Books

AfroFuturism on Ujima

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

The whole of the first hour on today’s Ujima show was taken up with a discussion of AfroFuturism. It included three interviews that I recorded at WFC. They were with with Bill Campbell, who published and co-edited the Mothership anthology, plus two contributors: Tobias Buckell & Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. In the studio with me was another contributor, Tade Thompson, who was amazingly good and is welcome back on my radio shows any time. We also had music from George Clinton and Janelle Monáe, as one should. I haven’t listened back to it yet, but assuming all has gone well the whole show is available to be streamed here.

Huge thanks are due to all of my interviewees, both pre-recorded and live, and to Seth my engineer.

For those of you who would like to know more about AfroFuturism, I heartily recommend Ytasha Womack’s book. Sadly I can’t stock that one, but I do have Mothership, and I also have Adventure Rocketship #1, which contains articles by Minister Faust about George Clinton, and by N.K. Jemisin about Janelle Monáe.

2014 Campbellian Anthology

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

For those of you eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer next year, there’s a service that may help to get your work more attention. There is a tradition started up of publishing an anthology of eligible work, and the 2014 call for submissions can be found here. Note that this is a non-paid reprint anthology, but if Hugo voters are getting it to check out eligible writers than it may well be worth your while.

For everyone else, I’ll let you know when the book is available.

Goodreads Choice Awards

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

When this year’s Goodreads Choice awards were first announced I was disappointed to see that the only book by a woman on the science fiction ballot was MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood. While it might have been amusing to see Atwood win an award for writing SF, I was pretty sure that there were better books out there. People on Twitter were talking about write-in candidates, but I didn’t think much of their chances. I’m delighted to say that I was wrong.

The semi-final around of voting is now open, and the SF list has expanded to include two very fine books: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord, and Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I was so pleased that I went and voted. If you have a Goodreads account, you can vote too, here.

By the way, can I just say that I think it is very silly running a Best of the Year poll before the year has ended. The best historical novel of 2013 hasn’t yet been published, though it is out tomorrow in the USA. Look out for it.

Graphic Novel Review – Dark Satanic Mills

~ Cheryl

Every so often people send me interesting stuff. In this particular case it is a first graphic novel from the acclaimed children’s writer, Marcus Sedgwick. it is called Dark Satanic Mills, and it imagines a Britain sliding slowly and inexorably into a Fascist dictatorship backed by religious fundamentalism.

As I say in my review, this is not a new story. It is, however, a story that we have to trot out every now and then least people forget. Today is a good day for remembering things. The book was published late last week so it should be in the shops by now.

Congratulations, ChiZine

~ Cheryl

One of the pleasant surprises of World Fantasy was getting to meet Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi, the people behind ChiZine. This Canadian small press has been consistently surprising me with the quality of their output, and I was delighted to see I’m not alone in my opinion. ChiZine won three categories in the British Fantasy Awards. Most notably they won Best Small Press, and books that they published won Best Collection and Best Newcomer.

ChiZine are most noted for their horror output, and their two winning titles — Remember Why You Fear Me by Rob Shearman and Hair Side, Flesh Side by Helen Marshall — are both superb examples of that genre.

While I’m promoting the company, however, I’d like to point you at a couple of their other titles: Gemma Files Hexslinger Trilogy (I reviewed part one here), and Napier’s Bones by Derryl Murphy, which so impressed Ms. Lord and Ms. Burnham.

Today On Ujima – Jonathan L. Howard

~ Cheryl

My guest on the Talking Books segment of today’s Women’s Outlook show was local author (and contributor to Wizard’s Tower anthologies), Jonathan L. Howard. We talked about his career as a video game designer, about his Johanes Cabal books, and about his new YA series for Strange Chemistry. There was also brief mention of the Bristol Literary Festival, World Fantasy and what Jonathan will be reading at his BristolCon Fringe appearance later this month.

Probably the most interesting part of the interview is where Jonathan talks about his decision to write YA. Mostly people talk about it being a big market, or about it being the only way that women can get to write SF. Jonathan did it because he wanted his daughter to have science fiction to read. Which is why the Katya books are more like Heinlein juveniles with a female lead than the sort of romance and coming of age tales more commonly associated with YA.

I’ve now read Katya’s World, and as I probably won’t get around to reviewing it I should note that it is very fast-paced and easy to read. It also contains a few little things that an adult reader is more likely to spot than a teenager. I shall now be getting a copy of Katya’s War.

Jonathan’s interview takes up the first half hour of the show. That and the second half hour, in which I talk to two of the organizers of the North Bristol Arts Trail, are available to listen here.

The second hour of the show is mainly about Steiner Schools and is not of much interest unless you are into educational theory or have a young child needing a private education. Of course, with Michael Gove in charge of our schools, all UK kids are in need of a private education, so I’m rather glad I’m not in the position of needing a school right now. The second half of the show is available here.

Tansy On Sale

~ Cheryl

I’ve kept one new Fablecroft book back for a separate post. That’s because it also comes with a special offer. The new book is Ink Black Magic by Tansy Rayner Roberts, which is the first new book in Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Mocklore series in over 10 years. Fablecroft has re-issued the original two books — Splashdance Silver and Liquid Gold — and to tempt you into the series they have Splashdance Silver on sale at just 62p until the end of the year. That’s a book that won the inaugural George Turner Prize. It is, as they say, a bargain.

Kaleidoscope News

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Kaleidoscope, the proposed diverse YA anthology from Twelfth Planet Press, has reached it’s first funding goal. It looks like Pozible works in a slightly different way from Kickstarter, in that you don’t have to reach your funding target to get the money. So, although the target for Kaleidoscope is AU$12k, now that they have passed AU$7k they are able to publish their pre-contracted stories and can open up submissions to the rest of the world. Submission guidelines are here.

Of course if they only barely get over AU$7k then they won’t be able to buy many additional stories. There are still three days to go. You can back the project here. There are just three days to go.

Update: Alisa has just tweeted to tell me that Pozible is an all-or-nothing system like Kickstarter. If Kaleidoscope doesn’t make its funding goal, it gets no money. It is till more than AU$4k short. You can help.

Busy Day in Bristol and Bath

~ Cheryl

There was no bloggery yesterday because Kevin and I were out for the day. First up we went to Bristol to do some sight seeing and various errands. Kevin got introduced to the crew at Ujima and made a brief appearance on the radio. We sampled the food at a local cafe that I’m planning to feature on the show. And we went to see the Roman History exhibit at the City Museum which will also get a mention on the show when I have Ben Kane on (which is scheduled for December 11th).

In the evening we moved on to Bath where The Emporium Strikes Back, the Mr B’s SF book group, was discussing Gareth Powell’s Ack-Ack Macaque. Gareth had kindly offered to come in and answer questions, and a fun evening was had by all (though the Salamander does appear to be a bit too noisy for such meetings). Next month the book under examination will be Jeff Noon’s Vurt, but sadly I can’t be there as I’ll be on my way to Toronto.

Book Review – The Riddles of the Hobbit

~ Cheryl

Back when I mentioned this book on Twitter there seemed to be a fair amount of expectation of bloodshed. The news that Adam Roberts had written a book about The Hobbit seemed to inspire visions of Bilbo et al being eviscerated by Adam’s legendary wit. I hate to disappoint you, folks, but The Riddles of the Hobbit is a fine piece of literary analysis written by someone who is very fond of the book. What’s more, Adam even manages to recruit Tolkien to the cause of Postmodernism, sort of. I’m pretty sure that the book will be on my Hugo ballot for next year. If you would like to know more, you can find my review here.

A New Book, and a New Imprint

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Wizard’s Tower published a new book today. Or rather the book was published by a brand new imprint: Grimoire. You see, I am now an academic publisher.

How did this come about? Well, an academic journal called the Journal of Children’s Literature Studies had the plug pulled on it by its publisher. At the time there were five whole issues left unpublished. As you may be aware, academics don’t often get paid for their writing when it is published, but they get benefit in other ways because they are able to list their publications on their resumes, which helps their career. The people who had essays in the five unpublished issues were somewhat upset. So Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James asked me if I could rush an ebook edition into print. That is exactly what I have done.

So you can now buy The Final Chapters, which contains the five final issues of the JCLS. Obviously these are academic essays, but I find this sort of thing interesting and hopefully some of you will too. Plus I have hopefully helped the careers of a bunch of young academics.

This was something of an urgent job, because for complicated academic reasons we needed to get the papers published by the end of October. I should apologize to all of those people anxiously waiting for the next Lyda Morehouse novel, Messiah Node (especially Lyda). That is half done, and now that The Final Chapters is on sale I can get back to it.

Special thanks are due to Andy Bigwood for providing a lovely cover in a very short space of time.

I’m very much hoping that I will be able to do some more academic publishing in the future.

Bristol LitFest: Apocalypses with Toby Litt & Nikesh Shukla

~ Cheryl

The other LitFest event I went to involved Nikesh Shukla interviewing Toby Litt on the subject of apocalypse fiction. Toby does actually destroy Earth in one of his books, but I’d better avoid too much in the way of spoilers.

Neither Toby nor Nikesh would describe themselves as science fiction writers, but they have both dabbled and both recognize the usefulness of SF. Indeed, Toby said very similar things to what Nick Harkaway said when I interviewed him for Salon Futura: namely that modern fiction has to be partly science fiction, and that much literary fiction fails precisely because it ignores technology entirely.

Had I been running the event, it would have said a lot more about different types of apocalyptic fiction, and why we use them, but I would probably have bored people stupid. Most of the crowd were there to listen to Toby and Nikesh, both of who, are very amusing. A fine evening was had by all (including Gaie Sebold and David Gullen who had stuck around after the Kraen Rises event).

Bristol LitFest: Romans with Manda Scott & Ben Kane

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I spent Saturday in Bristol attending various events, some of which were part of the Bristol Festival of Literature. First up was a talk at Bristol Museum on the subject of Romans, factual and fictional.

First up was Gail Boyle, a curator from the museum who was in charge of staging the special exhibition, Roman Empire: Power and People, that the museum currently has running. Having now been involved in created a museum exhibition myself, I found this more than usually interesting. As luck would have it, Farah Mendlesohn was attending an event at the Barbican in London that was also discussing historical fiction. Farah was tweeting in a somewhat annoyed fashion about people who were going on about “truth” in history. I was pleased to hear Gail make it clear that creating a museum exhibit is all about telling stories.

Ben Kane is a local writer and one of the top authors of Roman period historical novels in the country. He gave us a talk abut how he did a walk along Hadrian’s Wall in full legionary dress for charity, and what he learned about Roman military gear as a result. I told him about Sean McMullen trekking through the Australian desert in chain mail so that he wouldn’t feel so crazy when he does it again next year. I’m hoping to have Ben on Ujima at some point, so I’ll need to read one of his books, probably one of the Hannibal ones.

Manda Scott has also written about Roman Britain. In fact I have her Boudica books, I just haven’t had the time to read them. Now I have to, because she’s awesome. She has a passion for women warriors (which means I am going to introduce her to Kameron Hurley), she fights with re-enactors for research, and she’s a practicing shaman. Oh, and she also understands the logistics of mounting a seaborne invasion rather better than many academic historians. And she quoted Neil Gaiman and George Martin during her talk.

Aside from meeting two great authors, what struck me most about this event was that Ben and Manda would fit right in at one of our conventions. Indeed, while I will be at BristolCon, they are heading to Harrogate for one of their conventions. Now I’m trying to work out how to get them to Worldcon in London next year. I wonder if there are any historians involved in putting that on… 😉

More On Bookstores: Numbers Matter

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Via Glenda Larke on Twitter I found this sad tale from author Mindy Klasky. Basically it is reporting on the same sad cycle of negative feedback that I wrote about last week. Barnes & Noble would not stock Mindy’s first book in a series in all but the biggest stores, then got into a dispute with her publisher, and when book two came out they refused to stock it at all because sales of book one had been so poor.

Mindy is, of course, asking people to go out any buy her book, ordering it if necessary. That’s pretty much what I said we had to do to get Waterstones to take notice. I see that I’ve come in for some criticism on that score for letting people in publishers and bookstores off the hook, and putting all of the onus on consumers. I can see the point, and certainly with a small press or independent bookstore you can ask people to do better, though of course they have businesses to run. With the big publishers and chain stores it is more difficult. Policy tends to get mired in bureaucracy, and anyone who is seen to be “difficult” (that is challenging the prevailing orthodoxy) risks ruining their career, or even losing their job. So making change on your own can be hard.

Just as importantly, however, it is a matter for consumers. When I say that “you” need to go out and buy books, I don’t mean You, Ms. Social Justice Warrior. I know You are doing your part. What I mean is y’all, the great book-reading public out there. Because a few concerned people doing the right thing isn’t going to make a difference. Big companies are run by accountants, and they normally only pay attention to numbers.

I see numbers too. When I make a post about diversity issues in publishing it doesn’t get a lot of hits. If it is about white women, rather than brown people or queer people, it will get more hits. Posts about books by white men do even better. But none of those come close to the popularity of amusing rants pointing out someone else’s failings.

Which I think probably says something rather sad about us as a species.

