Book Review: New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color ed. by Nisi Shawl
Anthologies are my favorite way of discovering new writers, and they’re my favorite kind of books to review for Skiffy and Fanty, but some are harder to review than others. I’m a white woman living in a red state in Trump’s America, so my opinion on these works is probably the last anybody would want, but at least I’m in a position to beat the drums and pass the good stuff on to you readers, and I’ll tell you what: there’s good stuff aplenty in these pages.
Short Fiction Review: Black Speculative Fiction Month!
Since it’s Black Speculative Fiction Month, it seems only appropriate that this month I spotlight some awesome new work by Black writers. First up, we have “Every Good-Bye Ain’t Gone” by Eden Royce, which appears in Strange Horizons‘ recent Southeastern USA special issue. It’s a séance story about family and food with a couple delightful twists. I also enjoyed “The Unusual Customer” by Innocent Chizaram Ilo, which appears in Fireside Magazine Issue 58 (August). It’s another story about family and food, except this one has more to do with women fighting off magical bad guys rather than summoning spirits. For a powerful, genuinely disturbing story about toxic masculinity informing a patriarchy, check out “Maria’s Children” by Tobi Ogundiran, which appears in The Dark Issue 40 (September). Lastly, I recommend “Running” by Itoro Udofia, which came out in August from The Book Smugglers. It’s an insightful, immersive meditation on the experience of being first-generation Nigerian-American.
331. Tobias Buckell (a.k.a. Captain Planet) — At NASFiC (An Interview)
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode331InterviewWithTobiasBuckell/Sandf–Episode331–InterviewWithTobiasBuckell.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSBoats, Bungie Headquarters, and organizing, oh my! Shaun was honored to be able to interview Guest of Honor Tobias Buckell at NASFiC in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last month. It was a great conversation about Tobias’ history and identity as a Caribbean writer, what it’s like to write tie-in novels for Halo (which he’s a total geek for), and The Tangled Lands, his new book co-written with Paolo Bacigalupi. There are audience questions at the end to delve into even more fun tidbits! This was a live recording, so please forgive the audio quality. 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):
My Superpower: Alisa Krasnostein
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 Alisa Krasnostein to talk about how Talking People Into Things relates to Kaleidoscope… I’m not sure I should actually tell you this but my superpower is talking people into getting involved in projects. I guess creative energy at the inception of a project is contagious. It’s definitely one of the best bits about publishing — the rush of coming up with a new project that you think can work, that you want to spend a year or two developing into something great and bouncing ideas off co-collaborators. That’s how we’re here— Julia and I—working on Kaleidoscope, an anthology of diverse contemporary YA fantasy. You see, I heard Julia Rios on a podcast recording of a panel at WisCon talking about YA dystopian fiction and how so much of it featured white, able bodied characters. And thinking about all the books I’d recently been reading, I realised how true that was and how little that made sense, really, that in post-apocalyptic worlds, only the white, able-bodied amongst us would survive some major world catastrophe. And I realised that I wanted to publish some fiction that was the opposite of that, to at least start to right that balance and provide some choice of something else for young adults to read. So I took this idea to Julia because I really wanted to work with her to make this project happen, since she’d prompted the idea, and, ok, I admit it. I used my superpower on her. And she said yes! And so here we are – this month we launched a crowdfunding campaign through the Australian platform Pozible to raise the funds to bring this anthology project to reality. The main characters in Kaleidoscope stories will be part of the QUILTBAG, neuro-diverse, disabled, from non-Western cultures, people of color, or in some other way not the typical straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied characters we see all over the place. Our focus is contemporary fantasy with protagonists from all sorts of backgrounds being the heroes of their own journeys. We’ve already acquired some fantastic stories from Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Vylar Kaftan, and Jim Hines and we’ll be opening the anthology to submissions when we raise $7k towards our fundraising goal. I can’t wait to bring this project to fruition. And um, use my superpower for good. To learn more about the project, check out the Kaleidoscope Pozible page! __________________ Alisa Krasnostein is editor and publisher at independent Twelfth Planet Press, a freshly minted creative publishing PhD student and recently retired environmental engineer. She is also part of the twice Hugo nominated Galactic Suburbia Podcast team. In 2011, she won the World Fantasy Award for her work at Twelfth Planet Press. She was the Executive Editor and founder of the review website Aussie Specfic in Focus! from 2004 to 2012. In her spare time she is a critic, reader, reviewer, podcaster, runner, environmentalist, knitter, quilter and puppy lover.
155. Justin Landon & Jared Shurin (a.k.a. the Criticabal) — Speculative Fiction ’12 and SF Criticism (A Discussion)
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode155JustinLandonAndJaredShurin/SandF%20–%20Episode%20155%20–%20Justin%20Landon%20and%20Jared%20Shurin.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSSF criticism, fan culture, and books, oh my! This week, editors Justin Landon and Jared Shurin join me to talk about their new book, Speculative Fiction 2012: The Best Online Reviews, Essays, and Commentary, fan culture, some favorite books (*coughSLGREYcough*), blogging, and much more. 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 155 — Download (MP3) Intro and Discussion (0:00 – 53:40) Jurassic London (Publisher) Speculative Fiction 2012 (The Collection) The Lowest Heaven (Another Amazing Collection) Justin’s Website Justin’s Twitter Jared’s Website Jared’s Twitter Book Smuggler’s post about Ben Aaronovitch’s work (listen to the episode for context) Check out their books! They’re awesome! 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.
Episode 48 — Science Fiction: Entertainment or Pretentious Art?
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/www.archive.org/download/TheSkiffyAndFantyShow3.6–ScienceFictionEntertainmentOrPretentious/Sandf–Episode3.6–ScienceFiction–EntertainmentOrPretentiousArt.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSAdam returns for an off-the-cuff discussion of the purpose of science fiction (based on an SF Signal post by Jaimie Todd Rubin). Is reading science fiction about its entertainment value? Do non-genre writers or readers torment themselves with their reading/writing, unlike science fiction readers and writers? We also tackle the infamous term “speculative fiction.” Tune in to hear our take on the topic and feel free to leave a comment on this page or send us an email to let us know what you think! 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 48 — Download (MP3) Intro and Discussion (0:00 – 28:53) The Wayward Time-Traveler: Living and Loving Life in the Gutter of Science Fiction (SF Signal) Oh, and don’t forget to vote on our next Torture Cinema flick! The vote is almost done, and we need to know what you want to torture us with next! 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.
