Short break

Things have been a little quiet around here and they’ll remain so for a bit longer. I am involved in a project at work that also requires some travelling among other things. So, my next post should come up in 2 or 3 weeks from now. I hope to see then.

2015 Locus Awards finalists

The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has announced the finalists of the 2015 Locus Awards. The winners will be announced during the Locus Awards Weekend held in Seattle, WA between June 26^th and 28^th.

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

“The Peripheral” by William Gibson (Putnam; Viking UK)

“Ancillary Sword” by Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

“The Three-Body Problem” by Cixin Liu (Tor)

“Lock In” by John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)

“Annihilation/Authority/Acceptance” by Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals; Fourth Estate; HarperCollins Canada)

FANTASY NOVEL

“The Goblin Emperor” by Katherine Addison (Tor)

“Steles of the Sky” by Elizabeth Bear (Tor)

“City of Stairs” by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway; Jo Fletcher)

“The Magician’s Land” by Lev Grossman (Viking; Arrow 2015)

“The Mirror Empire” by Kameron Hurley (Angry Robot US)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

“Half a King” by Joe Abercrombie (Del Rey; Voyager UK)

“The Doubt Factory” by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)

“Waistcoats & Weaponry” by Gail Carriger (Little, Brown; Atom)

“Empress of the Sun” by Ian McDonald (Jo Fletcher; Pyr)

“Clariel” by Garth Nix (Harper; Hot Key; Allen & Unwin)

FIRST NOVEL

“Elysium” by Jennifer Marie Brissett (Aqueduct)

“A Darkling Sea” by James L. Cambias (Tor)

“The Clockwork Dagger” by Beth Cato (Harper Voyager)

“The Memory Garden” by Mary Rickert (Sourcebooks Landmark)

“The Emperor’s Blades” by Brian Staveley (Tor; Tor UK)

NOVELLA

“The Man Who Sold the Moon” by Cory Doctorow (Heiroglyph)

“We Are All Completely Fine” by Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)

“Yesterday’s Kin” by Nancy Kress (Tachyon)

“The Regular” by Ken Liu (Upgraded)

“The Lightning Tree” by Patrick Rothfuss (Rogues)

NOVELETTE

“Tough Times All Over” by Joe Abercrombie (Rogues)

“The Hand is Quicker” by Elizabeth Bear (The Book of Silverberg)

“Memorials” by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s 1/14)

“The Jar of Water” by Ursula K. Le Guin (Tin House #62)

“A Year and a Day in Old Theradane” by Scott Lynch (Rogues)

SHORT STORY

“Covenant” by Elizabeth Bear (Hieroglyph)

“The Dust Queen” by Aliette de Bodard (Reach for Infinity)

“The Truth About Owls” by Amal El-Mohtar (Kaleidoscope)

“In Babelsberg” by Alastair Reynolds (Reach for Infinity)

“Ogres of East Africa” by Sofia Samatar (Long Hidden)

ANTHOLOGY

“The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-first Annual Collection” edited by Gardner Dozois (St. Martin’s Press)

“Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History” edited by Rose Fox & Daniel José Older (Crossed Genres)

“Rogues” edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois (Bantam; Titan)

“Reach for Infinity” edited by Jonathan Strahan (Solaris US; Solaris UK)

“The Time Traveler’s Almanac” edited by Ann VanderMeer & Jeff VanderMeer (Head of Zeus; Tor)

COLLECTION

“Questionable Practices” by Eileen Gunn (Small Beer)

“The Collected Short Fiction Volume One: The Man Who Made Models” by R.A. Lafferty (Centipede)

“Last Plane to Heaven” by Jay Lake (Tor)

“Academic Exercises” by K.J. Parker (Subterranean)

“The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume Nine: The Millennium Express” by Robert Silverberg (Subterranean; Gateway)

