David Gerrold is the winner of the 2022 Robert A. Heinlein Award, given for “outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space.” Winners are chosen by a committee of SF authors chaired by Michael F. Flynn, and receive a certificate plaque, a sterling silver medallion, and two lapel pins, all featuring the likeness of Robert A. Heinlein.
The award will be presented ...Read More
The Perishing, Natashia Deón (Counterpoint 978-1-64009-302-7, $26.00, 320pp, hc) November 2021.
There’s no way to overstate our obsession with immortality. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Marvel’s Eternals, humans have always dreamt of living forever, and speculated on what it would be like to do so. And with so many examples in existence, it’s difficult to present readers with a fresh take on the sempiternal trope, but Natashia ...Read More
The Horizon, Gautam Bhatia (HarperCollins India 978-9354227639, ₹499.00, 468pp, tp) October 2021.
It’s always tricky to review the second volume of a duology without loading it with spoilers for readers who may not have read the first volume, or who might quite reasonably have decided to wait until the complete work was available (authors have been known to leave you hanging, after all, sometimes in ways that make you ...Read More
We Light Up the Sky, Lilliam Rivera (Bloomsbury 978-1-5476-0376-3, $17.99, hc 240pp) October 2021.
In what is likely one of the first pandemic-related novels for teens, author Lilliam Rivera’s We Light Up the Sky drops an alien invasion into the lives of three Los Angeles teens who are still reeling from COVID. (It’s important to note that the pandemic is not caused by the aliens; they just happen to ...Read More
The Death of Jane Lawrence, Caitlin Starling (St. Martin’s Press 978-1250272584, $27.99, 368pp, hc) October 2021. Cover by Colin Verdi.
Caitlin Starling’s The Death of Jane Lawrence is a horror Gothic with romance elements that relies on much more than atmosphere and a crumbling manor to hook readers and keep them glued to the pages. Between dark magic and gore, this is a novel with a historical angle that ...Read More
Lies My Memory Told Me, Sacha Wunsch (Inkyard Press 978-1-335-01827-4, $18.99, hc 320pp) October 202 1.
Sacha Wunsch’s just slightly futuristic debut Lies My Memory Told Me offers up an excellent technological twist with the invention of “Enhanced Memory.” People no longer have to spend the money to travel, take the time to learn a new skill, or risk their lives on activities like racing cars. They can ...Read More
The Cabinet, Un-Su Kim (Angry Robot 978-0-85766-917-9, $14.99/￡9.99, 400pp, tp) October 2021.
The publication of The Cabinet is a second (not a first) for both the author, Un-Su Kim, and publisher Angry Robot. While The Cabinet is Kim’s debut novel (winning South Korea’s Munhakdongne Novel Award back in 2006), it’s his second book to be translated into English. Somewhat confusingly, but typical for works in translation, English audiences were ...Read More
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is partnering with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Booklist for the fourth annual Summer Scares Reading Program. The program “introduces readers and librarians to new authors and helps start conversations extending beyond the books from each list and promote reading for years to come.”
Special guest author Alma Katsu and a committee of five librarians, Carolyn Ciesla, Kelly Jensen, Julia Smith, Becky Spratford, and ...Read More
As part of its attempts to improve diversity, Penguin Random House has published its “phase one” study on the demographics of authors, illustrators, and translators of works published from the start of 2019 to the end of 2021. They received 3,415 responses, and concluded that the company’s ‘‘contributor demographics do not reflect U.S. reader demographics when it comes to race and ethnicity. Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous representation is low, while ...Read More
The 36th Annual Asimov‘s Readers’ Awards ballots are now open for voting. The winners “join the pantheon of Asimov authors who represent the Who’s Who of science fiction writers over the past thirty years.”
The voting is open from now until February 1, 2022. For more information about the awards and how to vote, see the announcement here.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with ...Read More
The Jewish Book Council has announced the 2021 National Jewish Book Award winners. The awards “recognize outstanding works of Jewish literature” and include several authors of genre interest. Joshua Cohen won the JJ Greenberg Memorial Award for Fiction for The Netanyahus, and Helen Wecker won The Miller Family Book Club Award in Memory of Helen Dunn Weinstein and June Keit Miller for The Hidden Palace. Gordon Korman won ...Read More
Nominations are now open for the 2022 Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.
The 2022 Hugo Awards will be presented at the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, Chicon 8, to be held September 1-5, 2022 at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Chicago Illinois. Members with an attending or supporting membership for Chicon 8 or DisCon III are eligible ...Read More
The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) has announced the finalists for the 2021 NBCC awards. Authors and titles of genre interest are below:
2021 Leonard Finalists
2021 Fiction Finalists
We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) has announced the winners of the 2022 Walter Dean Myers Awards, to “recognize diverse authors whose works feature diverse main characters and address diversity in a meaningful way.” in the Teen and Young Readers categories. They have announced one winner in each category, and two honorees. Titles and authors of genre interest include:
2022 Walter Honors, Teen Category
Author Colm Tóibín has been named the new Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. He takes over from Sebastian Barry, and his three-year term begins this month. The Laureate position “seeks to acknowledge the contribution of fiction writers to Irish artistic and cultural life by honouring an established Irish writer of fiction, encouraging a new generation of writers, promoting Irish literature nationally and internationally and encouraging ...Read More
The Mystery Writers of America (MWA) announced the 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, “honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television,” with numerous authors and works of genre interest.
