Books Received in July 2017

This month I requested a graphic novel on Netgalley. This series has some exquisite artwork and I'm really enjoying it. It comes out in September, which is when my review will be posted.

Lady Mechanika v4: La Dama de la Muerte by Joe Benitez and M. M. Chen

After suffering a tragic loss, Lady Mechanika takes a trip to a smallMexican village just in time for their Día de los Muertos celebration. But the festivities turn truly deadly after the arrival of the Jinetes del Infierno, the mythical Hell Riders. Collects the complete Lady Mechanika Day of the Dead special, La Dama de la Muerte.

Google Cultural Institute - Research Gem

I recently stumbled across this Quartz article about how Google has created a digital archive of 3000 years of world fashion.

Intrigued, I did some digging and discovered Google's Cultural Institute:

Founded in 2011, the Google Cultural Institute is a not-for-profit initiative that partners with cultural organizations to bring the world's cultural heritage online. We build free tools and technologies for the cultural sector to showcase and share their gems, making them more widely accessible to a global audience.

The mass of information here is frankly stunning. Here's a link that will sink hours and hours of your life away learning about all sorts of cultural things: historic lives, ancient sites, museum collections,...

My favourite feature so far is the ability to use street view to 'walk around' landmarks. Want to tour the international space station, Machu Picchu,  Fontevraud Abbey France,  the Monastery of Saint Mina Egypt, the Colosseum Italy... now you can!

(Maybe I'm an idiot, but it took me a while to figure out why simply clicking the photos didn't do anything. To use the streetview feature, click on the map, then - when you're at the map - drag the little man on the bottom right of the screen to the area with the arrow. It will switch to the 3D view of the building/street/site you've picked.)

Annoyingly, you have to scroll through the site to find what you're looking for. I'd have expected a company with a famous search engine would be able to make something easily searchable. And yes, if you know what you want to see, you can just go to google maps and access the locations that way. Things with 3D view come up with a blue line when you're dragging the man.

Researching - or virtual visiting - is so much easier than it was in the past. It doesn't quite match going in person to see things, but as you can't go everywhere and do everything, it's a good second.

Story Submission call for Fantastic Trains Anthology

I got the following press release from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing:

Fantastic Trains:
An anthology of Phantasmagorical Engines and Rail Riders

Now open to submissions.

The submission period for Fantastic Trains: An anthology of Phantasmagorical Engines and Rail Riders officially opens, July 27, 2017. Submissions will be accepted until Midnight September 30, 2017.

Edited by Jerome Stueart and Neil Enock, the anthology focuses on speculative fiction stories of trains—fantasy, steampunk, science fiction, horror, slipstream, urban fantasy, apocalyptic, set in any time, any place—and will be released by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing in the spring of 2018.

“This book will appeal to both lovers of the fantastic, and train aficionados,” says Jerome Stueart, co-editor.

“Ultimately, we’re looking for great stories. Check out the official call for submissions,” says Neil Enock, co-editor.

Stories must be previously unpublished, in English, between 1,000-5,000 words.

Submissions are open to all writers. The editors will accept stories previously published in a language other than English, but they must first be translated into English before submission.

Submissions should be e-mailed to: fantastictrains@gmail.com (CLICK). The e-mail must contain the word "submission" in the subject line. Submissions must be sent as an attachment: in .DOCX, DOC. or .RTF format.

Authors are invited to structurally play with some 'locomotifs' that will add interesting connections to these disparate and individual stories.

For more information, check out the call for submissions: http://tinyurl.com/fantastictrains

Shout-Out: The Bone Mother by David Demchuk

Three neighboring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind—and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary—they tell their stories and confront their destinies.

Eerie and unsettling like the best fairy tales, these incisor-sharp portraits of ghosts, witches, sirens, and seers—and the mortals who live at their side and in their thrall—will chill your marrow and tear at your heart.

The Oldest Known Hymn in the World

I stumbled across this Vintage News article about the h.6 stone tablet a while back, along with one of several interpretations of how the hymn might have sounded. The article has more info, so if you like the music, check it out.

The Hurrian songs are a group of stone tablets with music inscribed in the cuneiform writing system. These were unearthed from the ancient Amorite city of Ugarit and date to approximately 1400 BC.

