fans of sf, fantasy, horror & whimsy
And courtesy Tor.com:
Free Read From Kathleen Jennings:
In a fairy tale equal parts gorgeous and gruesome, village couples seek approval for marriage from a stag with golden rings adorning its horns. That is until one suitor, determined to convince a woman to fall in love with him, makes a rash decision.
Lync, from the Australian SF Foundation, writes
We would like to invite you to our Awards and After-Party on the 29th October. The invitation is below. This promises to be a fun night and an opportunity for everyone to reconnect and celebrate the ASFF in a safe and supportive environment. Don’t forget to RSVP admin@asff.org.au
Ian Mond reviews The White Library in Locus:
Melbourne’s State Library is the setting for Paul Voerman’s third full-length published novel, The White Library.
What’s the weirdest thing you could imagine going on in a national library?
Dropout physics student Angela Donohoe is about to discover just that. Release it. Become it. All in a world where colonial history did not quite turn out like ours, where the global power is the Federated Kingdom of Mendana and David Bowie was an astronaut, The White Library is a surreal escapade of library friends and enemies, love—and a remarkable woman.
Full review in Locus
It’s also a slightly sideways sequel-by-association to Paul’s The Weird Colonial Boy.
Says Paul:
“Unlike the faithful, who have ordered copies and even circulated them among poverty-stricken friends, I’m not expecting people to have forked out for a hardcover at about $65 including delivery from the UK and we are still working on the Australian distribution, so the link to the very reasonable e-book is https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/the-white-library-ebook-by-paul-voermans-5316-p.asp
Only GBP 2.99! Please feel free to forward this to anybody you think might like a foolish SF novel set in the State Library of Victoria.”
[I’ve bought the e-book and it worked out at AU$5.89 — I received the email link within five minutes and had a choice of mobi or epub ]
Nick Mamatas suggested a bundle looking at that nebulous concept, the “singularity”, and I thought it would be fun to take a wide-ranging approach to it, encompassing the post-human, A.I., space opera and much more. […]I love the variety of novels and authors in this bundle.
And what is the Singularity anyway? A silly hypothetical concept beloved by the neo-libertarian tech rich? A utopian vision? A dystopian one? Or is it a convenient shorthand for the possible convergence of human and machine that we already have?
The fun is in the asking. And I think each of the authors here grapple with some fundamental questions about human and others and our place in the universe. And, you know – they’re also terrific fun!
I thought this being a hard SF-ish bundle, it would be appropriate to nominate as my charity of choice the Locus Foundation. Locus Magazine was established in 1968, and became the single most important news source for the SF/F field, offering unparalleled cover, in-depth reviews and author interviews, and so much more. […] Times are hard for everyone right now, and this seems a good cause to support! – Lavie Tidhar
* * * Note the bundle will be available online here until the 15th October * * *
Alison Flood reports in The Guardian:
Twenty years before Margaret Atwood won the inaugural Arthur C Clarke award for her seminal novel The Handmaid’s Tale, she published a poem entitled The animals in that country. Now Laura Jean McKay, who borrowed the title of Atwood’s poem for her debut novel, has gone on to win the prestigious prize, with judges praising her story of a pandemic that enables humans to understand the language of animals for “reposition[ing] the boundaries of science fiction once again”.
…“This is an award for readers and writers who share a love of literature that dares to imagine sideways, backwards and future worlds to try to make sense of the world that we live in now. Speculative fiction – the sort of sci-fi that I adore – is particularly reflective of our times because it’s often set realistically, with extraordinary events (pandemics! Extinction! Talking animals!),” [McKay] said.
“That the Arthur C Clarke judges would recognise a novel that depicts how we as humans relate to other animals and environments is such an exciting outcome – for me (of course) but also for the many people who care about the state of the planet. And to win on such an extraordinary shortlist this year is gobsmacking.”
Reported 27th Sept in The Guardian
‘‘I consider most of my work science fiction, even the stories that look like fantasy. To me, what makes a story science fiction is not whether the universe has the same laws as our universe or not, but whether it is a universe in which the scientific method works. That is a more interesting distinction for me. By that criterion, ‘Exhalation’ is a science fiction story, even though its universe bears no resemblance to ours. The same is true for ‘72 Letters’, and for ‘Tower of Babylon’.
