Recent News: Awards
News / February 24, 2017

Welcome to our regular update on genre awards, where we keep you up to date with all the major awards. There’s been a flurry of shortlists in advance of the first awards of the year – we’ve got all the details on shortlists and upcoming deadlines for nominations or voting. Did we miss an award you think we should be keeping track of? Let us know and we’ll get right on it. RECENT AWARDS         LATEST SHORTLISTS         NOMINATIONS CLOSING          COMING SOON RECENT AWARDS IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award Charlie Jane Anders – All The Birds In The Sky (Tor) *WINNER Rose Lemberg – Marginalia to Stone Bird (Aqueduct) Maria Turtschaninoff – Maresi (Pushkin/Abrams) Michael Wehunt – Greener Pastures (Shock Totem)   RUSA Reading List Fantasy Daniel O’Malley – Stiletto: A Novel (Little, Brown) * WINNER Mishell Baker – Borderline (Saga Press) Guy Gavriel Kay – Children of Earth and Sky (New American Library) Mary Robinette Kowal – Ghost Talkers (Tor) Frederic S. Durbin – A Green and Ancient Light (Saga Press) Horror Thomas Olde Heuvelt – Hex (Tor) *WINNER Cherie Priest – The Family Plot (Tor) Joe Hill – The Fireman: A Novel (William Morrow) Grady Hendrix – My Best Friend’s Exorcism: A Novel (Quirk Books) Christopher Buehlman – Suicide Motor…

Review: Resistance by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky
Reviews / January 19, 2017

Anaiya is an elite Peacekeeper tasked to guard the Co-operative of Otpor from Unorthodoxy. Bred to be competitive, she strives to be the best – but when Resistance rises in the Precincts, the best way to bring it down is to join it. In a culture that defines its people by their dominant Element, can a passionless, disciplined Fire Elemental believably become a Bohemian Element of Air? Australian author Mikhaeyla Kopievsky’s debut novel is the first in a new series (Divided Elements) set in a post-apocalyptic Paris (Otpor) – a lonely city that survives in the blasted Wasteland. The Co-operative has developed a strict social framework to ensure its survival, which has helped it flourish in what appears to be an otherwise empty world. “Orthodoxy – the right belief and true knowledge that all humans, born or created, have an innate dominant Element that determines their attitudes, perspectives and abilities. An Element that, when properly aligned and strengthened through conditioning, produces maximum productivity and optimal functioning of the individual, the Element and the Cooperative.” Resistance is a deceptively simple story – it’s easy to dismiss as just another dystopian struggle, probably best aimed at younger readers with its present tense narration and focus on feelings. But there’s more here…

Recent News: Awards
News / December 22, 2016

Welcome to our regular update on genre awards, where we keep you up to date with all the major awards. Midwinter is a quiet time for ceremonies, but there’s plenty of other activity underway – we’ve got the details on the latest awards and upcoming deadlines. Did we miss an award you think we should be keeping track of? Let us know and we’ll get right on it. RECENT AWARDS          NOMINATIONS CLOSING          COMING SOON RECENT AWARDS Goodreads Choice Awards Winners FANTASY: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) | Runners up YOUNG ADULT SF/F: Sarah J Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury (Bloomsbury) | Runners up SCIENCE FICTION: Pierce Brown, Morning Star (Del Rey) | Runners up   NOMINATIONS CLOSING BSFA Awards Closing date (nominations): 31st December | Closing date (longlist voting): 31st January The BSFA awards are fan awards presented annually by the British Science Fiction Association. The awards seek to honour and promote the genre of science fiction. A second round of voting will follow in January, with the winners announced at Eastercon 2017 (14-17 April) in Birmingham, UK. Categories: Best Novel, Best Short fiction, Best Artwork, Best work of Non-Fiction Who can nominate? BSFA members How do I nominate? Online nomination form   COMING…

Review: Europe in Winter by Dave Hutchinson
Reviews / November 24, 2016

The fractures are becoming kaleidoscopic in the third instalment of the Fractured Europe sequence. University intelligence man Rupert is now settled in Europe and working as an agent for Rudi; former chef Rudi is trying to work out who is behind a string of terrorist attacks; and who knows what the Community – or the Coureurs – are really up to… Be warned, this is not a book you can make any sense of without having read the previous 2 instalments (Europe in Autumn and Europe at Midnight). If the first two novels in the Sequence were companion volumes exploring post-EU Europe and the mysterious Community, Europe in Winter embraces the brave new world of open borders. The action – and there’s a lot of it – is split between Rudi, still doggedly trying to work out what the hell is going on, and a string of new (largely one-shot) characters who introduce us to the various new developments first hand. We begin with a disaster: an attack on the Line that cuts the belligerently transcontinental railway somewhere just north of Kazakhstan. We see it first hand, but we get no clue to motive – or to who is behind it. Other operations follow thick…

Recent News: World Fantasy Awards
News / November 4, 2016

Welcome to the first in a new series on genre awards. Here we’ll be keeping you up to date with recent wins, shortlists and closing dates for nominations for all the major awards. We’re kicking off with the World Fantasy Awards, presented at the World Fantasy Convention 2016 in Columbus, Ohio on 27-30 October. Did we miss an award you think we should be keeping track of? Let us know and we’ll get right on it. WORLD FANTASY AWARDS          NOMINATIONS CLOSING   WORLD FANTASY AWARDS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT David G. Hartwell Andrzej Sapkowski NOVELS Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant (Knopf/Faber & Faber) N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (Orbit) Naomi Novik, Uprooted (Del Rey Books/Macmillan UK) K. J. Parker, Savages (Subterranean Press) Paul Tremblay, A Head Full of Ghosts (William Morrow & Co.) Anna Smaill, The Chimes (Sceptre)  *WINNER  LONG FICTION Usman T. Malik, “The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn” (Tor.com, Apr. 22, 2015) Kim Newman, “Guignol” (Horrorology, edited by Stephen Jones, Jo Fletcher Books) Kelly Robson, “Waters of Versailles” (Tor.com, June 10, 2015) Bud Webster, “Farewell Blues” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan./Feb. 2015)  Kelly Barnhill, The Unlicensed Magician (PS Publishing)  *WINNER  SHORT FICTION Selena Chambers, “The Neurastheniac” (Cassilda’s Song, ed….

Review: The Star of the Sea by Una McCormack
Reviews / October 26, 2016

Stella Maris is a remote planet where hostile races live in peace under the unlikely shelter of a Weird portal. When the corrupt Expansion comes to ‘investigate’, deserter Yale and former slave Ashot fear the worst – knowing that the Expansion sanctioned mass murder on Braun’s World. Will the Weird keep them safe? Star of the Sea is the fourth book in the Weird Space universe. It continues the story begun in The Baba Yaga, and it’s probably better to read that book first (although previous Weird Space books are optional for added galaxy-building). Me, I jumped straight into the universe with Star of the Sea because it sounded intriguing. Starting here is technically feasible. The opening chapters include enough recaps to make it clear what you’ve missed, and it’s achieved without feeling like a lot of awkward exposition. As the novel is told largely from the perspective of new characters (Yale and Eileen O’Connor), there’s no sense that you should already know what they’re about. Even where characters from The Baba Yaga take centre stage (Maria, sole adult survivor of The Baba Yaga), I didn’t get the impression they had previously had starring roles. In spite of this, my core criticism of the book is that it didn’t do the work to build its characters. This might have made forgivable if they’d been introduced in a previous volume, but as…