Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 96
August 20, 2016
The 2016 Hugo Awards or Fandom 2 : Puppies 0
I did the Retro Hugos (and the Dragon Award nominees) yesterday, so here’s the main event, the 2016 Hugo Awards. My comments on the shortlist BTW are here.
The full list of winners is here, a detailed breakdown of the results and nominations is here and once again, it looks very good. We have a very diverse list of winners. More importantly, the winner list is entirely puppy-free, unless you count some puppy hostages.
As I said in my post about the 2015 Hugos, in spite of the third year of puppy interference, the Hugos are still proving that SFF is becoming more international and more diverse as well as less monolithically white, straight and male. Puppies can whine and moan, but they cannot change that.
Oh yes, and love is real.
So let’s take a look at the 2016 winners:
Last year’s big winner, Noah Ward, couldn’t quite repeat his 2015 triumph, but still got to take home two Hugos, in the best related work and best fancast categories. Best related work going to “No Award” was no big surprise, since the puppies had shat all over that category. Best fancast going to “No Award” was more of a surprise, since IMO there were a few reasonable nominees in that category. However, I guess a lot of people reacted to the gaming podcasts – and for that matter, to the gaming fan writers – like I did. I’m not a gamer, so I have no way of judging the work of these gaming commenters, so I ranked them under “No Award”.
We have two other double winners at the 2016 Hugos. The first is Mike Glyer who won both best fan writer and best fanzine for File 770. It’s a well deserved win, too, for his tireless coverage of last year’s puppy uproar and of SFF news in general.
The other double winner is The Martian, since Andy Weir won the Campbell Award for best new writer and the movie adaptation won best dramatic presentation long form. Now I’m famously not a fan of The Martian. But obviously a lot of Hugo voters disagree. And besides, two real life astronauts accepted the Campbell and the Hugo on behalf of Andy Weir and the film crew of The Martian, which was pretty damn cool. One of the astronauts even wore the Campbell tiara.
The other dramatic presentation Hugo goes to the Jessica Jones episode “AKA Smile” and a highly deserved win it was, too. I’m a bit surprised that both Supernatural and My Little Pony finished under “No Award”, since both have big fanbases, though those fanbases don’t necessarily overlap with the Hugo votership. Plus, neither of them is bad – in fact, Grimm was the only thing in this category I no awarded, since I can’t stand Grimm.
The two art categories go to Steven Stiles, a first time winner but multiple nominee going back to 1967, and to Abigail Larson respectively. Two very good choices, though I was surprised to see that all other nominees in the art categories finished under “No Award”, likely due to being puppy anointed. A pity IMO, since some of the art was really good and one of fan artist nominee Christian Quinot’s pieces even inspired one of the stories I wrote for the July short story challenge.
The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman and J.H. Williams III unsurprisingly won in the best graphic story category. Neither Gaiman nor Williams were there to accept, but Neil Gaiman sent along a speech blasting the puppies. It wasn’t the only jab against the puppies either. All other nominees in the best graphic story category finished under “No Award”, probably due to being anointed by the puppies, since Invisible Republic and The Divine were both rather good and Erin Dies Alone was decent as well.
The two editor categories go to Ellen Datlow and Sheila Gilbert respectively and once again, the wins are well deserved. Puppy darling Toni Weisskopf once again finishes under “No Award”, as do Jerry Pournelle and Vox Day or as toastmaster Pat Cadigan called him once during the ceremony “Voice of Satan”.
Uncanny Magazine wins the best semi-prozine Hugo and once more, it’s a highly deserving winner. Co-editor Michi Trota also delivered a heartfelt speech in favour of diversity and inclusivity in the SFF genre. Coincidentally, Uncanny‘s Hugo win and the fact that many of its stories were nominated for various genre awards and that even more would have been nominated, if not for puppy interference, also makes this essay (nominated for the BSFA Award last year) comparing the then newly launched Uncanny and Terraform look really silly in hindsight.
Let’s go on to the fiction categories, which have another set of excellent winners. Naomi Kritzer wins the best short story Hugo for “Cat Pictures, Please”, which was not just a lovely story, but also one of my personal nominees. The estimable Dr. Chuck Tingle makes a strong showing and finishes in third place after “No Award”, proving once again that love is real. Though I’m a bit sad that we didn’t get to see Zoe Quinn accepting the award on behalf of Dr. Tingle in a rainbow unicorn dress.
The best novelette Hugo goes to Hao Jingfang and translator Ken Liu for “Folding Beijing”, making this the second Hugo win in a row for a Chinese author (and also the second in a row for Ken Liu as translator). Now my personal favourite in this category and maybe my favourite of all the short fiction nominees was Brooke Bolander’s novelette “And You Shall Know Her By The Trail Of Dead”. Nonetheless, I’m very happy for Hao JingFang and Ken Liu and also pleased to see yet another work in translation win a Hugo. Hao JingFang also gave a lovely acceptance speech and seemed so happy just to be there, though she was sad she didn’t get to go to George R.R. Martin’s Hugo losers party. I hope they let her in anyway.