One of these tablets (h.6), contains the Hurrian hymn to Nikkal, making it the earliest markedly entire piece of composed music in the world. On some of the broken pieces, the composers’ names are inscribed, but h.6 is an anonymous work.
 ...
The lyrics of the h.6 tablet are a hymn to Nikkal, a Semitic goddess of orchards. It also contains inscribed directions for a singer playing a nine-stringed sammûm, a type of harp or, more likely, a lyre. Instructions for how to tune the harp are also contained on some of the tablets.

The hymn is played by Michael Levy on the lyre.

Book Review: Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw

Pros: fun characters, interesting story, quick read

Cons: repetition

Greta Helsing is a modern day human doctor who treats the supernatural. When she’s called to a vampire’s house for an emergency, she discovers that a mysterious group is hunting ‘creatures of evil’, a group that might be connected to the ‘rosary ripper’ murders plaguing London.

I enjoyed this book a lot. The characters were quirky and entertaining. I liked that a few of them were familiar from older literary works. The mythologies for the different creatures were a mixture of common folklore with a few twists to make them different and fresh. I particularly liked the interpretation of angels and demons presented. The author did a fantastic job of making the ‘monsters’ feel very human and empathetic.

There’s a particular scene with Greta that I absolutely loved. Most urban fantasy novels have literal kickass female characters, so it was nice reading a book with a female protagonist who doesn’t know any martial arts, who’s terrified by horrific situations, but who manages her fear and is able to act despite it. It was wonderful reading about a woman who didn’t beat anyone up and who relied on her friends to help her when things got tough.

I was somewhat surprised that the core protagonists didn’t warn the supernatural community of their danger, specifically Greta’s patients and employees. I also found it strange that everyone in the group seemed to learn the same information separately - at different times - rather than pooling what they’d learned (or asking more questions of the group that had encountered the antagonists). 

There’s a fair amount of repetition. Several conversations simply repeated information learned earlier. 

On the whole, this was a fun, fast read. I’m very curious to see what adventure Greta has next.

Movie Reveiw: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Directed by George Miller, 1981

IMDb Listing

Pros: lots of action, great chase scenes 

Cons: limited plot

In a post-apocalyptic Australia, scavengers fight over scarce resources, and gasoline is the new gold. Max is a loner who learns of a compound where oil is still being mined and refined. But the compound is under attack from a gang of bandits.

The film begins with a several minute voiceover explaining how the world fell into anarchy, followed by a very quick synopsis of the salient points of the original Mad Max film. Then the action starts, with a car chase and the iconic souped up cars and dune buggies driven by men in fetish gear. 

I was impressed by the number of supporting women in the film, including a few fighters.

The costumes were pretty good (I still love Max’s leather get up), and there was a lot of action and a couple of great chase scenes.

Max sports a leg brace in recognition of a wound he received at the end of the original film, which I thought was cool. Another character has his legs bound, making me believe he was paraplegic. Neither is treated as invalids, in fact, if I’m right, the minor character has a role tailor made to get around his disability.

The story is pretty basic, and most of the twists are pretty obvious.

As with the first film, there’s an off screen rape, though this one has more nudity associated with it and so can be triggering.

As an action film, this holds up pretty well. It’s entertaining and atmospheric, so it’s not hard to see why the franchise is being reborn.

Shout-out: Epiphany Machine by David Burr Gerrard

Everyone else knows the truth about you, now you can know it, too.

That’s the slogan. The product: a junky contraption that tattoos personalized revelations on its users’ forearms. It’s an old con, playing on the fear that we are obvious to everybody except ourselves. This particular one’s been circulating New York since the 1960s. The ad works. And, oddly enough, so might the device...

A small stream of city dwellers buy into this cult of the epiphany machine, including Venter Lowood’s parents. This stigma follows them when they move upstate, where Venter can’t avoid the whispers of teachers and neighbors any more than he can ignore the machine’s accurate predictions: his mother’s abandonment and his father’s disinterest. So when Venter’s grandmother finally asks him to confront the epiphany machine and inoculate himself against his family’s mistakes, he’s only too happy to oblige.

Like his parents before him, Venter is quick to fall under the spell of the device’s sweat-stained, profane, and surprisingly charming operator, Adam Lyons. But unlike them, Venter gets close enough to Adam to learn a dark secret. There’s an undeniable pattern between specific epiphanies and violent crimes. And Adam won’t jeopardize the privacy of his customers by alerting the police.