So diversity, yes, it is good. How about buying some books? These books:

Today on Ujima: Literary Festivals & Kadija Sesay

~ Cheryl

Well, that was a busy day. I knew I was going to be on air for at least an hour, but when I arrived at the Ujima studios Paulette informed me that her planned guest had cancelled, but we had two new people, and could I talk to them please. Well, this is live radio, folks, you just roll with the punches. And I think it went very well.

I started off the show with a shout out to my friend Bea Hitchman whose lovely book, Petit Mort, has been picked up for serialization on Radio 4. It will be broadcast in 10 episodes, the first of which will air on Monday 28th October. What’s more they have got Honor Blackman to play the role of the older incarnation of Bea’s heroine. Honor Blackman. Bea is having a fangasm about this, and I can’t say I blame her. I would too.

My first guest on the show was Matthew Austin from an organization called In The City Series, a Lottery-funded project which is doing some very interesting things in Bristol. In particular in November they will be running a Human Library. What’s that? Well, they get a whole load of people to be books, put them in a venue, and then other people can come along, check a person out for 15 minutes, and talk to them. The idea is to generate awareness of the vast array of different cultures and lifestyles in the city by allowing people to interact with other sorts of folk that they may not have encountered before. I may volunteer, but I’m way too busy and I’m going to offer it around the Bristol trans community first.

Talking of varied backgrounds, my second guest was Baljinder Bhopal who lives in Bristol, is fairly obviously of Indian ancestry, but was born in Glasgow and has a wonderful Scottish accent. This sort of thing gives me hope for multiculturalism. She’s a great poet (here’s the book she read from), and she’s also an immigration lawyer who helps local people through the Avon & Bristol Law Centre.

Later on in the show we had a bit of a rant about the Racist Van, and the new outrage of Racist Texts. The UK Border Agency is very clearly not fit for purpose. If we had even a vaguely competent government then heads would roll. As it is, I suspect our leaders are quite happy with what the UKBA is doing.

With me throughout the show was my main guest for the day, Kadija Sesay. She had traveled up from London for the day, so we shamefully made full use of her. If you are Googling her you should also look up Kadija George, which is her legal name. Sesay is her mother’s maiden name, which she has adopted for use as a writer. Kadija describes herself as a Literary Activist, and as soon as I started researching her online I knew I had found a kindred spirit. She is the founder of Sable, a literary magazine for writers of color, and a co-director of Inscribe, an imprint of Peepal Tree Press. One of the projects she’s currently involved in is organizing a literary festival in The Gambia. I think she works harder than I do.

There’s more about Kadija in the second half of the show, but in the meantime you can listen to the first hour here.

For London folks (this means YOU, Stephanie), on October 24th Kadija will be taking part is a discussion at the C.L.R. James Library in Dalston Square, London, on the state of Black British Publishing. Like most other artistic endeavors these days, things are not good for people trying to publish writers of color. Kadija and I spent a bit of time talking about ways of financing diversity in publishing, and I introduced her to the Clarkesworld model of fiction magazines.

The second hour begins with the Lighter Look at Life segment, which I ended up having to present. We chatted a bit about entertainment, about how hard comedy is, about how British comedy is so often based on cruelty towards people who are seen as “other” in some way, and about how comedians from within immigrant communities can tell jokes about those communities without it becoming racist. Along the way I said a bad word, we all praised Eddie Izzard, and I recommended Nikesh Shukla who is a very funny writer and whose first book takes a wry look at Indian communities in West London.

After that I had 15 minutes off while Paulette did a stint on the microphone. I’m afraid I missed the feature she did entirely because I was doing preparation for the final half hour in which we had Mike Manson from the Bristol Festival of Literature in to preview some of the sessions. Being Ujima, we focused initially on those events featuring writers of color, but we also found time to bring in many other items including the use of the wonderful Redcliffe Caves and, of course, the science fiction event, The Kraken Rises. So I got to plug that, and BristolCon. I name checked so many people I can’t remember them all.

There is also an SF-themed event on Saturday evening in which Nikesh talks to Toby Litt about post-apocalyptic literature. I’ve got other stuff on during the day (see last week’s show for details) but I’m booked in to see Nikesh and Toby and am looking forward to it. If you are in town for The Kraken Rises then you should come along.

Mention of science fiction reminds me that Kadija is working on a speculative fiction issue of Sable, which she will co-edit with Nnedi Okorafor. I am very much looking forward to seeing that. We also talked a lot about Afrofururism, and in November I’ll be doing a whole hour on that. That is going to be fun. They’ve promised me I can play music.