By the way, I feel sorry for David VanDyke, who doesn’t deserve finishing under “No Award”, even if his story appeared in the Castalia House published anthology There Will Be War Vol. X. Though at least he didn’t finish last. I also feel sorry for Campbell nominees Sebastien de Castell and Pierce Brown, both of whom had the misfortune that Vox Day happened to like their work and wound up under “No Award”. Now I didn’t like Pierce Brown’s trilogy, but I don’t think it deserves to be No Awarded. Sebastien de Castell’s series, on the other hand, I actually quite liked and placed him second on my Campbell ballot, after Alyssa Wong.
Best novella goes to Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, which also won the Nebula Award in the same category. It’s another well deserved win and one that should please the puppies, since Binti is the closest thing to a Heinlein juvenile to win a Hugo in a long time. Only that the smart young person who goes off to space academy and averts an intergalactic crisis on the way is not a white boy from Kansas, but a Himba girl from Namibia.
Okay, so the puppies most likely won’t be happy, even though Binti is the most Heinlein-esque Hugo winner in ages. Which should tell you a lot about them.
Finally, the 2016 Hugo Award for best novel goes to – cue puppy heads exploding – N.K. Jemisin for The Fifth Season. Now The Fifth Season wasn’t my first or even my second choice in this category – it’s a great work, but a bit too bleak for my taste. However, it’s a highly deserving winner. N.K. Jemisin’s acceptance speech, read out by Alyssa Wong, who was my top pick for the Campbell Award, was also excellent and called out the puppies.
To sum it up, in spite of canine interference, women won or co-won Hugos in nine of seventeen categories. All four fiction categories were won by women, three of them women of colour (plus a man of colour winning as translator). So inspite of the rabid puppies doing their worst, we still have one of the most diverse list of winners ever. And even though a couple of IMO puppy hostages finished under “No Award”, we also puppy hostages winning. Actual puppies, however, lost and lost badly.
Will this stop the puppies? The Sad Puppies already toned down their tactics this year and weren’t much of a factor, so I think we can ignore them, unless Larry Correia decides that he really wants a Hugo after all. As for Vox Day, I’m not sure if he will ever lose interest, but there are signs that his followers will, because paying 50 USD year after year to stick it to the SJWs, only to end under “No Award”, isn’t a whole lot of fun. And indeed, Chaos Horizon detected a drop-off in rabid puppy participation between the nomination and voting stage, since anybody who wanted to vote had to register for MidAmeriCon II. So, as Camestros Felapton analyses here, the rabid puppies lost pretty badly.
Will these whole shenangigans continue next year? I certainly hope not and I also hope that the newly announced Dragon Awards which seem to cater more to puppy tastes will deflect their attention away from the Hugos. Of course, Vox Day still doesn’t seem to have gotten the message that no one wants him or his choices at the Hugos. We’ll just have to hope he finds a different hobby.
There will be more Hugo reactions from other places to come in the next few days, but for now, let’s have
some squeeing from Amal El-Mohtar.
Andrew Liptak also reports on the winners at The Verge, while David Barnett at the Guardian declares that the Hugo voters saw off rightwingers and celebrate diverse authors.
And though I already linked to it, here is Damien Walter’s epic takedown of the puppies and their fiction again.
Comments are closed. Puppies, whine elsewhere.
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Of Retro Hugos and Dragons
MidAmeriCon II, the 2016 WorldCon in Kansas City, is this weekend, which means that the Hugo winners will be announced. There has also been the first scandal involving a moderator misusing a panel as his personal pulpit and promptly getting kicked out. Jim C. Hines had more.
The winners of the 2016 Hugos will be announced on Saturday night, so expect a post on Sunday or Monday. My post discussing the Hugo and Retro Hugo nominees is here BTW.
However, the winners of the 1941 Retro Hugos have already been announced and it’s a pretty good selection.
Slan by A.E. van Vogt wins in the best novel category. Slan wasn’t my top choice and IMO it hasn’t held up well, but it was enormously influential for the genre and is an acknowledged classic. It was also pretty obviously one of the two likeliest winners in this category along with Grey Lensman and is also probably what a hypothetical 1941 audience would have picked. Plus, apparently van Vogt’s granddaughter accepted the award on his behalf and was clearly happy about the recognition for her grandfather’s work.
Robert A. Heinlein takes both best novella and best novelette with “If This Goes On…” and “The Roads Must Roll” respectively. So much for the canine claims that Heinlein couldn’t win a Hugo in 2016, since he obviously still can, even with stories that are 75 years old. Both wins are well deserved, too, though IMO “If This Goes On…” was the weakest of the three Heinlein stories nominated in the novella category. I vastly preferred the proto urban fantasy novella “Magic Inc.” and even “Coventry” was stronger IMO. However, “If This Goes On…” is a acknowledged classic. Ditto for “The Roads Must Roll”, which is also a pretty good Heinlein story.
“Robbie”, Isaac Asimov’s first robot story, won in the short story category, beating out two Leigh Brackett stories, José Luis Borges and yet another Heinlein story. I’m very happy about this, though I would have been happy with anybody but Heinlein winning (cause “Requiem” was just a weak story, sorry) in this category. And though Borges’ “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” is probably the best story from a literary POV, I still ranked Brackett and Asimov above Borges, because much as I appreciate Borges’ literary skill, both Leigh Brackett’s and Isaac Asimov’s work mean more to me personally. As for “Robbie”, when I reread the story, I found that I still remembered many details twenty-five years after I first read it. So yeah, a most deserving win IMO.
