Craig Laurance Gidney's Blog, page 67

The 2010 Carl Brandon Society Awards Announced

The Carl Brandon Society, an organization that seeks to increase ethnic and racial diversity in Speculative Fiction, announced the 2010 Awards.

Karen Lord won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award for an outstanding work of speculative fiction by a writer of color. Nnedi Okorafor won the Carl Brandon Kindred Award for an outstanding work of speculative fiction dealing with race and ethnicity.

I read both of them two years ago and loved them both, for very different reasons. Digging through my notes, I unearthed mini-reviews of both of them.

A charming retold Sengalese folktale, very lighthearted and magical.  A whiff of Tutu0la, a sprinkle of Okri, a dash of LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE, told in a witty, wise storytellers voice.  Tricksters and magic and morality tales abound in this colorful story.

I really wanted to enjoy this book–but I couldn’t. And perhaps that was the point. Okorafor uses the trappings of fantasy–a young sorceress, her training, a prophetic quest–to discuss dark subject matters, particularly, the matter of sub-Saharan Africa. So it’s an oddly compelling mash-up of Chinua Achebe and a J.K. Rowling coming of age novel. Issues, like weaponized rape, genocide, slavery, color-caste racism, genital mutilation, and sexism exist along side casual magic (shape-shifting, teleportation, and other dimensions). The characters do go through hell, but the author does manage to inject warmth and humor into the tale. While the first person narrative is engaging, the reader (or this reader) noticed that the text was in conversation with other texts, both literary and political. It made for a richer read, but I fear that other readers might miss the significance and be left in the dark. In short, this is not escapist fantasy literature, though the magic here will transport you to another world. Allegory enrobes this story.

Who Fears Death reminds of The Unconquered Country, by Geoff Ryman and Ben Okri’s tales of Azarro the Spirit Child. This is a brave book, full of some horrific images.

Congratulations to both authors!

Review: The Cipher by Kathe Koja

Nicholas, a video store clerk and would be poet, and his quasi-lover Nakota, waitress/artist find a mysterious hole in an abandoned storage room. The hole seems to be bottomless and made of pure darkness. The slacker couple begin to drop things down the hole, which spits them back up, beautifully and terrifyingly altered.  Nakota, a ruthless seeker of mystical experience, drops a video camera down the hole, and films what is in there. Nicholas is slightly less gung-ho about the obviously paranormal phenomenon, but ends up having a rather personal and symbiotic relationship with the void, which they dub The Funhole.

 

This novel is an exemplar of what I’d call Existential Horror fiction. While there are supernatural things that go in the novel, they highlight the anomie and isolation that goes on in Nicholas’ rapidly deteriorating mental state.  The horror also comes from the demimonde Koja evokes—that of bored artists trying to push the envelope, and the characters, particularly Nakota. The unclean, perverted energy of the Funhole—which at times is described as a mouth or an anus—and the graphic body horror is leavened by Nicholas’ mordant sense of humor. He narrates the tale in an associative stream-of-conscious style full of wry asides. Images of decay, and industrial rot and wounds flow through the hallucinatory prose. You can smell and taste the bizarre odors that issue from the Funhole. A friend of mine read the book 20 years ago, and said that it was one of the few books that made him feel ‘unclean’ after reading it.

Roadswell Press

Happy Book Birthday to “Green Thumb” by Tom Cardamone

I had the pleasure of reading this slim novella, and here’s what I had to say”

“Tom Cardamone’s GREENTHUMB is a beautifully written eco-erotic, post-apocalyptic fantasy infused with the New Weird invention of China Mieville’s febrile imagination.”

Go forth and read/buy this wonderfully weird book published by BrazenHead/Lethe Press!

 

Synopsis of BEREFT, my forthcoming novella

Rafael Fannen is a 13-year old boy who has won a minority scholarship to Our Lady of the Woods, an all male Catholic college preparatory school. He lives with his mother who is chronically ill with an undiagnosed illness and also suffers from mental illness, which no one will discuss. Winning the scholarship quickly turns into a nightmare, as Rafe has to deal with the racism of his fellow students and his teachers. Rafe has an ally in Tomas, another scholarship winner from his neighborhood, and they bond against the racism and classism of their fellow students. But that connection is soon sundered.

In addition to the culture shock, Rafe also has to deal with his burgeoning sexuality. Rafe is caught staring at Toby, an attractive and charismatic classmate, in the shower, Toby begins a relentless campaign of bullying against Rafe, including violent encounters. When someone tags the school campus with graffiti, Toby makes sure Rafe becomes the chief suspect. It becomes so bad that even Tomas distances himself from Rafe. The only person who seems sympathetic to him is the chaplain, Vicar Angus Connell. But it soon becomes apparent that the Vicar has designs on Rafe.

When Rafe decides to fight back and take control of his life, the lives of everyone around him will change. But none more than his own.

Bereft addresses the issues of bullying, sexuality, child abuse, mental illness and racism in a haunting and deeply compelling style.
 
It’s out in January 2013 and available for pre-order at various online venues!