It may be a hoax, but that doesn’t mean what Adam is selling isn’t also spot-on. And in this sprawling, snarling tragicomedy about accountability in contemporary America, the greater danger is that Adam Lyon’s apparatus may just be right about us all.

Video: Movies with Mikey: Logan

Movies with Mikey is a youtube series by Mikey Neumann on Chainsawsuit Original that analyzes films. I find them pretty interesting. They go in depth, so it's better if you've seen the films he's talking about. Recently he's done Amelie, Guardians of the Galaxy, Arrival, and Logan:

Book Review: Sovereign by April Daniels

Pros: great characters, interesting plot, complex issues

Cons: some interactions annoyed me, a bit heavy handed at times

Note: This review contains spoilers for Dreadnought, the first book in this series.

Nine months have passed since the events of Dreadnought, and Danielle has a contract to protect New Port City. She’s begun to love the feeling of power being a superhero provides, beating supervillians into submission in ways that Doc Impossible finds worrisome. Her relationship with Calamity has soured, though she’s not sure why, and multiple work and family issues occupy her thoughts. Soon after she hears news that Nemesis, the asteroid that creates quantum instabilities, is nearing Earth, a new supervillian emerges with a plan to harness its power for nefarious purposes.

I have mixed feelings about this book. There were several opening scenes that annoyed and/or made me uneasy. While some of these were dealt with in detail and worked out later on, others didn’t get much attention beyond the initial mentions.

In the first book Danielle was predominately characterized by optimism. Though her life was pretty terrible, when things got tough she constantly believed they would get better again. Dreadnought focused very specifically on Danielle’s concerns as a young woman coming of age in challenging circumstances. Sovereign broadens the outlook to show that most issues in life are complex and people can’t always be characterized as simply good or evil. Her sudden liking of violence and her enjoyment of beating people up was a little scary to read. While she’s in the pay of the government, she goes outside that purview on more than one occasion. The idea that might makes right is not ok, even if you’re the hero. Some would say, especially then. The book does deal with this, and I was happy with how the ending focused on the fact that emotional trauma doesn’t just go away with time. 

I was impressed with how the author handled Sarah and Danielle’s relationship. I loved seeing young people talk frankly about their feelings and fears instead of drawing out the misunderstandings.  

I enjoyed Kinetiq’s group work, but her first interaction with Danielle in the book kind of annoyed me. While I understand Kinetiq’s annoyance/anger that Dreadnought took credit for a group fight, their lack of consideration for Dreadnought’s age or current circumstances and insistence that she use every public appearance to push the transgender agenda ignores the fact that Dreadnought, as an acknowledged transgender superhero, already pushes that agenda.  

Graywytch was an even more horrible character in this book than the last, though she doesn’t spout slurs this time. Reading about a TERF (Trans-exclusionary radical feminist) was painful. I find it hard to attach the label ‘feminist’ to women who believe transwomen aren’t ‘real’ women, as if there’s only one experience of womanhood and all ‘real’ women share it. But it’s good to face it in fiction, as it’s often through fiction (and other types of media) that people learn empathy and compassion, and that society collectively becomes more socially aware.

I didn’t think the book dealt with the Magma and Doc issue well. Both characters have valid complaints about what happened to the Legion, and sometimes there’s no right answer that pleases everyone. While Doc was under outside control and therefore wasn’t personally responsible for the murders her body committed, Magma does have the right be angry that Doc’s lies left the Legion at a disadvantage, and feel betrayed that she never shared who her mother was. The book takes Danielle’s POV that Doc wasn’t to blame and Magma should just get over it. But this ignores that he and Chlorophyll were left permanently disabled because of that attack. I think it’s understandable that they don’t want anything to do with Doc anymore.

In terms of world-building, the author mentions several of the laws that govern superhero work. Things like the ability to buy bystander insurance and that there are legal work limits for superhero minors. One issue that wasn’t mentioned, that I’d be curious to learn the answer to, is whether superheroes have to pay for property damage incurred during their legally sanctioned missions. 

The book has a lot of excellent fight scenes, in a variety of settings. They propel the plot along and keep the pacing quick.

The plot itself was quite interesting. There’s a lot of different super powered people in this one, on all sides of the fence, and it was fun learning their different powers and where they land on the varied political spectrums.

While I didn’t like this book as fully as I did the first one, I was impressed that the author dealt with some difficult issues that many superhero books ignore. I thought Danielle’s development made sense given her life experiences, and am curious to see what the next book has in store for her.

