Books

Today on Ujima: Nene Ormes & Jon Courtenay Grimwood

~ Cheryl

The first half hour of today’s show was given over to an interview with Swedish fantasy writer, Nene Ormes, who is in the UK on vacation. I lured Nene over to Bristol and I’m delighted to say that she does great interviews. We discussed her books, and those of other Swedish writers (including Karin Tidbeck and Stieg Larsson). And we talked a lot about Sweden. There were also name checks for Lavie Tidhar and Charles A. Tan for being awesome.

I haven’t heard the second half hour yet. Nene and I were out in the Ujima offices talking to some kids on the National Citizenship Scheme. But it does feature Emily Williams, of who more later. You can find the whole hour here.

Hour two starts with a brief recorded interview that I did with Jonathan Grimwood (a.k.a. Jon Courtenay Grimwood) about his new book, The Last Banquet. The studio team then had a little chat about eating weird things. After 15 minutes we switch to me interviewing Emily Williams who is an amazing person. Her son, Eddie, was diagnosed with potentially life-threatening problems with his internal organs at age 6, and was given months to live. Thanks to Emily’s care, he’s just celebrated his 21st birthday and is living a very full life. Emily is the most positive person I’ve ever talked to. Take a listen and see.

I missed the last half hour as I had to get Nene and her husband back to Temple Meads. I, and you, can listen to the whole second hour here.

In The Mail: Parabolas of Science Fiction

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

Every so often, the nice people at Wesleyan University Press send me presents. One arrived this morning. It is Parabolas of Science Fiction, a collection of academic essays edited by Brian Attebery and Veronica Hollinger. The title seems a little contrived, but the content looks interesting. According to the blurb:

The fourteen original essays in this collection explore how the field of science fiction has developed as a complex of repetitions, influences, arguments, and broad conversations.

The contributors include Gary K. Wolfe, L. Timmel Duchamp, Graham Sleight and Rachel Haywood Ferreira. I’m looking forward to reading it. Also, thank you Wesleyan, I note that for an academic title it is very reasonably priced in ebook and paperback forms, so you lot can check it out too.

Clarkesworld Year 4

~ Cheryl

Still with the bookstore, I am delighted to be able to offer for sale the Year 4 anthology of Clarkesworld Magazine. The volume covers the period when Clarkesworld really started to hit the big time. It includes stories such as “The Things” by Peter Watts and “Spar” by Kij Johnson. If you are not a subscriber to the magazine, this is a really good volume to get.

Fabulous Philippine Fiction

~ Cheryl

Earlier this month I did a Small Blue Planet episode with Charles A. Tan and Dean Francis Alfar that talked about the speculative fiction currently emanating from The Philippines. Since then Charles and his colleagues at Flipside Publishing have been busily providing me with more ebooks to sell. They are now available in the bookstore.

Firstly we have A Bottle of Storm Clouds, a collection of stories by Eliza Victoria. She is one of the authors whom we mentioned in the podcast. I really liked the story that she had in Alternative Alamat, and I suspect this will be a very fine book.

In addition we have two anthologies. Dean and his wife, Nikki, have been editing a series of books collecting the best speculative fiction of the year from The Philippines. They are now up to Volume 8. Previous issues are not available as ebooks, but there is a “best of” volume that collects the finest stories from volumes 1 to 5. These books provide a fine overview of what The Philippines has to offer, and they are very reasonably priced.

If you are not convinced yet, listen to the podcast, after which you’ll be intrigued.

Last Banquet Preview

~ Cheryl

The Last Banquet - Jonathan Grimwood

Last night I headed into Bath for a reading at Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. The guest writer was a chap called Jonathan Grimwood, whom you lot probably know better as Jon Courtenay Grimwood, IMHO one of the most under-rated science fiction authors around. The reason that Jon is masquerading under a new identity almost as cunningly disguised as Iain M. Banks is that he has a mainstream novel out. It is called The Last Banquet, and it is getting rave reviews.

The book tells the life story of Jean-Marie d’Aumout, and impoverished orphan nobleman in pre-revolutionary France. Jean-Marie turns out to have a sense of taste comparable to Mozart’s ear for music, and with the Enlightenment encouraging scientific exploration he sets out to discover all that there is to be known about taste. His quest is made somewhat easier when he is put in charge of the Royal Menagerie.

Oh dear me yes. This is a cookery-themed novel with recipes for such things as flamingo tongue and wolf’s heart pickle. It being Jon, it will be beautifully written, and I suspect that in places it will be very funny. I hope it does really well for Jon.