 

The mock-up cover for BEREFT.

I’ve been given permission by my publisher Tiny Satchel Press to share the mock-up of the cover of my forthcoming YA novella. The design cover is by Christopher Bauer.

Review: THE CITY’S SON by Tom Pollock

The City’s Son, the debut novel by Tom Pollock, shares it’s lineage with works such as Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun. Like those books, it features a hidden, magical London. Pollock’s London, though, is a decidedly more sinister and while it is nominally a young adult novel (plucky young heroine and hero against the world), there is definite note of horror in book. Pollock’s monsters and heroes, for instance, are created out of the rubbish city. The titular character, Filius Viae, is a young man the color of pavement, who sweats petrol. His is the son of the goddess of the streets, and his nursemaid/mentor is a gendershifting creature made of garbage and vermin. He rules over (or befriends, at any rate) various creatures, such as living streetlamp spirits and statues. The main antagonist (or “Big Bad”) is the god of decay, called Reach, and his various minions. The protagonist, a young grafitti artist, Beth Bradley, falls into the middle of this war.  The plot, a fairly standard one, runs along at brisk clip, with many scenes of violence and action. It’s the details of the world building that the book shines. Images of rot and decay, its smells and textures, ooze through the novel and it’s language. Tar, condoms, skittering roaches, slither through the the transformed city; the idea that there’s magic in cast-off things is a good one. The taxonomy of the creatures is clever.  While Reach has a bit of a Sauron thing going, Mater Viae, the goddess of the streets, is only marginally better. Like the gods of Greek and Egyptian mythology, she can be capricious and cruel. Pollock’s take on magic is inventive and full of wonder, and it is disgusting at the same time—a rare feat, indeed. The novel is the first in a series called The Skyscraper Throne. Those that like their fantasy gritty and grimy will find much to enjoy.

Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru

I greatly enjoyed this mindfuck of a novel, full of magic, humor, and wonderful character sketches. Mystical and cynical, surrealistic, I’m not sure what it means, but I loved the journey. Fans of Steven Erickson should check this out.

GODS WITHOUT MEN reminds me of David Mitchell’s CLOUD ATLAS, but it is more structured than that loosely book. Hippie cults, the trickster God Coyote, yuppies, freak folk stars and Spanish missionaries all converge on a mysterious rock formation in the middle of the Mojave desert through different time frames and each experience some cataclysmic event.

New Release: The First Time I Heard…Cocteau Twins

Editor and author extraordinaire Scott Heim invited me to contribute an essay to the book THE FIRST TIME I HEARD…COCTEAU TWINS, which is a part of a series about music geekery, written both by writers and musicians.

I’m chuffed to appear in the book with David Narcizo (Throwing Muses); Ian Masters (Pale Saints); pianist and Cocteau Twins collaborator Harold Budd; band collaborator and live guitarist Lincoln Fong; Pete Fijalkowski (Adorable); Anka Wolbert (Clan of Xymox); Sean “Grasshopper” Mackowiak (Mercury Rev); Meredith Meyer; Mark Van Hoen (Locust, Seefeel); Paul Anderson (Tram); Paul Elam (Fieldhead); Rebecca Coseboom (Halou, Stripmall Architecture); Michael Cottone (The Green Kingdom); Sarah Jaffe; Antony Ryan (Isan); Dean Garcia (Curve); Kurt Feldman (The Pains of Being Pure at Heart); Erik Blood; Annie Barker; John Loring (Fleeting Joys); Guy Fixsen (Laika and co-engineer for My Bloody Valentine); Emily Elhaj (Implodes); Carlo Van Putten (The Convent, White Rose Transmission); Eric Quach (thisquietarmy); Ryan Policky (A Shoreline Dream); Matthew Kelly (The Autumns); Steve Elkins (The Autumns); Ryan Lum (Lovespirals); Michael Savage (The Fauns); Amman Abbasi (The Abbasi Brothers); Eric Loveland Heath; Ben Mullins (Midwest Product); Keith Canisius; Michael McCabe and David Read (Coldharbourstores); and writers like Emily Franklin,  Alistair McCartney; Tony Leuzzi; and Sommer Browning.

It’s an ebook, available both on Kindle and Nook, and soon to appear in iBooks….

Facebook Author Page

I have created a Facebook Author page. Feel free to “like” it.

Mentioned by Tanith Lee!

sffchronicles: Are there any new authors that you would like to recommend?

Tanith Lee: Ivan Bunin — though he’s hardly ‘new’ — but he was new to me until a couple of years back. His work concerns many places, including a vanished Pre-Revolution Russia, and varieties of people portrayed with a perfection of lightness and depth. A unique and beautiful Master. Out in the contemporary SF/Fantasy tumult, established but still among the younger team: Liz Williams, Storm Constantine, Ian Whates, Leigh Kennedy, Neal Asher, Craig L. Gidney, Sarah Singleton, Chaz Brenchley. Also Vera Nazarian — Lords of Rainbow in particular, a stunning idea, fabulously employed — a book to submerge in!

I can die now….or work more! The rest of the interview