Book Reviews: THE CALCULATING STARS and THE FATED SKY by Mary Robinette Kowal
Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series began in 2012 when Audible.com published her novelette “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” within RIP-OFF, an original audiobook anthology. The Hugo-winning story subsequently saw print. Since then, Kowal has revisited the universe of that novelette with additional short stories, including “The Phobos Experience” in an issue of last summer’s The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Additionally, she has also taken the story back to its “origins,” starting a series of Lady Astronaut novels with The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. The third novel in this series, The Relentless Moon, is due from Tor Books in 2020, meaning that you have plenty of time to catch up if you haven’t yet experienced this series of positivity and hope. Combining alternate history with science fiction, the series tells a story both progressive and uplifting. At the core of the series lies the principle that if space is the future of humanity, then the process of humanity’s movement beyond the confines of Earth should involve all elements of that humanity. The stories are about the societal and technical challenges that face the characters involved in reaching that goal of colonizing alien worlds. Starting chronologically in 1952, Kowal takes elements of history and spins in an imagined catastrophe to set in motion an alternate timeline where the space program could be built differently, perhaps with more diversity. The establishment of that diverse representation proves as great of a challenge for humanity as do the physical threats against extra-planetary survival. The Lady Astronaut series depicts its characters overcoming these challenges, one step at a time.
Book Review: A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE by Arkady Martine
Yes, Paul Weimer already delivered a ‘squee-tastic’ review of Arkady Martine’s debut novel, A Memory Called Empire, here earlier this week. But this novel is so notably brilliant that it’s worth fueling that hype with even more squee. Martine’s debut includes nearly all of the elements I would potentially look for in a great science fiction novel, balancing each of them to hit so many positive notes that I suspect other readers will find it just as elegantly captivating. Until now, I’ve never gotten to read a new release and think: This deserves to win all of the awards. I cannot fathom anything else coming this year to approach this level of achievement. Compared to Paul, I’m not as broadly read in the genre, and I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t even read Dune! I did, however, grow up adoring the novels of Asimov, and the space opera setting of A Memory Called Empire immediately drew my thoughts to his linked series. Martine takes the philosophical and political-historical intellect underlying the best of Asimov and refreshes the out-of-date social and cultural perspectives of his works. Several others have also drawn comparisons to the more modern Imperial Radch novels by Anne Leckie. While I liked Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, the narrative voice of Martine’s novel and the themes addressed through its plot resonated even stronger with me.
Book Review: THE CURIOSITY KILLERS by K.W. Taylor
Years have passed since the second American Civil War split the nation in two, and physicist Edward Vere now devotes his time in the New British Empire to time travel technology, all while limited to the mostly Victorian-era technology that this portion of the former United States is permitted. During an experiment, a spacetime bridge opens between Vere and historic aviator Wilbur Wright, who is working with similar experiments in his own time. Perfecting the technology, Vere enters into a business partnership with historian Benoy Johnson. Together they start a time travel service for select individuals (references required), facilitating clients to go solve mysteries of the past as observers. However, there is a catch: upon returning, a client will be debriefed and then have their memory wiped to ensure that the technology or the ‘natural’ secrets of time do not spread to the public.
Book Review: LOST FILMS, Edited by Max Booth III & Lori Michelle
Along with stories by Stephen King, cinematic horror is largely responsible for introducing the weird and terrifying to me and a generation or two of teens. For years my friends and I sought horror films both good and bad, and we heard that particular macabre whisper calling us to the most unhinged and obscure among them. The memorable ones have been those whose reputations have created anticipatory trepidation equal to the thrills of watching the movie itself. The cursed production history. The banned content of unfathomable realism. The haunted film. Horror built around such themes of its visual representation proves popular, from Apollinaire’s “A Good Film” to Suzuki’s Ringu or American Horror Story: Roanoke. Ironically, written explorations of horror in visual media have a stronger impact on me than the those relayed through a screen medium. An excellent recent example would be Marisha Pessl’s Night Film. The announcement of the Lost Films anthology from Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing therefore really excited me. Comprised of nineteen stories with an introduction by Max Booth III (co-editor with Lori Michelle), it is one of the strongest collections I’ve read, with several potential standout favorites for readers from both established and new authors.
Book Review: 2018 NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE, Edited by Jane Yolen
As usual, I’m behind and am just now getting to write up these thoughts on the 2018 Nebula Awards Showcase, edited by Jane Yolen for Pyr. Until April when the 2019 showcase comes out, it is the latest of annual volumes published since 1966 to reprint the nominated and winning stories for the previous year. Though this past year’s winners might be more in the forefront of your mind, revisiting – or discovering – the stories in the 2018 showcase (published 2016 and 2017) could be even more rewarding. I had read many of the stories at their original appearance, and going back to these again for a second or third time felt in some cases like meeting old friends, and in a few cases felt like appreciating something wondrous that I had somehow missed on that read a couple years back.
Book Review: HEARTS OF TABAT by Cat Rambo
Cat Rambo’s name should be a familiar one to any SF and Fantasy fans reading short fiction. Beyond publishing fiction in numerous premier outlets she also co-edited Fantasy Magazine (until its merger with Lightspeed) and served as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America. For me, Rambo’s stories fell into that category where I’d come across her name in a table of contents with pleased familiarity, but not that excited anticipation of a story that I would all but be guaranteed to love. Though always admiring her talented writing, I tend to connect with, and appreciate, her stories through a spectrum that runs from adoration to unaffected.
