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My Superpower: Carrie Patel (The Buried Life)

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My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Carrie Patel to talk about how the power of making lists relates to The Buried Life. Once upon a time, I had the uncanny ability to down lots of mimosas without suffering any ill effects afterwards. I’d tell you my record, but my mother will probably read this. However, as I creep closer to thirty, I’ve traded in some of my youthful superpowers (infinite mimosas, staying up for two days in a row) for more grown-up abilities.

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Book Review: Use As Directed Review edited by Simon Petrie and Edwina Harvey (Peggy Bright Books)

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Left over to review as part of last year’s World Tour of SFF, Use Only As Directed fits just as nicely into the Women and Non-Binary in SFF theme for Skiffy & Fanty this year. The latest anthology from Peggy Bright Books, edited by Simon Petrie and Edwina Harvey, Use Only As Directed features Australian and New Zealand authors – of whom over 50% are female – crafting short stories around the titular phrase that one commonly reads on instructions for everything from medicine to the latest gadget. The anthology’s predominant characteristic is its well-balanced diversity in authors and styles, with an array of female, male, and nonhuman characters and a range across genres from horror to fantasy to science fiction. Author nationality and the unifying theme bring the major constants — though given the Australian/New Zealand focus, racial diversity is not really present here.

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Around the Podosphere #7: Podcasts of Note for 3/2/2015

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What nifty things dropped into our laps last week?  This week’s edition of Around the Podosphere has the answer.  Here’s what we’ve been listening to! On Literature: The fine folks at The Coode Street Podcast welcome Liza Trombi from Locus to talk about upcoming books, including a few we probably should read soon.  In a prior episode, they brought on Alisa Krasnostein, Sean Wright, and Tehani Wessely to discuss the Aurealis Awards. Doing justice to everyone’s childhood, The Book was Better crew discuss the novelization of the classic 80s movie, The Goonies.  Excuse me while I put that movie in my DVD player… Rocket Talk welcomes James L. Sutter and Mordicai Knode to discuss Paizo Publishing’s new relationship with Tor Books (hooray for positive changes!).  More recently, Ferrett Steinmetz and Monica Byrne discussed the Clarion Writer’s Workshop and the problem with genre classifications for authors. On Movies: Compelled by ghosts, the folks at We Hate Movies discuss the horror dud, White Noise. On Leonard Nimoy: The Incomparable crew offer some very fine words about Nimoy, his career, his influence, and his legacy.  A great man who will be sorely missed.

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Short and Sublime: February 2015 Round-Up

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February’s shorts include emotionally resonant stories about family and friendship and trippy genre-benders. “The Language of Knives” by Haralambi Markov (Tor.com) is a secondary world fantasy in which the main character has given up the life of a warrior and chosen to prepare the dead; when he must perform this task for his husband, he mourns not only his lover but also substantially lesser status in the eyes of his daughter. Parents having favorites amongst their children is very much part of our cultural milieu, but not so frequently presented is the reverse, and this is a rendering of complex emotions that feels very true. Gwendolyn Clare’s “Indelible” (Clarkesworld #101) is another such resonant tale of grief, following the loss of one’s sister in a science fictional far future in which aliens are characterized by their physical malleability.

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Short and Sublime: The Awakened Kingdom by N.K. Jemisin

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The Awakened Kingdom, a 2014 fantasy novella by N.K. Jemisin released both as part of The Inheritance Trilogy omnibus and as a standalone e-book, is told from the point of view of a baby god. And as adorable as the central premise is, the execution is enough to sorely tempt me to quote large swaths of the text in lieu of a real review. The novella opens thus: I am born! Hello! Many things happen! The end! Hello again! How are you? I am fine. I have learned more about the Proper Ways from Papa Tempa. Papa said that what I did before is not the Proper Way to tell a story, so I will do it over. I do not like the way he says I should tell it, though. That is BORING… What follows is the coming-of-age story of Shill, a god newly born following the death of another god, in which she tries to find her purpose and her nature. Shill isn’t born knowing how to god, so to speak; her first attempt to interact with mortals results in, um, an accident:

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