BTW, for some background on the scene in “Robbie” with the talking robot and a teenaged Susan Calvin, which was a later addition, check out this video of Electro, Westinghouse’s talking and smoking robot, doing tricks for the audience at the 1939 New York City World Fair. If you’ve read the expanded version of “Robbie” (and I think that’s the one most people have read, since it’s in all the collections), the presentation of Electro will seem eerily familiar, since it’s an almost exact copy of the presentation of the talking robot in “Robbie”. I can clearly imagine a teenaged Isaac Asimov going the see Electro, coming away bitterly disappointed at the obviously scripted interaction with the presenter and then exerting a bit of literary revenge on Electro several years later.
On to the remaining Retro Hugo categories: Walt Disney takes both dramatic presentation categories with Fantasia and Pinocchio respectively, which is not really a surprise, though The Thief of Bagdad was also a very strong contender in the long category and Pinocchio only wound up in the short category due to being just under ninety minutes long.
The first issue (though not actually the first appearance) of Batman wins in the graphic story category. This is clearly a choice influenced by hindsight, since early Batman like most other early superhero comics wasn’t all that good. The shortlist included three other origin stories/first appearances of the Spirit, the Spectre and Captain Marvel respectively as well as Flash Gordon’s visit to the Ice Kingdom of Mongo. I voted for Flash Gordon, because here we have Alex Raymond at the top of his ability. But Batman is still one of the most famous comic characters, whereas Flash Gordon is a lot more obscure. Ditto for the Spirit, the Spectre and Captain Marvel a.k.a. Shazam, not Carol Danvers.
Virgil Finlay wins in the pro artist category. I was hoping for Margaret Brundage, especially since her work vanished from the pulps by the early 40s, so this was probably the last chance for her to win a Hugo. But Virgil Finlay is certainly a very good choice as well.
The fan writer and fanzine categories both go to Ray Bradbury. Again, I suspect that this is a hindsight win, though I’m not sure what an actual 1941 audience would have picked.
Finally, the best editor Hugo unsurprisingly goes to John W. Campbell. Now I’m not Campbell’s biggest fan and believe that he did as much harm as good for the genre, especially in his latter years. However, when I compiled my retro Hugo nominations I realised that the vast majority of the stories I nominated were from either Astounding or Unknown, both of which Campbell edited. Ditto for the actual shortlist, lots of stories from Astounding and Unknown. So whatever one thinks of Campbell, he clearly picked many of the best stories of 1940 for his mags, which makes him a very deserving winner indeed.
That’s it for the Retro Hugos, so let’s move on to more current awards. Back in April, Dragon Con, a big convention in Atlanta popular with cosplayers and held by puppies of all stripes as the udeal of what an SFF con should be (unless they are up in arms that one of the founders turned out to be a suspected pedophile, in which case it becomes a symbol for all that’s rotten in SFF) announced that it would give out its own set of awards, the Dragon Awards. The various puppies and friends were immediately all over this, proclaiming the Dragon Awards as awards for real fans of real SFF (rather than wrongfans having wrongfun) and predicted that they will eclipse the Hugos within a few years.
Outside the puppy sphere, the reaction to the Dragon Awards announcement was mostly something along the line of “Good for them” or “Nice. The more the merrier”. There was also some criticism of unclear eligibility periods, unclear category definitions and the lack of short fiction categories as well as worries that the fact that you only need an e-mail address to sign up could lead to the nominations getting swamped by avid fans and enterprising authors.
Since the initial announcement, the Dragon Awards seem to have been positioned as the puppy awards (by both puppies and non-puppies), though we don’t know who is actually organising them except for a vague affiliation with Dragon Con. Though the heavy focus on gaming (there are four different game categories) and the categories, oddly specific in some cases and oddly vague in others, seem to reflect subgenres puppy tastes.
Dividing up “best novel” into best science fiction, best fantasy and best horror novel makes sense and indeed the Locus Awards already have both a fantasy and an SF category. Having a YA category also makes sense and once again e.g. the Nebulas and the Locus Awards already have this.
On the other hand, the subgenre categories are odd choices. For example, the first thing I’d do if further dividing SF, fantasy and horror into subgenres would be to split fantasy into epic and urban. The Dragon Awards, however, have only one big fantasy category for epic and urban fantasy, including paranormal romance. On the other hand, they do have separate categories for military science fiction and fantasy, alternate history and post-apocalyptic fiction.
If you were about to divide up science fiction into subgenres, military SF and post-apocalyptic SF would come to mind, but so would space opera, hard SF, dystopian fiction, near future SF, etc… Alternate history, meanwhile, is a tiny subgenre that mostly consists of two authors regularly offering up new installments in endless series.
