‘collectively dominate the market share,’’ – and the judge refused. The company has until be a cumbersome process for readers who aren’t and further says the accusations that Amazon is March 15 to file a motion to ‘‘assert its right not tech-savvy, with multiple steps required to get a monopoly are limited mainly to their use of to defend against the lawsuit... and/or to request the file in readable form onto Kindle readers. The proprietary DRM, and not other business prac- to hear live direct testimony of two Penguin plaintiffs also want the court to enjoin Amazon tices. They are not seeking monetary damages, executives in exception to the Court’s Individual ‘‘from selling DRM specific, or non-open-source, just injunctions and attorney’s fees. Practices.’’ The states have until March 29 to dedicated e-readers, alternative e-reader devices, A spokesperson for Simon & Schuster said, oppose the motion, and Penguin’s deadline for and apps.’’ ‘‘We believe the case is without merit or any a reply to any objections is April 5. The suit claims that Amazon has a lock on the basis in law and intend to vigorously contest it. Furthermore, we believe the plaintiff retailers will be better served by working with us to grow their 2012 Stoker Awards Final Ballot business rather than litigating.’’ The 2012 Stoker Final Ballot has been released eZine 3/12); ‘‘Magdala Amygdala’’, Lucy Writer and technology activist Cory Doctorow by the Horror Writers Association. Snyder (Dark Faith: Invocations). complained on website Boing Boing that, ‘‘For Superior Achievement in a Novel: Bottled Superior Achievement in an Anthology: some reason, [the plaintiffs are] using ‘open Abyss, Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Redrum Shadow Show, Mort Castle & Sam Weller, source’ as a synonym for ‘standardized’ or ‘in- Horror); NightWhere, John Everson (Samhain); eds. (HarperCollins); Dark Tales of Lost teroperable.’ Which is to say, these booksellers The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan Civilizations, Eric J. Guignard, ed. (Dark don’t really care if the books are DRM-free, they (Roc); The Haunted, Bentley Little (Signet); Moon); Hell Comes to Hollywood, Eric Miller, just want them locked up using a DRM that the Inheritance, Joe McKinney (Evil Jester). ed. (Big Time); Horror for Good: A Charitable booksellers can also use. There is no such thing Superior Achievement in a First Novel: Anthology, Mark C. Scioneaux, R.J. Cavender, as ‘open source’ DRM – in the sense of a DRM Charlotte Markham and the House of & Robert S. Wilson, eds. (Cutting Block); Slices designed to run on platforms that can be freely Darklings, Michael Boccacino (William of Flesh, Stan Swanson, ed. (Dark Moon). modified by their users.’’ He concludes, ‘‘I wish Morrow); Wide Open, Deborah Coates (Tor); Superior Achievement in a Collection: The they’d actually bothered to spend 15 minutes The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief, Charles Woman Who Married a Cloud: Collected trying to understand how DRM works and what Day (Noble YA); A Requiem for Dead Flies, Stories, Jonathan Carroll (Subterranean); it is, and how open source works, and what it is, Peter Dudar (Nightscape); Bad Glass, Richard New Moon on the Water, Mort Castle (Dark before they filed their lawsuit.’’ Gropp (Del Rey); Life Rage, L.L. Soares Regions); Errantry: Strange Stories, Elizabeth (Nightscape). Hand (Small Beer); The Janus Tree, Glen Superior Achievement in a YA Novel: The Hirshberg (Subterranean); Black Dahlia and Riggio Offers to Buy B&N Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown); I Hunt White Rose: Stories, Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco). Len Riggio, chairman of the Barnes & Noble Killers, Barry Lyga (Little, Brown); Flesh & Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction: board, has ‘‘notified that board [that] he plans Bone, Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster); Writing Darkness, Michael Collings (self- to propose to purchase all of the assets of the I Kissed A Ghoul, Michael McCarty (Noble published); The Annotated Sandman, Volume retail business,’’ which includes the stores and Romance); The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater 1, Les Klinger (Vertigo); Trick or Treat: A the BN.com site. This announcement comes in (Scholastic); A Bad Day for Voodoo, Jeff Strand History of Halloween, Lisa Morton (Reaktion); the wake of disappointing sales last year for the (Sourcebooks). The Undead and Theology, Kim Paffenroth Nook e-reader, which have prompted the com- Superior Achievement Long Fiction: Thirty & John W. Morehead (Pickwick); Dark pany to consider spinning off the Nook division Miles South of Dry County, Kealan Patrick Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and and moving away from hardware in general. Burke (Delirium); I’m Not Sam, Jack Ketchum the Modern Horror Film, Kendall R. Phillips Riggio’s offer ‘‘is currently contemplated to & Lucky McKee (Sinister Grin); Lost Girl of (Southern Illinois University Press). be comprised primarily of cash consideration the Lake, Joe McKinney & Michael McCarty Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection: and the assumption of certain liabilities of the (Bad Moon); The Blue Heron, Gene O’Neill Dark Duet, Linda Addison & Stephen M. company,’’ presumably including the nearly $130 (Dark Regions); The Fleshless Man, Norman Wilson (NECON eBooks); Notes from the million B&N owes Riggio for their purchase of Prentiss (Delirium). Shadow City, Bruce Boston & Gary William the Barnes & Noble College division four years Superior Achievement in Short Fiction: Crawford (Dark Regions); A Verse to Horrors, ago, which is due to be paid by 2014. Riggio ‘‘Surrounded by the Mutant Rain Forest’’, Michael Collings (self-published); Vampires, ‘‘would provide the equity financing for the Bruce Boston (Daily Science Fiction 8/15/12); Zombies & Wanton Souls, Marge Simon transaction and undertake to arrange any debt ‘‘Bury My Heart at Marvin Gardens’’, Joe (Elektrik Milk Bath); Lovers & Killers, Mary financing required for the transaction.’’ The B&N McKinney (Best of Dark Moon Digest); A. Turzillo (Dark Regions). board is forming a special committee to examine ‘‘Righteous’’, Weston Ochse (Psychos); Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel: and consider the offer. Riggio currently owns ‘‘Available Light’’, John Palisano (Lovecraft p. 46 about 38% of the company stock.
10 / LOCUS April 2013 The Data File First Sale Doctrine Upheld • The US Legal News • Warner Bros. is filing a coun- Thriller, and Paolo Bacigalupi for Drowned Cit- Supreme court ruled 6-3 that the first-sale tersuit against the Tolkien estate, seeking ies (Little, Brown) in Young Adult Literature. doctrine applies even to products produced damages. About five months ago the estate Margaret Atwood will receive the Innovator’s outside the United States. This is good news for and their British publisher Harper UK sued Award for her efforts to push narrative form. used booksellers and libraries, though perhaps Warner Bros. (and New Line Cinema and the Winners will be announced at an awards cer- less welcome for publishers. The lawsuit, John Saul Zaentz Company), alleging the filmmakers emony on April 19, 2013, immediately preced- Wiley & Sons Inc. v. Supap Kirtsaeng, concerns ‘‘have, with increasing boldness, engaged in a ing the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, a man studying in the US who had his family in continuing and escalating pattern of usurping April 20-21, at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, Los Asia send him cheap copies of textbooks from rights to which they are not entitled – rights Angeles CA. For more, and a complete list of Wiley Asia, which he resold in the US on eBay which belong exclusively to plaintiffs.’’ The es- nominees:
LOCUS April 2013 / 11
Gardnerspace: A Short Fiction Column By Gardner Dozois
Asimov’s 2/13 Much the same could be said about the Janu- The February Lightspeed features another Lightspeed 1/13, 2/13 ary and February issues of Lightspeed: solid strong story by M. Bennardo, ‘‘The Herons of Eclipse Online 2/13 entertaining work, but nothing really excep- Mer de l’Quest’’, told as a series of journal en- F&SF 3-4/13 tional. The best story in the January issue, the tries by a frontiersman lost in the wilderness of weaker of the two issues, is Matthew Kres- unexplored North America in the 18th century The February Asimov’s is a solidly enter- sel’s ‘‘The Sounds of Old Earth’’, an autum- who encounters and ultimately battles a race of taining issue, although there’s probably noth- nal piece about the fading of one generation as strange and sinister heron-like beings. It’s good ing here that’s going to end up on next year’s a new generation rises, except that Earth itself fun. Also good fun is Carrie Vaughn’s steam- awards ballots. In ‘‘And Then Some’’, Mat- is being lost with this old generation. The pop- punk story ‘‘Harry and Marlowe Escape the thew Hughes spins a fast-paced tale set in his ulation of the planet is being moved to a New Mechanical Siege of Paris’’, an Origin Story Ten Thousand Worlds future – a busy interstel- Earth, while the ecologically ruined old planet (to use comic book terminology) of the odd lar milieu chockablock with con artists and is scheduled to be sliced up for parts; the story team of Harry and Marlowe (one a swashbuck- thieves, admittedly inspired by the work of Jack deals with an old man reluctant to leave his ling aviator, one the Princess of Wales), whose Vance. It follows an operative who, in spite of home. I have some trouble with the idea that the subsequent adventures have been featured in beatings, druggings, and false imprisonment in entire population of the world could be moved Lightspeed before, and who are shown meet- a hard-labor camp, grimly pursues an investi- elsewhere – although with the supertechnology ing here for the first time as they scramble to gation into a notorious fraudster’s claim to be this society possesses, being able to slice plan- escape an invasion of Paris by killer robots re- able to create a device that will reach into other ets up like apples, who knows? – but the story verse-engineered from alien technology found universes – a claim that, for once, dismayingly, is nicely felt and nicely characterized, and in a crashed spaceship. C.C. Finlay tells a may turn out to be true. The future where global the frog pond that the old man has nurtured fast-paced tale of an agent on the run, whose warming has caused the sea-levels to rise and for decades and is reluctant to abandon to its consciousness leaps uncontrollably from body swamp the coastlines has become the go-to set- fate is nicely symbolic of all the things about to body, in ‘‘The Infill Trait’’. And Genevieve ting for most SF writers, but in ‘‘Outbound the Old Earth that are being callously lost in Valentine tells a tricky slipstreamish ver- From Put-In-Bay’’, new writer M. Bennardo the process. Jonathan Olfert’s ‘‘Lifeline’’ sion (or versions) of ‘‘The Little Mermaid’’ in takes us instead to a future where a new Ice is a near-mainstream story about the danger ‘‘Abyssus Abyssum Invocat’’. There are also Age is slowly making the northern tier of the a Have faces when mingling with Have-Nots reprint stories by Robert Reed, Mary Soon Lee, United States uninhabitable, for a suspenseful that could just as well be taking place in a bad John Crowley, and Marly Youmans. and well-crafted story about a woman forced neighborhood in present-day Dakar (or in any to become a reluctant smuggler, with dire ef- of a thousand other places around the world). The February issue of Eclipse Online fea- fects. Vylar Kaftan then shuttles us sideways It’s only made SF by the background detail of tures two good stories. The better is ‘‘On the in ‘‘The Weight of the Sunrise’’ to an alternate the destiny-predicting Lifeline system which Arrival of the Paddle-Steamer on the Docks world where the Incan Empire survived the on- sends the rich guy questing into the slums in of V – ’’ by Peter M. Ball, a chilly updating slaught of Pizzaro and the Conquistadors, for the first place, which is sketchily explained and of the theme of being abducted to Fairyland, a chewy story about a humble farmer who be- not well-integrated with the rest of the story. set in a modern-day world where regular visi- comes embroiled in the deadly machinations of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s fantasy ‘‘Purity tations by the Fairies are not only an accepted the highest levels of court society, and comes Test’’, is, as is usual with Rusch, competent part of life, but even used as a tourist attrac- to hold the secret to preventing that deadliest and entertaining, although the stereotypical tion. Ball’s Fairies are especially cold and ruth- of scourges, smallpox – a secret that ruthless unicorn that shows up at the end is a bit disap- less, not at all nice creatures, and the story ends people will do anything to possess. pointing. A.C. Wise’s ‘‘With Tales in Their well for nobody, especially its bitter and hap- In ‘‘The Golden Age of Story’’, Robert Teeth, from the Mountain They Came’’ is a less protagonist, who sees everything playing Reed shows us that it is possible to have a world (sort of) retake of Fahrenheit 451, well-craft- out in advance, but can do nothing to stop it with too much imagination in it. New writer ed with a psychologically complex protagonist, or alter his own fate. The other February sto- David Erik Nelson gives us a rather silly use but the method of preserving books threatened ry, ‘‘Sanctuary’’, an all-too-rare appearance for time-travel, recruiting low-paid hand-labor, with destruction by war, tattooing them on by Susan Palwick, takes us to a future where in ‘‘The New Guys Always Work Overtime’’. their bodies, is silly and probably leaves them some kind of Rapture has taken place, leaving And new writer John Chu also tells a time- even more vulnerable, something that works those not chosen struggling to survive in the travel story of sorts: episodes are induced by better symbolically than it would in reality. ruins of society – similar to the scenario of the a friendly alien for the reluctant protagonist’s There are also reprint stories by Judith Ber- Left Behind books, except that Palwick’s Post- own good, in a somewhat murky story called man, Daniel Abraham, Theodora Goss, Cherie Rapture world is more surreal, where mewling, ‘‘Best of All Possible Worlds’’. Priest, and Jeffrey Ford. p. 36
14 / LOCUS April 2013 Locus Looks at Short Fiction: Rich Horton
Eclipse Online 3/13 a case like this some of the effect is that of one the Alphabet Songs of Love’’ is the enjoyable Interzone 1-2/13 tile of a larger picture... so it’s not quite a com- SF story of a robot programmed to mimic ancient Beneath Ceaseless Skies 2/17/13 pletely free-standing story (a point the author actresses, or, worse, ancient pop princesses. Strange Horizons 2/13 advances in the text) but another strong addition She suddenly decides ‘‘I will not die for love Lightspeed 3/13 to an impressively realized portrait of a future. tonight’’ – and escapes to meet the eccentric Apex 2/13 title character. Patricia C. Wrede offers ‘‘Mad Shimmer #16 Both stories at Beneath Ceaseless Skies for Hamlet’s Mother’’, a look at a Gertrude who Cosmos 2-3/13 February 7 are strong. James L. Sutter’s ‘‘Be- clearly sees Hamlet’s insanity – and his ties to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine#55 headed by Peasants’’ tells of Alana, a Princess his dead father’s nature. An interesting slant on Aurealis #57 of the Appalachian Empire, which looks like the play. Black Gate 2/13 a post-holocaust agglomeration of former US territory, but with one fantastical element added Shimmer #16 is a pretty characteristic issue Futuredaze, Hannah Strom-Martin & Erin – an Oracle that tells the rulers the means of their of this always very attractive magazine – if a Underwood, eds. (Underwords) February 2013. dying. Alana does not believe she should inherit bit longer than often in the past. The pieces are the throne from her father. Instead she (with universally well written and nicely imagined, In March Eclipse Online presents stories by her lower-born lover) is part of a revolutionary but perhaps sometimes just a bit too light on, two rising stars – E. Lily Yu and An Owomoy- group, but then war comes, her father meets his well, ‘‘story,’’ so that while I liked a lot of what ela. Yu’s ‘‘Loss, with Chalk Diagrams’’ is the fate, and when Alana visits the Oracle, she faces I read, it was harder to be really enthusiastic. stronger, about a woman mourning the suicide a choice. It’s a message story, simply but effec- I did particularly enjoy Christie Yant’s ‘‘The of a close friend. Most people in this future avail tively put together. ‘‘The Crimson Kestrel’’ by Revelation of Morgan Stern’’, a dark story themselves of ‘‘rewiring’’ after traumatic events, Leslianne Wilder, is good fun, if not terribly of a woman who finds herself perhaps the lone a way of ‘‘burning out’’ neural pathways associat- original, about an aristocratic woman in a faux survivor of an angelic apocalypse, as well as ed with the grief and trauma of a given event, but France who relieves the boredom of balls and ‘‘Tasting of the Sea’’ by A.C. Wise, about a man Rebekah has refused this treatment throughout such by doing adventurous good deeds. who makes new hearts for the broken-hearted – her life. The question, then, is why she decides but what of his heart? to go in for rewiring after her friend’s death, and Erik Amundsen’s ‘‘Live Arcade’’ (Strange the answer, or hints at an answer, is given in a Horizons, February 7) is a fine story using an old- Damien Broderick, formerly fiction editor well-written retrospective of the two women’s ish idea – the mysterious video game that seems of the Australian popular science magazine relationship. Owomoyela’s ‘‘In Metal, In Bone’’ possibly to be real. The protagonist is unnamed Cosmos, has a story there for February/March. is fantasy, about a man who can sense memories (‘‘the kid’’) and we follow his halting progress ‘‘Do Unto Others’’ is a bracing story of a mul- from a dead person by holding one of their bones. in this odd game, which seems to include a sort tiverse told by a woman working for a somewhat He ends up at the front lines of a war devastating of moral instruction, as well as a multi-player bureaucratic organization that visits parallel his country, and in a sense documents the war’s mode. Interesting and unexpectedly moving, in worlds, apparently with the intent of evaluat- path by recording the memories of as many of the the end it’s more about the kid’s real life than ing the worthiness of each world to continue dead as are recovered, while interacting with his the video game. existing, by means of talking to a version of Colonel and with a journalist from outside their themselves in that world. This time she visits a country. Solid work, with particularly intriguing Lightspeed’s March issue includes a strong somewhat backward Earth, where the worship characters, but never quite brilliant. Lisa Tuttle story, ‘‘The Dream Detective’’, in of Mithras seems to dominate... with unexpected which a man meets a woman who claims to in- results. Interzone’s January-February issue leads off vestigate crimes committed in dreams. Naturally, with ‘‘The Book Seller’’ by Lavie Tidhar, he doesn’t believe her – and naturally he finds Another Australian magazine is Andromeda another Central Station story, this one directly himself dreaming of committing a terrible crime. Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Issue #55 includes related to ‘‘Strigoi’’ from a couple issues previ- Tuttle takes the story in a somewhat unexpected p. 37 ous. The book seller of the story’s title runs a direction from there. I also enjoyed Rich Lar- store near Central Station. One day he rescues son’s ‘‘Let’s Take This Viral’’, a cynical tale of THIS MONTH IN HISTORY Carmel, a ‘‘strigoi,’’ or sort of data vampire, and bored immortals in the far future who take up April 1, 2020. Romney does a Richard. The takes her in, causing some friction with his fam- disease as a new fashion. body of the presidential candidate, missing ily and some pain to himself when he is forced since late 2012, is discovered in a stalled car elevator in California. Tests to determine if to act almost as her pimp. These stories are ever Shakespeare is the theme for the February he's alive or not are inconclusive. more clearly part of an extended mosaic, and in Apex. Merrie Haskell’s ‘‘Zebulon Vance Sings
LOCUS April 2013 / 15 Locus Looks at Books: Gary K. Wolfe River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc 978-0- 451-46497-2, $26.95, 636pp, hc), April 2013.