‘‘’Exhalation’ is about conceptual breakthrough (to use the term from The Science Fiction Encyclopedia). It’s a way of describing scientific discovery and the experience of gaining a greater understanding of the universe. Recapturing the experience of conceptual breakthrough, dramatizing that, is one of the things science fiction is good at. You can just as easily do that in a completely made-up universe with a totally different set of physical laws. The underlying process is the same, and I still think of it as scientific investigation.”
Read the complete interview, and biographical profile, in the July 2011 issue of Locus Magazine.
Perry Middlemiss on two 2020 novels of Australian futures: Of birds and beasts!
The Animals in that Country, by Laura Jean McKay
and The Rain Heron, by Robbie Arnott
THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY, by Laura Jean McKay
2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Literature – Winner
2020 Aurealis Awards’ Best Science Fiction Novel – Winner
2021 ABIA Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year – Winner
2021 ALS Gold Medal – Short-listed 2021 Arthur C. Clarke Award – Short-listed
2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award – Long-listed
2021 The Kitchies’ Golden Tentacle Award – Short-listed
2021 The Stella Prize – Short-listed
2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction – Winner
2020 The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction – Short-listed
“As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals — first mammals, then birds and insects, too. As the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and many people begin to lose their minds, including Jean’s infected son, Lee. When he takes off with Kimberly, heading south, Jean feels the pull to follow her kin.
“Setting off on their trail, with Sue the dingo riding shotgun, they find themselves in a stark, strange world in which the animal apocalypse has only further isolated people from other species.”
💥 💥 💥
THE RAIN HERON, by Robbie Arnott
Shortlisted, Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2021
Shortlisted, ALS Gold Medal, 2021
Shortlisted, Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year, 2021
Shortlisted, Age Book of the Year, 2021
Longlisted, Not the Booker, United Kingdom, 2020
“The Rain Heron is set in an unidentified country in which a military coup has recently occurred. The first section of the novel proper (the opening story is headed ‘Part 0’, placing it outside the main narrative structure) is told from the point of view of a woman named Ren, who has retreated into the wilderness. She lives alone in a cave on a remote mountainside, where she subsists by hunting and foraging and growing a few vegetables, occasionally venturing into the lowlands to barter with a fur trader and his son.
“One day she encounters some soldiers, who are searching the mountainside for the mythical rain heron. Their leader, the efficient and cunning Lieutenant Zoe Harker, questions Ren about the bird’s whereabouts, but Ren denies all knowledge…”
Topic: Nova Mob 1 Sep: Perry Middlemiss on Australian Futures
Time: Sep 1, 2021 8 PM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney; 7:30pm Adelaide
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4177583193?pwd=VjdPL1BhSTBNclN2YnRsejN3Y1hlUT09
Meeting ID: 417 758 3193
Passcode: nova
We will meet via Zoom at 6:30pm;
We will also meet in person at Kappy’s from 6:15pm. [confirmed 25 Aug]
We will continue our discussion of the final two Hugo nominees for best novella:
At the end of the meeting, we will “predict” which work should win.
Zoom details:
Time: Aug 25, 2021 at 6:30 pm Adelaide; 7pm Melbourne
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82167796217?pwd=M2d0aUMwU01nbVVPa2g0czNXTjQxUT09
Meeting ID: 821 6779 6217
Passcode: 784499
NPR (National Public Radio) announced “Your 50 Favorite Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books of the Past Decade”, a list with a top 50 selected by Amal El-Mohtar, Ann Leckie, Fonda Lee, and Tochi Onyebuchi. Titles are separated into categories, such as “Worlds To Get Lost In” and “Will Mess With Your Head”, and include a range of subgenres and interests.
For the complete list, see the NPR website.
A recent episode of The Coode Street podcast has Jonathan Strahan and Gary Wolfe talking to the author of A Memory Called Empire and possible sequels.
Find out more about the role of history in the story…Episode 560
The Adelaide Fan Review 
You must be logged in to post a comment.