So in short, the Dragon Awards subgenre classifications are not the most logical. However, they just happen to map onto subgenres that are popular with puppies and rightwingers in general, since they just love military SFF and certain kinds of post-apocalyptic fiction, namely the sort where all the people they dislike die, while they alone survive because they have the bigger guns and the larger stores of ammunition and dried beans. As for alternate history, I guess it’s an attempt to hand an award to Eric Flint and/or Harry Turtledove, since Hugo and Nebula voters haven’t yet given an award to Flint and haven’t given one to Harry Turtledove recently.
The nominees for the 2016 Dragon Awards were announced with considerable delay on August 12. The list is here and as you can see it’s a mix of popular authors with big fanbases, indie authors with loyal fanbases, authors puppies happen to like, who are not necessarily puppies themselves, and outright puppies with some overlap between the different categories.
Beth Elderkin at io9 calls the Dragon Award nominations “mostly puppy-free”, but I think she is too optimistic there, because in addition to a handful of outright puppies, the shortlist is also full of the sort of authors and books that puppies happen to like. And while founding puppy Larry Correia has a big fanbase and it’s not unreasonable to assume he might get nominated for an award that deliberately positions itself as populist (plus, Correia campaigned for a Dragon nomination, but then that’s nothing new for him), some other puppies on the Dragon shortlist don’t have a big fanbase outside their movement. John C. Wright, nominated in the science fiction category, is an acquired taste to put it mildly and some of the indie authors who have deliberately attached themselves to the puppy movement in what I’d consider a rather stupid career move, are downright obscure. There are big names in indie SFF, but those are mostly not the names on the Dragon shortlist. Plus, a couple of the “Who the hell is this?” nominees turned out to be puppies as well upon closer investigation.
Now I don’t mind the existence of an award for action-oriented populist SFF or even one for books puppies like. Better they have their own award than that they try to mess up somebody else’s. And if the Dragon Awards help people who like Nutty Nuggets find what they want to read, then more power to them. There’s plenty of SFF awards for specific niches or subgenres, after all, usually started by fans and writers who felt ignored by the existing genre awards, and that’s a good thing. Who knows, maybe the Dragon Award shortlists might even someday become a good guide to popular action-oriented SFF, once they get their teething problems sorted out.
However, the problem with the puppies of both stripes is that rather than just celebrate the works they enjoy, they can’t help being jerks, as this gloating Dragon Award reaction and response to the io9 article from Larry Correia (who also links to another by Brian Niemeier) shows. There’s plenty more like that, if you feel like wading into a morass of the puppy blog sphere.
Talking of puppies, at the Guardian, puppy bete noir Damien Walter has taken a look at the fiction of some outspoken puppies and offers his verdict. He’s extremely harsh and rather rude, but then I was raised on the original Literarisches Quartett and always enjoy a critic channelling their inner Marcel Reich-Ranicki, whether I agree with the verdict or not.
On a gentler note, Alexandra Erin points out that the puppies get it wrong and that WorldCon or the Hugos are less about shiny rockets and more about making connections and friends.
Back to the Dragon Awards, voting is open to everybody and you can sign up to vote for the Dragon Awards here. There’s plenty of good nominees in addition to the not so good ones (and literary quality is subjective anyway), so what are you waiting for? Sign up and vote for whichever work in the respective category you like best, whether it’s a puppy or not.
Comments are closed, because awards posts bring out the trolls. See you back in this space for an in-depth analysis of the 2016 Hugo winners tomorrow or Monday.
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August 18, 2016
Photos: Summery Views of Vechta
As longtime readers may remember, I taught at the University of Vechta for a while. And yesterday, I had the opportunity to teach in Vechta again, though not at the university this time, but at the St. Antoniushaus, a conference centre and retreat run by the Catholic church*. I was teaching or rather moderating an English class for pregnancy counsellors to help them offer support to pregnant refugees and immigrants who don’t speak German. I filled in on fairly short notice for another teacher who had to drop out. So I spent the afternoon watching and critiquing six lovely ladies role-playing counselling sessions. This was quite a change from what I usually do and also very interesting. I also gained a lot more insight in and respect for what pregnancy counsellors actually do.
Vechta sits right in a middle of a Catholic enclave in otherwise largely Lutheran North West Germany. The religious difference is very visible in the form of roadside crucifixes (I passed five or six on my way there – photos of some of them can be found in this old post), street names, religious bookshops and Catholic organisations and charities running hospitals, schools, kindergartens, care homes, etc… Vechta is a very friendly place, though, even if you’re not Catholic and/or not religious at all. Coincidentally, Vechta was also the first place in Germany where I saw LGBT wedding cards – in a religious book and card shop of all things.
Since I arrived early, I had some time to walk around town, buy books and patronise two of the best bakeries in North West Germany for bread and biscuits. Unfortunately, one of the formerly three independent bookstores in Vechta is gone by now; the owner retired. But the other two are still there, as are the many excellent bakeries.
I forgot to take my camera along, but I still had my smartphone, so here are some summerly views of Vechta, Goldenstedt and Moordeich:
The late gothic St. Georg church in Vechta with a background of feathery clouds.
The Old Kamponier, a former ammunitions depot and the sole surviving part of the former citadel of Vechta. It overlooks the Vechtaer Moorbach and was built in 1706.
