Hey!

This week there are essays and videos on books, reading, and a ton of reviewers that are new to me, and maybe to you! Plus, many great book rec lists. Enjoy this relatively calm newsletter before the October Surprise* next week.

*a zillion October book releases/September faves

A-Side

My Favorite Thing: A Quote from The Little Prince, and also Absence
This lovely essay from Micaiah Johnson upon the release of her new book, The Unhaunting, was beautiful. There’s so much tenderness in her writing. Grief and loss can often be hardest when we have personal triumphs to celebrate.

Do Authors Deserve a Second Chance?
Over at Niko’s Book Reviews, he talks about giving authors multiple chances. I’m not a hardliner; if I don’t like one book by an author I’m willing to try future books they write if the premise appeals to me. I know lots of authors develop a voice, but I’m so soft-hearted that unless an author is a massive jerk/bigot, I’m never writing anyone off. People ~grow~ in their art.

Slow, thoughtful fantasy book recs
Bailey likes negative reviews for one of the same reasons I like them, which is that people will often list concrete reasons they don’t like a thing and then I can swoop in with my weirdo tastes and scoop up a surprise rec. I’ve really got to get to The West Passage since it’s sitting on my shelf and everything. Also, BookTok has been all over Robin Hobb’s series and I continue asking myself if I’m willing to let my long time grudge go (I know, I know) to try it.

Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta
The Girls at the Kingfisher Club mention!!! Anyway, this is a review from my pal Maureen of a book I’ll be reading soon. Mad Sisters of Esi is nominated for the Le Guin Prize this year, but more importantly, Maureen wrote a review! Writing creative things about art in These Times is hard and I would love for her to return to writing about books so everyone be nice!

When you're actually in fandom, you all share ideas and enthusiasm together.
I liked this thread, especially how Elizabeth summarized why fandom as a community matters so much. There’s no room for guilt in spaces with friends where you’re having fun and being creative together. And if there is, guaranteed one of those friends will challenge you to make the most unhinged fanwork possible to get over it. Also, do these people think that 20 year olds founded the OTW and AO3!? Goodness.

I feel like I don’t see enough people talk about Murderbot begging for Mensah’s life in Exit Strategy.
Exit Strategy might be my favorite after Network Effect because of Mensah. I love her.

Reviews/Discussions

All the Hidden Places by Cadwell Turnbull (Gary K. Wolfe @ Locus)
The Astronaut Among the Flowers and Other Stories by P.A. Cornell (Andrew Byers @ The Horror Review)
Bodies of Magic by Freya Marske (Chris @ biblio nerd reflections)
Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Vic @ The Lesbrary)
The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon (Sasha Bonkowsky @ Reactor)
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (Yvonne C. Garrett @ The Brooklyn Rail)
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (Tammy @ Books, Bones & Buffy)
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (Mia Rhee @ Chicago Review of Books)
Forged in FIYAH edited by DaVaun Sanders (Arley Sorg @ Lightspeed Mag)
The Gates of Midnight by Helene Wecker (Narrated Podcast)
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (Sean Guynes @ Genre Fantasies)
Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg (Mark Yon @ SFF World)
The Hunger of Those Who Built It by Wendy Waring (Niall Harrison @ Locus)
The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang (Rai Furniss-Greasley @ Grimdark Mag)
Night and Silence by Seanan McGuire (Galen Strickland)
Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer (Mariko Hewer @ The Independent)
Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer (Russ Allbery)
Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler (Roseanna Pendlebury @ Nerds of a Feather)
Parch Marks by Anna Orridge (Kate Towner @ Ancillary Review of Books)
A Ruin, Great and Free by Cadwell Turnbull (Helena Ramsaroop @ Strange Horizons)
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G. Parry (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
The Space Machine by Christopher Priest (Sandy Ferber @ FanLit)
Traitors’ Nest by Frances Hardinge (Abigail Nussbaum @ Locus)
The Unhaunting by Micaiah Johnson (Becky’s Book Blog)
The Unhaunting by Micaiah Johnson (Michael Patrick Hicks @ FanFiAddict)

B-Side

Last week I shared the unofficial call for volunteer editors for Ancillary Review of Books, but now they have a formal call to action. I swear I looked for this, but I was clearly too early. The Lesbrary is looking for more reviewers, so if you’re looking for a place for your reviews of queer lit about women, apply! They’re an excellent resource. Reactor has a new Youtube channel. There’s a cute robot calendar Kickstarter from an artist I like, Matt Dixon. Joachim Boaz talked a little about the history of cyberpunk re: women writers. I continue to be unsurprised that as soon as women start participating in anything where men used to dominate, suddenly the shiny new thing is “over.”