Downplaying Romance in SFF

An article came out recently about the Bechdel test and how it’s unrealistic to expect good movies to conform to arbitrary guidelines. I won’t be commenting on the author’s complete misunderstanding of what the Bechdel test is for, instead I’ll be dealing with the conversations that have arisen from its final paragraph.

…women tend to write movies about relationships, and men tend to write movies about aliens and shootouts. Have a wander through the sci-fi and fantasy section of your local bookstore: How many of these books’ authors are female? Yet these are where the big movie ideas come from. If a woman wants the next Lord of the Rings–style franchise to pass the Bechdel Test, then a woman should come up with a story with as much earning potential as J. R. R. Tolkien’s.

As a former bookseller I can safely say that this author's not looked at the SFF section of a bookstore in a long time because there are a TON of women writing all kinds of science fiction and fantasy. He's also ignoring the fact that a woman (J. K. Rowling) has already written a fantasy series that's as big of a commercial success as The Lord of the Rings in both book and film.

But I’m not going to be talking about that either. Years ago I did a reading list for female science fiction authors (maybe I should update that list and do another one for fantasy authors). No, what I want to write about here is a response I’ve seen in reply to this article.

Barnes & Noble did a twitter post showing the spines of several books by women. A female commenter had an interesting response:



If you can't read it, she's complaining that the books all look like either young adult or romance - based on the spines (that is, based on the fact that the authors are women).

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Signal to Noise, Certain Dark Things and the forthcoming The Beautiful Ones, took exception to the fact that her books are often called YA and then dismissed as not being worth reading. She tweeted the following (note, I edited the feed so it reads top to bottom and removed a few tweets due to length).


I understand Moreno-Garcia's point, that having a romance sub/plot or writing YA shouldn't make things inferior. My concern is that if we downplay romance then we feed into the belief that romance is shameful/wrong/unworthy. And I don't like that.

Instead, reviewers should start pointing out the romantic plots/subplots in books written by men. Make it clear that men also write touchy feely scenes. Point out when their romances feel realistic and natural. Mention when they’re written for the male gaze (women are only there as eye candy - eg: the sexy scientist who does yoga to maintain her flexibility - wink wink). If we bring attention to the fact that books by men also have romantic subplots, then it will become harder to dismiss women's writing because they do the same thing.

Writing good romance/sex scenes is HARD. Which is why I used to believe I hated romance in books.

Then I read some great SFF with well written romance and realized I actually enjoy it.

Here are some examples of fantasy books with excellent romantic sub-plots by women: Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold, The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn, Poison Study by Maria Snyder.

And some by men: Lamentation by Ken Scholes, The Bands of Mourning & Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, The Tomb by F. Paul Wilson, The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks, Tailchaser’s Song by Tad Williams.

Note, these aren’t all ‘category romance’, by which I mean, they don’t all end happily ever after the way category romance must. I’m not keen on books where the main plot is two people coming together (for several reasons, often they involve a lot of lying and they fall in love too fast to be believable, but mainly because I like plot driven rather than character driven novels), but I like a good relationship that’s built up over several books and feels organic and real. I especially like good relationships that include some fun banter (one of the best I’ve read for this is Dhampir and Thief of Lives by Barb and J. C. Hendee - though the later books lose the banter and my enjoyment of the series declined).

The Tomb may have been the first book by a man where the romance is what got me interested in continuing the story. The opening scenes show a very visceral longing Jack has for the girlfriend who recently left him. I wanted them to get back together so badly, even knowing why she left.

And speaking of Tokien, the romance between Faramir and Eowyn was one of my favourite parts of Return of the King. I loved that this fierce, determined, capable woman found a man who admired those aspects of her nature. I felt that he truly respected her as a person. Was it a major part of the story? No, but it tied up her segment of the story nicely.

Society has this strange idea than women love romance and relationships and men don’t. Aside from the fact that most men want to be in loving relationships, sex and love are fundamentals to human existence. Most novels mention them to some extent, regardless of who they're written by. No, romance doesn't have to be the focus, but to state that books written by women only deal with romance and books written by men don’t deal with it at all ignores reality. It also ignores a lot of male authors who - though they often try to deny it - write romance novels.

But since not everything is for every reader, here are some fantasy novels by women that have little to no romance in them at all: The Sleeping God by Violette Malan, Transformation by Carol Berg, The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan, Resenting the Hero by Moira Moore (this series develops a romance as time goes on, but the first two books basically just have some great flirty banter), The Summoner by Gail Martin (a rather good romance develops in the second book).