Meyer’s mill in Vechta: There has been a mill on this spot since at least the Thirty-Years-War. The old windmill is no longer active, but the modern mill across the road still is, as is the adjacent bakery, which has been providing excellent whole grain bread since 1860.
A statue dedicated to Streetsweeper Martin, a local original who kept the streets of Vechta clean.
More Vechta originals: Jan von Dählen and Stuken Libett, a farmer couple attending Vechta’s famous summer fair, the Stoppelmarkt. Based on a drawing from 1912, they are the fair’s mascots. This statue of the pair adorns a wall in Vechta.
The newly built Edith Stein chapel at the University of Vechta. The building houses the chapel as well as a cafeteria. When the chapel was still under construction, this was the view from my office window at the university.
This bronze crucifix adorned the wall of the room at the St. Antoniushaus, where I taught yesterday.
Another church, this time in the town of Goldenstedt some fifteen kilometers north of Vechta. This is the Martin Luther church, built in 1850.
Goldenstedt’s other church, the Catholic St. Gorgonius church, built in 1910 and named after a third century martyr.
The following photos were taken not in and around Vechta, but in Moordeich, a village close to where I live. The lake looks so beautiful and peaceful that it’s easy to forget that it was created to separate Moordeich’s cemetery from the surrounding residential neighbourhood.
A view across a lake in Moordeich.
Another view across the same lake in Moordeich. Note the pond scum.
And this was my lunch yesterday: Flammkuchen a.k.a. tarte flambee. The traditional style only has onions, cheese, sour cream and bacon, but of late there are plenty of variations available. This one was called Greek style.
And here is yesterday’s book haul: Great science fiction by women writers. A pretty good haul, especially since the bookstore only carries about fifty English language books, half of which are by Jeffrey Archer.
*Until 2014, the St. Antoniushaus was run by nuns. At least one of the nuns is still there, but nowadays the house is run by laymen.
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August 11, 2016
The Silencer returns in “Fact or Fiction”
I’ve been somewhat quiet on this blog of late, because I spent the whole of July doing a writing challenge, which involved writing a short story per day. I pulled it off, too, and blogged about my experiences over at Pegasus Pulp. So expect a bunch of new releases, including a new series, in the next weeks or months.
The first of these new releases is already here and it features an old friend, pulp writer Richard Blakemore a.k.a. the masked crimefighter known only as the Silencer.
What inspired Fact or Fiction was the realisation that even though Richard Blakemore is a pulp writer, we hardly ever see him writing. So I decided to remedy that and give Richard a quiet evening at home, since the weather is too foul for crimefighting.
In the course of that evening, we not just finally get to see Richard writing, we also find out just how much he embellishes the Silencer’s adventures for the pulps to satisfy his editor’s requests for relentless action and euphemistic descriptions of rosy skin and lush curves. Oh yes, and don’t use the word “brothel”, cause it will upset the guardians of public decency, and absolutely don’t mention to rat shit.
Richard’s fiancée Constance and the kitten Richard rescued at the end of Elevator of Doom reappear as well. The kitten is now called Edgar, named for Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Edgar Wallace. Because Richard absolutely would name his cat for his literary heroes.
So what are you waiting for? Pick up your copy of Fact or Fiction today.
Fact or Fiction
New York City, 1936: It’s a rare evening at home for Richard Blakemore, hardworking pulp writer by day and the masked vigilante only known as the Silencer by night. But even though crime never rests, next month’s Silencer novel doesn’t write itself. And besides, Richard enjoys the chance to spend some time with his fiancée Constance Allen.
Pulp fiction thrives on exaggeration and non-stop action. And as always, the question is how much of the Silencer’s adventures are fact and how much is fiction?
More information.
Length: 2700 words.
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, txtr, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books, Casa del Libro, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.
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July 30, 2016
Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for July 2016
It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.
So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some June books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.
Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. We have a whole lot of space opera and military science fiction this month as well as funny science fiction, dystopian fiction, Steampunk, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, Asian fantasy, young adult fantasy, young adult science fiction, fairytales, horror, vampires, fae, superheroes, blighters, alien invasions, galactic conspiracies, royal weddings, interrupted dinners, cardboard spaceships, haunted houses, time travel and much more.
Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.
As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.
And now on to the books without further ado:
A Threat of Shadows by J.A. Andrews:
There are decisions that can’t be unmade, paths that cannot be unchosen, choices that change us too much for us to ever change back.
In a desperate attempt to save his dying wife, Alaric has sacrificed everything. He’s abandoned his position as advisor to the Queen, he’s cast aside his role as a Keeper, he’s betrayed his deepest beliefs.
And still he has failed.
Now he’s found one last chance at a cure. Haunted by the choices he has made and surrounded by companions who have dangerous secrets of their own, he returns to the people and land he turned his back on.
But soon the quest to save his wife becomes entangled with a larger quest. Gathering shadows threaten the land, whispering of the return of a dark lord, thought to be defeated.
To fight this enemy, the world needs the Keeper Alaric used to be, not the broken man he has become.
Can he regain what he’s lost? Or do some choices change us too much for us to ever go back?
Alaric must decide or, in the face of all the growing shadows, it may be the darkness he carries within himself that destroys everything.