A Trifle Cheap

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

By day she is a fantasy writer, podcaster and a fearless crusader for women’s rights, but by night she dons her secret identity of crime fiction author, Livia Day…

Yes, I’m talking about Tansy Rayner Roberts. You’ll be delighted to know that the debut Livia Day crime now, A Trifle Dead, is currently available for the knock down price of just £3.99 (previously £6.49). Why? Well Alisa has had this gorgeous book trailer made for the book, and she figured that a celebratory sale was in order. Pink champagne, anyone?

While I’m talking about books, I’m pleased to note that Sharon Kae Reamer’s novel, Primary Fault, is now only £1.99 (previously £2.99).

There is lots more good bookstore news to come, but I have to find time to work on it first. Hopefully more tomorrow.

Small Blue Planet – The Philippines

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

The latest Small Blue Planet podcast is now live at Locus. It visits The Philippines and features a very fine writer, Dean Francis Alfar, and the inimitable Charles A. Tan.

During the podcast we mention two of Dean’s books — How to Traverse Terra Incognita & The Kite of Stars — plus an anthology of fantasy stories — Alternative Alamat. All of them come from Flipside Publishing, the company that Charles works for; and all of them are in my bookstore. Charles has also just sent me a collection of stories by Eliza Victoria, which I will get in the store as soon as I can.

Piracy! – New From Fox Spirit

~ Cheryl

The very busy UK small press, Fox Spirit, has another new anthology out. This one comes with added parrots, timber-shivering and pieces of eight, not to mention a skull & crossbones and plenty of Aaaarrrrrrrrr! Yes, me hearties, ’tis Piracy!, and you can buy it here.

Locus Awards 2013

~ Cheryl

This year’s Locus Awards winners were announced last night. Thanks to Liz Argall for live tweeting the event. You can see the full list of finalists and winners here.

There are lots of great winners there, and quite a few interesting pointers for the Hugos. I’m particularly pleased to see Pat Cadigan win Novelette for “The Girl Thing Who Went Out For Sushi”, and I also note that there’s a lot of correlation between being a Guest of Honor at Finncon and winning a Locus Award. Pat was a GoH in 2010, and one of this year’s GoHs is Aliette de Bodard who won Short Story with “Immersion”. That, of course, is freely available online at Clarkesworld, though if you want to help Neil keep the magazine going you could always buy the issue. Next year’s GoHs include Elizabeth Bear, who won Collection for Shoggoths in Bloom, which is also in the bookstore.

You’ll note that all of those winners are women. Indeed, with Nancy Kress carrying off Novella for “After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall” all of the short fiction prizes went to women. In contrast all of the novel prizes went to men (Miéville, Ahmed, Stross, Scalzi). Editing prizes were 50:50 between Datlow and Strahan. I have no idea if this means anything, but it seemed weird.

Meanwhile, I must do more Hugo reading. After all, I’m on a panel about the awards at Finncon…

Karen & Karen on Napier’s Bones

~ Cheryl

The promised episode of SF Crossing the Gulf focusing on Derryl Murphy’s novel, Napier’s Bones is now available for download. It is deeply spoilerific, but as usual Karen Lord and Karen Burnham have a fascinating conversation and I’m delighted to hear that the book is as cool as I thought it would be. Go have a listen, or maybe buy the book. People who like Tim Powers’ more modern-day novels should love this too.

Towards the end of the podcast, for reasons that will be obvious once you know a bit about the story, our hosts get into a discussion of the relative merits of cricket and baseball from the point of view of a stats geek. They cast the Summon Cheryl spell, but Karen Lord did a good job of channeling me so I didn’t really need to respond. My basic point is that baseball, because of its limited field space and fairly fixed fielding positions, has a more simple set of statistics to work with, which probably makes those stats more powerful.

Farah To Edit Wiscon Chronicles #8

~ Cheryl

Talking of the Wiscon Chronicles, the next edition, #8, will be edited by Farah Mendlesohn. According to her call for materials on the Aqueduct Press blog:

The title will be Feminism(s), and I invite non fiction and fiction contributions which draw on experiences at this years; Wiscon, and express the diversity of feminist thinking: issues that might be considered include intersectional feminism, issues of race, generation, disability, gender identity, size and class. I want both serious pieces and playful pieces. Art, graphics and music will be considered.

For more information on the requirements and how to submit, go here.

Yet More From Aqueduct

~ Cheryl

The last of the batch of new books from Aqueduct Press includes some non-fiction, and one book I am not sure about.

Missing Links and Secret Histories, edited by L Timmel Duchamp, purports to be, “A Selection of Wikipedia entries from Across the Known Multiverse.” But are they about real things, or made up? You may have to read the book to find out. And you may still be confused after reading it.