A Stranger in Olondria (Being the Complete Memoirs of the Mystic, Jevick of Tyom), Sofia Samatar (Small Beer 978-1-931520-76- 8, $16.00, 285pp, tp) April 2013. [Order from Small Beer Press, 150 Pleasant Street #306, Easthampton MA 01027;
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade 978-1597804592, $19.99, 600pp, tp) March 2013. [Order from Night Shade Books, 1661 Tennessee Street, #3H, San Francisco CA 94107;
16 / LOCUS April 2013 Olondria). I confess I’ve come to approach is relatively modest in scope. But just about built around two of the hoariest SF clichés of such maps with a degree of apprehension, since every piece is in place here – it’s the rare first all – the giant asteroid destroying the Earth experience teaches that some authors who go to novel with no unnecessary parts – and, in terms and the brave spaceman sacrificing himself to such lengths with geography fully intend to trap of its elegant language, its sharp insights into save the ship. Yet Strahan presents the story us there until we’ve passed through every last believable characters, and its almost revelatory as evidence of one of the more ‘‘encouraging village somewhere in volume thirteen. focus on the value and meaning of language and trends’’ of SF, of its moving away from the It turns out there’s not much to worry about, story, it’s the most impressive and intelligent first ‘‘white male Anglo Saxon Mayberry of its though, because A Stranger in Olondria is less novel I expect to see this year, or perhaps for a youth.’’ And indeed, Liu’s casting the story in the a conventional epic than a gorgeously imagined while longer. context of a Japanese-American character trying ghost romance, which undermines its apparently desperately to maintain vestiges of a culture familiar quest setting at almost every turn. I have In his introduction to The Best Science Fic- he barely remembers, even using fragments of no idea if Samatar intends to revisit this world tion and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven, Japanese poetry as structural elements, makes (although an incipient war at the end certainly Jonathan Strahan (a colleague here at Locus as it seem new, and even quite moving. There are leaves open an invitation to do so), but the fact well as a podcast partner) cites Paul Kincaid’s a number of examples of non Anglo-American is that her Olondria has less in common with now-famous critical essay on a few year’s cultures represented in the book; another is Ted Middle-earth or the Four Lands than with Le best anthologies in The Los Angeles Review of Kosmatka’s wonderfully titled ‘‘The Color Least Guin’s Orsinia or even Thomas Mann’s Venice, Books as having generated ‘‘probably the single Used by Nature’’, which concerns a young boat- and that map actually becomes quite useful in most interesting discussion of science fiction builder on a remote Pacific island (Kosmatka terms of understanding both the trade routes and and fantasy during the year,’’ and he’s right; seems to be developing a sort of dual career, cultural isolation that are central to the narrative. Kincaid’s essay was well reasoned, civilized, with thriller novels on the one hand and relatively Both of these are crucial to the coming of age tale and provocative in exactly the ways it means muted, carefully considered stories of the sort he of her narrator, Jevick of Tyom, whom we first to be, in arguing that much SF is showing signs has always written on the other.) meet as a quick and intellectually curious child in of exhaustion, or of losing faith in itself and its Time and again in The Best of the Year, we the remote and almost entirely illiterate village of futures. It also, not surprisingly, prompts us to find stories whose innovations, whosenewness , Tyom on one of the ‘‘Tea Islands,’’ some distance reconsider exactly what function is served by lie in form rather than content – stories that imbed from the mainland. Jevick’s household includes this kind of annual overview: are we looking other stories, stories that break in half, stories his brusque father, a successful pepper merchant, at the state of the SF literary art, or the state of that employ folkloristic voices or postmodern his birth mother and stepmother, and his men- the editor’s tastes, or simply the latest trends? fragmentation, stories that offer alternative points tally challenged older brother Jom. Realizing The spiritual granddaddy of Kincaid’s essay of view or cultural orientations, one (Robert that the future of his business – and his family’s is probably John Barth’s 1967 essay ‘‘The Shearman’s pleasantly goofy ‘‘Joke in Four well-being – depends on Jevick, the father hires Literature of Exhaustion,’’ in which he argued Panels’’), that even takes place entirely within a tutor named Lunre from Bain, the major city that the traditional forms of fiction as inherited a Peanuts comic strip. Some are almost radical and trading port of the fabled and sophisticated from (mostly) the 19th century had essentially in form, like Kij Johnson’s ‘‘Mantis Wives’’, Olondria. Jevick takes to his lessons eagerly, played out their possibilities, and spent a fair which builds a kind of horror tale without benefit discovering, in one truly remarkable passage, amount of time championing Jorge Luis Borges of much discernible plot by simply presenting that letters and numbers might be arranged to as a model for a new kind of fiction. Ironically, the mating habits of mantises in a series of tell stories, and not merely to total up accounts. Borges’ own legacy in short fiction is nowadays suggestively titled sections. Catherynne Valente From here on, the novel becomes in large part more evident in SF and fantasy than anywhere also uses subtitled sections (reminiscent of a romance of reading, and a celebration (quite else, ranging from such philosophical fictions as the SF archetype for this technique, Pamela literally) of the power of story. When his father Ted Chiang’s ‘‘Exhalation’’ to the self-deluding Zone’s ‘‘The Heat Death of the Universe’’) dies unexpectedly, Jevick inherits the responsi- faux-anthropological tone of Theodora Goss’s in her alternate 1950s post-nuclear ‘‘Fade to bility of traveling to Olondria to sell peppers, ‘‘Beautiful Boys’’ in Strahan’s current anthology. White’’, adding in some dead-on Brunner-like and aboard the ship encounters a young woman, This says something about the state of SF, and parodies of period TV commercials that also Jissavet, who is dying of a hereditary wasting Strahan’s anthology repeatedly illustrates that echo The Space Merchants. Kelly Link begins disease and hopes to find treatment in Olondria. state in ways that both refute and don’t refute with what appears to be a familiar generation- Upon arrival, Jevick is quickly seduced (also Kincaid’s argument. starship tale with stylistic echoes of Bradbury quite literally) by the glamor and excitement of The chief difference between Barth’s and (it appeared in a tribute anthology), but shifts the city, and gives little further thought to Jissavet Kincaid’s view of ‘‘exhaustion’’ is that Barth gears radically when the crew members begin and her mother – until he finds himself haunted was talking mostly about form, and Kincaid telling each other stories, one of which involves by Jissavet’s ghost, or what the Olondrians mostly about content. Barth wasn’t arguing that the two houses of the title, constructed as part refer to as an ‘‘angel,’’ who implores Jevick to the grand themes of fiction were used up, but of a conceptual art installation. It’s not the only rescue her buried body and burn it according to simply that there were newer and more interest- occasion in which a story calves off another, her native tradition. When Jevick reveals that ing forms with which to explore them (including unexpected tale: K.J. Parker’s ‘‘Let Maps to he has met an angel, he finds himself under fantastic literature). SF and fantasy, on the other Others’’ begins as a shrewdly satirical academic arrest and at the center of an ongoing struggle hand, are usually thought of almost entirely in tale about rival scholars and a lost manuscript, between a materialist government determined terms of content, which leads Kincaid to won- but uses the resolution of that story to slingshot to wipe out all traces of what they view as local der if SF has lost faith its futures and begun a very different maritime adventure involving superstition, and a priesthood who view him as a looking backward, or to worry about whether a long-lost island. Similarly, Peter Dickinson’s valuable asset in retaining their own power. After a given story belongs in genre at all, based on ‘‘Troll Blood’’ begins as a kind of academic escaping a deadly massacre, Jevick undertakes the degree of its fantastic content. Strahan, an mystery involving a young woman aiding an an arduous mountain journey, trying to save a editor with a literary bent who nevertheless p. 38 wounded companion while hoping to find a way shows an appreciation for the classic tropes, to release the spirit of Jissavet, with whom he is may be less in thrall of those tropes than some THIS MONTH IN HISTORY increasingly falling in love. Jissavet’s own tragic other editors, but there’s certainly some familiar April 13, 2029. Celestial slap. The stadium- tale, revealed late in the narrative, is only one material in his book that would seem to lend sized asteroid Apophis ‘‘skips’’ off Earth's of several interpolated tales (including Lunre’s) credence to Kincaid’s concerns. For example, upper atmosphere, creating a shock wave that downs two 787s and a container zep. which lend a surprisingly dense complexity to Ken Liu’s ‘‘Mono No Aware’’, given a certain Asteroid Watch promises software update. a novel which, by most genre fantasy standards, pride of place as Strahan’s final selection, is
LOCUS April 2013 / 17 Locus Looks at Books: Faren Miller
The Salt God’s Daughter, Ilie Ruby (Soft Skull 978-1-61902-002-3, $25.00, 338pp, hc) September 2012. [Order from Soft Skull Press, 1919 Fifth St., Berkeley CA 94710;
Thunder Road, Chadwick Ginther (Raven Stone 978-0-88801-400-9, C$16.00, 390pp, tp) September 2012. [Order from Turnstone Press/ Ravenstone, Artspace Building, 206-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg MB R3B 1H3, Canada;
The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper/HarperCollins 978-0-06-211083-1, $27.99, 486pp, hc) May 2013. sand, or dash over a highway of broken glass, birdsong or the pulse of ocean waves works SHORT TAKE wherever we’d been dropped.’’ At rest, they subtle magics, and even something as common Grail of the Summer Stars, Freda Warrington ‘‘talked of Cool Whip and ice cream, of warm as flowering bougainvillea vines can evoke pas- (Tor 978-0-765-31871-8, $27.99, 384pp, hc) apple crisp and salty Fritos. We dreamed of sion – love and lust alike. April 2013. flying.’’ Back in their wandering mom’s Ford While some fantasies of overlapping realities Country Squire station wagon, they speed along only seem to come alive once they’ve left Earth The February Locus has been out for some ‘‘shout[ing] out the words to James Taylor bal- for other realms, The Salt God’s Daughter (Ilie time – its Recommended Lists for 2012 es- lads,’’ or settle down to watch ‘‘her soap opera, Ruby’s second novel, after The Language of sentially set in stone – but I’m still finding new General Hospital,’’ on a portable TV, followed Trees) turns a highly observant eye on our own personal favorites as books continue to trickle by ‘‘folk songs and Hebrew prayers’’ – unless world and finds the magichere , close enough to in from the small presses. I’ll open with two she’s too busy drinking herself into a stupor, trip over at any random moment. of these, each a hearty mix of old gods with a headed for an early death. vivid sense of place, though their settings vary Amid the specific details of wayward youth In the Prologue of his 2012 debut Thunder wildly in both temperature and tone: Southern in 20th-century Southern California, there’s a Road, first of a trilogy, Chadwick Ginther brings California (much of it decades ago) for Ruby; a quirky mix of legends, beliefs, and magics. Aside an elemental figure from old Norse folklore modern but weirdly haunted Northern Canada from Judaism, mother had a private religion of blazing into this world. Wham! The Patch – far- for Ginther. moon phases marked in yearly weather alma- northern Canadian oil sands being dug up by The Salt God’s Daughter opens with a nacs. Soon after a coastal Home for Girls takes ragtag, well-paid crews of men – explodes and Prologue by that daughter, Naida, in 2001. We in the orphaned sisters, it becomes what they call burns. Stunned but already starting to mourn learn about the physical quirk (webbed toes on ‘‘Wild Acres,’’ more of an old folks’ home where lost co-workers and friends, Ted Callan sees her left foot) that leads school bullies to call their new neighbors offer up memories and ad- something emerge from the fires: her ‘‘the Frog Witch,’’ and the partial relief she vice, Scottish lore of selkies, and (in time) some It was too big to be real. Shaped like a man, gets from bouts of solo swimming in the Pacific Jewish rites of passage. As Ruthie teeters on the but the height of a building, it stepped out Ocean near her home: brink of maturity in 1988, she meets a curiously of the inferno grinning like the devil himself. Ted dropped his phone as the creature tore There was no water that was too rough uncanny girl who leads a gang of children – ‘‘Not a length of metal from the ground and held it or frigid. I could swim in nighttime storms quite beach rats, not quite city slickers’’ – around aloft, brandishing it like a club. The challenge beyond the breakwaters, and had dozens the piers and sells stories to anyone who’ll have the creature bellowed at the sky somehow of times that my mother did not know about, them. One tale, where an ocean creature ‘‘peeled cut through Ted’s deafness, reaching some letting my fingers sift through the tips of the primal part of him.... He wanted to scream, feathered sea grass near the oil rigs as off his magic skin and came onto land, becoming but no human cry could scare away what barracuda darted around my legs in figure a man,’’ reminds her of selkies but also makes towered over the wreckage. eights, and a swarm of fish swam in silvery her wonder ‘‘if this was an ocean version of an bubbles as a sea lion crossed, the slip of its urban myth ... passed on by word of mouth.’’ She Smaller, hunched entities follow it out, then coat brushing against my arms.... might have looked closer to home. retreat into the flames. ‘‘Rattling its rough sabre Naida feels no sense of supernatural privilege, On New Year’s Eve, 1987, she and Dolly (who in the air, the giant opened its mouth to roar the only rage at both the bullies and the apparently calls herself ‘‘the blasphemous sister,’’ and flits deep belly-laugh of a Bond villain’’ – and looks human scumbag who seduced her mother and from man to man) meet the scruffy Scottish Ted right in the eye. left her with a child to raise. Mother (Ruthie) sailor Graham, in a setting right for the times: Already feeling rootless after a tough divorce, now gets a bit of comfort by feeding creatures ‘‘In the flicker of the disco ball, his lips were the 40-something Ted proceeds to quit his job from the ocean where she never learned to swim. pewter, his skin a placid dove gray. Shifting at the Patch with no idea where to go next. Just We see her ‘‘standing on the sand below [the his weight, he seemed the slightest bit nervous, moving along the highway in a truck with the porch], her nightgown billowing under the hem which I appreciated.’’ It’s the more withdrawn remnants of his possessions, he picks up Tilda, a of a shiny blue raincoat as she doled out fish Ruthie who falls for him, even if this occasional much younger female hitchhiker who turns out to for the three sea lions that crowded around her, seer has already glimpsed how their affair will come from ‘‘a long tradition of single moms. You filling her loneliness.’’ likely end. know, the whole maiden, mother crone thing.’’ When Book One begins, it’s 1972, near the Finally we’re back with Naida, result of that After giving some further background info, she starting point of Ruthie’s memories of an almost liaison, reporting on a childhood where a casual reads his fortune (more ambiguous than most), feral childhood with her sister Dolly. The girls acceptance of wonders (like breathing under- then lapses into silence, smoking his cigarettes. grow up half-wild as their alcoholic, obsessive water) comes up against the scoffing of adults, Tilda’s no longer with him when he pulls into a mother shuttles them between the California yields to uncertainty, but never fully vanishes. crummy motor inn on the outskirts of Alberta and desert and the coast. Left to their own devices In their own ways, both Ruthie and her own heads for bed, only to be accosted by some short, for days at a time, they run barefoot, developing messed-up mother lived in a numinous world beardy guys in army jackets, first seen at a nearby calluses that could ‘‘withstand the hot desert of gods, monsters and raw emotions, where bar. And then things get seriously strange. One
18 / LOCUS April 2013 of them binds him in a chain that sends out bolts pressing tasks that come with them, it won’t a Bedouin wizard. The flask eventually reaches of electricity, declaring (in a gravelly, accented happen till the end of Volume Three. New York as a battered memento, its occult voice) ‘‘This chain was made of a cat’s footfalls One final note on this book and The Salt contents totally forgotten, and comes into the and the roots of a mountain; from the breath of God’s Daughter: despite obvious differences hands of a Maronite Catholic tinsmith in the fish and the beards of women. You cannot break in setting, mythic background and tone, both Lower Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Gleipnir.’’ They shave Ted’s entire body, then expose ancient powers to human concerns like Syria. When the smith touches it with a soldering start cutting him till he blacks out. A cleaning the need for oil (whether it’s Pacific derricks or iron, ‘‘A powerful jolt blasted him off his feet, lady’s screams wake him the next morning, feel- mining far northern sands), and both give major as though he’d been struck by lightning.’’ Trying ing like he had ‘‘the mother of all hangovers’’ roles to women in the full cycle from maiden to figure out what happened, he sees someone until he sees all the blood, and what it covers: and mother to crone, touched with some kind lying on the workshop floor. dozens of arcane symbols, tattoos that have been of magic – even if Naida’s booze-swilling, The man staggered to his feet. He was tall carved not inked. He soon discovers the tattoos superstitious grandma doesn’t fit standard defi- and well built, with handsome features. Too have granted him the powers of the gods. nitions of a hag. In both, reality jostles with the handsome, in fact – his face had an eerie He’ll have to fight his way to freedom, first supernatural, and sometimes the arcane can seem flawlessness, like a painting come to life. His from a pair of bouncers and then the cops, remarkably at ease on a changed planet. Without dark hair was cropped short. He seemed before he can get back on the road and try to a trace of antagonistic empires, vast armies, unconscious of his nakedness. figure out what’s been done to him. Searching or the schemes of eldritch sorcery, Ruby and And then the ‘‘man’’ grabs him, lifting him the Internet provides some info about Norse Ginther write fantasy that resonates the deepest clear off his feet and asking weird questions. gods and folklore, but other voices clamor when it strikes close to home. Almost as elemental as that giant who exploded in his head (accompanied by ravens’ cries). onto the Patch, but confined to a much less Useful answers only come when someone else A more complex mixture of characters, voices deadly form, the newcomer finally starts to calm from last night’s bar suddenly manifests in his and cultures come together in the jumble of ethnic down. So does the frightened tinsmith, who re- truck. Smiler, Trickster, adept in any shape and neighborhoods of late-19th-/early-20th-century members enough legends from his homeland to form, he’s known to the Norse as Loki, to the New York City in Helene Wecker’s first novel, whisper, ‘‘Sir... are you a jinni?’’ Ahmad could natives here as the devious Raven God. Unlike The Golem and the Jinni. Immigrants and ex- have found a kind of freedom in much worse the fire giant, or the dwarves who transformed iles from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and surroundings. an unwilling Ted with their knives, this snide many other regions have set up private enclaves In a similar stroke of luck, Chava finds her wise-guy thoroughly knows his way around that might lie just a few streets apart, yet feel like way to a Jewish neighborhood where an old humans and modern times. At one point, his different worlds, each with its own baggage of re- rabbi takes her under his wing. Despite being voice takes on ‘‘a croaky, Muppet-like quality’’ ligion, myth, ritual, language, and memories. The supernatural creatures with special powers, when to channel Yoda – perfectly aware that young Ted sprawling cities in tales of Arabian Nights aren’t thrust into a bustling New York City both golem had hated Star Wars, though his brother bought half as polyglot or wildly varied as this place and jinni can seem like innocents abroad, baffled into it completely. where Polish rabbis, Syrian Christian smiths, and and vulnerable in various ways. (For one thing, The action moves north again, as if magneti- many others – believers and apostates – cling to she’s hypersensitive to the force of religion in cally pulled back toward that giant with its plans their own territories, while a few restless types action – any religion – while he’s in trouble out- to end the world in a new Ragnarok. Along the set out into the unknown. doors every time it starts to rain.) Like ordinary way, Ted starts talking about another media Neither of the title figures originated here, immigrants, they must assimilate as quickly as memory: Thor comic books. Loki remarks, ‘‘I neither is human (appearances can be deceptive), they can, finding jobs and housing, learning more enjoy seeing them portray a drunken, stupid and both arrive essentially by accident. Aside about the place and its people. lout as a bucket-wearing, baby-faced blond from that, they don’t have much in common, The other characters turn out to be fascinating paragon of virtue. Always good for a laugh, and they won’t even meet until at least a third in their own right, some with back stories that ex- how much they got wrong.’’ Ted brushes this of the way into the book. Unlike a more typical, tend to more openly occult times, but all of them aside to proclaim, ‘‘I didn’t ask for this power, deliberately focused romance where awkward anchored in one of the many classes and cultures and I don’t want it. But if I’m the one riding the early encounters soon blossom into love – tragic, of this highly complicated, turn-of-the-century crazy train, maybe I should use them to do some absurd, or simply passionate – this work is free city, with its ice cream vendors, heiresses, half- good?’’ Further sarcasm from the Smiler pro- to wander. And Wecker pulls it off in grand style, way houses and busy docks. There’s magic here, vokes another outburst: ‘‘I’m not talking about wherever she chooses to go. if you know where to look. But wonder can have running around in my underpants and red pirate Chava the golem was created back in Poland, many guises. The nonhuman newcomers find boots. I’m talking about doing something real. from clay and Kabbalistic magics, as the paid it in what the locals take for granted: our own Joining the cops or the fire department. Fuck, companion for an unpleasant man who wants to world, on the verge of modern times. I could end droughts, bring water to deserts.’’ try his luck in the New World but knows himself That’s where The Golem and the Jinni comes Outsize ambition almost seems to make sense well enough to realize he’ll never find a willing closest to the two books previously discussed, in territory where street signs in even the small- female partner. After he dies en route, she’s left especially when compared to another fantasy est towns proclaim their links to old gods like to her own devices – far more humanoid, intel- inspired in part by The Arabian Nights (back Thor and Odin. ligent, and curious about the world than most in vogue as a source these days). The Steel Loki’s skepticism isn’t the only thing that golems, yet scarcely prepared for what lies Seraglio by the Carey trio, whose British edition keeps this tale from becoming just another fast- ahead. Only a combination of strength and sheer I reviewed in #618, has now appeared in the US paced, macho wish-fulfillment fantasy. Women stubbornness even gets her ashore. Here’s how as The City of Silk and Steel. Though it deals also play a role. Up north, Ted manages to track she first appears to a random witness: ‘‘She was with ancient kingdoms and assorted magics from down Tilda, meet her family (who seem to be soaking wet. She wore a man’s woolen jacket an unusual variety of viewpoints and voices, two previous generations of self-sufficient gals, and a brown dress that clung immodestly to her p. 39 down-to-earth despite roots that may reach back body.... Most astonishing was the thick, brackish as far as Loki’s), and get deflected onto a more mud that covered her skirt and shoes.’’ When THIS MONTH IN HISTORY devious type of quest that must precede any clash he asks if she’s been swimming, she gives him April 6, 2031. Robeson Hall. The legendary with wolves and giants. a strange smile and answers, ‘‘No... I walked.’’ NY concert venue (formerly ‘‘Carnegie’’ Hall) Thunder Road offers some resolutions, but Ahmad the jinni, born of fire, has been im- is renamed in honor of the once-blacklisted singer and civil rights hero, born on this day nothing final. If Ted is ever going to relax back prisoned in a copper flask far longer than Chava in 1898. Pete Seeger hosts ceremony. into normal life, giving up superpowers and the has existed, after an unfortunate encounter with
LOCUS April 2013 / 19
Locus Looks at Books: Russell Letson A Very British History: The Best Science King’’, it is the universe beyond, in Fiction Stories of Paul McAuley, 1985-2011, the form of a faux-romantic fugi- Paul McAuley (PS Publishing, 978-1-848635- tive, that comes calling to disrupt 96-8, £25.00, 435pp, hc; -97-5, £60.00, signed, the peaceful, constricted life of a slipcased edition with five additional stories in cultural-museum enclave. separate booklet, hc) April 2013. Cover by Jim ‘‘Prison Dreams’’ (1992) and Burns. [Order from PS Publishing, Grosvenor ‘‘Children of the Revolution’’ House, 1 New Road, Hornsea, East Yorkshire (1993) form a diptych from the HU18 1PG, England;
LOCUS April 2013 / 21 Locus Looks at Books: Adrienne Martini
Etiquette and Espionage, Gail Carriger (Little, to the school, Sophronia’s carriage is attacked book. Ultimately, these rough patches are for- Brown 978-0-316-19008-4, $17.99, 320pp, hc) by the flywayman, who drop from balloons in givable, if only because Howey’s Wool world is February 2013. order to steal a ‘‘prototype’’ from Sophronia’s so intriguing and his characters so compelling. escort, who will turn into the book’s antagonist. These self-published stories will soon be Wool Omnibus, Hugh Howey (Hugh Howey From there, it all delightfully and speedily un- coming out in a Random House edition in the 978-1-469984-20-9, $19.95, 548pp, pb) 2012. furls. There will be vampires and werewolves UK, from Simon & Schuster in the US, and the Cover art by Mike Tabor. [Order via
22 / LOCUS April 2013 Short Reviews by Carolyn Cushman
Anne Bishop, Written in Red (Roc 978-0-451- 14-year-old tomboy Sophronia Temminnick, Girl!’’ is an amusing tale of a human resources 46496-5, $26.95, 433pp, hc) March 2013. Cover whose frustrated mother arranges to have her sent manager trying to keep her job while being un- by Blake Morrow. to a special finishing school – but it doesn’t take able to resist helping others with her peculiar A world where humans were just one intelli- too long for Sophronia to figure out the school’s superpower – she can eat just about anything and gent species among many provides the backdrop real focus is on assassination and espionage. It’s turn the energy into superstrength. The collection for this urban fantasy novel, the first in the Others hard to tell if she really grasps that most of her wraps up with a tale of the Wyndham Werewolves series. At least in the human cities, the world is schoolmates are from families that consider it that ranges from past to the future, with characters much like ours, but in most of what we call the good to be evil; as far as Sophronia is concerned, reminiscing as a grown-up Lara Wyndham finally New World, the Others (also called terra indi- anything is better than being sent of to work for takes control of the pack, and finds her mate. The gene) – shifters and vampires and elementals – vampires: ‘‘They’ll suck my blood and make me bad guys that pop up in these tales are pretty lame rule. Humans, barely tolerated for their skills at wear only the latest fashions.’’ As it happens, when it comes to final confrontations, but these making things, have been allowed to build only a she’s a natural at sizing up a situation and doing stories are really all about the snark and banter, few, carefully monitored cities. The biggest cities something about it, which leads to airship esca- with a little passion along the way. have Other enclaves called Courtyards, and the pades, night adventures, and a set of companions story begins when a desperate human woman very odd for the time and place. It’s a cute tale Richelle Mead, Gameboard of the Gods (Dut- named Meg stumbles into a Couryard where Hu- with an entertaining edge; an excellent start to ton 978-0-525-95368-5, $26.95, 460pp, hc) man Law Does Not Apply. She’s on the run from a new series. June 2013. mysterious, but definitely human pursuers, sees SF and fantasy mix in this first volume of the this dangerous place as a haven, and takes a job Deborah Coates, Deep Down ( Tor 978-0-7653- Age of X series, set in a future where various as the human liason – basically, the shipping and 2900-4, $25.99, 304pp, hc) March 2013. disasters have led to most of North America be- receiving person for shipments from the human The second Hallie Michaels fantasy mystery ing taken over by the Republic of United North world. This particular Courtyard is making an ef- finds ex-Sergeant Hallie considering a job that America, where religion is considered dangerous fort to get along with humans, running shops that could take her away from her rural South Da- and strictly monitored by Internal Security’s SCI allow both human and Other customers, but the kota hometown. But the appearance of a strange division: Sect and Cult Investigation. But some head wolf shifter is bemused by Meg, who seems shadow in the fields, local disappearances, and ritualistic murders lead to the recall of exiled SCI to know even less about the human world than then a visit to an elderly neighbor being visited operative Justin March, who dared to suggest the most of the Others. What Meg is running from by canine harbingers of death combine to draw supernatural might be real – and has a pair of is revealed gradually, but, not too surprisingly, Hallie into a new mystery – one that somehow ravens talking in his head. He’s assigned one Mae she turns out to be a special sort of person who involves her possible boyfriend Deputy Boyd, Koskinen as bodyguard; she’s an oddity herself, finds unexpected ways to win over the Others. It’s and his hidden past. It’s a good read, but the a rare aristocratic castal to join the ranks of the an interesting mix of SF, fantasy, and mystery/ mix of fantasy and mystery is a bit uneasy; the deadly enhanced soldiers called praetorians. thriller; though there’s no overt romance, there almost hardboiled tone and actual investigation Together, they try to solve a string of killings and are hints of something building; add significant is offset by all the magic around – magic without clues that involve forbidden genetic engineering touches of humor and horror, an adorable wolf noticeable rules, until they are needed for the plot. and ancient gods apparently trying to make a pup, and some really special ponies, and this comeback – and who are oddly interested in Jus- makes a thrilling, yet often charmingly goofy, Julie E. Czerneda, A Turn of Light (DAW 978- tin and Mae. It’s an intriguing scenario, although start to a new series. 0-7564-0707-0, $20.00, 849pp, tp) March 2013. the worldbuilding feels a little shaky – despite a Cover by Matt Stawicki. lot of traveling about, it’s unclear where various Patricia Briggs, Frost Burned (Ace 978-0-441- Forces conspire to keep a young woman from locations are, how exactly this world came to be, 02001-0, $26.95, 342pp, hc) March 2013. Cover leaving her isolated hometown in this unusual and exactly what the role the ‘‘elite’’ castals play. by Daniel Dos Santos. fantasy novel, a charmingly quirky tale of po- And Justin, as an investigator of religions, should Mercy is out for post-Thanksgiving shopping litical refugees turned pioneers in a remote land really have figured out who his ravens are right with stepdaughter Jesse when the rest of the where magic lurks. Jenn Nalynn is days away from the start. Still, it’s an intriguing scenario, werewolf pack is abducted by unknown enemies, from her 19th birthday, the official age of adult- what with gods coming back to a complacent, in this seventh novel in the Mercy Thompson hood, and she longs to escape the tiny isolated only vaguely futuristic world that has denied urban fantasy series. With the fae hiding in their town of Marrowdell – but those she loves pres- them too long. reservations (after events in Alpha and Omega sure her to stay. A big change is coming, too, series novel Fair Game) Mercy is lacking many one involving the quirky magics that infuse the Seanan McGuire, Midnight Blue-Light Special of her usual allies as she tries to figure out the valley, to which the humans are mostly oblivious, (DAW 978-0-7564-0792-6, $7.99, 336pp, pb) who and why – and figure out how to free her but has the valley’s unseen inhabitants unsettled. March 2013. Cover by Aly Fell. husband and his people without setting off anti- Frustrated, Jenn tries a spell that goes oddly awry, The monstrous fun continues in this second were backlash. The story almost stands alone, creating an unexpected potential suitor even as book in the InCryptid series about cryptologist/ but for those following the series there are some a handsome stranger comes to town, and it may monster hunter (and competetive ballroom danc- interesting changes to work out, most notably in take all three of them together to figure out what’s er) Verity Price, who is having trouble dealing the role of the fae. Mercy’s developing powers about to happen – and how to survive it. with the fact her boyfriend Dominic is an enemy. come into play as well, as she tackles a mess He’s a member of the cryptid-killing Covenant, that ends up involving ghosts, witches, vampires, MaryJanice Davidson, Undead and Underwater from which the Price family split generations assassins, rogue agents, a zombie, fae, and some (Berkley Sensation 978-0-425-25332-8, 331pp, before, and now the Covenant is sending a team too-smart little kids, for an entertaining outing. tp) March 2013. Cover by Don Sipley. to prepare for a purge of the cryptids in Manhat- Davidson’s fans will find this lighthearted tan. It’s bad enough that Verity doesn’t know if Gail Carriger, Etiquette & Espionage (Little, paranormal romance collection a treat, with three she can trust Dominic, but the Covenant team Brown 978-0-316-19008-4, $17.99, 307pp, hc) novellas, two in familiar series. Most notably, in includes a relative from the branch of the family February 2013. the title novella, Betsy the Vampire Queen and that didn’t leave the Covenant – and bitterly hates Carriger’s new, young-adult Finishing School Fred the cranky mermaid go head to head, battling those who did. Things get serious as the friendly series is set in the same world as her adult Parasol physically and verbally (Betsy’s airhead babble cryptids of Manhattan prepare to fight for their Protectorate series, but some time earlier, with proving surprisingly effective against Fred’s seri- lives – maybe a little too serious – but the series younger versions of certain characters mak- ous snark) before finally teaming up to battle a bad remains amusing even so. ing appearances. This first volume introduces guy with an evil plan for non-humans. ‘‘Super, –Carolyn Cushman