The Three Quarters Eaten Dessert by Cora Buhlert
Bertha and Alfred, married for twenty years, enjoy a truly science fictional life in the twenty-first century. But in spite of all the technological marvels surrounding them, an argument about sharing a dessert at an upscale restaurant escalates and threatens their friendship with their neighbours, the Hoppenstedts.
This parodistic piece is a mundane short story of 6000 words or approximately 25 print pages, written in the style of science fiction’s “golden age” of the 1940s and 1950s. With bonus recipe.
Cleon Moon by Lindsay Buroker:
Now that she’s retrieved the Staff of Lore, Captain Alisa Marchenko can finally dedicate herself and her ship to finding her kidnapped daughter. Her scant clues lead her to Cleon Moon.
Unfortunately, since the fall of the empire, mafia clans have taken over the domed cities on the harsh moon, and exploring there isn’t easy. Even with the cyborg Leonidas at her side, Alisa struggles to survive vengeful mafia clans, rogue Starseers, and genetically engineered predators. To further complicate matters, she must worry about the ancient relic hidden on her ship, a beacon to anyone in the system who craves its power. If Alisa can’t navigate the moon’s chaos, she may lose her only chance to catch up with her daughter.
The Immortality Cure by Toni Centanni:
Henri Dunn was damn good at being a vampire, until her immortality was ripped away from her.
Now she must solve a murder or be executed for a crime she didn’t commit.
Six months ago, Henri was stuck with a syringe full of the poison known as “The Immortality Cure.” Now, after almost a century of being an immortal monster, Henri is human again and she’s not loving it: her body aches, she has too many mortal needs, and the other vampires shun her as a Blood Traitor. All she can do is keep her head down and bide her time until she can find a way to get her immortality back.
When vials of the serum are stolen from the lab and another vampire is murdered, Henri is the number one suspect. With the help of a melodramatic vampire “king” and his mortal groupie, Henri must find the real killer or face the wrath of vengeful vampires.
The Immortality Cure is the first book in The Henri Dunn Urban Fantasy Series, featuring a badass female protagonist and a sardonic sense of humor.
No one in Willow Street pays it any notice, not the disgruntled Campbell family next door, not Alice Cowley and her suicidal daughter, or Mr. and Mrs. Markham down the road. Not even Darryl, the loner at number seventy, who is abnormal himself, thinks much about it. It is just the old Kemper House, forgotten and abandoned.
Until it makes itself known.
When the stench of death wafts from Kemper House through Willow Street, and comes to the attention of recent resident and newspaper reporter, Ben Traynor, it starts a chain of horrors that brings Kemper House’s curse into their own homes and leads others direct to its door. Kemper House not only haunts its neighbours, it infects them with an evil that traverses time and reality itself.
The Cardboard Spaceship by Gregg Chirlin and Matt Snee:
Lewis Darby, a science fiction writer of some repute, is about to embark on an adventure of a lifetime.
Also known as the Captain, Lewis lives with his mother in modern day Indiana. What nobody knows is that sometimes Captain crawls beneath an old refrigerator box in the basement and pretends it’s a spaceship. And what Captain doesn’t realize is that he has a date with destiny.
One peculiar April morning, Captain crosses paths with Jennifer Pichon, the child of legendary space explorer Marty Pichon and Kitty Malhotra, the Princess of Saturn. They join forces just in time as the terrifying astronomical event called “No-Shape” is poised to ravage the Solar System from Mercury to Neptune and beyond.
Together, Captain and the mysterious Jennifer face such terrors as the jungles of Venus, the perilous Worm Caves, and the decaying, giant insect-ridden wastes of Mars – and perhaps even fall in love along the way.
Their journey is filled with trials, but they alone can save the solar system from certain doom.
War’s Reward by Michael Chatsfield:
The Second Kalu War rages across known space.
The newly formed Union undergoes it’s first baptism, the baptism of war.
The Free Fleet is barely holding the line against the Kalu. Salchar and the other commanders of the Free Fleet have one goal. Survive.
As war rages politics and power brokering are at work behind the scenes in the Union.
Even if the Free Fleet survives the war, will they survive it’s aftermath?
Countries have fallen only to be replaced by corporations. After spending years in the unclaimed districts of the unemployed; Lily has nearly given up hope that anything will change. When she is told that her Mother is dying and nothing more can be done, Lily is desperate enough to try anything.
When her family is offered a position at Trustmedia, Lily thinks that all of their problems are solved. Until she realizes that her acceptance is conditional. She will have to prove that she has what it takes to stay. If she fails, she will be thrown out and never see her family again.
Lily quickly finds that staying will be harder than she expected, even Father seems intent on seeing her fail. Things become complicated when her Father injects her with an unknown substance and she begins to have intensely vivid dreams. Lily is on the verge of having everything she has ever wanted, but does she have what it takes to keep it?
High Flight & Flames by Kate Coe:
The land of Quorl is under attack. S’ian, badly injured when her Glider crashed is trapped in a city under siege. Meanwhile out on the plains, Toru is desperately defending his own city and people from the advancing enemy. The fighting is no longer between men: a battle for the air has started, and new weapons force both sides into desperate measures. Even if Toru succeeds in pushing the enemy back from Meton, what will the cost be? Can Toru reconcile his duty to his country with his own dreams?