And some books where the romance takes center stage: Lord of the Fading Lands by C. L. Wilson, Archangel by Sharon Shinn, Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal, Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, The Death House by Sarah Pinborough.
I'm only using fantasy novels as examples here (without bringing in urban fantasy), as that's what the original posts I'm responding to seemed to criticize. If I went into science fiction or other forms of fantasy, steampunk, etc. I could have even more examples. I also only used books that I remember clearly enough to know what level of romance they have (which, unfortunately, means these suggestions are very white).

So, where do you stand? Do you think romance is good in novels - as plots, subplots? Do you notice when men write good romance storylines? Do you wish romance would just stay out of books? What are your favourite romances in SFF books?

Shout-Out: Voiceless by E. G. Wilson

Adelaide Te Ngawai was thirteen when Maunga Richards stole her voice. 

Addy is plunged into silence when a high school bully inflicts her with an incurable disease that leaves her unable to speak, write, or create. Vox Pox—a man-made malady that’s been terrorizing the city for months. Resilient, Addy fights to survive. To not be silenced. But then her brother, Theo, is infected as well. 

Desperate for any information that might help cure Theo, Addy follows Maunga into a newly developed virtual psychoreality simulator and discovers a conspiracy deeper than she’d ever imagined. How far will she go to save her brother?

Gun powder artist

I saw this on facebook a while back and thought it was pretty incredible. Dino Tomic (youtube, instagram) is a tattoo artist from Norway who uses gun powder to create amazing works of art, some of which you can buy. He also makes salt pictures, like this one of Daenerys from Game of Thrones.

Book Review: The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder

Pros: excellent worldbuilding, deftly woven alternate history, fun characters

Cons: lot of explanations of steampunk vehicles, antagonist gives an expository speech, albino antagonist

A major assassination has changed the world of 1860s Britain into one with mechanical flying and driving machines and genetically modified bird and dog messengers. Sir Richard Burton, the famous explorer, is called by the prime minister to become an agent of the crown and investigate two cases: werewolves kidnapping chimneysweeps and appearances of an entity called Spring Heeled Jack. 

The melding of history and fantasy in this book is fantastic. The book ends with short biographies of the principle characters, but further research showed just how much research went into this book. I loved how the world has changed - adding both biological and mechanical developments. The use of language - especially given Spring Heeled Jack’s unintelligible (to them) speech - and how they interpret his pronouncements, was quite convincing.

The ‘characters’ were all pretty fun, and surprisingly bizarre considering they’re mostly based on real people (which just shows that truth is stranger than fiction).

I personally found the longer descriptions of the steampunk technology kind of boring, but your mileage may vary.

There’s a long section where you finally learn all about Spring Heeled Jack by way of the main antagonist telling it to a group of peers in a place where Burton can overhear it. Seems to me this story would have been told long ago, like when everyone joined together in the first place. In the author’s defence, I’m not sure how else all of this information could have been relayed to Burton, though he seemed to figure out enough of what was going on that a full reveal to him wasn’t really necessary, and readers could have kept the flashback scenes from ‘Jack’s’ point of view.

One of the antagonists is called an albino, though he isn’t really one once you learn his background. It’s annoying just in that albinos are often made into bad guys for no reason other than their looks.

On the whole this was an entertaining novel with a decent mystery. It’s a cool period of history to examine and it’s fascinating the changes one death can make.

Reading List: Canadian Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Authors

Most of these are Canadian authors living in Canada. A few of them live outside of Canada, and a few authors listed here (the ones with * next to their name) are not Canadian citizens but either live or lived - and write/wrote - in Canada long enough for us to claim them. A few of the authors listed only write in French and haven't been translated into English. In other cases I used one of their English titles.

Most of this list was compiled several years ago when I was still working at the World's Biggest Bookstore (back then I did an endcap with Ontario Speculative Fiction Authors, and posted a reading list). I did a few google searches to flesh out authors I didn't know about or had forgotten. While it's a long list, it's not comprehensive. I try to know a lot but I can't know every everything, so if you know someone who's been missed or someone who was added and shouldn't have been, please tell me in the comments.