LOCUS April 2013 / 23 Locus Looks at Books: Divers Hands CECELIA HOLLAND River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc 978- 0451464972 $26.95, 576pp, hc) April 2013 The master of the historical fantasy has found a canvas large enough for his ambitions. Guy Gavriel Kay’s second novel based on the Chinese past is his finest work so far, a vision of tremendous scope, achieved through precise, intimate observation of a brilliant culture in the throes of disintegration and rebirth. The Song Chao, splendid as only a great Chinese dynasty can be, was already struggling with some bad politics when the steppe barbarians began to break through in the 12th century. Kay has chosen as the centerpiece of his novel the fall of Kaifeng, the capitol, (which he calls Hanjin) to such a raging horde, and his story is the tale of Ren Daiyan, the low-born general who led the resistance to the barbarians. But Kay isn’t interested simply in providing a narrative of events: what China (which he calls Kitai) offers this writer is a historical stage as defined and stylized as calligraphy, against which the actions of his characters can play out with much larger resonances. The story opens in a world of ritual, manners, and reflection: ‘‘The Kitan liked order, number- ing, symmetry, and they also liked the debates that followed.’’ The Emperor’s court is splendid and utterly artificial, but not fantastic: perfect replicas of reality, stripped of all the noise, like the Emperor’s garden, intended as a mirror of the world. In this self-regarded space, the smallest gesture seems enormous. The people themselves once: present tense, memory, and foreshadow- GWENDA BOND sometimes seem trapped in their costumes, in- ing. Again and again, Kay evokes all three in a Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen terchangeable. A later scene, set in an ancient single paragraph. The result is a novel that grows 978-0-765-32908-0, $19.99, 384pp, hc), Octo- and half abandoned western capital, is an eerie steadily richer in allusion, drawing the reader ber 2012. progress through a world seemingly made for deeper into its meanings. Well-known author and activist (and regular giants, and now inhabited by ants. Did you truly taste anything later in life, have Locus contributor) Cory Doctorow certainly By the beginning of the novel, a steppe horde any experiences at all, except through the needs no introduction here. Doctorow has built has already taken the northern part of the empire, memory of other times, sometimes long a large and loyal audience through his novels, the ancient homeland. Ren Daiyan, hero of ago? short stories, blogging, essays, and talks. But River of Stars, devotes himself from boyhood An empire so old and vast drags its past after it’s worth noting that political fiction writ- to recovering these lost prefectures. Born the it like an anchor. For some of Kay’s people, the ers – defined in either sense, as the writer who son of a minor provincial clerk, he becomes an ancient glory of Kitai is corrupting, a justification openly engages modern political issues in their outlaw, inveigles his way into the army, and rises for the infighting at the court, the arrogance of fiction or who openly engages them outside it – steadily toward his goal of retaking the north. power, all expressed, like a Song era painting, in are relatively rare in our world, where the most He falls in love with Lady Lin Shan, a poet, a the manipulation of symbols: a gardener crying, respected public intellectuals tend to come favorite at court, and an intelligent woman in a tree uprooted, the wrong word at the wrong from the nonfiction or academic world. (We a world where women are allowed no power. time. For others, like Ren Daiyan, the glory is won’t get into the wane of public intellectuals in Shan gives Kay room to explore one of his a challenge. favor of loud talking experts on 24-hours news ongoing interests – how women in societies that As the barbarians spill into the Empire, Dai- networks.) Also rare are authors who treat teen deny them power actually achieve it anyway; yan takes that challenge. His tireless focus on readers as politically savvy and engaged, but inside the carapace of social mores she operates recovering the lost lands drives him to victory Doctorow established himself as one of them as much like an outlaw as Daiyan does – watch- when all the other generals fail, and brings him with Big Brother and For the Win. ful, shrewd, decisive. But the court is only part to the brink of the ultimate success: reviving the His third novel for young adults, Pirate Cin- of Kitai, and an isolated and ill-informed part great, ancient Kitai, north and south together. ema, is no different on that score. As the novel at that. An abundance of other characters pop opens, 16-year-old Trent McCauley is making We look back, and we look ahead, but we in and out of the story: a ritual master, farmers, live in the time we are allowed. a film at home in Bradford, England: ‘‘But that outlaws, bureaucrats, the whole busy world of day, my little lappie was humming along, and an ancient and various culture, all sensed and But the symmetry of Kitai is inexorable. Dai- I was humming with it, because I was about to entered into and inhabited. yan’s own strength becomes his weakness. The take away Scot Colford’s virginity.’’ Colford, a Kay’s cagey use of time gives this an ex- corrupt politics entraps him in his own virtues. In deceased film star with a large body of work, traordinary depth. ‘‘He wasn’t the boy who had the end, it seems, half an empire is good enough. is Trent’s muse for the films he creates through fought imagined barbarians in a bamboo grove, One hero is worth two emperors. There are two editing existing footage into startling new com- and yet, of course, he was and always would cups of poison. Two possible outcomes. And a binations. This is illegal, of course, especially be.’’ The whole story, once Kay’s got the ground book you don’t want to be over. in the universe of this novel – which opens the established, seems to move on three levels at –Cecelia Holland day the government takes away Trent’s family’s
24 / LOCUS April 2013 Internet access. Doctorow quickly and deftly character Felicia Ward is dead, and not lov- she is important to the future of this place... and assembles that universe: ours, but not quite. In ing it. This is a portrait of an afterlife stuck in maybe others. this near-future, technology is further along, neutral. Level 2, where Felicia is stuck, is com- The novel’s conclusion indicates there’s plen- and so are laws designed to protect studios and posed of all-white chambers. She and the other ty of exploration left to do in this world. With turn ‘‘pirates’’ like Trent into criminals. Los- inhabitants – including two girls who have be- Felicia and her memories, Appelhans has cre- ing Internet access is a huge blow that affects come friends, Becka and Virginia – wear white ated a character I’ll happily follow further into the entire family. And though he feels guilty, gowns and are bald. They spend most of their death. he also knows he can’t stop making the films days jacked in and reliving memories – their –Gwenda Bond in his head. own and others’ – in a sharing system based on And so Trent runs away to London. This is the net. Credits are earned when other people KAREN BURNHAM where Doctorow’s tale really begins, borrow- rent your memories, though some memories are The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World ing from Oliver Twist. Trent spends a panicked just too painful to share. In fact, most people Domination, John Joseph Adams, ed. (Tor night wandering the city, not sure what to do. spend their credits chasing highs and avoiding Books 978-0765326454, $14.99, 368pp, pb) Lucky for him, he happens to meet up with a lows. February 2013. charming master of the streets, Jem. Not only And that includes Felicia, who most com- has Jem researched the best method for net- monly selects scenes from the time she spent Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, ting cash from passers-by, he’s willing to teach with the last boy she loved, Neil, a blond (lit- Wetware, Evolution and Revolution, Victoria Trent how to survive in this London. Actually, eral) choir boy who brought her back after her Blake, ed. (Underland Press 978-1-937163-08- more than survive: thrive. As they rummage ex Julian’s betrayal. When there’s a disruption 2, $15.95, 432pp, pb) February 2013. Cover by through skips for past-sell-by-date gourmet in the hive of memory chambers, it’s Julian that Claudia Nobel. [Order from Underland Press, food and distribute it among others, and then comes through the formless wall, only to leave
LOCUS April 2013 / 25
Locus Listens to Audiobooks: Amy Goldschlager Red Country, Joe Abercrombie; Ste- part. She chooses an indefinably ‘‘foreign- to explore both virtual emancipation from the ven Pacey, narrator (Hachette Audio sounding’’ accent for the executioness. It’s physical world and the strain experienced by 9781619692336, digital download, incredibly charming, but admittedly incon- family members of a disabled child. The more $26.98, 20 hr., unabridged) November 2012. sistent with Davis’s performance, as he didn’t emotionally and philosophically weighty piec- Steven Pacey perfectly expresses the ram- use that accent in his narration, even though es are balanced by broadly humorous (and oc- pant cynicism and emotional complexity of both stories are initially set in the same city casionally contrived-seeming) offerings from Joe Abercrombie’s latest gritty fantasy. When and even share a character. This is an all-too- Resnick, Steele, Williams, and Di Filippo, mercenaries burn down Shy South’s farm and common occurrence when multiple narrators among others. kidnap her younger sister and brother to sell are employed; I really wish more effort was At this point, there are no plans to issue to religious fanatics made barren by radiation, made to bring narrators together and allow this anthology in print, and it’s unlikely you’ll she determines to go after them. Her compan- them to come to mutual agreement on accent, have a chance to experience this many excel- ion on her quest is her stepfather Lamb, whose pitch, and so on. Both Davis’s and Kellgren’s lent narrators elsewhere in a single production. obviously fake name and notorious reputation performances are lovely as separate entities; I Pick this one up. as a coward are clearly shields for an extraor- just think that the potential was there to make dinarily violent past (readers/listeners of Ab- them an even more perfect whole. Nonethe- City of Dark Magic, Magnus Flyte; Natalie ercrombie’s previous works will quickly ferret less, this collection is quite worthy of your Gold and Orlagh Cassidy, narrators (Penguin out his true identity). Along the way, they col- time, and essential if you’d like to encounter Audio, digital download, $27.97, 13.5 hr., un- lect inconsistently reliable allies and enemies, these stories together; the print versions are abridged) November 2012. including Shy’s potential love interest Temple, only available separately. Musicology student Sarah Weston joyously a weaselly lawyer who’s slowly and inconve- accepts the chance to spend the summer in niently developing a conscience. Pacey has a Rip-Off!, Gardner Dozois, ed.; Wil Prague cataloguing original Beethoven manu- gift for devising truly distinct voices for each Wheaton, Scott Brick, Christian Rum- scripts in preparation for a museum opening at character, with plausible accents. His women’s mel, Jonathan Davis, Stefan Rudnicki, the Lobkowicz Palace. But her once-in-a-life- voices are not as strong as they might be, as David Marantz, Ilyana Kadushin, Khristine time opportunity soon takes on a more sinister his voice is somewhat too deep for women’s Hvam, L.J. Ganser, Dina Pearlman, Allyson sheen: her academic mentor has apparently roles, but they still work fairly well. Plus, Johnson, Marc Vietor, Nicola Barber, nar- leaped from a window in the palace days be- when feudal social divisions play such a strong rators (Audible Frontiers, digital download, fore, spies are lurking everywhere, a power- role in a story’s underpinnings, a British nar- $27.97, 12 hr., unabridged) November 2012. ful US senator and presidential hopeful will rator tends to be better at highlighting them Sometimes I feel terribly redundant, writing stop at nothing to hide a dangerous secret in than an American might. This production about the audio version of books previously her past, and the standoffish but dangerously offers plenty of action, humor, tension, and reviewed as text. That’s why it’s so pleasing attractive Prince Max Lobkowicz introduces blessedly unsaccharine, absolutely genuine to offer you something unique, an audio-only her to a mysterious drug that grants dizzying warm moments. anthology commissioned by Audible Fron- visions of the past, visions that he hopes will tiers, edited by Gardner Dozois, and featuring lead him to an ancient treasure. The Alchemist and The Executioness, Paolo new stories by SFWA members. Each story This genre-crossing debut, the first in a - se Bacigalupi, Tobias S. Buckell; Katherine begins with a first line appropriated from ries, leaps disconcertingly but entertainingly Kellgren and Jonathan Davis, narrators (Bril- classic literature, from such disparate works from humor, to hot passion, to psychedelic liance Audio 978-1-4692-8029-5, 5 CDs, as Pride and Prejudice and the Communist freakout, to deadly serious thriller. Plenty of $19.99, 5.5 hr., unabridged [also available Manifesto. Each story has its own narrator (a action and small shocks keep the story mov- as MP3-CD and digital download]) January true rarity, and the lineup includes some of the ing along at a good clip, always an asset in 2010. most prominent voice actors in the field), and an audiobook. The narration is split between Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias Buckell each an introduction spoken by the author. Natalie Gold, who performs all the chapters offer up a passionate paean to parenthood in Given the theme of the anthology, it’s not where Sarah appears, while Orlagh Cassidy novella form, set in a shared universe where surprising that many of the offerings are does all the chapters featuring the schemes profligate use of magic has brought forth the metafictional. Standouts include Daryl Greg- of villainous Senator Charlotte Yates. Gold is toxic bramble, which chokes arable lands and ory’s ‘‘Begone’’, which took the first line from great at accents, not so much at pitch; she can’t poisons those who touch it. In Bacigalupi’s David Copperfield as inspiration for a stun- go deep enough to really seem male. Cassidy ‘‘The Alchemist’’, the title character nearly ningly affecting deconstruction of Dick York’s has a charming, almost aristocratic, voice, but beggars himself to create a device and concoct departure from Bewitched, of all things, and I’m not really sure why a second narrator was a potion that will destroy the bramble, allow- Jack Campbell’s ‘‘Highland Reel’’, which em- necessary. What is sadly lacking from this pro- ing him to use the magic that is the only cure ploys the first line of Macbeth in a sharply duction is a soundtrack. The book is saturated for his daughter’s lung disease. Unfortunately, thoughtful look at the myth of the Highlander with references to specific compositions and when he finally succeeds in his quest, the city as engineered by outsiders, narrated by Nicola performances of classical music, none of which rulers have an unexpected and unpleasant use Barber in a lovely Scottish accent. Other no- we get to hear. Clearly, the authors (Magnus for his invention. Jonathan Davis’s grave, so- table contributions include Mary Robinette Flyte is the nom de plume for Christina Lynch norous tones perfectly suit the desperate, ob- Kowal’s ‘‘The Lady Astronaut of Mars’’, & Meg Howrey) thought a soundtrack was im- sessed, and sadly naïve alchemist. which begins with the first line of The Wiz- portant, otherwise they wouldn’t have provided The title character of Buckell’s story is the ard of Oz and concerns an aging astronaut a link to a Spotify playlist on their website: daughter of one of the city’s executioners, who weighing the chance to go into space one last
LOCUS April 2013 / 27 2012 British Book Summary UK publishing was down in 2012, the first drop after two years of increases, with 902 titles, down from 979 in 2011. Total Books Published in the UK, 2012 Most of the publishing changes in 2012 that affected the SF field PUBLISHER HC TP PB TOTAL New 1UK Rpt. New 1UK Rpt. New 1UK Rpt. were holdovers from 2011. Veteran editor Jo Fletcher debuted her new Little,BrownUK 7 1 - 64 27 47 5 2 2 155 Jo Fletcher Books at Quercus at the end of the 2011, but we only saw Orion/Gollancz 11 2 2 29 16 74 - - 4 138 two titles that year; we saw 12 in 2012; Quercus plans to expand into Hodder & Stoughton 11 3 - 14 1 39 - - 1 69 the US market later in 2013. Publishers hopping the pond in the other HarperCollins UK 9 4 - 3 7 29 - - 3 55 direction include Random House UK’s Ebury with a new Del Rey Transworld/Bantam UK 12 1 1 7 3 27 - - 4 55 Random UK 14 2 1 9 1 11 2 - 14 54 UK imprint starting in 2013. Orion/Gollancz also introduced their SF Pan Macmillan 9 - - 8 8 23 - - 2 50 Gateway e-book imprint (and website) in 2011, primarily focused on Black Library 8 - 3 13 - 1 18 - 3 46 making digital versions of hundreds of backlist Masterworks titles Titan 2 - - 6 15 5 5 - - 33 available, but now the site is expanding to include print titles, mostly PS Publishing 25 - 1 - - 4 - - - 30 omnibuses, starting in 2013. Since we weren’t counting e-books in Penguin Group UK 6 - - 7 5 9 - - - 27 Rebellion - - - 22 - - 4 - - 26 2012, their output did not affect our numbers. We didn’t see any SF Angry Robot - - - 17 - 2 3 - - 22 titles from Anthony Cheetham’s start-up Head of Zeus, but expect Bloomsbury - - - 6 1 11 - - - 18 titles of interest in 2013. We saw four titles from PS Publishing’s Headline 4 - - 4 1 8 - - 1 18 ‘‘new’’ mass-market imprint Drugstore Indian Press in mid-2012; Quercus/Jo Fletcher 4 2 - 4 - 3 - - - 13 although the books are apparently sold as mass market, they are large Atlantic UK/Corvus 2 1 - 1 - 5 - - - 9 Egmont 1 - - 2 2 3 - - - 8 enough that we list them as trade paperbacks, a not-uncommon point Robinson - - - 5 3 - - - - 8 of confusion for us, particularly with UK publishers. Oxford University Press - - 1 1 2 3 - - - 7 The total number of books seen was 902, down 8% from 979 in Snowbooks - - - 6 - 1 - - - 7 2011, but still up from 816 in 2010. New books (originals and first Scholastic UK - - - 2 2 1 - - - 5 UK editions) were down 6% to 543 titles. Reprints were down 11%, Simon & Schuster UK 1 - - 2 - 2 - - - 5 31 Misc Publishers 10 - 1 19 6 7 - 1 - 44 making up 40% of the total books published, down just slightly Totals: 54 Publishers 136 16 10 251 100 315 37 3 34 902 from 41% last year. We consider 50% reprints ideal, as books are more likely to show a profit if they go into reprint. Our graph of UK Publishing History shows the relative proportions of new books – first Total British Books Published by SF Imprint, 2012 and first UK editions – and reprints. PUBLISHER HC TP PB TOTAL TOTAL The data used to create these figures is extracted from our monthly New 1UK Rpt. New 1UK Rpt. New 1UK Rpt. 2012 2011 Gollancz 9 2 2 28 15 64 - - 4 124 162 ‘‘British Books’’ column; all the books counted here were listed Orbit 6 - - 38 10 23 4 - 1 82 94 there, but not all the books listed there are counted here, since we Black Library 8 - 3 13 - 1 18 - 3 46 33 drop marginal items such as strictly associational titles or chapbooks. Harper Voyager 2 4 - 3 6 17 - - 2 34 41 We include 2011 books not seen until 2012. ‘‘New Books’’ refers PS Publishing 25 - 1 - - 4 - - - 30 16 to originals, plus first UK editions of books originally published in AngryRobot - - - 17 - 2 3 - - 22 17 Atom - 1 - 12 4 5 - - - 22 22 English elsewhere – usually the United States, Australia, or Canada. Solaris - - - 14 - - 4 - - 18 19 Where mergers have occurred, we have combined data from past Tor UK 1 - - 5 1 5 - - 2 14 27 years to reflect the difference. Young-adult imprints are generally Jo Fletcher Bks 4 2 - 4 - 2 - - - 12 2 grouped with their adult namesakes, even if they are technically part Abaddon Books - - - 8 - - - - - 8 10 of separate children’s divisions. Totals: 55 9 6 142 36 123 29 - 12 412 443 Little, Brown/Orbit topped the list of Total Books Published for a second year with 155 titles, down from 189 in 2011. Orion/Gollancz UK Publishing History (1989 - 2012) returns in second place with 138 titles, down from 182. Hodder & Stoughton moved up from sixth place to third with 69 titles, up from 54, knocking HarperCollins/Voyager back one spot to fourth with 55 titles, down from 78. Below that, publishers shifted around quite a bit, as usual. The list breaks down the output for all publishers with five or more genre titles in 2012. Publishers with fewer than five are lumped together under Miscellaneous Publishers. We saw books from 54 publishers, up from 45 publishers; 23 had five or more titles, down from 25. One small press made it onto the main list: PS Publishing. We counted 31 publishers as miscellaneous, up from 20 last year, and very close to the 32 in 2010. We put strictly print-on-demand publishers in miscellaneous, regardless of the number of titles, though we undoubtedly missed some; POD editions can be hard to spot. (For that matter, if they were printed in the US and sent to us without a UK publisher address, they could have been listed with US books; a lot of small and self-publishers only give out website addresses these days.) We only listed four definite POD titles, down from seven last year; they came from three presses, none with more than two titles. Chart #2 show the last five years’ totals for the top ten publishers on our list, who were evenly divided between those increasing their output US, 19 imprints produced 31% of all titles and 20% of new books.) and those decreasing. Up were PS Publishing (up 88%), Titan (up 57%), Charts #3 and #4 break down the publishers’ new books by the Originals Transworld (up 45%), Black Library (up 39%), and Hodder & Stoughton (up (first editions) in Chart #3, and First UK Editions in Chart #4. Little, Brown 28%). Decreasing their numbers were HarperCollins/Voyager (down 29%), UK/Orbit leads on both lists, with 76 original titles and 30 first-UK editions; Orion/Gollancz (down 24%), Little, Brown/Orbit (down 18%), Random House 68% of their books were new. Gollancz again came in second on both charts (down 17%), and Pan Macmillan (down 14%). with 40 original and 18 first UK; 42% of their titles were new. Black Library The list of Books Published by SF Imprint show the numbers for the SF came in third for Original titles with 39, but they had no first UK editions; imprints separate from their corporate cousins. The top two imprints held on their titles were 85% new. Titan Books came in third for first UK editions to their places from last year: Gollancz in first place with 124 titles and Orbit with 15; they had 13 Originals; 85% of their titles were new. The increasing in second with 82. Voyager and Black Library swapped places again, Black globalization of publishing has changed the significance of original vs. first UK Library moving up to third with 46 and Voyager dropping a spot to fourth with editions, as more and more publishers now try to bring US and UK editions 34. Below that was the usual shuffling around, with one newcomer, Quercus/ out simultaneously (or just a month apart), rather than risk customers ordering Jo Fletcher Books, in tenth place with 12 titles. We listed 11 imprints, which foreign editions or e-books online; many publishers now have arms in both the were responsible for 412 titles, 46% of the total books published, up from US and UK, and make a point of acquiring rights in both regions. 45%. They had 271 new titles, or 50% of all new titles, up from 47%. (In the Chart #1 shows the subject breakdown for new 2012 books. SF novels were
28 / LOCUS April 2013 #1: UK Books by Subject #3: Original Books #4: First UK Editions 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 SF Novels 71 81 61 61 66 Little, Brown/Orbit 76 73 50 42 47 Little, Brown/Orbit 30 43 36 43 59 Fantasy Novels 161 163 141 129 119 Orion/Gollancz 40 54 37 32 39 Orion/Gollancz 18 35 33 17 13 Horror Novels 46 42 59 50 42 Black Library 39 29 33 37 47 Titan Books 15 10 - - - Paranormal Romance 40 59 44 25 61 Rebellion 26 29 33 11 7 HarperCollins/Voyager 11 8 13 7 20 Anthologies 12 17 29 18 22 Hodder & Stoughton 25 22 14 8 11 * Pan Macmillan 8 9 3 12 17 Collections 17 17 17 34 18 PS Publishing 25 14 33 38 15 Penguin Group 5 7 5 9 3 Reference 2 3 5 4 3 Random House 25 29 15 25 42 Hodder & Stoughton 4 1 6 4 3 * History/Criticism 4 3 4 4 8 Angry Robot 20 15 7 - - Transworld/Bantam 4 8 4 4 11 Media-Related 62 59 48 49 64 Transworld/Bantam 19 13 13 17 15 Harlequin 3 7 16 - - Young Adult 104 119 94 89 86 Pan Macmillan 17 20 17 13 15 Random House 3 2 2 6 6 Omnibus 18 8 14 7 15 Penguin Group 13 14 16 14 11 Robinson 3 3 4 2 2 Art/Humour 4 3 8 5 7 Titan Books 13 6 4 6 6 Egmont 2 5 2 2 - Miscellaneous 2 2 - 1 - HC/Voyager 12 28 28 16 17 Oxford Univ. Press 2 - - - - Total New: 543 576 524 476 511 Headline 8 5 7 1 - Quercus 2 1 2 2 - Reprints 360 403 292 294 343 Quercus/Jo Fletcher 8 5 2 - 1 Scholastic UK 2 - - 2 - Total Books: 903 979 816 770 854 Bloomsbury 6 4 6 13 10 *Includes Headline Snowbooks 6 2 4 3 3 Robinson 5 2 10 2 2 #2: Total Books Allison & Busby 3 2 - - - publishers have cut back a bit, at least on print genre 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 Atlantic UK/Corvus 3 - - 1 - titles – but we saw books from more publishers than Little, Brown/Orbit 155 189 125 118 149 Egmont 3 4 - 2 4 last year. We still don’t have a clear picture of the Orion/Gollancz 138 182 139 114 144 Simon & Schuster 3 4 5 6 1 state of genre publishing in the UK at present; the Hodder & Stoughton 69 54 37 21 37* Alchemy Press 2 1 - - - economy remains iffy and traditional brick-and- HC/Voyager 55 78 66 61 76 Newcon Press 2 2 - 3 2 mortar bookstores struggle. But online sales have Transworld/Bantam 55 38 38 46 49 Scholastic 2 4 4 8 3 not only hurt traditional stores; they have also made Random House 54 65 35 51 83 *Includes Headline Pan Macmillan 50 58 41 49 56 it too easy to get books as soon as they come out in Black Library 46 33 36 42 57 publishers don’t automatically put any book with another country, leading more and more publishers Titan 33 21 4 7 7 adolescent protagonists in the YA category. to look at globalization as a response, acquiring PS Publishing 30 16 38 39 19 New anthologies dropped 29% to 12 titles, the world rights (in English, at least) and publishing * includes Headline second year in a row of serious decline; another titles nearly simultaneously around the world. It six anthologies were counted as media tie-ins. seems like the distinctive flavors of US and UK down at 71; add an additional 22 young-adult SF Collections held steady for the second year in a row publishing are becoming homogenized, but that’s novels, and there were 93 SF novels, 17% of the with 17 titles. We saw two reference titles, down a subjective quality, hard to analyze. new books total, the same as last year. Fantasy from three, and four history/criticism titles, up from E-books continue to be a bright spot, with novels were down slightly at 161; adding 53 YA three. Art/humor, our grab-bag category, had four growing sales and impressive projects like fantasy novels, there were 214 fantasy novels, titles, up from three; there was one gaming art book, Gollancz’s SF Gateway – but it’s still not clear if 39% of the new books total, up from 37% last pictorial celebrations of Tarzan and Steampunk, and e-book sales will ever completely offset declining year. Horror novels rose 10% to 46; plus the 12 one humor book. print sales, particularly with buyers coming to YA horror titles, there were 58 horror novels, Media-related books were up 5% to 62 titles, expect very low prices. We’re still working on ways 11% of the new books total, the same as last year. 11% of the new books total, up from 10%. That to track e-books for 2013, in an effort to get more Paranormal romances dropped 32% to 40 titles; plus total includes four omnibuses, one collection, and of a handle on the situation in the field. the 17 YA paranormals there were 57 paranormal six anthologies. Black Library leads again with 37 Overall, the health of book publishing in the romances, 10% of the new books total, down from Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 titles. The UK remains uncertain, according to Neilsen 15% last year, but the same as the year before that. closest competitor was Random House with four Book. Print book sales fell by almost £74m last Paranormals were slow to catch on in the UK; they Star Wars titles and 4 BBC Doctor Who titles. Most year, reaching their lowest point since 2003; the may already have peaked. tie-in novels are published simultaneously in the US number of printed books dropped by 3% – and Young-adult books saw a 13% decrease to 104 and UK these days. We don’t count tie-ins that are the average price fell slightly. Estimates show e- titles, the first drop after three years of increases. simply the US editions imported to the UK, such books accounted for 13-14% of unit book sales Fantasy led with 53 titles, up one from last year; as Pocket’s Star Trek titles, just as we don’t count in the UK last year and around 6-7% of all mon- they were 51% of the new YA titles, up from 44% Doctor Who books distributed in the US. etary book sales. Looking at combined e-book last year. YA SF moved up into second with 22 Quality remains high according to our best and print sales, it appears people actually bought titles, 21% of the new YA total, up from 14% indicator, our Recommended Reading list published more books (up about 4-5%) but spent less (down last year. Paranormals followed in third with 17 in the February issue. We listed 61 UK titles, up 1-2%), thanks to low and deeply discounted e- titles, 16% of the YA new books total, down from from 49; those titles came from 27 UK publishers, book prices. 23%. Horror trailed with 12 titles, 12% of the YA up from 20 last year. Orion/Gollancz led with 16 So numbers are down a bit, with publishers feel- new books, down from 19%. The number of YA recommended titles, followed by Little, Brown/ ing their way in this evolving scene. As always, titles is misleadingly low compared to US figures, Orbit with 12, and PS Publishing, Robinson, and quality remains high – but the future remains particularly in paranormal romance and to a lesser Titan. each with three. cloudy. extent fantasy; quite a few titles published as YA CONCLUSION –Carolyn Cushman in the US get published as adult in the UK, where Not much changed from last year. As in the US,
