What’s that? We have two copies of Ken Liu’s much-anticipated new novel, Grace of Kings? That’s right, and we’re going to give them away to two of our lucky listeners/readers.
To enter, all you have to do is one simple thing. Leave a comment on this post which answers the following question:
If you could recommend one lesser known science fiction or fantasy writer to a friend, who would you recommend and why?
That’s it. The contest will run until 12 PM EST on Sunday (April 12th). Winners will be announced on Monday.
Have at it!
7 Responses
That’s easy: Ysabeau S. Wilce.
She’s written the adorable and clever “Flora Segunda” trilogy (although there is room for sequels… just saying) and the recent collection of short stories set in the same world, “Prophecies, Libels & Dreams”.
Her style is quirky and whimsical, her characters are flawed and many-layered and I can’t for the life of me understand why she isn’t more well-known. Set in Califa, an alternate version of California, Flora is a young girl born into a military family. She wants to be a ranger (read: magic spy) but has enough trouble as it is. Her best friend Udo is a flamboyant fashionista, her dad regularly destroys the furniture, her house has a gazillion rooms and an elevator with a mind of its own. Oh and there are ghosts. Did I mention the ghosts? It also has prophecies and politics and a tiny bit of romance and coming-of-age.
I could rave about these books forever but I think that’s enough for now. I urge everyone to check out Wilce’s work.
Not sure how to define lesser known. And it would depend on the friend. But I do like the way Stephen Deas writes dragons. I like Aliette de Bodard’s world building because she uses elements/themes from Viet Nam & other Asian cultures. I like Nora Jemisin’s world building too. And Nina Post’s quirky sense of humor.
So that’s not just one. I hope that’s okay!
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, is a masterful writer and editor of short stories who just had a spectacular debut novel (which you interviewed her for).
That said outside of a small circle of Canadians and internet folks dedicated to diverse SFF she doesn’t have too big of a following and she deserves it.
Just in her collection “This Strange Way of Dying” she showcased an impressive range of speculative subgenres and prose styles. Her novel only did more blending YA looks into the mind and issues of a teenager with the deep regret of an adult looking back on their own past.
I would recommend Karen Chacek, a novelist and screenwriter living in Mexico. I first encountered her work in the 2012 Small Beer Anthology Three Messages and a Warning, Contemporary Mexican Stories of the Fantastic (Eduardo Jiménez Mayo & Chris. N. Brown, eds.). Her story, The Hour of the Fireflies, was one of my favorites, and has stayed with me the longest.
Like most of the writers published in that anthology, very little of Chacek’s work is available in English, though she does have a few children’s books in translation, the most recent of which is Conspiracy Girl (illustrated by Abraham Balcázar), which reads like the children’s book Philip K. Dick never wrote. Her first novel for adults La caída de los pájaros (The Fall of the Birds) was published by Alfaguara in 2014, and though I haven’t read it (I don’t trust my Spanish at novel length) it sounds like deeply strange near future science fiction unlike anything that’s being published in the United States.
I would definitely recommend her work to a friend, especially if that friend read Spanish, and would suggest looking for future novels and English translations of her work.
Luke Smitherd. THE STONE MAN is science-fiction horror, with inexplicable, unstoppable alien creatures, backed with flawed but compelling human characters. I was very impressed by it.
Someone beat me to Wilce. She is amazing. Nadine left out that Flora’s mother is the commanding general of all Califa (basically a magical San Francisco, with tech at about Napoleonic level) and her dad destroys the furniture because he was a POW.
So I’ll put in a retro-vote for the little-remembered Randall Garrett. Best known for his “Lord Darcy” series. He was unbelievably prolific in the 50s-70s, but caught encephalitis and spent years in a coma till he died.
I’d recommend Selah J. Tay-Song. Her first book, Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern, is everything I love in an epic fantasy series. It has a fascinating magic system where using magic shortens the end of the person’s life, multiple POVs but each POV is actually interesting and awesome, a plot where a ton of stuff happens and things change drastically, and an ending that caught me off guard. The second book just came out, and I am so excited for it!