Book Review: State Tectonics by Malka Older
State Tectonics concludes Malka Older’s Centenal Cycle trilogy, bringing to a head the tensions and potentials for change that have been laid in Infomocracy and continued through Null States. By the end of the second volume of the Centenal Cycle, Null States, the threats to the 21st century political and social order, the dominance of 100,000 person micro democracies, the centenals, has been laid bare and made clear. Sure, the remaining legacy nations have their problems with the dominant Centenal system and might, like China, seek to subvert it and change it for its own ends. Other more militaristic nations might overwhelm nearby Centenals. But the greatest threat to the Centenal system is a hitherto unknown one—one from inside Information itself.
The Expanse meets Battlestar Galactica in Serial Box’s first space opera: The Vela
Today, on March 6th, Serial Box releases The Vela, a space opera combining the visionary setting and tense politics of SFF and Action and Adventure series like The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica. This series will be brought to you by the juggernaut bestselling author team of Becky Chambers, (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Nominee for the Hugo Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction), Yoon Ha Lee (Ninefox Gambit, Locus Award for Best First Novel), Rivers Solomon (An Unkindness of Ghosts), and SL Huang (Zero Sum Game, Amazon Bestseller).
Interview: Author David Mack
Today on Skiffy and Fanty, I interview the author of Midnight Front and The Iron Codex (among very many other things), David Mack. PW: You’ve penned sequels and follow-on novels in the various fictional universes you’ve written in before. What was different about your process in tackling The Iron Codex? DM: Adding stories to the ongoing literary continuity of Star Trek, as I’ve been doing since 2001, is very different from writing a sequel to my own original novel. When I write a Star Trek novel, I’m able to take advantage of the fact that many ideas and concepts don’t need to be explained in great detail, because readers of Star Trek novels are already familiar with the series’ setting and characters.
Interview: Gareth L. Powell on Fleet of Knives
Today on Skiffy and Fanty, we have an interview with Fleet of Knives author Gareth Powell. GARETH L. POWELL is a speculative fiction author from the UK. He has won the BSFA Award for Best Novel and been shortlisted for the Seiun Awards in Japan. His novels and novellas have been published in the UK and US by Solaris, Titan Books, and Tor.com Publishing. His latest book, Fleet of Knives, has been shortlisted for the BSFA Award. He kindly answered a few of our questions about the book and his work.
Book Review: The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky by John Hornor Jacobs
The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky is a dark and intently written horror novella that shows the breadth of the author’s skill. A fictional South American Country. Two expatriates, an old poet with a long history of tangling with the autocratic regime that runs his homeland, and his young protege, a young college professor who is drawn to him, and his connection to their homeland of Magera. An unlikely friendship, a manuscript telling awful secrets, and a compulsion to return to her homeland. These and much more are the elements of The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky, a literary cosmic horror novella from John Hornor Jacobs.
Book Review: Ninth Step Station
Ninth Step Station is an excellent collaborative effort which entertains and asks hard questions about crime, investigation, surveillance, and the future of technology in a well imagined near future setting. The locale is Tokyo in the 2030s. After an attack by China on Japan, much of Japan is under Chinese occupation, and half of Tokyo is held by them as well, with a border zone between occupied Japan and free Japan managed by ASEAN, led by the United States. Tensions are high in this divided Tokyo of the future. The peace seems fragile and ready to erupt at any moment, forces scheme to survive and thrive, and the day to day life of people on both sides of the divide is under constant stress.