Oh, and I was delighted to discover that one of Sable‘s most popular issues to date was the LGBTQ one (shout out here to Adam Lowe), Kadija says they are going to do another one. So if you are a writer of color, and identify somewhere in the QUILTBAG, you should check them out.

I think that’s most of what we covered, but I spent so much time chatting enthusiastically to Kadija, some of it off-air, that I am bound to have forgotten something. You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

Whoops, yeah, I forgot Kadija’s book. This one. And the discussion of the sorry state of the Nubian nation. And Pan-Africanism. It was a busy two hours.

Overlooked on the Aqueduct

~ Cheryl

The latest episode of the Coode Street Podcast sees our daring heroes, Gary and Jonathan, boldly going in search of the most overlooked books of 2013. Their starting point is at Aqueduct Press, and I’m delighted to report that I have the two books they mentioned in the bookstore. The podcast spent a lot of time talking about how really good books from small presses go out of print very quickly, but the great thing about ebooks is that they need never go out of print. Anyway, if you want to try two of the books that Gary and Jonathan think you should have been reading this year, they are: Big Mama Stories by Eleanor Arnason and Space Is Just a Starry Night by Tanith Lee.

New Publisher – Harken Media

~ Cheryl

I have another new publisher in the bookstore today: Harken Media. Currently there are only two books, both by Robert Harken, which may lead you to jump to conclusions. Well I haven’t read the books yet, but I have to say that I’ve been impressed with what I have been sent. Robert is clearly approaching this in a very professional way, that a few other publishers might learn from. He’s also been smart enough to provide a short story, “Snow Falling” that you can try out cheaply before deciding whether to splash out on his novel, Life on Nubis. Why not give him a try? It’s proper science fiction, something we don’t see enough of these days.

The Mothership Has Landed

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Listen up, Citizens of the Universe, it is time for y’all to get down and boogie on some Afrofuturism.

Aw, who am I kidding? None of you kids even know who George Clinton is, do you? Never mind, we here got the P-Funk, and more importantly we have an amazing anthology of science fiction stories, not one of which is written by a white man (and the only white woman in it comes from South Africa). This is Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond, edited by Bill Campbell & Edward Austin Hall. Many of you will have backed the Kickstarter campaign, but for those who didn’t, here’s your chance to buy. The ebook editions will be available from those big, commercial sites eventually, but by special arrangement with the publishers we have them available now.

Here’s the full ToC:

  • “I Left My Heart in Skaftafell” by Victor LaValle
  • “Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows” by N.K. Jemisin
  • “Skin Dragons Talk” by Ernest Hogan
  • “The Last of Its Kind” by Kawika Guillermo
  • “Bludgeon” by Thaddeus Howze
  • “The Farming of Gods” by Ibi Zoboi
  • “The Hungry Earth” by Carmen Maria Machado
  • “The Half-Wall” by Rabih Alameddine
  • “Unathi Battles the Black Hairballs” by Lauren Beukes
  • “Amma” by Charles R. Saunders
  • “The Homecoming” by Chinelo Onwualu
  • “The Voyeur” by Ran Walker
  • “Life-pod” by Vandana Singh
  • “Four Eyes” by Tobias Buckell
  • “The Death Collector” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • “Bio-Anger” by Kiini Ibura Salaam
  • “The Runner of n-Vamana” by Indrapramit Das
  • “In the Belly of the Crocodile” by Minister Faust
  • “Live and Let Live” by Linda D. Addison
  • “The Pavilion of Frozen Women” by S.P. Somtow
  • “Waking the God of the Mountain” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
  • “Culling the Herd” by C. Renee Stephens
  • “Dances with Ghosts” by Joseph Bruchac
  • “Un Aperitivo Col Diavolo” by Darius James
  • “Othello Pop” by Andaiye Reeves
  • “A Brief History of Nonduality Studies” by Sofia Samatar
  • “Protected Entity” by Daniel José Older
  • “The Parrot’s Tale” by Anil Menon
  • “Northern Lights” by Eden Robinson
  • “One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sunlight” by Tade Thompson
  • “The Aphotic Ghost” by Carlos Hernandez
  • “The Pillar” by Farnoosh Moshiri
  • “Angels + Cannibals Unite” by Greg Tate
  • “A Fine Specimen” by Lisa Allen-Agostini
  • “Between Islands” by Jaymee Goh
  • “Fées des Dents” by George S. Walker
  • “The Taken” by Tenea D. Johnson
  • “The Buzzing” by Katherena Vermette
  • “Monstro” by Junot Díaz
  • “Good Boy” by Nisi Shawl

And let no one tell me that this stuff simply doesn’t exist.