LOCUS April 2013 / 29 John Picacio, Tara Smith, Parris McBride & George R.R. Martin
Boskone 50 was held February 15-17, was a special reception this year to celebrate 2013 in Boston MA at the Westin Boston the milestone 50th convention. Waterfront hotel. Vernor Vinge was the guest Boskone 51 will be held Feb 14-16, 2014 of honor, Lisa Snellings was the official at the Westin Waterfront in Boston MA, with artist, John F. Hertz was the special guest, guest of honor Seanan McGuire and official Heather Dale was the featured musician, artist David Palumbo. The annual convention Jerry Pournelle was the NESFA Press guest, is sponsored by the New England Science and Jordin T. Kare was the Hal Clement Sci- Fiction Association. For more:
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller Elizabeth Hartwell, Jerry Pournelle Charles Stross & Feòrag NicBhride Melinda Snodgrass, Michael Swanwick San Francisco Writers Conference and 46th International Antiquarian Book Fair The annual San Francisco Writers Conference egories of fantasy and science fiction. Lockhart re- publishing (1950-’60s) with some signed by the and the 46th International Antiquarian Book Fair plied, ‘‘Fantasy is about the improbable, and sci-fi authors. Of course, the price tag could be challeng- were the hot tickets in San Francisco, the weekend more about the probable set in the far and/or near ing with some over $50,000 dollars and higher, but of February 15-17, 2013. The word ‘‘Antiquarian’’ future.’’ not all, so there is hope for the rest of us. John W. here refers to rare books and some extremely rare When the panel ended it was time for lunch with Campbell’s Who Goes There? with original dust- books (not just geezers out for a visit). At least one guest speaker, author R.L. Stein of Goosebumps cover was priced at $950.00 (1948 first edition); book was available for a mere $450,000; more on fame, considered one of the most successful while not cheap, is certainly more affordable and this later. children’s writers of all time (300 million books a pleasure to see. Another favorite. Islands in the Saturday, February 16: The Writers Conference worldwide, translated into 16 different languages Sky by Arthur C. Clarke (1952 first edition), was a was held at the Mark-Hopkins. This event focused and a television series). His recounting of kids’ e- bargain at $650 unsigned. Philip K. Dick brought on connecting aspiring writers with the publishing mails and book signing events was hilarious. in some respectable prices ($2,500-10,000), as did industry and each other. From what I saw I believe Sunday, February 17: If you are a collector, Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man ($2,500), a they succeeded very well. Of particular interest the 46th International Antiquarian Book Fair is a 1951 first edition. Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger was the panel on ‘‘Science Fiction: The Promise of very exciting event; it’s the world’s largest book in a Strange Land ($8,500), Rocket Ship Gali- the Future?’’ with moderator Laurie McLean (liter- fair for rare books. Held annually, it alternates be- leo ($10,000), and Double Star ($15,000) were all ary agent) and three authors: Gabrielle Harbowy, tween San Francisco and Los Angles, and book- first editions in excellent to good condition. Ross E. Lockhart, and Ransom Stephens. After a sellers and buyers travel from around the world After hours of walking my legs and my feet need- short discussion, the audience questions turned to every year for the event from as far as Australia, ed to rest. For me this was a fun one-day tour of the question of what separates or defines the cat- Europe, Asia, UK, and coast to coast from the US some of the rare books on offer at the fair; I would and Canada. I found myself drooling over original have needed much more time, and perhaps better science fiction posters from the John W. Campbell, shoes, to cover all the interesting books, charts, Jr. era (1938) and first-edition books from Winston maps, and rare manuscripts. –Dean Noble
46th International Antiquarian Book Fair SF First Editions from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke, John W. Campbell, and Winston Publishing
30 / LOCUS April 2013 Magazines Received – February
Analog Science Fiction and Fact – cm. Small‑press fiction magazine, with Evolution’s Shore and River of Gods; website:
LOCUS April 2013 / 31 Books Received – February
Compiled by Liza Groen Trombi & also available. A first novel. 295, Miami MB R0G 1H0, Canada;
32 / LOCUS April 2013 Files about Chicago wizard Harry 978-0-7653-3166-3, $25.99, 488pp, hc, is dated 2012, but not seen until now. 1, $16.99, 279pp, hc, cover by Julian Dresden. Illustrated by Vincent Chong. cover by Dominic Harman) Fantasy novel, Crouch) Young-adult dystopian SF novel. This is a signed limited edition of 500; a the second book in the Songs of the * Djanikian, Ariel The Office of Mercy Oddball teen Standish Treadwell discov- traycased, leatherbound, lettered edition Earth/Wild Hunt series. First US edition (Penguin/Viking 978-0-670-02586-2, ers the Motherland is hiding a big secret. of 26 is also available. Subterranean Pres, (Gollancz 8/12). E-book also available. $26.95, 304pp, hc, cover by Jonathan E-book also available. First US edition PO Box 190106, Burton MI 48519;
LOCUS April 2013 / 33 Books Received 4516-7645-7, $7.99, pb) Reprint (Gallery 3, $8.99, 438pp, pb, cover by Marek (Macmillan 10/12). 2011) historical dark fantasy/romance Okon) Contemporary military fantasy the world of Farseer series, illustrated novel, the first book in a series. This novel, fourth in the Pantheon series. * Nielsen, Jennifer A. The Runaway King by Jon Foster. A leatherbound, signed, includes a readers group guide. Simultaneous with the Solaris UK edition. (Scholastic Press 978-0-545-28415-8, limited edition of 250 ($60.00) is also E-book also available. $17.99, 331pp, hc, cover by Tim O’Brien) available. Hobb also writes as Megan * Kelly, Sofie Cat Trick (Penguin/Obsidian Middle-grade medieval fantasy novel, the Lindholm. Subterranean Press, PO Box 978-0-451-41469-4, $7.99, 327pp, pb) * Maitland, Piper Hunting Daylight second book in the Ascendance trilogy. Fantasy mystery novel, the fourth book (Berkley 978-0-425-25069-3, $9.99, 190106, Burton MI 48519;
34 / LOCUS April 2013
Books Received (Random House 978-0-8129-9380-6, $17.99, 290pp, hc) Young-adult para- 59606-552-9, $40.00, 167pp, hc, cover $26.00, 251pp, hc) Collection of ten normal romance novel, first in a new by Charles Vess) Fantasy novella retelling who also writes as T.A. Pratt. This is a stories, at least two with SF elements. series spun off from the Tantalize quartet. the story of Snow White in a magical Old print-on-demand edition. E-book also This indicates fifth printing, but was not E-book also available. West. This is a signed, limited edition available. The Merry Blacksmith Press, seen previously. of 1,000. Subterranean Press, PO Box 70 Lenox Ave, West Warwick RI 02893; * Smith, Cynthia Leitich & Ming Doyle 190106, Burton MI 48519;
Short Fiction: Gardner Dozois world has happened, or why, or answer the ques- more common comic mode, and few writers can p. 14 tion raised in the text, of what criteria was used be grimmer than Cowdrey is when he sets himself by Whomever to decide who got Raptured and to be so – the story tells the (yes, grim) life jour- speechless fallen angels flutter around, crashing who didn’t, since conventional notions of good or ney of a naïve, idealistic, would-be assassin, who, into things. The survivors have developed strange evil don’t seem to have had anything to do with it. after an attempt on a despotic leader, is captured abilities, and reality is fluid and mutable if not Maybe this is the start of a series or part of a larger and thrown into a slave-labor camp even more har- continuously watched, with nails turning into cat- work, and All will be explained there. rowing than the one in Matthew Hughes’s ‘‘And erpillars, radishes into rocks, apples into marbles, Then Some’’, and whom, after suffering years and objects tossed in the air as likely to fall up The strongest story in the March/April F&SF of Dickensian hardship, is brought round by an as down. It’s a gripping story, but the only prob- is Albert E. Cowdrey’s ‘‘The Assassin’’. This ironic twist of fate to take another shot at the same lem with it is that it doesn’t explain what in the is Cowdrey in his grim mode, as opposed to his target. It’s all quite compelling, and the only mi-
36 / LOCUS April 2013 nor quibble I have with it is that a random selection ‘‘The Boy Who Drank from Lovely Women’’, of inhabitants of Hilo, relocated to another island probably one of the last stories we’ll see, alas, after a tsunami destroys their city, is not going to from the late Steven Utley, is also, in part, a his- produce Cowdrey’s idyllic group of South Sea Is- torical piece, following the life of a rakish, hand- landers, well adapted to a primitive lifestyle, but some young cad from a campaign to put down a rather a bewildered assortment of modern-day slave rebellion in 18th-century Haiti through his Americans struggling to deal with a life without slowly dawning realization that somewhere along cellphones, air conditioning, and pizza. Naomi the line he’s become immortal – and then to the Kritzer’s ‘‘Solidarity’’, a YA piece about a young present day, where he struggles with the moral girl struggling to survive in a corrupt Libertarian implications of his staying eternally young. One society after being disowned by her powerful and of the things I like about the story is that the pro- corrupt father, is similarly entertaining, although tagonist is conflicted about whether his -immor each story in this sequence becomes harder to fully tality is a blessing or a curse, and that he really appreciate without having read the earlier stories, can’t figure out how it happened in the first place, and it’s become clear that this is actually a de facto although several theories are advanced. ‘‘What novel serialization. Sean McMullen’s ‘‘The Lost the Red Oaks Knew’’, written by Elizabeth Faces’’ is a supernatural revenge drama set in An- Bourne in collaboration with her husband, the cient Rome – absorbing, except for the fact that the late Mark Bourne, is a backwoods lowlife fan- ifryt is so all-powerful that there’s little suspense tasy, complete with sinister spell-casting Augur about whether or not she’ll succeed (and the fact Men, rundown trailers, and pot-growers, but shot that the Roman Empire, far from being doomed, through with moments of surprising lyricism. The lasted for centuries after the reign of Caligula). overall effect is something like an Andy Duncan Deborah J. Ross’s ‘‘Among Friends’’ is another story: high praise. Chet Arthur’s ‘‘The Trouble historical piece, focusing on a Quaker farmer who with Heaven’’ is a slyly comic story about labor is part of the Underground Railroad in an alternate troubles on a space station inhabited by million- world where everything seems much the same as aires who expect great service for their money, in our timeline, except that sophisticated, sentient and the resourceful, semi-retired diplomat (put automatons exist; this kept reminding me, pleas- out to pasture in a ‘‘safe posting’’) who has to deal antly, of Friendly Persuasion, although the anal- with them, all reminding me a bit of a less openly ogy between slaves seeking freedom and automa- farcical version of one of Keith Laumer’s Retief tons seeking to become self-determining is a little stories. The rest of the stories in the issue are less too one-to-one, and I could have done without the successful. portentous historical cameo at the end. –Gardner Dozois
Short Fiction: Rich Horton been under the cruel rule of the Viceroy Eriphet for p. 15 many years, but now the native Bird People have been able to defeat him, but with the unasked for a new story by K.J. Parker, always a cause for cel- and perhaps unwelcome help of Fa Izif ban Azur ebration. ‘‘Illuminated’’, as with many of Parker’s and his Childless Men. And the Fa has a particular recent stories, looks cynically at a magic user try- objective. His favorite wife is the Roka Momma ing to take advantage of an obscure spell. Here, a of the Bird People, and their daughter Kantu, this man and his younger female partner investigate an story’s protagonist, is of particular importance: she ancient watch tower and discover the remnants of was to be sacrificed to forestall a terrible drought. the work of an ambitious mad wizard... and, just Thus Kantu is given a moral dilemma: her life or possibly, a remarkable, if very dangerous, ‘‘form’’ the lives of thousands? But is there a better way? (or spell). Just who, or what, holds the real power Kantu is a believable character and a desperately in dealing with this discovery is part of the ques- likable exile, and the Fa and her mother are real- tion, darkly answered – the ‘‘form’’ itself is a scary seeming as well, and her terrible Aztec-like fate invention as well. seems appropriate... Good stuff, this. Another series is a planned trilogy of novelettes by Mark Rigney, And, again from Australia, Aurealis, a long-time about antiquities dealer Gemen and his obsessive print magazine, has gone online. In #57 I was in- search for a set of stones. ‘‘The Find’’ introduces trigued by ‘‘Monday’s Child’’, a new story from his backstory and the reason for his obsession, as C.S. McMullen (Sean McMullen’s daughter, who we see Gemen as a child, exploring with his sister, some years ago became one of the youngest writers until she disappears through a mysterious stone arch. ever to appear in a professional SF magazine). This Much later he and his companions/bodyguards are story is about a strange family of children named searching for the pieces of that arch, but in doing for the day of the week they were born. We slowly so run afoul of a King and his daughter... though gather that a collection of a week’s worth of such we’ll have to wait for the concluding story to see children is of some value – certainly to the sinister what happens. I’ve also seen strong stories from Ms. Alexander, who provides the family’s food but E.E. Knight, Aaron Bradford Starr (a Black Gate who also seems to imprison them – and perhaps also discovery who is contributing an ongoing series to the likewise sinister man Monday encounters at about a ‘‘Gallery Hunter’’ and his (perhaps) talking the edge of their property. I found this fascinating, cat), and John Fultz. though it seems perhaps part of a larger work, or perhaps the prelude to further tales of Monday. The anthology Futuredaze collects original po- etry and fiction aimed at middle grade to YA readers, Black Gate has also moved online and published and the results are mixed but often quite good. For a number of impressive adventure-oriented fantasies example, I enjoyed Miri Kim’s ‘‘Not With You in the last few months. The occasional piece veers But With You’’, with its view of a future in which a bit too far in the ‘‘Thud and Blunder’’ direction, some people are chosen to be Civil Servants – which but there’s a lot more good stuff to counteract that. involves rebuilding your body – and an ambiguous The magazine published plenty of series fiction, protest movement in which the protagonist and a too, and this continues online. Late last year the site friend become involved – dark and original. Even featured the very enjoyable ‘‘Godmother Lizard’’ by better is Alex Dally MacFarlane’s ‘‘Unwritten in C.S.E. Cooney, and in February we see the related Green’’, an uncompromising look at a tribal people story ‘‘Life on the Sun’’. The city of Rok Moris has
LOCUS April 2013 / 37 Rich Horton There is more nice work here from Camille Alexa, ‘‘The Book Seller’’, Lavie Tidhar Danika Dinsmore, Leah Thomas, and the team of (Interzone 1-2/13) on a world which seems to be in danger from an Sandra McDonald & Stephen D. Covey. ‘‘The Dream Detective’’, Lisa Tuttle unexplained environmental menace. Tal-Seq faces (Lightspeed 3/13) an arranged marriage with a woman from an enemy Recommended Stories: ‘‘Mad Hamlet’s Mother’’, Patricia C. Wrede group, and pressure to take vengeance on the city ‘‘Live Arcade’’, Erik Amundsen (Apex 2/13) people who are investigating the ‘‘orange sky’’ that (Strange Horizons 2/7/13) ‘‘Loss, with Chalk Diagrams’’, E. Lily Yu (Eclipse seems to be destroying their land. But his real pas- ‘‘Do Unto Others’’, Damien Broderick Online 3/13) sion is to find the real roots of the environmental (Cosmos 1-2/13) –Rich Horton damage. That’s a traditional SF setup, but the story ‘‘Life on the Sun’’, C.S.E. Cooney is more interested in Tal-Seq’s character and in his (Black Gate 2/10/13) Semiprofessional magazines, fiction fanzines, culture, and that works very well. I also liked Ka- ‘‘Unwritten in Green’’, Alex Dally MacFarlane original collections, original anthologies, plus trina Nicholson’s amusing ‘‘Me and My Army of (Futuredaze) new stories in outside sources should be sent to Me’’, aimed perhaps at a younger age group, about ‘‘Illuminated’’, K.J. Parker Rich Horton, 653 Yeddo Ave., Webster Groves MO a smart kid’s plots to defend himself from a bully. (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #55) 63119,
Gary K. Wolfe Education of a Witch’’, in which a young girl, taken else is doing, and thus his oddly familiar but bizarre p. 17 to a drive-in movie of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, worlds are entirely his own; in this case, without finds herself identifying, to her parents’ dismay, with going into much detail about his quite original aging scholar in the translation of an Old Norse Maleficent the witch, and developing some strange plot, we might credit him with inventing the veggie manuscript, but turns (through a rather strained powers of her own. Nor is this the only witch in dystopia. The most startling and timely story of all, set of coincidences) into a full-fledged Beowulf- the book. Peter Beagle’s ‘‘Great Grandmother in given events that have transpired since its initial like adventure. Rachel Pollock’s ‘‘Jack Shade in the Cellar’’ involves a family’s efforts to defeat a publication, is Jeffrey Ford’s ‘‘Blood Drive’’, in the Forest of Souls’’ introduces us to a vaguely male witch who has placed an enchantment on the which schoolkids and their teachers come to school supernatural gambler who earns his real living narrator’s sister; it doesn’t quite have the resonance each day fully locked and loaded, with results that helping free recently deceased souls from a kind of of some of Beagle’s recent autobiographical tales, are no less shocking for all their predictability. Of limbo; it could easily end with the completion of his but is, predictably, beautifully told. The mother in all the stories here, it most clearly asks how close we latest assignment, but instead segues into his own Steve Rasnic & Melanie Tem’s ‘‘Domestic Magic’’ might already be to the sort of dystopia it describes. backstory, a tragedy involving his wife and daughter is a singularly inept and sadly demented witch, I’ve made a point in this review of not totting up that shifts our perspective of him utterly. Neil but the considerable emotional punch of the story the number of SF vs. fantasy stories, since my main Gaiman’s rather slight ‘‘Adventure Story’’ presents derives less from magic than from the boy Felix’s point has been that it is how these stories are shaped tantalizing fragments of a full-scale pulp adventure determination to protect his little sister. Similarly, rather than their thematic content that makes them that the narrator’s father may once have had, but Megan McCarron’s ‘‘Swift, Brutal Retaliation’’ is interesting. But for those worried about it, there is its real substance derives from the obliviousness of in its genre particulars a familiar poltergeist tale, a fair amount of solid SF represented here – what his mother as she relates the tale, which to her is complete with exploding crockery and a family some might call the good old-fashioned stuff, at no more of an adventure than running into an old ghost, but the real focus is the two rival sisters, given least in terms of setting and theme. In addition to friend in a parking lot. to playing cruel pranks on each other, who have to the McAuley, Reed, and Liu stories, Strahan has In other words, there are a fair number of come to terms with the death of their older brother included a rather waggish tale by Adam Roberts, stories here that could look familiar or even retro and the inability of their unmoored parents to help ‘‘What did Tessimond Tell You?’’, in which a group if all you’re looking for is content. A few authors, them much with it. of potential Nobel Prize winners desert their team predictably, mine territory that they have staked UFO lore is invoked in two of the best stories after talking with an obscure physicist; it reminded out before. Paul McAuley’s ‘‘Macy Minnot’s Last here: Margo Lanagan’s ‘‘Significant Dust’’, with me of nothing so much as Arthur C. Clarke’s Christmas on Dione, Ring, Racing, Fiddler’s Green, its waitress in a remote café trying desperately ‘‘White Hart’’ tales. The inhabited outer solar the Potter’s Garden’’ is a kind of sequel at some to come to terms with the death of her sister and system, which seems to be the preferred setting of distance to his Quiet War stories, but is a haunting possibly encountering some sort of visitation, and whatever is left of New Space Opera, features in tale in its own right, and takes full advantage of the Andy Duncan’s ‘‘Close Encounters’’, with its Gwyneth Jones’s ‘‘Bricks, Sticks, Straw’’, with its richly imagined outer solar system civilization that disillusioned old codger regretting his past notoriety pointed echoes of the Three Little Pigs in the face of he developed in those tales. ‘‘Katabasis’’ is one of as a UFO abductee but finding himself drawn a solar storm which has disrupted communications; the most accomplished of Robert Reed’s recent back into it with the arrival of researchers from a and in Genevieve Valentine’s ‘‘A Bead of Jasper, ‘‘Great Ship’’ stories – set in a Jupiter-sized planet university. Another of the most powerful tales draws Four Small Stones’’, which, like the Liu story, hollowed out and circuiting the galaxy, picking vaguely on similar lore, but is mostly unclassifiable: takes place after the death of Earth. The title of up various societies and cultures as it goes – not Molly Gloss’s remarkable ‘‘The Grinnell Method’’ Aliette de Bodard’s ‘‘Immersion’’ refers to a kind because of the spectacular setting (which threatens tells of a lonely ornithologist on the Washington of VR cloaking technology which would be far to become too all-purpose for its own good), but state coast in the 1940s whose observations are from original, except for the clever way de Bodard because of the memorable title character, a guide disturbed by a violent storm with odd green builds a plot around it, and much the same might be who tries to lead humans on a hazardous trek lightning, after which a strange rupture appears in said of the space-colony setting of Linda Nagata’s (another old-SF trope). Eleanor Arnason invokes the sky. The mystery is never quite resolved, but ‘‘Nahiku West’’, which is essentially one of those her Hwarhath culture for ‘‘The Woman Who Fooled the woman’s tentative relationship with a young girl ingenious murder mysteries, clearly derived from Death Five Times’’, but it’s really an ingenious whose interest in nature observations reminds her its SF elements, which we rarely see these days. folktale parable of trying to outsmart Death. of her own seems to hold out some sort of promise. None of these are exactly groundbreaking SF, but Folklore, in fact, is another recurring theme There are, of course, some excellent tales here sometimes a good story can aim for celebration here, and another example of how fantasy authors that echo some of the more highly visible trends rather than innovation. can manipulate familiar materials into new in recent SF and fantasy as well. In addition to shapes. I’ve already mentioned Peter Dickinson’s Catherynne Valente’s ‘‘Fade to White’’, Strahan SHORT TAKE ‘‘Troll Blood’’, but one of the most original and offers a handful of variations on dystopian worlds. Most SF scholars and historians, and a good compelling discoveries in the book is Karin Nalo Hopkinson’s characteristically visceral many fans, are aware that the formative classics of Tidbeck’s ‘‘Reindeer Mountain’’, which invokes ‘‘The Easthound’’ concerns young people trying criticism in the field include such titles as Damon the Swedish vittra nature spirits in a story of a to survive in a dark, post-catastrophe world Knight’s In Search of Wonder and James Blish’s contemporary family whose eccentric uncle is facing where adults may at any moment ‘‘sprout’’ into The Issue at Hand volumes, which were kept in eviction. Similarly, Pat Murphy’s ‘‘About Fairies’’ werewolf-like creatures, while Caitlín R. Kiernan print by Advent for so long that they still regularly is a thoroughly contemporary tale about a woman imagines a kind of alternate history, steampunk show up on dealers’ tables at cons. What has been working for a web design company trying to exploit post-apocalypse in ‘‘Goggles c. 1910’’, where harder to find are the equally formative reviews little girls’ love of fairies, but along the way it offers children are sent to forage for food in ruins plagued which appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in some acerbic (and quite funny) observations about by packs of vicious dogs. The most unusual such the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Tinker Bell, cats, and a possibly magic mirror. It dystopian society is the one in Christopher Rowe’s Fiction, by a later generation of writer-critics, resonates well with one of Ellen Klages’s most ‘‘The Contrary Gardener’’, the lead story. Rowe prominently including Joanna Russ and Algis graceful, understated, yet chilling stories, ‘‘The never seems to pay much attention to what anyone Budrys. A generous selection of Russ’s reviews
38 / LOCUS April 2013 appeared a few years ago from Liverpool University he describes Lovecraft as ‘‘a man endowed with by John Clute. What is of particular interest to Press in The Country You Have Never Seen, and proofs that he was undesirable.’’ The book is full readers such as myself is that Budrys was keenly way back in 1985 Southern Illinois University Press of such quotable nuggets, as well as some reviews interested in critical and reference books about SF issued Benchmarks, collecting Budrys’s reviews of by now historical importance. Reviewing The and in retrospective author collections, so we get from Galaxy from 1965-1971, but until now his Shadow of the Torturer, he’s a bit cautious, noting a generous sampling of his views on everything more cantankerous reviews for F&SF (really more that Wolfe is asking a lot of readers by expecting from the early writing careers of John W. Campbell, personal essays, since sometimes he barely gets them to follow him through a quarter million words Lester del Rey, Edmond Hamilton, Cordwainer around to mentioning the book ostensibly being for an undisclosed payoff, but concluding, ‘‘I Smith, and others, to various art books to critical reviewed) have been available only to those able to think he deserves that much trust, because I think books by Knight, Malzberg, and the massive, five- track down the original issues. They were supposed he’ll repay it.’’ By The Claw of the Conciliator, volume Survey of Science Fiction Literature from to be collected as a followup to Benchmarks, but Budrys is saying, ‘‘As a piece of literature, this Salem Press. Sometimes Budrys is just stunningly SIU Press discontinued its line of SF criticism work is simply overwhelming.’’ As a critic, he’s not brilliant, and sometimes his judgments seem before that could happen. Now, thanks to the efforts ashamed to express awe, and part of the pleasure eccentric enough to make you blink. Who else would of David Langford and Greg Pickersgill, at least the here is seeing his take on earlier works by M. have suggested that Stanislaw Lem’s work was first seven years of these columns are available, with John Harrison, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree, Jr., or prefigured by Stanton Coblentz? (For that matter, a second volume covering the later years promised. George R.R. Martin (‘‘has the voice of a poet and how many of us know enough to challenge it?) The It is, as might be expected, something of a gold a mind like a steel trap,’’ way back in 1978). Nor index is unfortunately a bit spotty (Clute, Lem, and mine and something of a time capsule. The very is he ashamed to be self-indulgent: he cheerfully Coblentz aren’t there), but the book is a significant first sentence of the very first review here provides a reviews his own books, and his review of the first step forward in restoring the critical history of SF, good example of the sort of provocative off-handed edition of The Science Fiction Encyclopedia is and it feels like a gift. insight which characterized Budrys’s critical style: largely taken up with quibbles about his own entry –Gary K. Wolfe
Faren Miller in touch with uncanny beings and their worlds (or a kind of goddess), to an ultimate battle between p. 19 portray such places as if their denizens were modern figures of ice and fire, with the fate of multiple humans) – a trend mentioned in my year-end com- worlds at stake. combining legend with something more like history ments for 2012. But the results can be very different In her end note, ‘‘Landscapes of the Fantastic’’, when a grim tyrant deposes a self-indulgent king, it from what I’ve been discussing here. Warrington speaks of a fascination with uncanny never really leaves its version of the ancient Middle Grail of the Summer Stars by Freda Warrington, realms and creatures – ‘‘mystical beings who look East. The Careys’ creatures out of myth and legend third in her Aetherial Tales trilogy, moves between human but aren’t: elves, angels, demons, vampires, (including djinns) won’t have to deal with anything Birmingham UK, the wilds of Nevada, and a variety faeries, demigods and so on.’’ In moments of high as alien as North America over the course of the of other realms more strange, exotic, and elemental melodrama, her Aetherials can exhibit aspects of last century or so. than any standard notions of Faerie. Though Nevada all these. I must admit to a preference for Wecker’s may startle some visitors from Britain with the size jinni, who tends to downplay his potential for pow- SHORT TAKE of both its landscapes and its breakfast portions, erful sexual glamor (despite quite Aetherial looks), There’s more to the matter than a mix of old things get more psychedelically intense elsewhere, using his inner flame mainly to light cigarettes and new, mundane and otherworldly. These days, ranging from romance in full bloom (as two main without need of a match. But your tastes may differ. many fantasies bring sassy, foul-mouthed moderns characters shape-shift in a pool whose guardian is –Faren Miller