Best First Novel By An American Author
Paladin’s Hope, T. Kingfisher (Red Wombat Studio 978-1-61450-551-8, $34.95, 270pp, hc), October 2021.
Paladin’s Hope is the third book in T. Kingfisher’s (AKA Ursula Vernon’s) Saint of Steel series. Like Paladin’s Grace and Paladin’s Strength before it, Paladin’s Hope is a fantasy romance at its core. There are gods and clerics and gnoles set against a medieval-esque city and countryside. The two main characters are destined for each other but ...Read More
The Book of All Skies, Greg Egan (Greg Egan 978-1-922240-38-5, $12.99, 236 pp, tp) September 2021.
Speaking of skies – when Greg Egan leaves our familiar cosmological or geometrical framework, he really leaves it, as he does in The Book of All Skies, which is set on a planet that has been sliced up like a spiral-carved ham by structures called Hoops. (At least that’s what I get ...Read More
Writer Ron Goulart, 89, died January 14, 2022. Goulart was a prolific author in multiple genres, producing more than 180 titles in his long career.
Ronald Joseph Goulart was born January 13, 1933 in Berkeley CA, and worked in advertising after college. His first SF story, “Letters to the Editor”, appeared in 1952, and he published a number of stories before debut novel The Sword Swallower (1968), first of his ...Read More
SF writer J. Brian Clarke, 93, died January 17, 2022.
James Brian Clarke was born May 23, 1928 in Birmingham, England, but spent most of his life in Canada. He began publishing genre work with “Artifact” in Analog in June 1969, where he continued to publish stories for the rest of his career. Debut novel Expediter (1990) includes material first published there, as does second book Alphanauts (2006), winner of ...Read More
The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) has announced that artist Michelle Feng is the winner of their 2022 Illustration of the Year.
“Feng’s winning piece will be featured throughout 2022 on the Speculative Literature Foundation’s website and on social media. In addition, it may be featured in limited edition SLF-related marketing materials, such as bookmarks and pins.”
Feng wanted to “combine visual elements from traditional village living structures with futuristic elements ...Read More
Fan and convention organizer Bill Wright, 84, died January 17, 2022 in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, the day before his 85th birthday.
Wright, born 1937, was a stalwart of Australian fandom since the late 1950s. He was a founding member of both ANZAPA and the Nova Mob; HonSec of the Eighth Australian Science Fiction Convention (the eighth Australian Natcon) in 1969; secretary of Aussiecon in 1975; awards administrator ...Read More
Flash Fiction Online 10/21
Nightmare 10/21, 11/21
Fantasy 10/21, 11/21
Flash Fiction Online’s October 2021 issue seeks to “explore that darkness that lurks inside things that initially seem harmless….” Sarah Pauling’s “Litany in the Heart of Exorcism” considers the casting out of a demon – but is something that has kept a young woman from a marriage she does not want demonic? “Better devil-deals than marriage contracts.” ...Read More
Brazilian illustrator JOSÉ LUIZ BENÍCIO DA FONSECA, who worked as Benício, 84, died December 7, 2021 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Born September 14, 1936 in Rio Pardo, in the Brazilian South, he was a nationwide name in the fields of pulp art, pin-up art, movie posters, and advertisements.
After a stint plying piano for a radio show in Porto Alegre when he was only 15, Benício initially dedicated ...Read More
The New Yorker 10/11/21 Tales the Devil Told Me, Jen Fawkes (Press 53) October 2021.
Karen Russell offers a brilliant piece of SF (or fantasy, or, really, a beautiful example of how a purely fantastical insertion can illuminate an essentially SFnal premise) in the October 11th issue of The New Yorker. “The Ghost Birds” is set a few decades in the future, a future ravaged by climate change ...Read More
JOHN VARLEY, 74, was hospitalized last year with COVID, pneumonia, and congestive heart failure, and received a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He is home now, and expects to soon “be back at work on my next novel, a re-write and near total alteration of the horrible second draft of my first unpublished novel, Gas Giant.” Read his account here.
TOMI ADEYEMI’s publishing rights are ...Read More
A Girl Called Rumi, Ari Honarvar (Forest Avenue Press 978-1-942436-46-1, $16.00, 362pp, tp) September 2021. Cover by Ari Honarvar.
Content warning: self-harm.
Ari Honarvar’s debut novel, A Girl Called Rumi, is a sage, beautifully-written fantasy novel. Against the intense backdrop of the Iran-Iraq war and eventual Green Uprising, Kimia uses storytelling to escape, and discovers a storyteller that will lead her through the Seven Valleys of Love – an ...Read More
