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Blog Posts

Short and Sublime: Dream Houses by Genevieve Valentine

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Genevieve Valentine’s Dream Houses, a suspenseful but thoughtful 2014 novella from WSFA Press & Wyrm Press, opens with protagonist Amadis awakening early from hibernation on the junky spaceship she’s a low-ranking crew member for — and the rest of the crew are dead in their hibernation pods. This makes her the de facto captain with no one for company except the ship’s creepy A.I. on a six year trip with no real communication options and not enough food. The narrative dips back and forth in time over the course of Amadis’ journey, and the reader gets to know and mourn the small crew as well as Amadis’ fraught relationship with her brother. The particular run is a simple cargo transport to a far-off, barely habitable planetary outpost and thus attracts crew that are a little dodgy, or just can’t stop running — except for the captain Lai, who’s something of an enigma. Amadis and her brother love each other in a way that’s tainted with the traumatic horrors of their past and the resultant divergent goals of their present.

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My Superpower: Arwen Elys Dayton (Seeker)

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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 Arwen Elys Dayton to talk about how the power of temporary hyperdrive relates to Seeker. My new book, Seeker, is set in the near future in Scotland and Hong Kong. The teens in this story have spent years on a remote estate, undergoing often brutal training with some really interesting weapons. All of this is to become a Seeker, one who uses this special training and weaponry to make the world better and more fair — the characters look on their calling as something like a futuristic version of the Knights Templar, committed to doing what’s right. Naturally, as the author of this story, it would be awesome if I had a special ability with weapons or hand to hand combat or languages or anything related to the book. I would love to be one of my characters. I did watch a lot of Bruce Lee films as a kid; I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in the weapons section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and I went to a very international high school, so I can swear in a lot of different languages…but unfortunately, I don’t think any of these traits rise to superpower level.

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My Superpower: Harry Connolly (The Way Into Chaos)

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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 Harry Connolly to talk about how the power of intense focus relates to The Way Into Chaos. My superpower is a little different from most. It’s not something I can do, and it’s not a way I can bend the universe to to what I need it to do. In fact, my superpower is a sort of invulnerability. It’s this: I’m not paying attention to you. That’s it. That’s my power. I’m not paying attention. A boring teacher in a boring class? Their lessons bounce right off. Trying to bend my ear about your favorite programming language/why Tom Bombadil should have been in the LOTR movies/why this season of Doctor Who sucks—again—but you still have hope for the next one? None of that even registers. The words just ricochet off me. I’m not listening. I’m probably not looking at you, either.

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My Superpower: E.L. Tettensor (Master of Plagues)

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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 E.L. Tettensor to talk about how the power of teleportation relates to Master of Plagues. My superpower is teleportation. Cool, right? In the blink of an eye – bamf! – I’m somewhere completely different. Not physically, of course. That wouldn’t work. I get motion sickness. Mentally, though, I can transport myself anywhere, anytime. Even better, I can be in two places at once. One version of me might be sitting across from you at brunch, listening politely as you recount your latest misadventures with Tinder, while another me – the one enjoying herself – is planning an epic battle, deciding whether that flanking manoeuvre is going to be enough to save our heroes, or whether they’ll need more siege engines.

Blog Posts

Book Review: Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear

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In the late 19th century, Rapid City is *the* port in the Pacific Northwest. Much of the foundations are now below ground level, in the muck and mire of the poor soil for buildings and the other things being filled in to raise things. Places like Madame Damnable’s Sewing Circle, whose entrance is 32 feet below the current level of the street, a real old part of the city, then. But to climb down that ladder and go in isn’t to get your clothes mended. Even if there are two sewing machines in the parlor. No, the usual people who climb down and visit the Sewing Circle are men coming from or going to the gold field, looking for a little action, spend a little money. Karen Memery, along with the other women,  practices sewing, to help mend her clothes, see, but she mainly practices a more horizontal trade.  And she is the center of Karen Memory, a new steampunk novel from Elizabeth Bear.

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