Russell Letson Saberhagen’s Berserkers meet Olaf Stapledon – or people) somehow detached from their emotional p. 21 maybe the 3G trio of Gregs Bear, Benford, and or cultural or actual homes. This was one of the Egan. And maybe Bruce Sterling as well, given emotional engines of McAuley’s first two novels, transformation), both of which are revealed in a the bad-boy style the marauding ‘‘big space robot’’ with its astronomer protagonist hauled across in- one-sided conversation. ‘‘Meat’’ (2005) is also a adopts when it characterizes itself: ‘‘It’s a midnight terstellar space to investigate cosmic mysteries. In monologue, less a narrative than an elaboration of rambler. Sooner or later it’ll be coming to the star these shorter pieces, the repetition of these patterns, an idea – in this case, a new and quite icky version next door to you, and it will rock your world.’’ With reinforced by McAuley’s autobiographical Notes, of the pursuit and consumption of fame. rocks. And gravity probes, and swarms of killer make this volume particularly appealing to anyone The narrative of ‘‘Rocket Boy’’ (2007) is some- drones, and a muon gun. Yippee-ki-yay, etc. who follows this versatile, ingenious, and endlessly what compressed, particularly in its second half – I And through it all, the writing pays close atten- inventive writer. can easily imagine a longer version with set-piece tion to physical setting, to the textures of environ- action sequences – but the primary impression ments, and to the careful describing and naming John Varley is another writer whose backgrounds is made by the setting of a war-ravaged society of phenomena: the nanotech in ‘‘Children of the and idea-sets were developed in magazine pieces under the heels of military occupiers, criminals, Revolution’’ consists of ‘‘self-replicating fembots, before being fed into novels, and whose career can- and corrupt politicians. It’s a world that shapes the assemblages of carbon polyhedra doped with not be fully appreciated without the short-form part protagonist as much as does the slyly intelligent heavy metals... operating on scales of a billionth of the canon. So a few years back, I was happy to see weapon that gives him power. Similarly, the envi- of a millimetre.’’ ‘‘Sea Change, With Monsters’’ The John Varley Reader (reviewed in December ronment of ‘‘17’’ (1998) – part Dickensian factory, features what has become a McAuley signature, a 2004), which brought back into print a substantial part mobocracy, part alien-planet hellhole – works vivid worldscape built up from a combination of chunk of Varley’s shorter work after an eighteen- to define its scrappy, unstoppable heroine, though metaphor, analytical understanding, and technical year drought. Now I am made happy again to see she has only intelligence and true grit to get her language: a somewhat smaller chunk surface in the form of through her challenges. Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories. There is considerable range of conventional the surface of Europa was a thin skin of ice The 11 items here collected date from between 1975 forms on display here. ‘‘Prison Dreams’’ and over the ocean, as fragile as the craquelure and 1986, eight of them clustered in the incredibly on an ancient painting. Triplet ridge and groove ‘‘Second Skin’’ point toward the crime and/or in- features cut across the plates. They were productive ’75 to ’77 period, and they are presented trigue thriller (a subgenre McAuley has explored caused by the upwelling of water through stress not in publication order (as was the case with the in several novels); ‘‘City of the Dead’’, and ‘‘Sea fractures. The ridges were breccia dykes, ice Reader) but as a ‘‘Grand Tour of the Solar System.’’ Change, With Monsters’’ are (among other things) mixed with mineralised silicates, complexly The fact that some planets are left out and that two variations on the exotic-setting action adventure; faulted and folded; the grooves between them stories that don’t fit the schema at all doesn’t bother ‘‘17’’ and ‘‘Rocket Boy’’ are tough-kid melodra- were almost pure water-ice. They were like a me, since the Tour gives Varley an excuse to write mas. But that range is matched by a willingness to vast freeway system half-built and abruptly headnotes reflecting on the state of understanding mix and cross-breed motifs and idea-families, so abandoned, cut across where the ice plates had of the solar system when the stories were written fractured or had been buried by blue-white icy that ‘‘Rocket Boy’’, ‘‘City of the Dead’’, and ‘‘Sea flows which had spewed from newer fissures. and to offer some insight into the play of ideas (em- Change, With Monsters’’ are also about encounters phasis, I suspect, on ‘‘play’’) that generated them. with exotic intelligences, while ‘‘Children of the Not all the threads running through the stories are When Varley’s first collection,The Persistence Revolution’’ and ‘‘Rocket Boy’’ have traces of technical or scientific or science-fictional. I found it of Vision, appeared in paperback in 1978, I im- cyberpunk in their DNA. Sometimes it seems as interesting how many of them depend on variations mediately snagged it as the centerpiece for one of though most of the history of SF is woven through on of a motif that I mentally labeled ‘‘displace- my science-fiction courses. His stories were great these stories. In ‘‘Little Lost Robot’’ (2008), Fred ment’’ – refugees, escapees, people (often young
LOCUS April 2013 / 39 Russell Letson ion piece to ‘‘Beatnik Bayou’’ over in the Reader), is far from the almost-magical milieu of its cousin while ‘‘Retrograde Summer’’ and ‘‘Lollipop and series. There are no nullfields, no almost-perfect to teach, not only because they required students the Tar Baby’’ turn on mother-child relationships med-tech, no aggressively rationalist government. to pay close attention to what was on the page and tensions (and dysfunctions) possible only to a Instead, there is some pretty ugly general back- (‘‘Yes, he really does mean that literally’’; ‘‘Yes, culture with cloning technology. All of them – along ground, built up gradually from mentions dropped that character really used to be female’’), but be- with ‘‘In the Bowl’’ – also poke at our notions of into the story: lunatic-fringe terrorist bombings, cause they were early explorations of the fringes children, kinship, and sexuality. These stories had even with nuclear devices, and corporate wars are of the post-human condition, as well as fountains a definite and useful shock value thirty years ago, not-uncommon occurrences. ‘‘Blue Champagne’’ of exotic, playful ideas. If gleefully confronting and while sex changes and easy or routine somatic (1981) elaborates on the corporate and cultural side taboos and unthinking convention and turning ex- modifications are not surprising any more (at least of this future, where some near-miracles, such as pectations on their heads are among the functions in fiction), I suspect that some Varleyan notions the paraplegic’s full-body prosthetic, are possible, of art, then Varley is an artist. Nor does it hurt that might still raise eyebrows or blood pressures in but only at a very high cost that only starts with he is also a craftsman, an entertainer, and a first-rate a contemporary classroom – for example, the the money, and corporations withhold unprofitable line-by-line writer. equating of religious evangelism with mental ill- disease cures. Most of the stories in this collection belong to the ness as a disqualifier for parenthood (‘‘Retrograde The two non-series stories sort strangely with the Eight Worlds future that dominated the beginning Summer’’), or his portraits of religious fanaticism rest. ‘‘The Manhattan Telephone Book (Abridged)’’ of his career. Here the Nifty Skiffy technologies (‘‘Equinoctal’’, 1977), or the casual mention of (1984) does not operate in anything like the same – nullfield vacuum suits, symbiotes, sex-changes, the possibility of sex between clone ‘‘siblings,’’ mode as the others – it is not even a parable. The and the colonization of insanely hostile environ- rejected only to avoid thermal overloading of one’s best labels I can come up with are ‘‘secular sermon’’ ments – compete for our attention with equally nullfield suit. (Though, to be fair, Heinlein was or ‘‘reality check’’ – it’s a meditation on the differ- revolutionary and transformative changes in social, toying with related stuff back in 1959 in ‘‘‘All You ence between consolatory stories about apocalypse psychological, and moral realms. There is consid- Zombies – ’’’.) and the real thing. (For an extended and genuinely erable conventional SF ingenuity at work in ‘‘The Like McAuley, Varley has had some revisionist fictional take on a related subject, see last year’s Funhouse Effect’’, ‘‘Retrograde Summer’’, and ‘‘In second thoughts about his future history. (There Slow Apocalypse.) ‘‘The Unprocessed Word’’ the Bowl’’ – notably the imaginary technology of is a website that includes a detailed unpicking of (1986) is a goof, the sort of epistolary story that the nullfield, which shapes the stories’ environments the [in]consistencies of the Eight Worlds stories – used to show up in the old Analog, but with a dif- and enables the physical drama. (All three include Google up ‘‘Varley Vade Mecum’’.) At one time, it ferent set of in-jokes. strong survival-adventure elements.) seemed that the world of lunar police chief Anna- Between this volume and the Reader, the bulk But it is the human context that is more pro- Marie Bach (‘‘Bagatelle’’, ‘‘Blue Champagne’’) of Varley’s short fiction is now available. The shelf foundly estranging, particularly the familial and belonged with the Eight Worlds, but eventually life of much SF can be surprisingly short, but the sexual environments. Once again, I noted how often Varley decided that, as he writes in the headnote to freshness and vividness of these stories after nearly the non-SF heart of a story turns on childhood or ‘‘Bagatelle’’, that world is ‘‘harsher’’ than that of the four decades suggests that Varley’s work belongs in family dynamics, on new modes of parenthood and Eight Worlds. ‘‘Bagatelle’’ has a strong Larry Niven the permanent canon. If I were still in the classroom, parenting, or even on new modes of dysfunction and vibe, with its cop-with-a-problem foreground and John Varley would be right there with me. child abuse. ‘‘Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe’’ (1977) nicely textured settled-Moon background. But de- –Russell Letson features a return to physical childhood (a compan- spite the sophisticated technologies on display, this
Adrienne Martini as a genre writer. But her books have always slid It’s a story based in reality. There have been p. 22 around and through genre, defining the idea of in- quite a few cases of chimps being raised in hu- terstitial and frequently feeling like they belong on man homes, either alongside human children or as knows. Hill’s hero is human, in other words. the fantasy/science fiction shelf without a concrete singletons. In real life, it doesn’t end well, which is Vic resonates, as do so many of Hill’s charac- argument as to why. But, without any doubt, We true for Fowler’s story, too. ters, like Maggie Leigh, an Iowa librarian whom are all completely beside ourselves isn’t a genre But this isn’t a loosely disguised lecture on the you know and love from Hill’s first description of book. Also without any doubt, it is a book you hazards of anthropomorphism or a screed against her: ‘‘She looked like Sam Spade, if Sam Spade should read the instant it is available. research. These ideas come up, yes, but the meat had been a girl and had a weekend gig fronting a It’s a book about a family, the Cookes, told of the story isn’t about them. As Rosemary herself ska band.’’ Even Manx, our antagonist/personifi- from the perspective of the youngest daughter, says: ‘‘Nobody’s arguing these issues are easy’’ cation of evil, has a depth to him. Like any good Rosemary, whose wry voice captures and colors and proceeds to prove how not easy they are. The villain, he has solid reasons for what he’s doing; the story to come. She starts in the middle, talk- story moves and feints but never stalls. it’s just that his methods that are questionable. ing about waking up in the middle of the night in We are all completely beside ourselves is a That’s where, I think, the difference between her grandparent’s house as a five-year old, certain powerful story about memory and language and Hill and King might be. The delineations be- that her life had changed but unclear about how. family. It’s about what makes us human while tween good and evil are always ambiguous in We meet her sister, Fern, and her older brother, never forgetting that humor and cunning are part Hill’s work. Still, that voice and propulsive nar- Lowell. But what we don’t learn until later – or of that definition. It’s gorgeously written in that rative force has not skipped a generation. learn before we even start reading if we’re fool- seemingly effortless style that Fowler has perfect- ish enough to hope that the back cover copy keeps ed. No, you probably won’t see it on next year’s Karen Joy Fowler’s multiple World Fantasy and the story unspoiled – is that Fern is a chimpanzee Hugo list – but you will hear it mentioned as one Nebula awards coupled with her involvement with who was raised alongside Rosemary as part of her of the standouts of 2013. the Tiptrees make her best known to Locus readers father’s research. –Adrienne Martini
Divers Hands in fact, that anthology concludes with some of the look at what might come to pass if the supervillain p. 25 more reflective pieces. were to win. All in all this is a really interesting Those reflective stories include the other reprint anthology that gives us a number of perspectives, might be from hell if he were more competent. In entry, the amazing ‘‘Mad Scientist’s Daughter’’ by mostly funny but also often thoughtful, on this most one of two reprints, Jeremiah Tolbert’s ‘‘Instead Theodora Goss, which brings together the daughters clichéd trope of adventure fiction. of a Loving Heart’’ has a more sombre take on the of several 19th-century mad scientists in one London involuntary lackey’s role. Laird Barron gives us a house – a lovely story, and quite sharp. ‘‘Mofongo In Victoria Blake’s Cyberpunk anthology, by darkly twisted assistant in ‘‘Blood and Stardust’’. Knows’’ by Grady Hendrix asks what happens when contrast, the leading stories set an almost impos- The biggest problem with the anthology comes in the old stories end, with a tale of the rather sordid sible standard. The anthology opens with William the middle. After a wide variety of quick, punchy, and unglamorous retirement of some stock pulp Gibson’s ‘‘Johnny Mnemonic’’ (1981) and ‘‘Mozart mostly ironic stories, the volume comes to a screech- characters. ‘‘Rocks Fall’’ by Naomi Novik gives us in Mirrorshades’’ (1985) by Bruce Sterling and ing halt with Diana Gabaldon’s very long historical the perspective of a mid-level superhero confronted Lewis Shiner. These are both core cyberpunk stories story, ‘‘The Space Between’’. It is a complete shift with a vastly superior, but still rather human, super- that pull absolutely no punches. Their worldbuilding in tone, setting, and theme that suffers immensely villain. It’s a quiet story, not at all what you’d expect. comes fast and furious, making no allowances for in contrast to the breezy stories that come before. And the anthology winds up with Ben H. Winters’s the reader. Even when the narration is infodumping, It takes awhile for things to get back on track, and, ‘‘The Food Taster’s Boy’’, which gives us a horrific it’s like the story’s speaking to a future reader, one
40 / LOCUS April 2013 who is closer to this future (and probably hipper novel Permutation City) had been included, as and cooler than you, too). They’re hyperkinetic and it covered the concerns of uploaded immortals so alienating to read, whether it’s Johnny navigating the well. Lewis Shiner’s ‘‘Soldier, Sailor’’ (1990), with cyborg criminal underworld or Rice cavorting with its allusive story set on Mars put me in mind of 18th-century nobility and ignoring his rapacious Hannu Rajaniemi. Some of his stories, particularly corporate duties. These stories are so emblematic ‘‘His Master’s Voice’’ and his novel The Quantum that one spends the rest of the anthology asking each Thief, share the over-the-top kinetic aesthetics that story in turn: ‘‘How cyber is it, and how punk?’’ I associate with cyberpunk. And with many of the stories, compared to Gibson It might have helped if the collection went for and Sterling/Shiner, the answer comes back: not story notes on each story, instead of relying on the that much. brief Introduction to make the argument that these The next three stories are particularly different in stories represent the evolution of cyberpunk. In the tone and substance. ‘‘Interview with a Crab’’ (2005) end, I felt like I had a collection of very good stories, by Jonathan Lethem follows directly after ‘‘Mozart but not a particularly convincing argument about the in Mirrorshades’’, but has none of the same affect. sub-genre’s progression into the future. It’s an interesting story, putting a surrealist spin –Karen Burnham on modern media culture, but it’s hard to regard it as either terribly cyber or terribly punk. Likewise, TIM PRATT ‘‘El Pepenador’’ (2012) by Benjamin Parzybok has Tenth of December, George Saunders (Random cyborgs and the nitty gritty of a trash-picker’s life, House 978- 0812993802, $26.00, 272pp, hc) Janu- but doesn’t in any way match the aesthetic of the first ary 2013. stories. ‘‘Down and Out in the Year 2000’’ (1986) Of the ten stories in George Saunders’s breathtak- by Kim Stanley Robinson was included, according ing new collection Tenth of December, only three to the editor’s introduction, specifically because it make unambiguous use of speculative elements. A is a critique of cyberpunk’s attitude towards ‘‘the fourth, the chilling story-in-memo-form ‘‘Exhorta- street.’’ Robinson reminds us of just how grinding, tion’’, could have appeared in a genre magazine demeaning, and unadventurous poverty really is. It without arousing comment, hinting as it does at deliberately sucks all the punk out of cyberpunk. a vast dystopian bureaucracy. So, with just three- Two of the only stories that do rise to the aesthetic tenths (maybe two-fifths) of the book qualifying as bar set early on are, unsurprisingly, by other core speculative fiction, why review it inLocus ? cyberpunk writers. Pat Cadigan’s ‘‘Rock On’’ (1984) Well, Saunders is almost one of ours. He’s been features an old woman, who is integral to rock and publishing ambitious, accomplished, blackly funny roll, being forced to help pathetic imitators, and fiction for years, and often uses the machinery of SF does so in prose reminiscent of beat poetry. Rudy to achieve his satirical ends or to enliven his social Rucker’s 1982 ‘‘The Jack Kerouac Disembodied commentary, much the way Kurt Vonnegut did. He School of Poetics’’ literally brings back Kerouac’s routinely slips SF stories into the pages of The New ghost in a drug-fueled vision. Compared to these Yorker (which, to be fair, is more welcoming to SF early stories, everything else seems sedate and than most genre readers probably realize), and previ- restrained. ous books, including Civilwarland in Bad Decline That’s not to say that there aren’t fantastic stories and The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, also here. In a reprint anthology, the editor can be choosy contained work of genre interest. While many liter- researchers test whether any lingering romantic and pick the best. David Marusek’s ‘‘Getting to ary authors who dabble in speculative matters do so feelings remain by forcing Jeff to choose which of Know You’’ (1997) holds up very well as the intru- clumsily, Saunders has a great head for extrapola- the women should receive the brutal punishment sive nature of an ‘‘assistant’’ AI becomes apparent. tion, and for cataloguing the human consequences of drug DarkenFloxx, which causes suicidal levels of Cat Rambo’s ‘‘Memories of Moments, Bright as advanced technologies. He’s one of our best living depression, the remnants of his essential humanity Falling Stars’’ (2007) is an excellent story of poverty, short fiction writers, producing work full of vibrant compel him to resist. love, and death, where the narrator has a very dis- writing, heartbreakingly believable characters, and ‘‘My Chivalric Fiasco’’ could be set in the same tinctive voice. The protagonist of Gwyneth Jones’s observations so sharp they cut to the bone. world, with a guy named Ted hired at the local ‘‘Blue Clay Blues’’ (1992) is juggling an investiga- ‘‘The Semplica Girl Diaries’’ is one of the best Renaissance Faire and given a drug that makes tion in a backwater town and his small daughter at stories published in the past year, in genre or out. him act (and think, and talk) like the fictional no- the same time. ‘‘The Nostalgist’’ (2009) by Daniel Written as the diary of an anxious husband and tion of chivalrous knight, complete with Random H. Wilson uses augmented reality to aggressively father, just barely in the middle class and obsessed Capitalizations of Important Words. But while such deny reality, although the story is so sentimental that with giving his children a better life (or the appear- chivalric effects make for good theater, they make it seems a stretch to put it in a cyberpunk volume. ance of one), he risks financial disaster by investing for bad workplace interactions when the ‘‘king’’ at ‘‘Mr. Boy’’ (1990) by James Patrick Kelly is an in the newest craze: ‘‘Semplica Girls,’’ women from the Faire doesn’t live up to Ted’s new Standards of amazing tale of extreme body-modification among the Third World who undergo surgery to run a mi- Proper Behavior. the over-privileged, although, more fundamentally, crofiber thread through their heads from temple to Unless you have an extreme aversion to realistic it is a story about growing up. Paul Di Filippo’s temple. The women are dressed in white and hung stories, the rest of the collection will wow you, too. ‘‘Life in the Anthropocene’’ (2010) has perhaps on those threads in the yards of wealthy Americans ‘‘Home’’, about a soldier returning to a country that my favorite world-building in the volume, with a as decorations. The Semplica Girls get money to seems unreal and a family he barely comprehends, world mostly settled into its reaction to the ravages send back to their families, and the customers get was a Bram Stoker Award finalist last year and is of climate change, but where not everyone is happy to show off their wealth. It’s an over-the-top idea, one of the best treatments of PTSD and the difficulty about the new arrangements. but it cuts to the heart of Western exploitation, social of readjusting to civilian life that I’ve ever read. There are also newer stories that play with form climbing, and class anxiety – and it’s also funny, ‘‘Victory Lap’’ is a perfect crime story and character and structure. ‘‘The Blog at the End of the World’’ harrowing, and sad. study, with time spent in the minds of the victim, (2008) by Paul Tremblay is just like it sounds, and it ‘‘Escape from Spiderhead’’ takes place in a private the perpetrator, and the bystander who steps in; manages the reverse chronology of the blog format prison run by a pharmaceutical company, where ‘‘Tenth of December’’ is the affecting tale of a man well. Bruce Sterling’s ‘‘User-Centric’’ (1999) is the inmates serve as guinea pigs for new drugs. who decides to die, and ends up saving someone’s told in the form of a threaded e-mail conversation Our viewpoint character is a regretful felon named life instead; and ‘‘Puppy’’ is a wrenching vignette in a product development team and is absolutely Jeff, who experiences the effects of several clev- about poverty, social anxiety, and people doing convincing. In ‘‘The Lost Technique of Blackmail’’ erly named drugs, including the ‘‘VerbaLuce’’ that wrong while trying to do right. (2009) Mark Teppo deftly combines cyberpunk and makes him eloquent, the ‘‘VeriTalk’’ that compels All of Saunders’s stories are notable for their noir, with one of the most ornate and alienating truthfulness, and the ‘‘ErthAdmire’’ that makes him pitch-perfect characterization and exquisite handling pieces of worldbuilding since the founders’ stories. appreciate the serenity of nature. He’s given a new of viewpoint. The people in his stories seem entirely Of course, some stories leave you questioning experimental drug that makes him fall intensely in real, and no matter how outlandish the premises, the the ones not included. Greg Bear’s ‘‘Fall of the love with a pair of female inmates (who are dosed characters are utterly grounded psychologically. House of Escher’’ (1996) makes me wish that Greg with the same drug), but only temporarily – the We know these people. We believe in these people. Egan’s ‘‘Dust’’ (the precursor to his break-out commercial applications are obvious. When the Sometimes we are these people. –Tim Pratt
LOCUS April 2013 / 41 Amy Goldschlager Devil Said Bang, Richard Kadrey; The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman; p. 27 MacLeod Andrews, narrator (Bril- Robin Miles, narrator; (Listening Li- liance Audio 978-1-4692-0794-0, 10 brary/Random House Audio 978-0-449- Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone; Claudia CDs, $24.99, 12 hr., unabridged [also available 01463-9, 8 CDs, $55.00, 8.25 hr., unabridged Alick, narrator (Blackstone, 978-1-4708-0983- as MP3-CD and digital download]) August [also available as a digital download]) September 6, 11 CDs $32.95, 13 hr. unabridged [also avail- 2012. 2012. Cover by Kathleen Jennings. able as MP3-CD and digital download]) October James Stark begins this fourth installment of In 1960, dreamy, bookish Sophie is sent to 2012. the Sandman Slim series stuck in Hell. Again. spend the summer with her aunt and grandmother Tara Abernathy is a newly hired associate at But this time, he’s ruling it as Lucifer, the for- on what remains of her family’s Louisiana plan- the firm of Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao, a job mer holder of that name having moved home to tation. She’s been brought up on the romance of that blends magic, necromancy, and law. Her first Heaven. Unfortunately, Stark’s previous method plantation life and her family’s casual racism, and assignment is in the city of Alt Columb, whose of egress, the Key of Thirteen Doors, remains doesn’t question either until she meets a mysteri- patron god Kos has died under mysterious cir- with his angelic self, ‘‘St. James,’’ who’s gone ous creature and wishes for a magical adventure. cumstances and who owes power to many credi- off somewhere. Hell’s interminable bureaucracy, The puckish creature sends her back to her fam- tors. How those debts are paid – and the form endless politicking, and assassination attempts ily’s plantation in 1860, where her bare feet, mud- that Kos’s eventual resurrection will take – de- have Stark missing the old days when he was a dy clothes, frizzy hair, and deep tan get Sophie pends on how well Tara can advocate for Kos, gladiator in the Arena. When Stark finally does mistaken for a slave, and grant her an opportunity which means understanding how and why he manage to get back to LA, the sky’s turning all to shake up some deeply held assumptions and died, while outmagicking and outthinking her kinds of weird colors, a little-girl ghost is stab- prejudices. opponent, the dangerously powerful, treacherous bing magic users, and a lot of people are really Delia Sherman succeeds at the delicate task of professor who literally had her tossed out of the mad at St. James and perfectly willing to express displaying the ugliness of slavery, while remain- school where she acquired her magical training. their ire at Stark instead. So, basically, it’s busi- ing appropriate for her tween and teen readers. It Narrator Claudia Alick has a slight, but notice- ness as usual.... wasn’t without considerable effort on Sherman’s able, thickness in her tone – almost a lisp – which The Sandman Slim books are much of a much- part, according to the 13-minute author’s interview is somewhat distracting at first. After a while, the ness. It all depends on whether you enjoy James included here. In the ensuing discussion, which is story becomes so absorbing, and Alick is accom- Stark being very surly, doing serious damage to considerably more candid and illuminating than plished enough, that this verbal tic slowly fades people, creatures, and property, and, incidental- most post-audiobook interviews, Sherman ex- from awareness for the most part, only occasion- ly, saving the world. I do happen to enjoy these plains that the process of researching and writing ally resurfacing. Alick provides a creditable cast things, so, while nothing new, this was enormous the book took 18 years. Amazingly, she rewrote it of voices, although the ‘‘ice queen’’ tones of fun for me. Brilliance Audio has been relying a 27 times, rooting out the unconscious racism she Tara’s boss Elayne are perhaps a bit overdone, bit too heavily on MacLeod Andrew these days, admits appeared in earlier drafts. When the time and the young priest Abelard is decidedly too na- but Stark is the role Andrew was born to voice. came to record the audiobook, Sherman specifical- sal; many narrators seem to associate that vocal He’s got a lovely deep growl for Stark, as well ly chose someone who could sound old-fashioned quality with shy nerdiness, and I really wish they as a wonderfully fussy one for Stark’s demonic and could put on a variety of Southern accents, and wouldn’t. But Alick has a good sense of drama personal assistant Brimborian. However, I’m she chose successfully. Robin Miles has a narrative and pacing in the action scenes, and the story not sure why Father Traven sounds exactly like voice of silk, and she is certainly more than able in is sufficiently compelling that it makes up for Jimmy Stewart, and Mr. Muninn’s voice bears a all these accents. More than that, she’s so capable any minor narrative deficiencies. This is a fresh, strong, strange resemblance to Kermit the Frog’s. with male voices you might even forget she’s a strong debut from Gladstone, and I look forward All in all, though, this was 12 hours of profane woman. Every library should have a copy of this. to what he does next. pleasure. –Amy Goldschlager
British Books – January
Note: This information, unlike the 09766-7, £7.99, 418pp, tp) Reprint 2012) fantasy novel. A hardcover edition * Barrowman, John & Carole E. Locus main list, is put together by Ian (Gollancz 2012) urban fantasy novel, third (-13291-7, £20.00) was announced but Barrowman Torchwood: Exodus Code Covell; send corrections to him at 24 St in the Peter Grant series. not seen. [First UK edition] (BBC Books 978-1-846-07907-8, £16.99, Pauls Road, Middlesbrough, TS1 5NQ, 364pp, hc) Tie-in novel based on the England. First world editions marked with Adams, Douglas Dirk Gently’s Holistic * Anderton, Jo Suited (Angry Robot 978- TV series. an asterisk. Comments by Ian Covell. Detective Agency (Macmillan/Pan 978- 0-85766-156-2, £7.99, 391pp, tp, cover by 1-4472-2109-8, £7.99, 279pp, tp) Reprint Dominic Harman) SF novel. Beck, Ian The Haunting of Charity Aaronovitch, Ben Rivers of London (Heinemann 1987) humorous SF novel. Delafield (Transworld/Corgi 978-0-552- (Orion/Gollancz 978-0-575-09758-2, * Ashby, Madeline vN: The First Machine 56206-5, £5.99, 281pp, pb) Reprint £7.99, 390pp, tp) Reprint (Gollancz 2011) Adams, Douglas The Long Dark Tea- Dynasty (Angry Robot 978-0-85766- (The Bodley Head 2011) young-adult urban fantasy novel, first in the Peter Time of the Soul (Macmillan/Pan 978- 261-3, £7.99, 326pp, tp, cover by Martin fantasy novel. Grant series. This is a special ‘‘London 1-4472-2110-4, £7.99, 276pp, tp) Reprint Bland) SF novel. Edition’’ with the site of the Olympic (Heinemann 1988) humorous SF novel. * Boswell, Ellie Secrets and Sorcery Games on the cover. * Barrowman, John & Carole E. Hollow (Little, Brown UK/Orbit 978-1-907410-97- Ahmed, Saladin Throne of the Crescent Earth (Buster Books 978-1-90715-164- 0, £5.99, 245pp, tp) Young-adult fantasy Aaronovitch, Ben Whispers Under Moon (Orion/Gollancz 978-0-575-13292- 4, £6.99, 326pp, tp) Young-adult fantasy novel, the third in the Witch of Turlingham Ground (Orion/Gollancz 978-0-575- 4, £14.99, 274pp, tp) Reprint (DAW novel. Academy series.