Below the Line - Scott Albert

The Stoneholding - James Anderson and Mark Sebanc

The Masked Truth - Kelley Armstrong

vN - Madeline Ashby

Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

What We Salvage - David Baillie

The Night Inside - Nancy Baker

The White-Luck Warrior - R. Scott Bakker

The Binding Stone - Don Bassingthwaite

Deadwalk - Stephanie Bedwell-Grime

The Lake and the Library - Samantha Beiko

Destiny's Blood - Marie Bilodeau

Above - Leah Bobet

Nexus: Ascension - Robert Boyczuk
L'Oiseau de Feu - Jacques Brossard (French)

Small Magics - Erik Buchanan

Les crabes de Venus regardent vers le ciel - Alain Bergeron (French)

Pontypool Changes Everything - Tony Burgess

The Red Knight - Miles Cameron

Genesis - Paul Chafe

The Dragon’s Eye - Joel Champetier

The Good Brother - E. L. Chen

Appleseed - John Clute

The Summer is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved - Joey Comeau 

Neptune’s Children - Michael Coney *

A Turn of Light - Julie Czerneda

Angel of Death - Karen Dales

Sarah Court - Craig Davidson (aka Nick Cutter/Patrick Lestewka)

Against a Darkening Sky - Lauren Davis
Under My Skin - Charles de Lint

Indigo Springs - A. M. Dellamonica 

The Bone Mother - David Demchuk

Maleficium - Martine Desjardins

The Dragon and the George - Gordon Dickson

Makers - Cory Doctorow *

Black Wine - Candas Jane Dorsey 

Alchemist’s Apprentice - Dave Duncan

The Honey Month - Amal El-Mohtar

Gardens of the Moon - Steve Erikson

Shrinking the Heroes - Minister Faust 

Book of Tongues - Gemma Files

Shadowplay - Nigel Findley *

Halcyon - Catherine Fitzsimmons

Triptych - J. M. Frey

Hunted - James Alan Gardner

Stuff of Legends - Ian Gibson

Spook Country - William Gibson

The Old Die Rich - H. L. Gold

Mindworld - Phillis Gotlieb

Hopeful Monsters - Hiromi Goto *

Sailing Time’s Ocean - Terence Green

Elminster Enraged - Ed Greenwood

Venus on Orbis - P. J. Haarsma

Lament for the Afterlife - Lisa Hannett

Filaria - Brent Hayward *

Gamification - Keith Hollihan

The New Moon's Arms - Nalo Hopkinson

The Wild Ways - Tanya Huff

Fools Errant - Matthew Hughes *
The Keeper of the Isis Light - Monica Hughes *

Spells of Blood and Kin - Claire Humphrey

Northern Frights - Don Hutchison

Blackdog - K. V. Johansen

Fall From Earth - Matthew Johnson

River of Stars - Guy Gavriel Kay

The Skids - Ian Donald Keeling

Ouroboros - Michael Kelly
The Snow Queen - Eileen Kernaghan

Revenge of the Vampire King - Nancy Kilpatrick

The Moon Goddess and the Son - Donald Kingsbury *

Alex and the Ironic Gentleman - Adrienne Kress

Objects of Worship - Claude Lalumiere

Once Every Never - Lesley Livingston

Gaslight Dogs - Karin Lowachee

Running on Instinct - Nicole Luiken (aka N.M. Luiken)

The Moon Under Her Feet - Derwin Mak

The Mirror Prince - Violette Malan (aka V. M. Escalada)

The Prince of the Golden Cage - Nathalie Mallet

Sporeville - Paul Marlowe

Hair Side, Flesh Side - Helen Marshall

Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies - James Marshall

Darwin’s Paradox - Nina Marteanu

The City Underground - Suzanne Martel

The Delphi Room - Melia McClure

Angels and Exiles - Yves Meynard

The Thirteen - Susie Moloney
Temps Mort - Charles Montpetit (French)

Resenting the Hero - Moira Moore

Certain Dark Things - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Everyone in Silico - Joe Munroe

Napier’s Bones - Derryl Murphy

Blaze of Glory - Sheryl Nantus

Eutopia - David Nickle

Technicolor Ultra Mall - Ryan Oakley

Janus - John Park *

The Silver Lake - Fiona Patton

Nelle de Vilveq - Francine Pelletier (French)

At the Edge of Waking - Holly Phillips

Sins of the Angels - Linda Poitevin

The Raven's Warrior - Vincent Pratchett

The Demonologist - Andrew Pyper

Dark Matter - Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Telempath - Spider Robinson *

