Book Review: ESCAPE POD Edited by Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya
The eponymous Escape Pod represents a ‘best-of’ anthology of sorts, celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the audio short fiction podcast. Edited by Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya, the book features some of the biggest names in speculative fiction published through the podcast’s history. While I don’t have interest in listening to stories, I adore them in print form, and this collection from Titan Books offers a diverse selection of high-quality writing. With the current exclusive focus of Skiffy & Fanty on writers/works by the BIPOC community, I’ll highlight here that this collection features superb stories by Maurice Broaddus and N.K. Jemisin. In what follows, I’ll briefly review the stories in this collection.
2019 Awards Season Eligibility: Our Things, Guest Things, All the Things
It’s that time again! The time when so many of us tell you what we created that is eligible for an SF/F award in 2019. And as always, we’re going to tell you about all the eligible things that this podcast and/or its hosts created AND all the eligible things we covered, including movies, books, comics, and more! So hold on to your butts. This will be a monster post of delightfully awards-eligible beautificities! Here goes:
Signal Boost #49 – Steph Matuku (Flight of the Fantail) and Bethany C. Morrow (MEM)
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFSignalBoost49MatukuMorrow/Sandf–SignalBoost49–MatukuMorrow.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS In today’s episode of Signal Boost, Elizabeth talks to Steph Matuku, author of the debut novel, Flight of the Fantail, and the children’s book, Whetū Toa and the Magician. Both are out from HUIA Publishers in New Zealand. The two talk about how Steph treated the environment as a character, the influence her Maori culture has on her books, how she was sponsored (and published!) through the Te Papa Tupu writing program, the tough reality of writing, and more! Then Jen reminisces about UCSC (GO SLUGS!) with author Bethany C. Morrow for hours and hours. Kidding! The two explore Bethany’s historical fantasy science fiction novel, MEM, her YA debut novel, A Song Below Water, and her upcoming YA anthology, Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance. They discuss the effect that omitting whiteness has upon a story, the importance of resistance to her writing, the sinister reality of west coast liberal racism, and much more. We hope you enjoy the episode!
Reviews: Beautiful Sorrows by Mercedes M. Yardley & Everything That’s Underneath by Kristi DeMeester
Many of the reviewers associated with the Skiffy and Fanty team have a contribution specialty. I’ve always avoided this because I don’t like the limitations; I read/review outside of these genres even. But if I were to have a niche, it would probably be short fiction. I adore the variety it affords and the low commitment to discover new authors. It’s easier to convince myself to step away from work for a moment to read a short story, compared to equal time reading a portion of longer works that may not have obvious stopping points. Most importantly, some of the most exciting writing I’ve seen comes from the short form.
Book Review: Cracking the Sky by Brenda Cooper
Quantum searching across timelines with a high powered, sentient computer. A little girl who is being raised by robots, and may be one herself. Danger and adventure on a wondrous construct connecting an icy world and its cold neighbor. Small squad operations against rogue corporations. Long-distance virtual reality riding of a young woman living in Mexico. All this and more are found in Cracking the Sky. Cracking the Sky, from Fairwood Press, represents the first science fiction-only collection of stories from science fiction, fantasy and futurist author Brenda Cooper. The stories range throughout her oevure, selected from the last twelve years of her writing career. While Cooper is better known for her novels (see my review of Edge of Dark, for example), Cooper’s pen does take her into shorter forms. Indeed, some of the stories in this collection are short enough to be almost flash-fiction in length.
MINING THE GENRE ASTEROID: Way Station by Clifford Simak
Mining the Genre Asteroid: Way Station and the works of Clifford Simak Enoch Wallace has a secret. Okay, he actually has two. Almost a century after the Civil War, this veteran of that divisive conflict has been quietly living in the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin. He has some strange neighbors (including a family whose deaf-mute daughter has some rather strange abilities) and only uses his gun in a virtual reality simulator. His second secret, though is even bigger than the first. Enoch Wallace hides an interstellar transfer point for aliens to travel through the galaxy. It is his charge to keep this important facility safe, and secret. But now the U.S. government is very interested in Enoch, enough to go snooping around. Furthermore, the Galactic Council that set up the transfer point is fracturing and falling apart. Oh, and Enoch’s use of alien mathematics is leading him to conclude that nuclear war is coming, soon. All this means an uncertain future for both Enoch and his Way Station.