42 / LOCUS April 2013 * Brin, David Uplift: The Complete * Griffin, KateStray Souls (Little, Brown Masson, David I. The Caltraps of Time Strugatsky. An SF Masterworks edition. Original Trilogy (Little, Brown UK/Orbit UK/Orbit 978-0-356-50064-5, £8.99, (Orion/Gollancz 978-0-575-11828-7, 978-1-84149-489-0, £14.99, 1211pp, tp) 438pp, tp) Fantasy novel in the Magicals £7.99, tp, cover by Vincent Chong) * Sykes, Sam The Skybound Sea (Orion/ Omnibus of Sundiver (1980), Startide Anonymous series. Reprint (Faber and Faber 1968) collec- Gollancz 978-0-575-09037-8, £16.99, Rising (1983), and The Uplift War tion of ten stories, with introduction by 494pp, tp, cover by Paul Young) Fantasy (1987). Hamilton, Peter F. The Naked God Christopher Priest. An SF Masterworks novel. A hardcover edition (£20.00) was (Macmillan/Pan 978-1-447-20859-4, edition. announced but not seen. * Brooke, Keith Alt.Human (Rebellion/ £8.99, 1255pp, tp, cover by Steve Stone) Solaris 978-1-78108-002-3, £7.99, Reprint (Macmillan UK 1999) SF novel, * Miéville, China Railsea (Macmillan UK * Tallerman, David Crown Thief (Angry 375pp, tp, cover by Adam Tredowski) third in the Night’s Dawn trilogy. 978-0-230-76510-8, £17.99, 376pp, hc) Robot 978-0-85766-249-1, £7.99, 376pp, SF novel. Young-adult fantasy novel. Simultaneous tp, cover by Angelo Rinaldi) Fantasy nov- Hamilton, Peter F. The Neutronium with the US (Del Rey) edition. el, second in the Easie Damasco series. * Card, Orson Scott The Shadow Saga Alchemist (Macmillan/Pan 978-1-447- (Little, Brown UK/Orbit 978-0-356-50160- 20858-7, £8.99, 1273pp, tp, cover by Newton, Mark Charan The Book of * Tchaikovsky, Adrian The Air War 4, £14.99, 1253pp, tp) Omnibus of four Steve Stone) Reprint (Macmillan UK Transformations (Macmillan/Tor UK (Macmillan/Tor UK 978-0-230-75700-4, novels in the series parallel to the Ender 1997) SF novel, second in the Night’s 978-0-330-52167-3, £8.99, 466pp, tp) £12.99, 653pp, tp, cover by Alan Brooks) Saga: Ender’s Shadow (1999), Shadow Dawn trilogy. Reprint (Tor UK 2011) fantasy novel, third Fantasy novel, eighth in the Shadows of of the Hegemon (2001), Shadow in the Legends of the Red Sun series. the Apt series. Puppets (2002), and Shadow of the Harris, Charlaine Dead Reckoning (Orion/Gollancz 978-0-575-13140-8, Tidhar, Lavie Osama (Rebellion/Solaris Giant (2005). * Newton, Mark Charan The Broken Isles 978-1-78108-076-4, £7.99, 302pp, tp, £7.99, 325pp, tp) Reprint (Gollancz 2011) (Macmillan/Tor UK 978-0-230-75007-4, Cast, P.C. & Kristin Betrayed (Little, Southern vampire fantasy novel, 11th in cover by Pedro Marques) Reprint (PS £16.99, 371pp, hc) Fantasy novel, fourth Publishing 2011) fantasy novel. Brown UK/Orbit 978-0-349-00113-5, the True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse series. in the Legends of the Red Sun series. £7.99, 392pp, tp) Reprint (St. Martin’s Treadwell, James Advent (Hodder 978- Griffin 2007) young-adult vampire ro- Harris, Charlaine Grave Secret (Orion/ * O’Regan, Marie, ed. The Mammoth Gollancz 978-0-575-08556-5, £7.99, 1-444-72849-1, £6.99, 610pp, tp) Reprint mance novel, second in the House of Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Hodder & Stoughton 2012) fantasy novel. Night series. 306pp, tp) Reprint (Berkley 2009) para- (Robinson 978-1-78033-024-2, £7.99, normal mystery novel, fourth in the First in a series. Magic returns to the world 499pp, tp) Anthology of 24 stories, 16 when Faust’s lost ring is found. Cast, P.C. & Kristin Chosen (Little, Harper Connelly series. original. Authors with new stories include Brown UK/Orbit 978-0-349-00114-2, Kelley Armstrong, Elizabeth Massie, and Harris, Charlaine Grave Sight (Orion/ Tuttle, Lisa The Silver Bough (Quercus/ £7.99, 322pp, tp) Reprint (St. Martin’s Lilith Saintcrow. Jo Fletcher 978-1-78087-439-5, £14.99, Griffin 2008) young-adult vampire Gollancz 978-0-575-12948-1, £7.99, 232pp, tp) Reprint (Berkley Prime Crime 453pp, hc) Reprint (Bantam Spectra romance novel, third in the House of * Patterson, James Maximum Ride: 2006) fantasy novel. Night series. 2005) paranormal mystery novel, first in Never More (Random House UK/Century the Harper Connelly series. 978-1-846-05777-9, £12.99, 344pp, hc) * Warburton, Ruth A Witch in Love Young-adult SF novel, eighth and final in (Hodder Children’s Books 978-1-444- * Cole, Steve Z. Apocalypse (Random Higson, Charlie The Fear (Penguin/Puffin House UK/Red Fox 978-1-862-30779-7, the series. Simultaneous with the Arrow 90470-3, £6.99, 401pp, tp) Young-adult UK 978-0-141-32506-4, £6.99, 460pp, tp) edition. fantasy novel. Book two in a trilogy after £5.99, 298pp, tp) Young-adult fantasy Reprint (Puffin 2011) young-adult horror novel, third in the Z. Rex/Hunting series. A Witch in Winter. novel in the Dead series. * Pierce, Gabriella The Lost Soul * Cornell, Paul London Falling (Constable & Robinson/Canvas 978-1- * Watson, Ian & Ian Whates, eds. The Hill, Will Department 19: The Rising 78033-947-4, £6.99, 300pp, tp) Fantasy Mammoth Book of SF Wars (Robinson (Macmillan/Tor UK 978-0-230-76321-0, (HarperCollins UK 978-0-00-735450-4, £12.99, 387pp, tp) Fantasy novel. novel, third in the 666 Park Avenue trilogy. 978-1-78033-040-2, £7.99, 497pp, tp) £7.99, 703pp, tp) Reprint (HarperCollins Collection of 24 stories, three original. Delaney, Joseph The Spook’s Blood Children’s Books UK 2012) young-adult Pollack, Rachel Unquenchable Fire Authors include Algiss Budrys, Elizabeth (Random House UK/Red Fox 978-1- SF/horror novel. (Orion/Gollancz 978-0-575-11854-6, Moon, Gene Wolfe, and Paul McAuley. 849-41107-3, £6.99, 364pp, tp, cover by £8.99, 364pp, tp) Reprint (Century 1988) * Hocking, Amanda Wake (Macmillan/Tor SF novel. Introduction by Lisa Tuttle. An * Wendig, Chuck Blackbirds (Angry Alessandro ‘‘Talexi’’ Taini) Reprint (The UK 978-1-4472-0572-2, £7.99, 309pp, Bodley Head 2012) young-adult fantasy SF Masterworks edition. Robot 978-0-85766-229-3, £7.99, 283pp, tp) Fantasy novel, the first book in the tp, cover by Joey HiFi) Fantasy novel, the novel, tenth in The Wardstone Chronicles Watersong series. Simultaneous with the series. Powers, Tim The Stress of Her Regard first in a series. Simultaneous with the US (St. Martins Griffin) edition. (Atlantic UK/Corvus 978-1-84887-406-0, Angry Robot US edition. Elliott, Will Shadow (Quercus/Jo Fletcher £8.99, 554pp, tp, cover by Mark Swan) Hodder, Mark A Red Sun Also Rises Reprint (Ace 1989) fantasy novel. Wingrove, David Chung Kuo: Book 4: 978-0-85738-142-2, £8.99, 380pp, tp, (Random House/Del Rey UK 978-0- cover by Larry Rostant) Reprint (Jo Ice and Fire (Atlantic UK/Corvus 978- 091949-81-5, £16.99, 261pp, hc, cover * Pratchett, Terry & The Discworld 1-84887-729-0, £14.99, 325pp, tp, cover Fletcher 2012) fantasy novel, second in by Lee Gibbons & Danny Grogan) Reprint Emporium The Compleat Ankh- the Pendulum Trilogy. by Larry Rostant) Reprint (New English (Pyr 2012) SF/fantasy novel. [First UK Morpork (Transworld/Doubleday UK Library 1989 as The Middle Kingdom) * Elliott, Will World’s End (Quercus/Jo edition] 978-0-857-52074-6, £23.00, 128pp, SF novel. A revised and updated edition, hc) Humorous reference book. ‘‘The Fletcher 978-0-85738-143-9, £12.99, Hunt, Stephen From the Deep of the copyrighted 1989, 2012. 419pp, tp, cover by Larry Rostant) Discworld Emporium’’ is Isobel Pearson, Dark (Harper Voyager 978-0-00-728968- Reb Voyce, Bernard Pearson & Ian * Wolf, Jack The Tale of Raw Head & Fantasy novel, third in the Pendulum 4, £7.99, 455pp, tp) Reprint (Harper Trilogy. Mitchell. Bloody Bones (Chatto & Windus 978-0- Voyager 2012) SF novel, sixth in the 7011-8687-6, £14.99, 547pp, hc, cover by * Fenn, Jaine Queen of Nowhere (Orion/ Jackelian series. Priestley, Chris Mister Creecher Daniel Egneus) Literary horror novel set Gollancz 978-0-575-09699-8, £14.99, (Bloomsbury Children’s Books 978-1- in 1750. A first novel. * Hurley, Tonya The Blessed (Hodder 4088-1105-4, £6.99, 384pp, tp, cover 340pp, tp, cover by keevildesign) SF Children’s Books 978-1-444-90475-8, novel, fifth in the Hidden Empire series. by Larry Rostant) Reprint (Bloomsbury * Wong, David This Book Is Full of £9.99, 417pp, tp) Young-adult fantasy Children’s Books 2011) young-adult Spiders (Titan Books 978-1-7811-6455- A hardcover edition (£20.00) was an- novel, first in the series. nounced but not seen. horror novel. 6, £7.99, 491pp, tp) Darkly humorous * Jones, Stephen, ed. The Mammoth SF/horror novel, sequel to John Dies Fforde, Jasper The Woman Who Died a Rawn, Melanie Touchstone (Titan 978- at the End. Simultaneous with the US Book of Best New Horror Volume 23 1-7811-6660-4, £7.99, 435pp, tp) Reprint Lot (Hodder 978-0-340-96313-5, £7.99, (Robinson 978-1-78033-090-7, £7.99, (Dunne) edition. 380pp, tp) Reprint (Hodder & Stoughton (Tor 2012) fantasy novel, the first book in 589pp, tp, cover by Vincent Chong) Horror the Glass Thorns series. [First UK edition] Wood, Naomi The Godless Boys 2012) humorous SF novel, seventh in the anthology. (Picador 978-0-330-51336-4, £7.99, Thursday Next series. Scott, Michael The Secrets of the 356pp, tp, cover by Katie Tooke) Reprint Kate, Lauren Fallen in Love: New Tales Immortal Nicholas Flamel: Book 5: * Fischer, Rusty Zombies Don’t Cry from the Fallen World (Transworld/ (Picador 2011) SF novel of a parallel- (Egmont/Electric Monkey 978-1-4052- Warlock (Transworld/Corgi 978-0-552- world UK under a theocracy. Corgi 978-0-552-56609-4, £6.99, 201pp, 56256-0, £6.99, 380pp, tp, cover by 6397-9, £6.99, 335pp, tp) Young-adult tp) Reprint (Doubleday UK 2012) fix-up SF novel. Michael Wagner) Reprint (Delacorte January 2013 Year to Date novel/collection of four original interlinked Press 2011) young-adult fantasy novel. SF Novels 4 SF Novels 4 * Fisher, Catherine The Obsidian Mirror stories set in the middle ages, telling the [First UK edition] Fantasy Novels 15 Fantasy Novels 15 (Hodder Children’s Books 978-0-340- back-stories of characters in the Fallen Horror Novels 2 Horror Novels 2 97008-9, £6.99, 393pp, tp, cover by series. * Sebold, Gaie Dangerous Gifts Paranormal Paranormal Rodrigo Adolfo) Young-adult fantasy Lackey, Mercedes Changes (Titan 978- (Rebellion/Solaris 978-1-78108-079-5, Romance 0 Romance 0 novel. 1-7811-6589-8, £7.99, 367pp, tp) Reprint £7.99, 381pp, tp, cover by Jake Murray) Anthologies 3 Anthologies 3 Fantasy novel, second in the Babylon Collections 0 Collections 0 Fukuda, Andrew The Hunt (Simon & (DAW 2011) fantasy novel of the Heralds of Valdemar, third in the Collegium Steel series. Simultaneous with the US Reference 1 Reference 1 Schuster UK 978-0-85707-542-0, £6.99, (Solaris US) edition. History/Criticism 0 History/Criticism 0 293pp, tp) Reprint (St. Martin’s Griffin Chronicles series. [First UK edition] Sedgwick, Marcus Magic and Mayhem: Media Related 1 Media Related 1 2012) young-adult fantasy novel, the first Logan, David Lost Christmas (Quercus Young Adult 14 Young Adult 14 in a series. [First UK edition] 978-1-78087-836-2, £6.99, 278pp, tp) The Raven Mysteries Book 5 (Orion Children’s Books 978-1-4440-0340- SF 4 SF 4 * Fukuda, Andrew The Prey (Simon & Reprint (Quercus 2011) young-adult Fantasy 10 Fantasy 10 fantasy novel. 6, £6.99, 243pp, tp, cover by Peter Schuster UK 978-0-85707-544-4, £9.99, Williamson) Reprint (Orion Children’s Horror 0 Horror 0 326pp, tp, cover by Larry Rostant) Young- * Mahoney, Karen Falling to Ash Books 2011) young-adult fantasy novel. Paranormal Paranormal adult SF novel, second in the Hunt series. (Transworld/Corgi 978-0-552-56526-4, Romance 0 Romance 0 Simultaneous with the US (St. Martin’s £6.99, 342pp, tp) Young-adult fantasy Strugatsky, Boris & Arkady Roadside Other 0 Other 0 Griffin) edition. novel. First in the Moth series. Picnic (Orion/Gollancz 978-0-575- Omnibus 2 Omnibus 2 09313-3, £7.99, 209pp, tp, cover by Art/Humor 0 Art/Humor 0 * Grant, Michael & Katherine Applegate Malley, Gemma The Declaration Dominic Harman) Reprint (Macmillan Miscellaneous 0 Miscellaneous 0 Eve & Adam (Egmont/Electric Monkey (Bloomsbury Children’s Books 978-1- 1977 as part of Roadside Picnic/Tales Total New: 42 Total New: 42 978-1-4052-6434-1, £6.99, 312pp, tp) 4088-3688-0, £6.99, 295pp, tp) Reprint of the Troika) SF novel. Translated by Reprints & Reprints & Young-adult SF novel. Simultaneous with (Bloomsbury 2007) young-adult SF novel, Olena Bormashenko. Introduction by Reissues: 33 Reissues: 33 the US (Feiwel and Friends) edition. first in the Declaration trilogy. Ursula K. Le Guin. Afterword by Boris Total: 75 Total: 75
LOCUS April 2013 / 43 Locus Bestsellers Months Last Months Last HARDCOVERS on list month TRADE PAPERBACKS on list month 1) A Memory of Light, Robert Jordan & 1) Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor) 1 - Brandon Sanderson (Tor) 1 - 2) World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, 2) Ever After, Kim Harrison (Harper Voyager US) 1 - Max Brooks (Crown) 32 3 3) A Dance With Dragons, George R.R. Martin 3) Nexus, Ramez Naam (Angry Robot US) 1 - (Bantam) 19 3 4) Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor) 5 5 4) Cold Days, Jim Butcher (Roc) 3 1 5) Blood and Bone, Ian C. Esslemont (Bantam) 1 - *) Great North Road, Peter F. Hamilton (Del Rey) 1 - *) The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien 6) The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin) 7 2 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) 30 1 7) Tiger by the Tail, John Ringo & Ryan Sear (Baen) 1 - MEDIA-RELATED 8) Impulse, Steven Gould (Tor) 1 - 1) Star Wars: Scoundrels, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) 1 - 9) A Blink of the Screen, Terry Pratchett 2) Star Wars, the Next Generation: Cold Equations, (Doubleday UK) 3 8 Book III: The Body Electric, David Mack 10) Imager’s Battalion, L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (Tor) 1 - (Pocket) 1 - PAPERBACKS 3) Star Trek: Allegiance in Exile, David R. George III 1) A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 31 1 (Pocket) 1 - 2) A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 28 6 4) Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Ascension, 3) A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 27 4 Christie Golden (Del Rey) 2 5 4) A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 28 3 5) Doctor Who: The Wheel of Ice, Stephen Baxter 5) The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Del Rey) 38 2 (Ace) 1 - 6) Snuff, Terry Pratchett (Harper) 3 - GAMING-RELATED 7) The Bride Wore Black Leather, Simon R. Green 1) Assassin’s Creed: Forsaken, Oliver Bowden (Ace) 3 2 (Ace) 1 - *) Pathfinder Tales: Queen of Thorns, Dave Gross 8) Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (Paizo) 1 - (DAW) 1 - 3) Dead Space: Catalyst, Brian Evenson (Tor) 1 - 9) Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card (Tor) 33 - 4) Halo: The Thursday War, Karen Traviss (Tor) 4 1 10) Earthbound, Joe Haldeman (Ace) 1 - 5) Warhammer 40,000: Ravenwing, Gav Thorpe (Black Library US) 1 - A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson ex- ploded into first place on the hardcover list this month, hitting number by Cherie Priest (Tor) was the new runner-up, with 40 titles nominated, one on every bookstore’s list that reported hardcover sales to us. Kim up from the 37 we saw last month. Harrison’s Ever After debuted in second, with the new runner-up Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars: Scoundrels debuted in first place on This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong (Dunne), out of 46 titles the media-related titles this month, and there was no new runner-up. nominated, down a bit from the 53 we saw last month. There were 15 titles nominated, down from last month’s 22. George R.R. Martin ruled the paperback list once again, with A Assassin’s Creed: Forsaken by Oliver Bowden and Pathfinder Game of Thrones taking first place and A Clash of Kings taking Tales: Queen of Thorns by Dave Gross tied for first in the gaming- second. The runner-up was Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson related titles, with Warhammer 40,000: The Horus Heresy: Angel (Tor) with 60 titles nominated, up from last month’s 53. Exterminatus by Graham McNeill (Black Library US) as the new Redshirts by John Scalzi scored the number one spot on the trade runner-up. There were 20 titles nominated, up from the 13 we saw paperback list this month by an enormous margin. The Inexplicables last month.
Compiled with data from: Bakka-Phoenix (Canada), Barnes and Noble (USA), Borderlands (CA), McNally Robinson (two in Canada), Mysterious Galaxy (CA), Saint Mark’s (NY), Toadstool (two in NH), Uncle Hugo’s (MN), University Bookstore (WA), White Dwarf (Canada). Data period: January 2013.