Woven Peril by Jeffrey Collyer:
The Guardian’s forces may have left the forest, but they haven’t departed from Michael’s mind as he struggles to learn what his enemy will do next. Torn between feelings of guilt and love, he must now push ahead to find mythical halls deep in the earth, where secrets from the distant past are spoken of, and new riddles unearthed.
Entering dark paths, Michael must learn to use his growing power if he is to discover that which will save the land, at the same time as trying to protect those now under his care from new and deadly monsters sent to hunt him.
And all while he struggles to understand mysteries surrounding his mother.
Woven Peril is the thrilling second book in the Aylosian Chronicles, and continues the epic tale in a world of unusual magic and unique creatures.
Heartfelt Sounds by C.M. Estopare:
Orphaned Naia Belle is an apprentice songstress, attached for life to her silkhouse in the illustrious pleasure capital of Sorrel, Felicity. But as the dark clouds of war descend upon Felicity, Naia, ill-prepared and not yet fully trained, is forced from her home and into a nightmare she never imagined.
Driven once more from the haven she finds, posing as a boy and conscripted into a foreign army, Naia struggles to remain hopeful in spite of the trials she faces. Then she discovers there are those who wish to reopen Heaven’s Gate and allow titans to walk the mortal realms once more. Only one power can stop them.
As her friends and allies fall around her, beset by sand wraiths and the soulless dead, with everything she loved now lost to her, Naia faces yet another challenge: the blackened plains of the Void, where she may learn the true power of her voice. A power the necromancers and titans would kill to stop.
HEARTFELT SOUNDS, is the first book in the exciting fantasy coming-of-age trilogy, THE WORLD OF SORREL.
The Cauldron’s Gift by Marina Finlayson:
When Vi and her twin sister CJ started spitting frogs and diamonds with every word, they discovered their parents worked for a secret organisation dedicated to keeping the magical denizens of the world safely locked away. Vi thought life couldn’t get any weirder, but then Dad became a bear, and her world really fell apart. Because it’s starting to look like that’s one spell the warders can’t undo. They’re all too busy trying to unmask the traitor who is secretly aiding the Sidhe.
Vi managed to keep the Sidhe from breaking out of their magical prison, but she couldn’t stop the Morrigan from stealing back the great cauldron of the Dagda. And of course now CJ says the only way to save Dad is to get that cauldron back from fairyland. Talk about a suicide mission. Vi would have to be crazy to consider it, but as time runs out for Dad and the Morrigan threatens everyone Vi loves, craziness starts to look like the only sane option.
First contact didn’t go as planned…
Time Gate 8, one of humanity’s portals between the stars, has been overrun by a mysterious alien intelligence, and the planet Luddeccea is now cut off.
Haunted by those she left behind, Commander Noa Sato is on a desperate mission to save her homeworld. Navigating the ancient Ark, she seeks a hidden gate that will transport her ship to Earth and the Galactic Fleet. But the Luddeccean system harbors dangers, and so does her crew.
The only crew member she completely trusts is James Sinclair, but he doesn’t trust himself.
James isn’t the man he once was. He has a hunger that is never sated, kills without regrets, and is fitted with extraordinary augments he doesn’t remember getting. Can James control his augments, or will they control him?
In a future where almost all humans are augmented, James’s answer and Noa’s mission will determine the fate of the human race … and the enemy is already within the gates.
Wrong Side of Time by J.J. Green:
When the greatest minds in the galaxy can’t solve a problem through logic or reason, they call Carrie Hatchett.
Carrie and her reluctant sidekick, Dave, have succeeded in driving the evil mechanical aliens, the placktoids, to their only remaining hiding place—the past. But the danger isn’t over. The Transgalactic Council suspect the placktoids are trying to change the course of history and re-emerge as rulers of the galaxy.
Carrie and Dave are sent on a mission to defeat them, but even attacks from Carrie’s psychotic cat can’t prepare the two for the challenges they face when they travel back in time to the placktoid planet: searing temperatures, a barren landscape and primitive robots with OCD. And waiting in the wings is the placktoid High Commander, whose 3D printing ability is lethal.
Naively optimistic Carrie needs to recognise what’s staring her in the face if she’s to defeat the placktoids and avoid being trapped in the past forever.
Amped: A Kid Sensation Novel by Kevin Hardman:
Electra – the beautiful, unflappable girlfriend of teen super Kid Sensation – headlines her own adventure for the first time.
A foundling adopted and raised by the Alpha League (the world’s greatest superhero team), Electra has exhibited super powers since infancy. However, her past has remained a mystery for the most part, with those few people with any knowledge of her background being reluctant to talk.
Refusing to remain ignorant of her own origins, Electra embarks on a fact-finding mission intent on discovering who she really is. However, in addition to providing more questions than answers, her investigation causes her to cross paths with a powerful group of supervillains, who see in her a means of furthering their goal of world domination.
Finding herself in the crosshairs, Electra must now find a way to stop those seeking to exploit her unique talents for their own nefarious purposes. Because if she can’t, the world will pay a heavy price.