The Shell - Esther Rochon

Every House is Haunted - Ian Rogers

The Mona Lisa Sacrifice - Peter Roman

Enter, Night - Michael Rowe

Paradise Tales - Geoff Ryman

Silence - Michelle Sagara (aka Michelle Sagara West)

Red Planet Blues - Robert J. Sawyer

Virga: Cities of the Air - Karl Schroeder
Chronoreg - Daniel Sernine (French)

Sacrifice of the Widow - Lisa Smedman

Chimerascope - Douglas Smith

Moonfall - Heather Spears

Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation - Steve Stanton

The Prince of Outcasts - S. M. Stirling *

Dead Girls Don’t - Mags Storey
Nobody's Son - Sean Stewart

The Angels of our Better Beers - Jerome Stueart

Ink - Amanda Sun

Frozen Blood - Joel A. Sutherland

The Pattern Scars - Caitlin Sweet

Take Us To Your Chief and Other Stories - Drew Hayden Taylor

Run With the Wolves: The Pack - T. C. Tombs

Defining Diana - Hayden Trenholm

Night Runner - Max Turner

Battle Dragon - Edo van Belkon

Slan - A. E. Van Vogt

In the Mother’s Land - Elisabeth Vonarburg *

Among Others - Jo Walton *

Meatheads - Noah Wareness

Blind Sight - Peter Watts

Station Gehenna - Andrew Weiner *

The World More Full of Weeping - Robert Wiersema

Lost in Translation - Edward Willett

The Courtesan Prince - Lynda Williams

Spin - Robert Charles Wilson

Westlake Soul - Rio Youers

Major Karnage - Gord Zajac

Shout-Out: Void Star by Zachary Mason

A riveting, beautifully written, fugue-like novel of AIs, memory, violence, and mortality.

Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying, but it’s still a good time to be rich in San Francisco, where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn’t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It’s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from aging.

Kern has no such access; he’s one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city’s periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely—the mathematically inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he’s fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead.

A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop’s screen in her employer’s eyeglasses. None are safe as they’re pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight.

Aurora Award StoryBundle 2

Douglas Smith has curated a second book bundle for the Canadian SFF prize, the Prix Aurora Award. As usual, the books are DRM free, pay what you want (with minimum amounts of $5 or $15).

Here are the books:

The initial titles in the Aurora Bundle 2 (minimum $5 to purchase) are:

• Destiny's Blood by Marie Bilodea
• Drowning in Amber by E.C. Bell
• Impossibilia by Douglas Smith
• Out of Time by D.G. Laderoute
• Druids by Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular titles, plus five more!

• Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer
• Hair Side, Flesh Side by Helen Marshall
• Defining Diana by Hayden Trenholm
• Marseguro by Edward Willett
• The Cursed by Dave Duncan

Here's the site if you want more information.

Book Review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Pros: interesting protagonist, interesting takes on mythology 

Cons: very slow, some graphic sex scenes, large caste with numerous names

Shadow is days away from being released from prison when bad news lets him out early. A seemingly chance encounter on an airplane with a strange old man leads him to an unexpected job where he meets gods and other creatures of legend, brought over from far lands long, long ago and left stranded in America without believers, without power. A war is brewing between the gods. And Shadow’s become a focal point.

I really liked Shadow as a protagonist. Which is good, because half way through the book I was still wondering what the actual plot was. Shadow was interesting enough to me to push through segments of the book that were kind of boring. I liked his pragmatism. I liked that nothing fazed him.

I enjoyed that the mythology mentioned was earthy, brutal, realistic. These are not your sanitized gods. They live off of blood and sacrifice. And yet I found myself liking a lot of them. I feel very conflicted about that.

The story seems slow because a lot of what’s interesting is happening to Wednesday off page. There’s a section in the middle where Shadow’s just living life while Wednesday is making deals, which, while not boring, wasn’t particularly exciting either. It was filled with interesting characters, and so I kept reading where I otherwise might have given up.

I don’t mind romance in novels or sex scenes, but the ones here were particularly graphic, which isn’t to my liking.

Pay close attention because most characters have more than one name. On several occasions smaller characters returned later in the book and I had to look them up to remember who they were.

I didn’t love this book but I didn’t hate it either. It was interesting enough to keep me reading overall, and there were some interesting takes on mythology that I liked. But I’m not sure I can recommend it to others.