General Bestsellers NY Times Bk Review Publishers Weekly Los Angeles Times HARDCOVERS 1/6 13 20 27 1/7 14 21 28 1/6 13 20 27 A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 20 19 19 23 ------Cold Days, Jim Butcher (Roc) 21 18 20 29 22 25 - - - 16 19 13 SW: Scoundrels, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) - - 21 35 - 18 ------Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness (Viking) - - 32 - - - - - 17 - - - A Memory of Light, Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson (Tor) - - - 1 - - 1 1 - - - 2 Tenth of December, George Saunders (Random House) - - - 3 - - 6 4 - - - 4 The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin) - - - - 17 14 ------PAPERBACKS A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 3 4 9 11 - - - - - 13 - 11 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (Random House) • 6 6 11 11 - - - - 4 4 5 5 World War Z, Max Brooks (Three Rivers Press) • 8 9 6 7 ------A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) • 12 13 ------A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 14 10 21 22 ------A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 15 13 22 20 ------A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 16 17 24 23 ------The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern (Anchor) • 17 18 15 15 22 24 24 - 10 10 9 - 11/12/63, Stephen King (Gallery) • 18 23 29 ------The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King (Gallery) • 21 24 ------Ready Player One, Ernest Cline (Broadway) 31 ------The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey (Reagan Arthur Books) • 34 22 28 ------Micro, Michael Crichton & Robert Preston (Harper) - 27 ------Odd Interlude, Dean Koontz (Bantam) - - 2 2 - 2 1 1 - - - - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (Riverhead) • - - - 22 - - - - 12 - - - The Host, Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown) - - - 25 ------The Host, Stephenie Meyer (Back Bay) • - - - 32 - - - 21 - - - - The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Del Rey) - - - - 6 6 10 15 8 5 4 7 World War Z, Max Brooks (Broadway) ------15 Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Reached by Ally Condie, Every Day by David Levithan, Dodger by Terry Pratchett, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, and Insurgent by Veronica Roth made the hardcover YA list. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and Inheritance by Christopher Paolini made the trade paper YA list. See Locus Online for weekly charts of genre books on these and eight other general bestseller lists! • trade paperback
44 / LOCUS April 2013 John Joseph Adams, ed., The Mad Scientist’s and palpable love of SF knit it all together in a Guide to World Domination (Tor 2/13) This New & Notable satisfying – and adventurous – departure from ex- (mostly) original anthology provides a range of pectations.’’ [Gary K. Wolfe] takes on the Mad Scientist trope from authors a legend from the earliest days of the world’s his- Evie Manieri, Blood’s Pride (Tor 2/13) This debut including Theodora Goss, Austin Grossman, Harry tory, about a headstrong queen-to-be, her maid, novel (published last year in the UK) begins the Turtledove, Seanan McGuire, Naomi Novik, Gen- and a bastard child. ‘‘This is a tale of intrigues, Shattered Pillars fantasy series, set in a quasi-me- evieve Valentine, and more. It’s ‘‘a really interesting resentments, and magics in a court small enough dieval world where cultures reminiscent of Viking anthology that gives us a number of perspectives, for matters to boil over into anger, then tragedy.’’ raiders and desert nomads clash over the fate of mostly funny but also often thoughtful, on this [Faren Miller] both individuals and civilizations, all amid strange most clichéd trope of adventure fiction.’’ [Karen Caitlín Kiernan, writing as Kathleen Tierney, magic and customs. ‘‘It’s a remarkable feat for a Burnham] Blood Oranges (Roc 2/13) The celebrated author newcomer, and leaves me eager for the sequel, Poul Anderson, The Collected Short Works of of dark fiction takes a pseudonymous diversion Fortune’s Blight.’’ [Faren Miller] Poul Anderson: Volume 5: Door to Anywhere into the ‘‘paranormal romance’’ genre, or at least Tim Pratt, Antiquities and Tangibles and Other (NESFA 2/13) The ongoing series of the SF Grand a satire of same, with tongue firmly in cheek (and Stories (Merry Blacksmith 1/13) This new col- Master’s short fiction continues with this collection claws fully extended). This begins a series about lection gathers 23 recent stories – three original of 21 stories, including some set in the popular junkie monster hunter Siobhan Quinn, who has a – from the Hugo Award-winning author (and Locus Dominic Flandry, Hokas, Nicholas van Rijn, Ste- bad night and becomes both a vampire and a were- senior editor). Includes Sturgeon Memorial Award phen Matuchek & Virginia Graylock, and Time wolf, bringing her to the attention of even scarier finalist ‘‘Her Voice in a Bottle’’ and Stoker Award Patrol worlds. forces than usual. ‘‘It’s a lot of fun, and it will be nominee ‘‘The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft’’ Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere interesting to see if it can ironically enjoy some of (with Nick Mamatas). (Orbit 2/13) The Shirley Jackson Award-winning the successes of the very genre it subverts.’’ [Gary K. Wolfe] Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo & et al., author gives us another atmospheric vision of The Mongoliad: Book Three (47North 2/13) America’s dark side, as a retired cop moves to the Nancy Kress, Flash Point (Viking 11/12) Kress’s This concluding volume in the epic alternate small, idyllic town of Wink NM – a place that’s latest foray into YA SF follows a desperate teenager history Foreworld Saga chronicles the final clash literally too good to be true. who signs up to appear on a cutting-edge reality between the freedom fighters of Europe and the C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows (Harper show, hoping to make enough money to support her Khan’s brutal invading Mongol army, with the Voyager 2/13) The screenwriter and critic’s debut struggling family – only to find the show is actually meticulous medieval detail and sword-swinging novel runs the gamut from the comic to the tragic, a rigged and potentially deadly game. adventure readers have come to adore. taking place partly in magical worlds and partly in Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds Catherynne M. Valente, Six-Gun Snow White our contemporary one, with an ‘‘eclectic approach (Del Rey 2/13) This follow-up to the author’s de- (Subterranean 2/13) This wild west fairy tale re- to fantasy, mingling the domains of Faerie, Djinn, but fantasy Redemption in Indigo is part anthro- invents the classic story in a milieu rich in Native and angels with modern Austin TX, for a book pological SF in the tradition of Le Guin, and part American mythology. ‘‘Valente rips the beating about changelings and worlds only a ‘veil’ apart.’’ romance. ‘‘I don’t think I’ve quite seen anything heart out of the old versions of the story, dissects [Faren Miller] like this combination in SF – a light romantic it to see how it works, jams it back into this new Robin Hobb, The Willful Princess and the Pie- comedy in the shadow of a tragic apocalypse – but tale, and gives it a jolt of juice to bring it back to bald Prince (Subterranean 3/13) This novella set it ends up working better than you think it will.... life.... a vital marvel.’’ [Faren Miller] in the Farseer fantasy series tells the truth behind [Lord’s] graceful prose, ingratiating characters,
B&N/B. Dalton (print) audible.com (audio) HARDCOVERS SCIENCE FICTION 1) A Memory of Light, Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson (Tor) 1) Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi (Audible Frontiers) 2) A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 2) 14, Peter Clines (Audible Frontiers) 3) The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Del Rey) 3) Reamde, Neal Stephenson (Brilliance Audio) 4) Ever After, Kim Harrison (Harper Voyager) 4) The Lost Fleet: Dauntless, Jack Campbell (Audible Frontiers) 5) The Daylight War, Peter V. Brett (Del Rey) 5) The Lost Fleet: Fearless, Jack Campbell (Audible Frontiers) 6) Cold Days, Jim Butcher (Roc) 6) The Lost Fleet: Courageous, Jack Campbell (Audible Frontiers) 7) A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 7) Lucifer's Hammer, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle (Audible Frontiers) 8) Necessity's Child, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller (Baen) 8) Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card (Macmillan Audio) 9) Imager's Battalion, L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (Tor) 9) A Voice in the Wilderness: The Human Division, Episode 4, John Scalzi 10) A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent, (Audible Frontiers) Marie Brennan (Tor) 10) Warm Bodies, Isaac Marion (Blackstone) PAPERBACKS 11) World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks 1) A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) (Random House Audio) 2) The Host, Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown) 12) Pandora's Star, Peter F. Hamilton (Tantor) 3) A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 13) 11-22-63, Stephen King (Simon & Schuster Audio) 4) A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 14) Tales from the Clarke: The Human Division, Episode 5, John Scalzi 5) A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) (Audible Frontiers) 6) The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Del Rey) 15) The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein (Blackstone) 7) Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card (Tor) 16) The Road, Cormac McCarthy (Recorded Books) 8) Fair Game, Patricia Briggs (Ace) 17) The Back Channel: The Human Division, Episode 6, John Scalzi 9) A Song of Ice and Fire box set, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) (Audible Frontiers) 10) The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien (Del Rey) 18) The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov (AudioGO) TRADE PAPERBACKS 19) The Host, Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Audio) 1) Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (Simon & Schuster) 20) On Basilisk Station, David Weber (Audible Frontiers) 2) The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) FANTASY 3) The Host, Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown) 1) A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Random House Audio) 4) A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 2) The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Recorded Books) 5) A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 3) Outlander, Diana Gabaldon (Recorded Books) MEDIA-RELATED 4) A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin (Random House Audio) 1) Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse, Troy Denning (Del Rey) 5) A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin (Random House Audio) 2) Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Michael Reaves & Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff 6) The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien (Recorded Books) (Del Rey) 7) A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin (Random House Audio) 3) Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, James Luceno (Del Rey) 8) The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien (Recorded Books) 4) Star Wars: Scoundrels, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) 9) The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien (Recorded Books) 5) The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury, Robert Kirkman & 10) Driving Mr. Dead, Molly Harper (Audible) Jay Bonansinga (Thomas Dunne) 11) A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Random House Audio) GAMING-RELATED 12) A Memory of Light, Robert Jordan& Brandon Sanderson (Macmillan Audio) 1) Forgotten Realms: Charon's Claw, R.A. Salvatore (Wizards of the Coast) 13) A Little Night Magic, Lucy March (Audible) 2) Warhammer 40K: The Horus Heresy: Angel Exterminatus, 14) Beyond the Highland Mist, Karen Marie Moning (Brilliance Audio) Graham McNeill (Black Library US) 15) Theft of Swords, Michael J. Sullivan (Recorded Books) 3) Forgotten Realms: Neverwinter, R.A. Salvatore (Wizards of the Coast) 16) Dead Witch Walking, Kim Harrison (Tantor) 4) Warhammer 40K: Ciaphis Cain: The Last Ditch, Sandy Mitchell 17) The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, Kim Harrison (Tantor) (Black Library US) 18) The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (Brilliance) 5) Halo: The Thursday War, Karen Traviss (Tor) 19) The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan (Macmillan Audio) 20) The Lost Gate, Orson Scott Card (Blackstone)
LOCUS April 2013 / 45 Terry Bisson by a mainstream press, and Overlook (in spite of your imaginative time. (That’s why I haven’t done p. 7 the name) is that, but I may have overshot a bit. I a lot of short stories.) But it’s been a fun project think I lost touch with the fact that my pivot foot and one that I’m proud of. over halfway through, I realize I don’t know what is in science fiction, so the novel didn’t get the ‘‘SF in SF, the reading series I host and help I’m doing, and then I go back and fix it. But I’m attention in SF I hoped it would get. organize in San Francisco, is a fun operation too. pleased with this book, it’s the novel I always ‘‘I haven’t done any short stories in almost a At KGB, we had this great reading scene in NY wanted to write. year. Lately, I’ve been putting out my backlist, five in a bar. Once the readers start, everyone shuts ‘‘When you come into science fiction as a writer, or six novels, all out of print. (I’ve been very slow up. Karen Williams contacted me about starting in the 1980s like I did – you feel that it’s all been at this.) I’m putting them out as e-books through something similar here, and we struggled for a done. So really all you’re doing is playing changes. Trident Media, my agent. For any of their authors, while, looking for a good venue. When it started, It’s either satire or commentary on earlier ideas. Trident will publish the backlists, all the work. I would book most of the acts, because I know Generally my short fiction works have been that: They send ’em off to India to get scanned, and people in science fiction. Rina Weisman books science fiction about science fiction. The last three I’ve been going through the scanned manuscripts. them now and I get to just show up! I don’t read a or four SF stories I did were basically satires of Technology now is great – not a lot of errors. lot of science fiction, and I certainly don’t read a traditional SF tropes (Little Shop, Generation ‘‘I’m doing quite a bit of editing for PM Press, lot of fantasy, but that’s what we get now, mostly. Ship, First Contact, etc.) and they didn’t get no- the ‘Outspoken Authors’ series, too. We do two (I’d never heard of Patrick Rothfuss, but he’s huge! ticed much. Maybe those familiar old types aren’t or three books a year, all the same format: a short All these people showed up for his event, though so familiar anymore. story or two, a lefty or at least progressive rant, there was no marketing machine with him.) Right ‘‘Kim Stanley Robinson is a close friend (in and an extended interview. Science fiction authors now, I don’t have to do anything for the reading many ways kind of a mentor, even though I’m only. PM is a small anarchist press in Oakland, and series except show up, introduce the readers, and older than Stan), and we talk about this kind of Ramsey Kanaan, the publisher, wanted to get into lead the discussion after. That’s easy, since writ- stuff. It’s very obvious in science fiction, but I SF, so I got tagged, since I have a history editing ers love to talk. think also in the novel in general. It has sort of with small lefty presses. ‘‘I’ve also been working on movies. A fool’s er- backed itself into a corner, trying to play changes ‘‘The first book I published in the series was rand, but hey. Two guys in Brooklyn have optioned on itself. I’ve always regarded myself as a literary, actually my own, The Left Left Behind, which ‘The Hole in the Hole’, a junkyard-on-the-moon rather than a pulp, writer, and thought of myself was a satire of the Left Behind series – Christian story that’s about 20 years old. ‘Necronauts’, my as very much a modernist – and modernism is the novels about the Rapture, (which are, by the firstPlayboy story, got optioned by the guys who enemy of sentimentality. But I think it’s hard to way, probably the best selling fantasy books in did Reanimator, but that’s gone on for about be any kind of novelist, these days. It’s hard for America today). Then I did The Lucky Strike four years and they can’t get any traction. I’ve people to figure out the tone and the attitude and by Kim Stanley Robinson. Of course Stan is a big written a few independent screenplays where I the approach. I think that’s why people like these name. That’s what Ramsey wanted: identifiable get paid, but not Hollywood (WGA) money. I enormous, lumbering fantasies. big names in science fiction. The third book I did did a screenplay about Paul Robeson that looks ‘‘I don’t read a lot of modern novels. I read his- was by Eleanor Arnason, who is not a big name like it’s going to get made next year. To see your toricals or go back and read Victorian stuff. The (she’s more like me) but a heavyweight writer. name in Variety is a thrill. (Variety is the Locus modern novelists I admire most are what they call Huge names like Le Guin or Moorcock were easy of Hollywood.) Have we mentioned comics? I’m ‘women’s mid-list’, where the old rules of fiction to work with. Ursula was great, and Moorcock also doing a script for a graphic novel version of are still in play. Writers like Jane Smiley, Cecelia was just a sweetheart, very generous with his Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. And Holland, and Ann Tyler still have that greater level time. I put the material together, and I also do hoping it finds a home. If all this sounds like fun, of sincerity and involvement, instead of trying to the interviews. With Le Guin, I would ask a long well, it is. Writers chase lots of dreams – like fame, stay aloof. question and get a short answer, but it was great! fortune, immortality – that may or may not come ‘‘To me, literature is New York, and literature With Moorcock, all I had to do was ask a very true. But what you do get if you’re lucky, like me, certainly is not self-publishing. (‘Go to New York short question, and I’d get a long, beautiful answer. is a life in literature. And that’s a great privilege.’’ and be a published writer’ – that was my dream, 50 ‘‘For a lot of fiction writers, at least for me, –Terry Bisson years ago.) I wanted Any Day Now to be published editing is almost as bad as teaching. It cuts into
2012 Stoker Awards Final Ballot Eyes, Peter J. Wacks & Guy Anthony De Marco calendar year will be presented at the 26th annual p.10 (Villainous Press); Witch Hunts: A Graphic Bram Stoker Awards Banquet, held during the Bram History of the Burning Times, Rocky Wood & Stoker Awards Weekend 2013 incorporating the The Sixth Gun Volume 3: Bound, Cullen Bunn Lisa Morton (McFarland). World Horror Convention in New Orleans LA on (Oni Press); Rachel Rising Vol. 1: The Shadow There were also nominees for superior June 15, 2013. For more:
The Data File May 8-11, 2014 in Portland OR at the DoubleTree lost their lease, and will be closing after almost p.11 by Hilton Portland. The guests of honor are 34 years in business. For more:
46 / LOCUS April 2013 The books also went to Lynne Missen at Penguin month, and remains up 18.7% YTD. Adult e-books, Fury by Jim Butcher sold to RBA Libros via In- Canada in a pre-empt and to Phoebe Yeh and Aly- on the other hand, were up an impressive 40.7%, up ternational Editors’ on behalf of Jennifer Jackson son Day at Harper Children’s at auction, both via 35.9% YTD, with sales of $103.7 million. Physical of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. Zoe Pagnamenta of the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency audiobooks dropped 1.2% for the month (down French rights to Burning Paradise by Robert on behalf of Clarke. 4.1% YTD) but audio downloads were up 28.4% Charles Wilson sold to Denoel via Danny Baror A.S. King’s Glory O’Brien’s History of the for the month, and up 18.2% YTD. of Baror International in association with the Mc- Future sold to Andrea Spooner at Little, Brown US Census Bureau preliminary retail figures for Carthy Agency. Children’s via Michael Bourret of Dystel & God- January show bookstore sales of $2.133 billion, Complex Chinese rights to The Abominable by erich Literary Management. up 5.5% from January 2012. Overall retail was Dan Simmons sold to BWP via Gray Tan of the Shanna Swendson sold her first YA, a historical up 6.1%. Grayhawk Agency on behalf of Heather Baror- fantasy, to Margaret Ferguson at Margaret Fergu- Penguin Group’s 2012 sales were up 1% to Shapiro of Baror International in association with son Books via Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary £1.05 billion, but operating profits fell 12%, at Richard Curtis Associates. Agency. £98 million. A strong fourth quarter helped make Complex Chinese rights to Enclave, Outpost, Amalie Howard’s SF YA The Almost Girl and up for a slow start to the year; currency exchange and Horde by Ann Aguirre sold to Faces via Bar- a second book sold to Amanda Rutter at Strange rates also helped improve figures. don Chinese Media on behalf of Taryn Fagerness Chemistry via Liza Fleissig of the Liza Royce HarperCollins had a positive second quarter Agency and Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary Agency. (ending December 31), credited partly to the Agency. Cat Clarke’s Undone went to Leah Hulten- acquisition of Thomas Nelson. Parent company Romanian rights to The Way of Kings by Bran- schmidt at Sourcebooks Fire via Barry Goldblatt News Corp. announced second-quarter earnings don Sanderson sold to Editura Art via Adriana of Barry Goldblatt Literary on behalf of Victoria (EBITDA) up 24% to $51 million; HarperCollins Marina of Simona Kessler Agency on behalf of Birkett of Miles Stott Literary Agency. saw sales $377 million, up 18% from the same JABberwocky Literary Agency. German rights to Adrianne Strickland sold two books in YA fan- period a year before. For the first half of the year, Legion, The Emperor’s Soul, and Infinity Blade: tasy The Words Made Flesh series – Wordless and HarperCollins saw sales of $729 million, up 17.5%, Awakening went to Heyne via Christian Dittus of Lifeless – to Brian Farrey-Latz at Flux via Sandy with earnings of $91 million, up 26%. Paul & Peter Fritz Agency on behalf of JABber- Lu of L. Perkins Agency. Harlequin’s sales fell in 2012, coming in at wocky Literary Agency. Complex Chinese rights Kiki Sullivan sold The Dolls – ‘‘Pretty Little C$426.5 million, a 7.2% drop; operating earnings to The Rithmatist went to Fantasy Foundation Liars meets True Blood’’ – and a second YA to declined 11.6% to C$72.8 million. Slowing via Gray Tan of the Grayhawk Agency on behalf Sara Sargent at Balzer & Bray via Holly Root of growth in digital sales was blamed for much of of JABberwocky Literary Agency. Waxman Leavell Literary Agency on behalf of the the decline, but North American print sales also Spanish rights to The Man from Porlock by Story Foundation. slowed, starting in the second quarter. For the year, Laird Barron sold to Silvia Schettin of Fata Libelli Greg Leitich Smith sold Pathfinder, sequel to digital books were 20.7% of total sales, compared via Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary Management. Chronal Engine, to Jennifer Greene at Clarion to 15.5% in 2011. Hungarian rights to Feed by Seanan McGuire via Ginger Knowlton of Curtis Brown. Simon & Schuster’s results for 2012 show writing as Mira Grant sold to Lazi via Betty Anne Kiera Cass sold two books in a new YA romance sales of $790 million, up a slim 0.4% from 2011. Crawford of Books Crossing Borders on behalf of SF series pitched as ‘‘Matched meets Never Let Operating income fell 4% to $80 million, in part Diana Fox of Fox Literary. Me Go’’ to Erica Sussman at Harper Teen via due to considerable legal costs and settlements Japanese rights to The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey Elana Roth at Red Tree Literary. from the e-book price-fixing cases. Digital sales went to Sheueisha via Tuttle Mori; Korean rights Jennifer L. Armentrout sold three books in a new (including audio) were up 35% over the year before, to Random House Korea via Eric Yang Agency; YA series about a half-demon, half-gargoyle teen, and made up 23% of total revenue; e-book sales Taiwanese rights to Thinkingdom via Andrew to Margo Lipschultz of Harlequin Teen via Kevan were 20.4% of revenue worldwide, up from 15.4%. Nurnberg Associates Taiwan; all on behalf of Brian Lyon of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. Sales were up for the children’s division, but down DeFiore of DeFiore and Company. Peter A. Saloman sold Ghostly to Brian Farrey for adult. Noted bestsellers for the year included Spanish rights to Throne of the Crescent Moon at Flux via Ammi-Joan Paquette at Erin Murphy Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Wind by Saladin Ahmed went to Random House Monda- Literary Agency. Through the Keyhole and Cassandra Clare’s dori via International Editors’ on behalf of Jennifer Michele Scott’s Silent Harmony, first in a YA City of Bones and City of Fallen Angels. Fourth Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. series, and two more books sold to Tim Ditlow quarter sales were down 6%. Hungarian rights to Shades of Milk and Honey, at Amazon Children’s via Scott Miller of Trident Glamour in Glass, and Without a Summer by Media Group. International Rights • Dutch rights to Maddad- Mary Robinette Kowal sold to IPC Book Kft via Adrienne Kress sold YA Outcast to Mary Cum- dam by Margaret Atwood sold to Promethus via Tamara Vukicevic of Prava I Prevodi on behalf mings at Diversion Books via Jessica Regel of the Betsy Robbins of Curtis Brown UK and German of Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. rights to Verlag via Ruth Weibel of the Liepman Agency. Barbara Sheridan, writing as Kit Forbes, sold Agency on behalf of Robbins, for Vivienne Shuster. French rights to Osama by Lavie Tidhar went to time-travel YA Shadows Fall Away to Georgia German rights to three Kane books by Karl Ed- Mathieu Saintout at Eclipse via Louisa Pritchard McBride at Month9Books via Emily Keyes of the ward Wagner sold to Golkonda via Frank Zastrow of Louisa Pritchard Associates on behalf of John L. Perkins Agency. of Thomas Schlueck GmbH on behalf of Dorian Berlyne of the Zeno Agency. Kate Ormand’s SF YA Dark Days sold to Julie Literary Agency. French rights to Tenth of December by George Matysik of Sky Pony Press via Isabel Atherton of Swedish audio rights to Life Expectancy, The Saunders sold to L’Olivier via Helen Manders of Creative Authors. Husband, and Velocity by Dean Koontz sold to Curtis Brown UK on behalf of Esther Newberg Tracy Clark’s first novelScintilla sold to Karen Word Audio Sweden via Lennart Sane of Lennart of ICM. Grove at Entangled Teen via Michael Bourret of Sane Agency. Swedish e-book rights to Intensity, Latvian rights to The Twelve by Justin Cronin Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. False Memory, From the Corner of His Eye, sold to Zvaigzne ABC via Tatjana Zoldnere of Eleri Stone sold Reaper’s Touch to Angela Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, and Andrew Nurnberg Associates Baltic in association James at Carina Press via Sara Megibow of Nelson Odd Hours went to Stockholm Text via Philip with Meredith Miller of Trident Media Group on Literary Agency. Sane of Lennart Sane Agency. behalf of Ellen Levine. Romanian rights to The French author Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian Macedonian rights to Sailing to Sarantium Passage, The Twelve, and City of Mirrors sold to sold ‘‘new adult’’ werewolf novel Indiana Teller and Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay sold Nemira via Mira Droumeva of Andrew Nurnberg to Liz Pelletier at Entangled via Jennifer Lyons of to Ikona via Anna Droumeva of Andrew Nurnberg Associates Sofia in association with Meredith Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency. Associates Sofia in association with Meredith Miller of Trident Media Group on behalf of El- Miller of Trident Media Group on behalf of John len Levine. Financial News • The AAP Monthly Statshot for Silbersack. French rights to Under Heaven went Spanish rights to Clementine by Cherie Priest October 2012 shows print trade books down across to L’Atalante via Claire Roberts of Trident Media sold to La Factoria de Ideas via International Edi- the board. Adult harcovers were down 6.4% com- Group on behalf of John Silbersack. tors’ on behalf of Jennifer Jackson at the Donald pared to the same period the year before, and down Turkish rights to The Land of Painted Caves by Maass Literary Agency. Turkish rights to Dread- 2.4% for the year-to-date. Adult trade paperbacks Jean M. Auel sold to Artemis and Slovenian rights nought sold to Bilge Kultur via Hatice Gok of did best, down a slim 0.2% for the month, and up sold to Ucila International via Andrew Nurnberg ONK Agency on behalf of Jackson. 6.9% YTD. Mass-market books took the biggest Associates Czech and Slovak with Jennifer Weltz Polish rights to The True Meaning of Smekday hit, down 28.1% for the month, and down 17.3% of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. by Adam Rex sold to Swiat Ksiazki via Agata YTD. Children’s/YA dropped only 2.6% for the Spanish rights to Cursor’s Fury and Captain’s