MAGAZINE

Asimov’s

Clarkesworld

F&SF

Lightspeed

Tor.com

PUBLISHER

Angry Robot

Orbit

Small Beer

Subterranean

Tor

EDITOR

John Joseph Adams

Ellen Datlow

Gardner Dozois

Jonathan Strahan

Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

ARTIST

Jim Burns

John Picacio

Shaun Tan

Charles Vess

Michael Whelan

NON-FICTION

“Ray Bradbury Unbound” by Jonathan Eller (University of Illinois Press)

“Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison!” by Harry Harrison (Tor)

“The Secret History of Wonder Woman” by Jill Lepore (Knopf)

“Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better: 1948-1988” by William H. Patterson, Jr. (Tor)

“What Makes This Book So Great” by Jo Walton (Tor; Corsair 2015)

ART BOOK

“The Art of Jim Burns: Hyperluminal” by Jim Burns (Titan)

“The Art of Neil Gaiman” by Hayley Campbell (Harper Design)

“Spectrum 21: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art” edited by John Fleskes (Flesk)

“Brian Froud’s Faeries’ Tales” by Brian & Wendy Froud (Abrams)

“The Art of Space: The History of Space Art, from the Earliest Visions to the Graphics of the Modern Era” by Ron Miller (Zenith)

Congratulations and good luck to all the nominees!

Cover art - "Sorcerer to the Crown" by Zen Cho

Aliette de Bodard’s “The House of Shattered Wings” is not the only title coming at the end of summer/the beginning of autumn from the science fiction and fantasy imprints of the Penguin Publishing Group that I am looking forward to read, Zen Cho’s “Sorcerer to the Crown” caught my attention as well. I first discovered Zen Cho’s fiction in Jonathan Oliver’s anthology, “End of the Road”, her story “Balik Kampung (Going Back)” was one of the highlights of that collection for me. That short story led me to “The House of Aunts” published on GigaNotoSaurus in December 2011 and to my desire to read more of Zen Cho’s fiction. Sadly, the fulfillment of my wish got postponed, I lost Zen Cho’s collection of short stories, “Spirits Abroad”, among the tangles of my to-be-read pile of books. I am confident I will correct that, perhaps not before “Sorcerer to the Crown” is released, but someday soon for certain. As it is certain that I’ll be reading “Sorcerer to the Crown” when it is published this autumn. At a first glance Zen Cho’s debut novel doesn’t sound exactly right up my alley, but her two short stories I read convinced me that “Sorcerer to the Crown” deserves a fair chance. Not to mention that going outside the safety box of my usual readings proved on several occasions to hold plenty of benefits. Still, looking over Zen Cho’s guest post on the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog I discovered further points of attraction for me at “Sorcerer to the Crown”.

“But there are also stroppy magicians enmeshed in intrigues, dragons in disguise, foppish fairies, giant mermaids, and people flying around on clouds. Characters cast spells that go wrong and find themselves hopelessly entangled in hijinks. Women of various descriptions harangue other people at hilarious length. I was thinking about power when I wrote the book, but I wrote it mostly to entertain and comfort myself, as a prophylactic against loneliness. I hope it serves that purpose for others too.”

I like the cover quite a lot too, the color appeals to me and the sensation of bas-relief is excellent, while the dragon looks great. It doesn’t say much about the actual novel, but I still like it.

With all these in mind I am waiting with great interest the release of Zen Cho’s “Sorcerer to the Crown”, on September, 1^st by Ace Books in the US and on September, 10^th by Pan Macmillan (cover not yet revealed) in the UK.

In this sparkling debut, magic and mayhem clash with the British elite…

The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, one of the most respected organizations throughout all of England, has long been tasked with maintaining magic within His Majesty’s lands. But lately, the once proper institute has fallen into disgrace, naming an altogether unsuitable gentleman—a freed slave who doesn’t even have a familiar—as their Sorcerer Royal, and allowing England’s once profuse stores of magic to slowly bleed dry. At least they haven’t stooped so low as to allow women to practice what is obviously a man’s profession…

At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers and eminently proficient magician, ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up. But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain—and the world at large…