Over at the Hugonauts, they rank the books that won both the Hugo and Nebula Award. It was an interesting discussion, more subjective than historical. I like seeing how people think about backlist titles and SF classics, too. I was reminded of my love for Speaker for the Dead, except Orson Scott Card is still dead to me. :( This kind of thing makes me want to see all the different awards overlapped, though. How does Locus stack up against the Nebula? Or the Hugo against some of the longer running juried awards? This MetaFilter thread of post-Hugo thoughts was great and I discovered another SFF podcast! Speaking of podcasts: there’s a new episode for Octothorpe where they talk about conventions (because of course) and art.

Via Niall Harrison, this rec list, “Five American futures to read in the here and now,” was a nice collection. He made the point that the books listed were about the collapse of the United States. It’s probably because a dire end is easier to write about than a optimistic future, which is going to be very boring, bureaucratic, and involve lots of extended yapping. Most of us inside this mess don’t see a way through that yet. Much easier to just write the U.S. fracturing! Anyway, everyone should read Ode to the Half-Broken, my new beloved in this genre. There are robots! If you like Star Trek and physical media the recent essay in the LODESTAR will be of interest. Alas, I would not count on overly rich weirdo David Ellison to do anything cool. Rich people use to invest in libraries and strange, cool art and get taxed at a reasonable rate. Now we live in Billionaire Hell, with grainy episodes of Deep Space Nine.

From my archives, a few reviews for the Ana and Din series by Robert Jackson Bennett: Womble read and reviewed The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption back in August, Andrew Liptak tackled the whole series so far, Dina reviewed A Trade of Blood, as well as Bonnie from Red Headed Femme. I am one of the number who find these books super entertaining, even though the author is about to send me down a rabbit hole of nonfiction books about empire. Also, now that there are more than two books, let’s all agree as Hugo voters to put these books in Best Series going forward, not Novel. :P In other “my link archive is so full” news, I noticed that Alex Pierce has been out here absolutely tearing up book reviews and making it impossible to choose which to include each week so I’m not going to, ha! The List of Her Review Accomplishments: Scion by James Islington, The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell, and Whalesong by Miles Cameron (I need to try this series, because space opera). How are you so prolific, Alex?! Please teach me your secrets. Because on top of this she’s also watched and recapped Stargate SG-1 Season 2! There were 22 episodes.

Go share your favorite spooky fanfic recs with The Rec Center! Some of us don’t read these genres and need your help. I’m very excited about how Fall Book Season is maybe contributing to the rise of book rec threads. Melissa Caruso shared some recs and asked for more. Effie Seiberg asked for recs to celebrate her birthday. You should read In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, because you trust me. If you don’t trust me (fair, I’m tricksy), then maybe you’ll trust NYT Book Columnist Jenny Hamilton’s amazing list of reasons you should read it. Charlie Jane Anders shared her favorite books in September. Ada Hoffmann shared a few media recs, and my opinion is yes, we’re well on our way to The Language of Liars world domination! If all SFF authors could have blogs/newsletters where they recced their favorite media once a month, that would be perfect for me, specifically.

Short fiction fans, there’s a very cool new profile of Adventitious by Bruce H. McCosar, which comes with a nice overview and story recs. Charles Payseur has a list of short queer SFF out from back in August. Alex Brown shared some of the critical short fiction out in August, as well. Tar Vol on looked at issues of Adventitious, Lightspeed, Otherside, and Strange Horizons and chose one story to rec as the month’s favorite.

Bramble has the cover reveal for Moss Effect by Rebecca Thorne, the sequel to Moss’d in Space on Instagram. At Reactor, there’s an excerpt for The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo. Civilian Reader has an excerpt for Find Me Where it Ends by Cassandra Khaw. Chuck Tingle is running a poll about book tours. If you live somewhere that doesn’t get many and would go see him, leave your thoughts. T. Kingfisher is going on a small tour for the release of Astarion. Wendy Waring has a Big Idea essay at Whatever for the her new book, The Hunger of Those Who Built It. Cadwell Turnbull was on the Coode Street Podcast to talk about his new collection, All the Hidden Places. Freya Marske, author of the new Bodies of Magic, was on the Write Club Podcast for an interview.

For more Good Links, hit up last week’s issue of Wombling Along.

Art recs: night landscape by The Sun, XIX; lil grumpy cat by Birdie Tam; Wanderer by Sarah Travaline; here she is by Gwen; pumpkin patch by Aled Thompson; talent is a lie by Tim Gaedke

Outro

I’ve seen a few folks reccing IGMX to your friends/networks recently and every time I come across it, it’s like a blast of weapons grade positivity to the face. I screencap all of them. I appreciate y’all very much. ;_:

That’s all for this week. Happy Spooky Month. :D — Renay

Recent Reading

(Last) In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
(Now) An Accident of Dragons by Cheri Radke
(Next) What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed