Book Review: Heirs of Grace by Tim Pratt
Rebekah Lull, a Chicago art student, has gotten an offer she can’t refuse. Not without traveling to North Carolina and seeing what its all about anyway. A foundling at birth, Rebekah discovers she’s been named the heir to the estate of Archibald Grace, her biological father. This estate comprises a rambling mansion in the hills of Appalachia and some money that could make life easy for a couple of years. The money’s the easy part. The cute local lawyer? Rebekah’s got him figured. The House, even if it seems to be full of secrets, locked doors and bona fide magical objects, is a little harder to manage, but Rebekah’s game. The relatives, the other would-be Heirs of Grace? Now they are going to be the tricky part.
197. Mannequin (1987): A Torture Cinema “Adventure”
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode197TortureCinemaMeetsMannequin/SandF%20–%20Episode%20197%20–%20Torture%20Cinema%20Meets%20Mannequin.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSArtistic tomfoolery, Mannequin breasts, and 80s glory, oh my! Shaun, Julia, and Jen join forces to tackle a listener-selected movie from hell: Mannequin. You asked for it, and we delivered! We hope you enjoy the episode! (Please support our efforts to bring the Skiffy and Fanty Show and the World SF Tour to Worldcon! Every little bit helps.) Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 197 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Mannequin (IMDB) You can also support this podcast by signing up for a one month free trial at Audible. Doing so helps us, gives you a change to try out Audible’s service, and brings joy to everyone. Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
On Recent South(east) Asian SF/F by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (Guest Post)
When I first started publishing in 2012, I felt I’d come into an already established community, one thriving with international writers. It’s an environment that I’ve always found welcoming, and doubly so once I started discovering and meeting (online) other writers from my region, wherever in the world they are based. So I’d like to give an overview of what I’ve been seeing in this regard — any excuse would do to talk about these wonderful writers! — and talk a little about my publishing experiences these last couple years, though only a little; it’s not too charming to harp on about myself! I’m covering Southeast Asian and South Asian writers, though (as everyone who follows the state of short genre fiction would be) I closely follow mainland Chinese ones as well, most of whom we’re now seeing in Lightspeed and Clarkesworld through the diligent translations by Ken Liu. Some of the most recent are the lyrical Invisible Planets by Hao Jingfang and the fairy tale-like Grave of the Fireflies by Cheng Jingbo.
My Superpower: Kip Manley
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 Kip Manley to talk about how knowing he doesn’t know a damn thing relates to City of Roses. ———————————————– There’s this proverb, and you have to imagine I’m opening a drawer as I say this, in the cheap pressboard desk between us, and I’m pulling out a bottle with a little green label, and a plain white paper cup, and where are my manners? Would you like some, too? Rye whiskey, but you know what they say: makes the band sound better. I don’t know how it got such a reputation as rot-gut. Is it really such an acquired taste? Maybe it’s just that it’s hard to make well, and bad rye’s just that much worse than bad scotch, or bad bourbon. Anyway. Ice is in the bucket there, if you like, and would you look at that: there’s a second paper cup, just for you.
196. Fran Wilde (a.k.a. Chadwick’s Prodigy) — An Interview at ICFA
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode196InterviewWFranWildeAtICFA/SandF%20–%20Episode%20196%20–%20Interview%20w%20Fran%20Wilde%20at%20ICFA.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSTowering cities, the history of death, and waste, oh my! Fran Wilde, author of the upcoming Bone Arrow from Tor (coming in 2015, which is far too long to wait), joins us to talk about such mundane things as waste management in cities built to the heavens, proper disposal of the dead, plagues, and writing words on websites. Needless to say, we had a blast! We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 196 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Fran’s Website Fran’s Twitter Cooking the Books Fran also has a story in the April/May 2014 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, which should still be available in print at your local newsstand or via various online retailers. The story is entitled “Like a Wasp to the Tongue.” Check it out! You can also support this podcast by signing up for a one month free trial at Audible. Doing so helps us, gives you a change to try out Audible’s service, and brings joy to everyone. Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
A Note on Hugo Awards and The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj
Today is the deadline for Hugo Award nominations. If you haven’t voted yet, get your ballot filled out right now! We are, of course, eligible in the Best Fancast and Best Fanzine categories, along with a lot of other wonderful folks. So…vote! In the interest of ballot-related things, I’d like to draw your attention to Mary Anne Mohanraj’s The Stars Change, which we talked about briefly in an upcoming episode recorded at ICFA this year (along w/ Cecilia Tan). I knew I wouldn’t be able to get the episode up in time for folks to listen to it pre-ballot-deadline, so I promised to write a little post about the book. In short, it’s an intriguing work, and our discussion covered such interesting topics as sexuality, Sri Lankan politics, and more. If anything, this post should serve as a reminder that it is, in fact, eligible this year. Here are some details about the book, which is published by Circlet Press:
