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Book Review: CATCHING TELLER CROW by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina

The Aurealis Awards are Australia’s premier juried award for speculative fiction and were presented today in Melbourne. I had the privilege and delight of being part of the jury for the Best Young Adult Novel category. That particular award went to Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. I wanted to share a bit about this fantastic book, but please note the opinions here are my own and do not reflect the rest of the jury or the Aurealis Awards at large. Catching Teller Crow follows Beth Teller, who died in a tragic accident several months ago. Since then, she has been helping her father, a police investigator who is struggling to cope with his grief. His boss has sent him to a rural Australian town to oversee a case in which a children’s home burned down, claiming one adult victim. It should be a straight-forward job, something easy to facilitate a return to work for Michael Teller after his bereavement. But of course it’s not, as the Tellers discover when they begin interviewing Isobel Catching, a teenage witness.

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Mining the Genre Asteroid: Rocannon’s World

When I say the words “Ursula K Le Guin and her work,” your first thought is probably either Earthsea or The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed. Or maybe you think of “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”. LeGuin’s oeuvre, however, is far more than those works. Even within the Hainish verse, there is a host of other in-universe work that Le Guin has written — work that doesn’t get as much attention or play today as The Left Hand of Darkness, the Hainish Cycle’s shining star. The point of this ongoing column is to tell you why works such as this are worth your reading time and attention. Today. In our contemporary moment. And so, in today’s Mining the Genre Asteroid, I’d like to discuss Le Guin’s first published novel, Rocannon’s World.

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#Booktube – Catching up!

Hey everyone! So, because we’re terrible at cross-promoting things, we keep forgetting to post our #Booktube episodes here on the blog. As such, here is every episode that we haven’t shared with you. Future episodes will hopefully be posted in a more timely fashion, although we can’t actually guarantee that. Another way to make sure you don’t miss these is to sign up for our newsletter OR just go subscribe to our channel on YouTube! We’re really hoping to get to 100 subs so that we can get a unique url! These are in the order we posted them, not by show (because they do occasionally reference one another!)

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Book Review: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD GNOMES by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne

Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne return readers to the pleasant and exciting land of Pell, where danger once again threatens the kingdom and a motley crew embarks on an adventure to set things right. No Country for Old Gnomes is a rough-and-tumble romp across Pell and through various obstacles, including a ghost-hostel, a swamp, and a cabbage field. Dawson and Hearne are ready to once again delight readers with the second book from their The Tales of Pell series, picking up just months after the events of Don’t Kill the Farm Boy and introducing a whole new set of adventurers. Following the crowning of King Gustave at the end of Don’t Kill the Farm Boy, the lands of Pell have settled into an uneasy peace and the previous adventuring group have all settled down. But now the gnomelands are under attack by dastardly halflings and an unsavory criminal organization. After one particularly close-to-home halfling bomb (it took the kitchen first, the poor room), one gnome known as Offi Numminen finds himself in a difficult position. Forced away from the only home he’s ever known, this rather out-of-place gnome finds himself the leader of a ragtag band of adventurers as they journey to face their villain and stop a war before the gnomes are driven out altogether.

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Speculative Fiction in Translation #13: Spanish Sherlock Holmes

https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SFiTEpisode13SpanishSherlockHolmes/SFiT–Episode_13–Spanish_Sherlock_Holmes.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSMarch brings us Indonesian sci-fi about intergalactic love, Portuguese fantasy about a family’s terrible secrets, Italian sci-fi about what it means to be human, a story from the “Lost Files” of Sherlock Holmes, and much more. We also discuss the books we’re looking forward to later in 2019 and what we’d like to see in English in the future. Remember: with new stories and books coming to their attention each week, make sure to check the SFT website for updates. Enjoy, and keep reading! A bientôt!

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Cover Reveal: GABRIEL’S ROAD by Laura Anne Gilman

Today at Skiffy and Fanty, we reveal the cover of the latest Devil’s West verse novel from Laura Anne Gilman, Gabriel’s Road. The Devil’s West series is an alternate magical history series involving an early 19th century American West where a being who everyone calls the Devil holds a large chunk of what we think of as the Louisiana Purchase. Neither Spain nor the burgeoning United States particularly appreciate his presence, and there are magical dangers within the Territory itself. That’s where the Left Hand of the Devil comes in. While the Devil generally remains in the town of Flood, he sends his Left Hand out on the Road to see to problems and to justice. Isobel, new to the role, is his latest Hand. Through The Cold Eye (an Endeavour Award winner and a Washington State Book Award finalist), Silver On the Road, and Red Waters Rising, Isobel is mentored by Gabriel Kasun, a man from the East whose destiny is entwined with Isobel’s and the Territory itself.

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