LOCUS April 2013 / 47 The Data File of Trident Media Group on behalf of Robert Got- 9820-7) Unabridged audio recording of Jumper tlieb and John Silbersack at Trident Media Group. read by Macleod Andrews. Zabowska of ANAW Literary Agency on behalf UK Audio rights to Brandon Sanderson’s Mist- Six Heirs, Pierre Grimbert (Brilliance Audio, of Writers House. born trilogy sold to Cutting/Graphic Audio via $19.99, 8 CDs, 9 hours: 4 minutes, 978-1-4692- Japanese rights to The Taint by Brian Lumley John Berlyne of the Zeno Agency on behalf of 0986-9) Unabridged audio recording of Six Heirs went to Fusosha Publishing, Inc., via the English Joshua Bilmes at JABberwocky Literary Agency. read by Michael Page. Agency (Japan) Ltd on behalf of Dorian Literary Audio rights to Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Cloak & Ever After, Kim Harrison (Blackstone Audio, Agency; German rights to The Defilers went to Silence sold to Lysa Williams of Blackstone Au- $44.95, 2 CDs, 18 hours: 30 minutes, 978-1-4708- Festa Verlag via Thomas Schlueck GmbH on dio via Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group on 3873-7) Unabridged audio recording of Ever behalf of Dorian Literary Agency. behalf of Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group. After read by Marguerita Gavin. German rights to The Bane Chronicles by Audio rights to Daylighters by Rachel Caine Rebellion, Ian Irvine (BrillanceAudio, $29.99, Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, & Sarah Rees went to Daniel Totten of Tantor Media via Luci- 19 CDs, 22 hours: 58 minutes, 978-1-7431-5101-3) Brennan went to Arena via Heather Baror-Shapiro enne Diver of the Knight Agency. Unabridged audio recording of Rebellion read by of Baror International in association with Scovil Audio rights to Myke Cole’s first two Operator Grant Cartwright. Galen Ghosh Literary Agency. novels and the third Shadow Ops novels went to Extinction Point, Paul Antony Jones (Bril- Polish rights to Bitter Blood by Rachel Caine Laura Smith at W.F. Howes via John Berlyne of liance Audio, $19.99, 7 CDs, 8 hours: 38 minutes, went to Amber via Graal on behalf of Lucienne the Zeno Agency on behalf of Joshua Bilmes at 978-1-4692-7616-8) Unabridged audio recording Diver of the Knight Agency. JABberwocky Literary Agency. of Extinction Point read by Emily Beresford. Italian rights to Faith Hunter’s Skinwalker sold Audio rights to Dead Man’s Dance by Claire Area 51: The Truth, Bob Mayer (Brilliance to Fanucci via Piergiorgio Nicolazzini Literary Norris sold to AudioGO via Dorothy Lumley of Audio, $19.99, 7 CDs, 7 hours: 41 minutes, 978-1- Agency via Lucienne Diver of the Knight Agency. Dorian Literary Agency. 4692-5240-7) Unabridged audio recording of Area Italian rights to Kalayna Price’s Grave Witch Audio rights to Gary Gibson’s Final Days, The 51: The Truth read by Eric G. Dove. went to Fanucci via via Piergiorgio Nicolazzini Thousand Emperors, and Stealing Light sold to The Split Worlds Between Two Thorns, Literary Agency via Lucienne Diver of the Knight Audible via Tor UK. Emma Newman (BrillianceAudio, $19.99, 10 Agency. Czech rights to Grave Memory sold to Audio rights to Exile: Keeper of the Lost CDs, 12 hours: 6 minutes, 978-1-4692-7081-4) Baronet via Kristin Olson Literary Agency on Cities by Shannon Messenger sold to Lee Jarit Unabridged audio recording of The Split Worlds behalf of Lucienne Diver of the Knight Agency. at Audible via Laura Rennert of Andrea Brown Between Two Thorns read by Emma Newman. Spanish rights to Splintered by A.G. Howard Literary Agency. Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Karen Rus- went to Oz via Philip Sane of Lennart Sane Agen- Audio rights to the Skyship Academy YA tril- sell (Books On Tape, $40.00, 8 CDs, 9 hours: 14 cy on behalf of Jenny Bent at the Bent Agency. ogy by Nick James sold to Lee Jarit at Audible minutes, 978-0-385-36746-2) Unabridged audio Polish rights to Anne Bishop’s Bridge of via Jennifer Rofe of the Andrea Brown Literary recording of Vampires in the Lemon Grove read Dreams went to Initium via Prava I Prevodi on Agency. by Arthur Morey, Joy Osmanski, Kaleo Griffith, behalf of Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Large print rights to Edmund Glasby’s collec- Jesse Bernstein, Mark Bramhall, Michael Bybee, Literary Agency. Portuguese rights to Bridge of tion The Ash Murders sold to F.A. Thorpe via Romy Rosemont, and Robbie Daymond. Dreams and The Voice sold to Saida de Emergen- Phil Harbottle. Redemption Alley, Lilith Saintcrow (Brilliance cia via International Editors’ on behalf of Jackson. Large print rights to Anthony A. Gunn’s collec- Audio, $29.99, 8 CDs, 9 hours: 4 minutes, 978- Brazilian rights to two books in Kiera Cass’s tion Mystery in Moon Lane went to F.A. Thorpe 1-4418-8701-6) Unabridged audio recording of new series sold to YA Seguinte/Companhia das via Phil Harbottle. Redemption Alley read by Joyce Bean. Letras in a pre-empt via Joao Paulo Riff of Riff Large print rights to Philip E. High’s collection The Mongoliad: Book Three, Neal Stephen- Agency in association with Kathleen Ortiz at New Guilty as Charged went to Borgo Books via Phil son, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Nicole Galland, Leaf Literary & Media on behalf of Elena Roth. Harbottle on behalf of the High estate. Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey & Cooper Moo (Bril- Spanish rights to Spirit Bound by Richelle lianceAudio, $29.99, 20 CDs, 24 hours, 978-1- Mead went to Alfaguara via Jennifer Hoge Audiobooks Received • The Mad Scientist’s 4692-7709-7) Unabridged audio recording of The of International Editors’ on behalf of Lauren Guide to World Domination, ed. John Joseph Mongoliad: Book Three read by Luke Daniels. Abramo of Dystel & Goderich Literary Manage- Adams (Brilliance Audio, $19.99, 13 CDs, 15 The Beast of Calatrava, Mark Teppo (Bril- ment. French rights to Vampire Academy: The hours: 47 minutes, 978-1-4692-8225-1) Un- lianceAudio, $9.99, 3 CDs, 3 hours: 38 minutes, Graphic Novel and Frostbite: The Graphic abridged audio recording of The Mad Scien- 978-1-4692-9462-9) Unabridged audio recording Novel sold to Jungle via Leon de la Menardiere tist’s Guide to World Domination read by Ste- of The Beast of Calatrava read by Luke Daniels. of Eliane Benisti Agency on behalf of Abramo. fan Rudnicki, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Justin Seer, Mark Teppo (BrillianceAudio, $9.99, 2 German rights to Under a Vampire Moon and Eyre. CDs, 1 hour: 56 minutes, 978-1-4692-5030-4) The Lady Is a Vamp by Lynsay Sands sold to Lyx Oz Reimagined, John Joseph Adams & Unabridged audio recording of Seer read by via Julia Aumueller of Thomas Schlueck Agency Douglas Cohen, eds. (BrillianceAudio, $19.99, 9 Luke Daniels. on behalf of Jenny Bent at the Bent Agency. CDs, 10 hours: 36 minutes, 978-1-4692-9110-9) Among Others, Jo Walton (Brilliance Audio, German rights to Time Rep by Pete Ward sold Unabridged audio recording of Oz Reimagined $14.99, 9 CDs, 10 hours: 41 minutes, 978-1-4692- to Beatrice Lampe at Piper via Olivia Morris of read by Nick Podehl and Tanya Eby. 9807-8) Unabridged audio recording of Among Diane Banks Associates. Clockwork Angels: The Watchmaker’s Edi- Others read by Katherine Kellgren. Spanish rights to The Demonologist by Andrew tion, Kevin J. Anderson (Brilliance Audio, $99.99, Pyper sold to Planeta, and Turkish rights went to 7 CDs, 8 hours: 38 minutes, 978-1-4692-7708- Publications Received • P.S.F.S. News (March Dogan, both via Sally Riley of Aitken Alexander 0) Unabridged audio recording of Clockwork 2013), newsletter of the Philadelphia Science on behalf of Anne McDermid of Anne McDermid Angels: The Watchmaker’s Edition read by Fiction Society, with news, meeting minutes, & Associates. Neil Peart. calendar, convention information, etc. Information: Korean rights to A Modern Witch and six more Seven Kinds of Hell, Dana Cameron (Bril- PSFS Secretary, Philadelphia Science Fiction books by Debora Geary sold to Greenfish Publish- lianceAudio, $19.99, 10 CDs, 11 hours: 58 Society, PO Box 8303, Philadelphia PA 19101- ing via Yu Ri Jang Literary Agency in association minutes, 978-1-4692-7622-9) Unabridged audio 8303; e-mail:
48 / LOCUS April 2013
The Data File (612) 824-6347; Uncle Edgar’s: (612) 824-9984;
Magazines Received an accompanying interview; and re- Star Trek. Subscriptions: $30.00/year Tor.com
Cuban SF writer ANGEL ARANGO, 86, died selves, and telling him when we’d be in Havana. February 19, 2013 in Miami FL. Arango was one Obituaries He sent a very cordial reply. of the founding fathers of modern Cuban SF, with Ángel José Arango Rodriguez was born March We met him in the lobby of classic Hotel Na- Oscar Hurtado (died 1977) and Miguel Collazo 25, 1926 in Havana Cuba. He studied law at the tional. That’s when we learned an oddity of Cuban (died 1999). All three published major work in University of Havana, graduating in 1949 with a law. We couldn’t invite Angel (or any Cuban) for the 1960s, including Arango’s collection A dónde specialty in aviation law. He moved to Florida to even a cup of coffee. It was only for foreigners. van los cefalomos? [Where Do the Cephalhoms live with one of his sons in 2009. So off we went in Angel’s battered old Fiat. As we Go?] (1964). Arango’s other significant works of drove, we talked, and the conversation grew more fiction include collectionsEl planeta negro [The ESTIMADO ANGEL and more interesting. Angel worked as an aviation Black Planet] (1966) and Robotomaquia [Robo- by Grania Davis attorney for the government, and had traveled a tomachy] (1967), and four novels in a SF saga: In the year 2000, my husband, Stephen, and I lot, especially for a Cuban, including time in Rus- Transparencia [Transparency] (1982), Coyuntura visited Cuba. The Bush/Gore election was being sia. We had such a good time with Angel that we [Conjuncture] (1984), Sider [Sider] (1994), and La fought in the courts, and we wanted to go before met the next day, and almost every day we were in columna bífida [Bifid Column] (2011). He also the rules tightened up under Bush. In my SFWA Havana. We rode around in the trusty Fiat (which wrote non-fiction bookCiencia Ficción: categorías Directory, I had noticed the name of one Cuban cost ten cents to park), and saw the sights. He y conceptos y otros [Science Fiction: Categories member, Angel Arango. How did he manage to showed me some stories, which had been trans- and Concepts and Others] (2012). join SFWA? I wrote him a letter introducing our- lated into English, and I said I’d try to get them
50 / LOCUS April 2013 published in the US. that he could finish a final story. He leaves behind Then one day, a surprise phone call from Angel! in manuscript a collection of linked novellas about He had moved to be with his son in Florida. The his interdimensional detective hero, and a magical conversation shifted to maybe meeting at an East realist novel inspired by his time in Spain. The Coast con (which never happened, alas), and to passages from the latter that I heard him perform publishing his stories. ‘‘The Bullet in the Air’’ was at readings were marvelous, and future publication my favorite, a poetic piece of magical realism. It of both books, I think, is assured. was translated by Medea Benjamin, of Code Pink Dan and I did many readings together over the fame, when she was in college. Angel was thrilled years, each of us acting as audience member when when it was published in the US (I don’t recall the other was on stage. Now, of course, there will the details). never be another such paired performance. But I We continued to correspond by e-mail. He was know that whenever I get up to read aloud again, excited about the easy access to information on I’ll still see him sitting in the audience, grinning the Internet. His e-letters always began with Es- and anticipating the fine dinner and conversation timado Grania. I got one from him just recently, to follow. The world is a poorer place without Dan and he seemed fine. Then I heard he had died, I Pearlman, but he leaves behind so many indelible don’t know how. Adios Estimado Angel. memories to treasure. –Grania Davis –Paul Di Filippo
Editor’s note: ‘‘The Bullet in the Air’’ appeared Scott Edelman, Angel Arango (2002) Author, editor, and fan RICHARD E. GEIS, 85, in both Spanish and English in issue #7 of The died February 4, 2013 in Portland OR. Gobshite Quarterly (8/04), and may be read on- unforeseen weakness in his aorta. Richard Erwin Geis was born July 19, 1927 in line at:
LOCUS April 2013 / 51 Obituaries best known for editing influential magazine The Twenty years after The Horror Show ceased pub- Horror Show, which ran from 1982-1991 and lication people still talk about its wide-ranging in- for his Hugo Award winning fanzine, Science Fic- published early work by major writers including fluence, the number of careers it launched, Dave’s tion Review. We collaborated on four near-future Poppy Z. Brite and Bentley Little. Silva won a keen editorial eye and incredible kindness to every thrillers for Ballantine Books under their Fawcett World Fantasy Award in 1988 in the special, writer, artist and fellow publisher who crossed his Gold Medal imprint. I would come up with a con- non-professional category for his work on the path. People fondly remember our anthologies cept and some characters and we would hash out magazine. He also edited anthologies, including and marvel at the way he led Hellnotes from its a chapter-by-chapter outline and then he would Post Mortem: New Tales of Ghostly Horror humble beginnings as a weekly newsletter to one write a draft which I would edit. He did all of the (1989) and Dead End: City Limits (1991), both of the most respected news websites in the field. writing in the first three books (The Sword of Al- with Paul F. Olson, as well as books collecting the And most of all, people remember Dave’s own lah, The Burnt Lands, and The Master File), best work from The Horror Show. From 1997-2002 writing – the entertaining novels and that vast but by the fourth book, The Einstein Legacy, he he and Olson co-edited industry newsletter Hell- collection of stories that earned him well-deserved was in a great deal of pain, and I wrote about half notes, for horror professionals and fans. In 2004, recognition as one of the finest short fiction writers of the first draft and did a complete edit and final the newsletter was revived as a website, where it this field has ever known. draft. continues to run at
52 / LOCUS April 2013 I tried to come up with some good, curmudgeonly And of course, being on the ballot is a great way to remarks à la Charles to celebrate our 45th anniver- Editorial Matters spread the word about the magazine to people who sary issue, but he had a way, didn’t he? (Maybe in haven’t heard of us yet. That said, there are some a few more years my snark will have accrued suf- really wonderful ’zines in sundry shapes, sizes, and ficiently...) Charles somehow managed to figure it media out there that deserve recognition. Best of so that we would celebrate our anniversary at least luck to everyone who is nominated, and hope to two or three times in the year, between the trial issue see you all in San Antonio. date and the first issue, and counting the calendar LOCUS AWARDS year, but that math always seemed fuzzy to me. The deadline for the Locus Awards is only a few Navigating the waters of print and digital publish- weeks away, April 15th – Tax Day – and I hope ing has been a little rough over the past few years, you’ve taken a few minutes to go to the online but we’re still holding strong, and glad to have you poll and let us know what you think. Vote now along for company. if you haven’t already! It is at
LOCUS April 2013 / 53 See No Evil by Caniglia
Caniglia’s work is in private collections around Barbara at a gallery called Darks Art found in the books that I read, the world and is published worldwide on a regular Parlour, in L.A. at La Luz De Jesus experiences that I witnessed basis, and has been exhibited at museums and gal- with Billy Shire, and in Minneapolis firsthand, or in my family. leries including the Society of Illustrators (NY), at Gallery 360. Omaha had Visions The way that I fell into Allentown Art Museum, Walters Art Museum, and Darkroom and Chicago Echo Gal- the arts or that the arts fell the Joslyn Art Museum. He currently teaches at lery, etc. Every city around the into me was a higher calling. Creighton University and The Kent Bellow Center United States had underground gal- Certain things led me to this for Visual Arts in Omaha NE. Caniglia gives art leries that were selling my kind of path, and as I look back over lectures at museums, universities, and galleries art and doing really well at it. There 20 years of painting, I know it around the United States. He received his BFA had been this belief that realism was was a road that I was meant to in drawing, painting, and printmaking from Iowa dead, but that was not the case. forge. When I am in my studio State University in 1993, and his MFA from the I also decided to create a website I feel inspired to bring worlds Maryland Institute College of Art in 1995. around 1994, and took HTML and to life. My work rises on the Caniglia’s art has been featured in the Washing- Javascript classes. It was in the early thick brushstrokes of wind- ton Post, CNN, Spectrum Fantastic Art Annuals, days of the web, but it was a good swept earth tone palettes that magazines, books, and CD covers. He has worked way to get my art and ideas to the show humanity’s hardships with Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Max Brooks, public. In 2000, after a long night of and strengths. Peter Straub, William Peter Blatty, Michael Moor- painting, I sat down at the computer Caniglia (2013) cock, and other great fantasy and horror writers. to check my comment/blog page Why did you choose to focus He was nominated in 2003 for the International and found a note from author Doug- on horror/fantasy? Horror Guild Award for best artist in dark fantasy las Clegg, asking if he could buy rights to use one of People always ask me why a majority of my art and horror, and he won in 2004. In 2005 he received my paintings on his latest book cover. I wrote him centers around horror/fantasy, birth, and death. It his first World Fantasy nomination for Best Artist back and the rest is history, as they say. Publishers helps me understand the impermanence of life on in Fantasy. and movie companies contacted me, and I really this planet. To see more of Caniglia’s work visit his website enjoyed working on the projects that they had. My work has always been about the human at
Is there one work you’d particu- larly like our readers to see, either because it’s most representative, or because you’re especially proud of it? At the moment I am very proud of the last three projects that I have worked on. The first is William Peter Blatty’s 40th Anniversary edition of The Ex- orcist. I read the book when I was in high school. My uncle, Father Joseph Haller S.J. had been a Jesuit priest at the time in St. Louis MO in 1949. I remember him talking about the incident. So I felt very honored when Blatty and Cemetery Dance chose Cover art for The Exorcist Cover art for World War Z Birth Spring my artwork for his 40th anniversary
54 / LOCUS April 2013 edition. I created the cover and 13 interior pieces Ken Liu (
LOCUS April 2013 / 55 Martha Elizabeth Bray was born March 11, on in our country post 9/11. There’s a long his- comprehensible. When I came outside, I saw the 1964 in Montgomery AL, and grew up in Texas. tory of using horror as a means of talking about huge scar, the black smoke. I live in Brooklyn. She studied theater at the University of Texas at present-day scenarios. Rod Serling did it a lot I went home and my husband Barry had the TV Austin, graduating in 1988. At age 26 she moved on The Twilight Zone. I wanted to talk about on. We went up to our roof, and there were papers to New York, where she wrote plays (three of post-9/11 America, and as I was watching ter- blowing all around. And afterward the smell, which were produced), worked in book publicity rible things happen I thought, ‘Why is everybody the constant smell. I remember walking down and advertising, and wrote three pseudonymous rolling over and playing dead about this?’ Sixth Avenue and seeing all the flyers plastered novels for a book packager. She met her husband, ‘‘I began to do some preliminary research on everywhere, ‘Missing, Have you Seen?’ It was literary agent Barry Goldblatt, during her first the 1920s and I saw these overlapping parallels like having your heart ripped out every time. year in the city, and they eloped two years later between what had happened then and what I remember crossing Sixth Avenue and there to Florence Italy. They have a teenage son. happened after 9/11. Post-WWI, there were were stickers on this rusted-out dumpster, and Bray’s first novel, historical fantasy A Great anarchist bombings, the Red Scare, the rounding they said, ‘I will not be terrorized.’ Then the and Terrible Beauty (2003), began the Gemma up and deporting of ‘undesirables,’ and the rise attack became this justification for all kinds of Doyle trilogy, which also includes Rebel Angels of evangelicalism – radio evangelists like Billy terrible things. And the commercializing of it as (2005) and The Sweet Far Thing (2007). Her Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, etc. There well – ‘We Will Never Forget’ T-shirts and cups other novels include Going Bovine (2009), was the Scopes trial, which represented so much, and hats. I thought, ‘Jesus, really? If this isn’t a about a boy with Mad Cow disease who goes on too, and Sacco and Vanzetti, the labor struggles. horror story, I don’t know what is.’ a mythic journey, and Beauty Queens (2011), There was just so much! We don’t learn anything. ‘‘I was under contract for A Great and about teen beauty pageant queens stranded on ‘‘I think of writing novels much like I’m put- Terrible Beauty at the time, and that very much an island. Her latest novel is 1920s-era fantasy ting on a play. The director has to think about became a trilogy about war, and the costs of The Diviners (2012); a sequel is forthcoming. set design and lighting design and how those war. Then I wrote Going Bovine, and finished She lives in Brooklyn NY with her family. elements reinforce everything else. I think that’s it in 2008. It was also about current events – • one of the reasons all my books are different, Guantanamo, the election. Obama was running, ‘‘I wrote The Diviners because I wanted to too. If you’re writing in the 1920s, it’s inherently and I was watching the racism start to seep write another series, something historical, but different from writing about Victorian England, through the cracks in really ugly ways. I had an also supernatural. I’m a huge horror fan. That or wild faux James Bond novels set on an island. overseas tour, and my German publisher brought was my reading of choice when I was young – I It’s all about finding the tone that is right for that me over for the Frankfurt Book Fair, my first read everything from horror comics to Stephen particular book. time in Germany. Of course it was the election King and Shirley Jackson. I love history, too, and ‘‘I was in New York during 9/11. In fact, I cycle, and all the German teenagers wanted to I wanted to dive into the 1920s era. That period had signed the contract for my first book on talk about was what was going on in my country. seems to me as if it came out of central casting. September 10, 2011, so the next morning was I had to talk the election and engage in a way I’m a fan of Gatsby. You’ve got The Zigfield supposed to be my first day to work on the book. that really brought up a lot of feelings for me as Follies, bathtub gin, the Harlem Renaissance, or- My son was at preschool, and the radio was on, an American – I had this crisis of confidence in ganized crime, and women just getting the vote. and there were reports about planes crashing into my American identity. On the one hand, I’d gone ‘‘I was also very disturbed by what was going the World Trade Center, and it was just so in-
LOCUS April 2013 / 57 to Philadelphia, I’d stood in Independence Hall, The Bell Jar, A Separate Peace, all the ado- to an Ivy League school and become a professor.’ I’d seen all these great monuments... and on the lescent coming of age novels. I started reading Her father said she could ask three people for other we had Abu Ghraib. But the more you dive all of this great stuff Barry gave me – Francesca advice: her voice teacher, her guidance counselor, into history, the more you see our country has Lia Block’s Weezie Bat, which I adore, and Rats and her favorite author. Her voice teacher said always been conflicted. This is not new. Saw God by Rob Thomas, who went on to create that she should go abroad to study voice, and ‘‘I wanted to be a playwright, so I had moved Veronica Mars. One of my favorites. I thought, her guidance counselor said, ‘You should do to New York with delusions of grandeur. I ‘This is amazing. I want to do this.’ And then I what makes your father happy.’ She said, ‘What thought, ‘I will be the next Edward Albee.’ I went proceeded to write the worst YA novel ever. So do you think?’ I said, ‘Your guidance counselor to New York with no job and $600 in my shoe, that was what really got me into it. is a clueless asshole.’ I made a blog post about it because I heard that muggers don’t look in your ‘‘How I got into writing, in general, was that with her permission, because she raised a very shoes. (I’m not kidding, I read that somewhere I had never thought about getting into writing. I good question. in an article.) If you look up playwright in the was always writing, though. Three weeks after ‘‘I’ve had a lot of LGBT teen readers who talk dictionary it says, ‘See professional masochist I graduated high school, I had a very serious about the stories that are meaningful to them, (also broke).’ So I worked in publishing, worked car accident, which I was lucky to live through. because they support their identity, and they thank in advertising. I was always working these writ- I spent two weeks in intensive care. The wreck me for those. I’ve also had readers who are very ing jobs, I wrote copy for Richard Simmons. demolished my face and I lost my left eye, so displeased with me for various things, especially He is exactly the same in person as he seems on I insisted on going to college in the fall, which with the way I ended the Gemma Doyle trilogy. TV. He always wears those shorts – it’ll be 40 was probably not a smart idea. Of course then it My favorite was the girl who wrote to me about below and he’ll be wearing the shorts. He was all hit me, and the depression ensued. I just felt the ending of The Sweet Far Thing. She said, very good to me. I learned to channel the works completely broken. I was so despondent I was ‘I know why you did it. You are an eco-friendly of Richard Simmons. It’s my party trick. suicidal. The only thing that kept me alive was fembot who survives on the tears of teen girls. ‘‘I had all of these jobs and I was still trying that as a high school graduation gift, someone With the tears I have shed, you will live forever.’ to write plays, I’d have a million readings, or had given me this little yellow journal and I I’m totally embroidering that on a pillow. That somebody would say, ‘We’re looking at it for this began to write down everything in it. is awesome. festival’ and then, nope. It was just demoralizing. ‘‘That, and I would I would listen to side four of ‘‘I’m always charmed and moved by my teen- I had a piece in the New York Fringe festival. I Quadrophenia. Music has power. I got a chance age readers. They’re so smart, and I was such an worked very hard on that, tried to help clean to meet Pete Townsend when he was speaking at idiot when I was young. Before I went to UT, I got up the theatres and all that stuff. The reviewer the New York Public Library in October. I got his way screwed up at a party. I did a lot of cocaine, from The New York Times came to my show, and book and I was going through the signing line. followed it with some White Russians, decided the review was only three sentences but it was The whole time, because he was so influential, I that it would be fun to dance on the bar, and the most damning three sentences. Excoriating. was thinking, ‘He helped save my life. What am I neglected to note the metal ceiling fan coming Barry read it before I did. I said, ‘Oh I should get going to say for that 1.5 seconds that I’ve got for around. It sliced through my head like something the paper.’ And he said, ‘No!’ Like he was taking him to sign his name?’ I got up there and stuck in a Peckinpaw film. A friend of mine was coming a bullet for the president. I thought, ‘That can not out my hand and said, ‘Hi. When I was 18 years back from a gig, saw it happen, and said, ‘We’ve be good.’ When I came into the theatre that night, old you saved my life. Thank you very much.’ got to take you to the ER.’ And I was like, ‘I’m the people moved away from me when I walked He was very gracious. fine.’ He said, ‘No you have to go.’ We got there, in, as if someone in my family had died. Needless ‘‘It took me a while to get serious about writ- and the doctor on call said, ‘All right, sweetheart, to say, I was rather devastated. The critic was ing. I fought it. I went to UT in Austin. I wanted to you need to tell me everything you’re on.’ I was absolutely right. The review said my piece was be a radio/TV/film major, to write for television. cheerfully cataloging it all, and he said, ‘Okay, mawkish, maudlin, self indulgent, and stupid. But I loved theatre so much I ended up transfer- here’s the deal. I can’t give you any painkiller Other than that, the lighting was fine. I didn’t ring. I knew I wanted to do some kind of writing, because you’re too high. And I’m going to need know the meaning of the word ‘mawkish,’ so I but it took me a while to realize what it was. I to put 25 stitches in your forehead. But I don’t had to look it up. Bonus new vocabulary word. remember a friend of mine, Christopher, saying think you’re going to feel it.’ And I didn’t. The The silver lining is a garrote wire one can use to me, ‘If you got serious, and made writing your next day when I sobered up and went back to my to strangle oneself. life’s work, this is what you could do.’ I thought, mother, I said, ‘I’ve gotta get out of here. I need ‘‘Barry was the one who said to me, ‘I think ‘I’m not good enough to do this, I’ll never be to go to the University of Texas.’ And that was a you could write YA.’ When I wrote, I often gravi- good enough to do this.’ I still feel that way. But very good move. My readers are so much more tated toward the teenage characters. He started they’re paying me. Joke’s on them. together, and even when they feel like they’re not giving me all this YA to read. YA as a category ‘‘There was a young woman who wrote to me, together, they’re so much more in tune with who didn’t exist when I was growing up – you went she was going to graduate, and she wanted to they are than I was. It’s wonderful.’’ straight into the classics: Catcher in the Rye, study voice. Her father said, ‘No, you need to go –Libba Bray