Strange Matings, edited by Rebecca J. Holden & Nisi Shawl, is a collection of essays about the work of the great Octavia Butler. It is absolutely essential for anyone with interest in Feminist science fiction.

The WisCon Chronicles is a regular series of books highlighting issues discussed at the annual Feminist science fiction convention. The latest issue, #7, is edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and focuses on disability issues.

Radio: Jo Hall, Wendy Davis & Julia Gillard

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday’s radio was a bit manic as we had a number of guests scheduled to come in, some of whom might not be able to make it. Thankfully my guests are always well behaved, and the first half hour of the show was devoted to me quizzing Jo Hall about her great new fantasy novel, The Art of Forgetting: Rider. I’m delighted at the way Jo has busily subverted several of the common tropes of epic fantasy. Good QUILTBAG content too. Must write a review. And if you are local and are not coming to the launch event tonight I want to know why.

The next segment was the “lighter look at life” thing, in which we finally managed to make ourselves laugh. Then again, we were talking about pet hates. If you want to know what some of mine are, do listen in.

Finally in the first hour, with guests missing, I bullied the team into letting me talk about Wendy Davis and Julia Gillard. We might be local radio, but we do care about what happens elsewhere in the world. That’s especially true when the only news that gets out comes via another local news service: well done Texas Tribune.

You can listen to the whole of the first hour as a podcast here.

I was thinking I was all done by 13:00, but Paulette ambushed me with another interview. Still minus guests, we dragged in one of the Ujima staff, Caroline Oldland, to talk about the work she does devising youth projects for the station. It turned out to be a great interview and I’m really pleased to have got to talk to Caroline.

The second hour of the show is podcast here. I’m done after the interview with Caroline. The rest of the show is about local politics, but still worth a listen if you want to hear local people standing up to austerity culture.

Update: Fixed spelling of Wendy’s name. Sorry.

New Short Fiction From Aqueduct

~ Cheryl

The collection of new Aqueduct Press books that I have been adding to the bookstore includes some interesting short fiction.

Big Mama Stories is a collection by Eleanor Arnason. The stories are all linked to: “The quirky, nearly omnipotent members of the colorful tribe of Big Mamas and Big Poppas [who] rove the Universe, able to leap vast expanses of time and space in a single bound. Little can harm a Mama or Poppa, except large, mythological monsters and world-historical trends.” I suspect that it is very funny, probably at the expense of those pesky humans.

Feminist Voices, edited by Batya Susan Weinbaum is a collection of fiction and poetry from the first 10 years of the journal, Femspec.

A finally — something of a surprise to me, but I’m delighted it exists — Space is Just A Starry Night, a collection of science fiction stories from the great Tanith Lee.

Jo Hall on Ujima Tomorrow

~ Cheryl

If it is Wednesday, it must be Women’s Outlook on Ujima Radio. At noon tomorrow I will be interviewing the fabulous Joanne Hall about her new novel, The Art of Forgetting: Rider. You can listen to the live stream here, and if you are busy at work I’ll post the Listen Again link when I can. That probably won’t be until Thursday as in the evening I’ll be listening to Eugene Byrne talk about his Unbuilt Bristol book at the Arnolfini. If you want to know what that’s all about, check out last week’s show.

New Translation From Le Guin

~ Cheryl

I uploaded a number of new books from Aqueduct Press today. I’ll get around to talking about them all in the coming days, but I want to give pride of place to a translation. The original work was presumably in Romanian, because that’s where Gheorghe Săsărman is from (he grew up in Cluj, the capital of Transylvania). I’m not sure what route the stories took to get into English, but I do know that they were selected and translated by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Do you need more motivation? No, of course not. But I should mention that Squaring the Circle is a collection of fictional writing about imaginary cities. It is subtitled A Pseudotreatise of Urbogony, and the Publishers Weekly review compares it to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. It goes on to say, “Săsărman’s masterfully crafted prose poems feel more immediate, serving as spellbinding descriptions of architectural impossibilities as well as slyly subversive social commentary.”

Janus: An SF Novel From ChiZine

~ Cheryl

Many of the books that ChiZine puts out veer towards the horror end of the genre. This one, however, is most definitely science fiction. Janus, by John Park, is a tale of a colony world reachable only via a wormhole whose transit randomly wipes memories from those who pass through. Thus we have a classic tale of people who don’t know who they are slowly finding out dark secrets from their past. The cover is vaguely suggestive of the book having a trans character, but as far as I can make out from the blurb, and the fairly enthusiastic review in Locus, that’s not the case. However, it does appear that the heroine is bisexual. I’m interested, though of course I have far too many other books to read.