Reading some Ursula Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin has died, and I’m currently living in a different country to all my copies of her books. So I had recourse to my reading diaries to find out what I’d read of her work in the past ten years. Lavinia (2008) This is the only one of Le Guin’s historical fantasy … Continue reading Reading some Ursula Le Guin →

Newspapers, lies, magic and responsibility: Terry Pratchett and The Truth

This week's Newspaper Novel abandons the literary historical approach to journalism, and just wallows in satire. Terry Pratchett is one of the most popular and widely-bought British authors, but he is also hardly ever mentioned in the heavyweight literary weeklies because his writing is funny. He was a writer of fantasy fiction, predominantly in the Discworld series, … Continue reading Newspapers, lies, magic and responsibility: Terry Pratchett and The Truth →

Ian Sales, All That Outer Space Allows

I don’t know Ian Sales, but for about a year I’ve been sending him some of my posts about female-authored sf for him to repost in his sfmistressworks site. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he blurts out on Twitter that the fourth of his Apollo Quartet novels is in the 2015 Tiptree Award Honor … Continue reading Ian Sales, All That Outer Space Allows →

Letters to Tiptree: homage to a ground-breaking author

Update: On 25 September 2016 Letters to Tiptree won the British Fantasy Award for best non-fiction. Well deserved! If you’ve not heard of James Tiptree Jr, the acclaimed author of science fiction short stories and a handful of novels, he was active from 1967 to the late 1980s. He also wrote as Raccoona Sheldon, and … Continue reading Letters to Tiptree: homage to a ground-breaking author →

Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang

Three months ago I had never heard of Kate Wilhelm. Science Fiction and other Suspect Ruminations ran a week of Wilhelm guest reviews recently, which alerted me to her existence. I found Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang in Aberdeen's fine second-hand bookshop Books and Beans, a week after that, and carried it home in triumph. Where Late won … Continue reading Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang →

Now posting on Vulpes Libris: An interview with the Book View Café

We're still working through the Alternative Publishing Thrortnight on Vulpes Libris. Today's offering, from me, is an interview with the Book View Café, a cooperative of writers who do their own publishing, and are pretty effective at it too. LEARN how many jobs there are in getting a book out of an author's mind and into … Continue reading Now posting on Vulpes Libris: An interview with the Book View Café →

Sex, death and love (in that order) in James Tiptree Jr’s Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

The short stories of Her Smoke Rose Up Forever are grim and powerful reading, committing the reader to new worlds and leaving unsettling characters in the mind. They are about love, sex and death in the future, across species and time. In the original Introduction to the 1990 edition John Clute writes passionately about the … Continue reading Sex, death and love (in that order) in James Tiptree Jr’s Her Smoke Rose Up Forever →