Balmoral Murraine works in a Battery, assembling devices she doesn’t understand for starvation pay. Pasco Eborgersen is the pampered son of an Elite, trying to navigate the temptations of the Pleasure Houses, the self-sacrifice of the Faith, and the high-octane excitement of Steel Ball. They never should have met, and now they will rip the world apart.
What happens when ninety percent of the world lives on skaatch – a jellyfish and insect composite?
What happens when mankind spends more time in alternative life sims instead of in the “real” world?
What happens when economic interest is the sole determinant of global decision making?
What happens when a single secret is discovered that calls into question everything we have ever believed?
Welcome to the Autonomy. Welcome to your future.
Beacon’s Spark by Jim Johnson:
Twentysomething Rachel Farran dropped out of college after family pressures drove her to the edge. Now disowned by her parents, the only things going for her are her girlfriend, her bestie, and visits to her ailing grandpa, the only member of her family who even really likes her.
When Rachel stumbles into the mystical Veil separating the mortal and spirit worlds, her world is turned inside-out. She soon discovers that she is a Beacon, a descendant of the ancient Fates and a guide for lost souls who can manipulate magical ley threads. But when the malevolent being known as the Spinner harnesses the ley to drag helpless souls through the Veil to devour them, can Rachel learn to control her newfound abilities before her grandpa and many others are lost forever?
Beacon’s Spark is the first book in Potomac Shadows, a new paranormal fantasy series set in the Washington, DC metro area.
Them Blighters are everywhere.
They fell out of the sky last year, great horrible armour-plated slugs with razor-sharp fangs. But ugly as they are, they give the ultimate high to anyone nearby: a blissful, gleeful contentment that people are willing to kill for.
Not Becky Stone, though. All she wants is to drink beer, listen to her dad’s old vinyl, and get her life back to how it was before everything was all messed up.
Blighters? Frankly, she could do without them.
“Contains true craft and substance… You’ll finish this novella and immediately start it over again.”
Urban Fantasy Magazine on Carus & Mitch
With the Celestial Swords and their bearers united, Xu Liang heads for his homeland. Having lost his spiritual connection with the Empress, he is unprepared for the severity of Chaos’ grip on the land and its people. Fear is spreading throughout Sheng Fan. War is in the air. There is dissension in the ranks of the Empire and Xu Liang’s favor with the Empress seems to be in question, his once influential position now tenuous. The coming together of the Blades seems for naught while enemies from within threaten to tear apart his allegiance with the outsiders he dared to bring into Sheng Fan by spreading dangerous rumors. It seems that Xu Liang can do little more than watch as the Dragon continues to rise, every hour clawing its way deeper into the heart of the Empire, which slowly rends itself apart with the governors of the Five Kingdoms taking up arms against each other, as well as against the Song Dynasty. Those allied by the Swords must put Chaos to rest—be it an actual dragon, or war itself—but first they must find peace within themselves and amongst each other.
The Mercy of Men by S. Hunter Nisbet:
The anticipated second installment of the Saint Flaherty series moves from the hills of Appalachia to a city where law no longer prevails.
When Simon Flaherty’s routine of training and fighting is interrupted by a sudden eviction, he never expects his new neighbor to be the one person he thought was long gone from Scioto City: Connor Hall.
It’s been six years since they escaped from Buchell together—six years since Connor walked out of Simon’s life and never looked back. For Connor, it hasn’t been long enough. Trapped in a cycle of debt to the syndicate he works for, he’s barely making it payment to payment while juggling two jobs and university. One more burden will destroy him, and the help Simon is willing to give can’t balance the shadows of their past.
Fighting isn’t all Simon’s been doing in the years since arriving in Scioto, and the crime bosses of the city have their eyes on him. Getting involved with another syndicate’s business isn’t an option. But if Connor doesn’t find a way to pay back his debts, Simon will do anything to make sure Connor doesn’t pay the price for breaking a deal with a syndicate boss.
In a city without mercy, “anything” goes a long way.
With the destruction of the Earth ship Colossus the 3rd interstellar war is about to begin. The Cabal plan to reveal their political intentions to the Galaxy, but before they can, they have to eliminate their enemies first. Athena and her whole family are in their sights along with anyone that stands in the way of progress and control. Who will survive the onslaught and who will die? Only time will tell.
Join Athena, Wilson and the CATTs as they set out to prove that might does not equal right!
Brother’s Pride by Jim Rudnick:
While the wrecked alien ship on Ghayth provides some interesting new technology, Admiral Scott has nothing on his mind but his upcoming wedding to the Lady St. August. In only a couple of months, he’ll have vows to pledge and a ring to don as he becomes a Royal himself to take the new title of Lord Scott. And the only thing in his way—even though he doesn’t know it, is his sister Gia who has pledged revenge upon him for the death of their sister, Nora.
With the upcoming release of the Ikarian longevity vaccine, the RIM Confederacy realms are all wanting more and more of the vaccines to double their lifetimes, while the Baroness is purposely chocking off the supply. Added to that is the fact that the Master Adept knows what will happen at the wedding and she is hurriedly training her own replacement and the wedding will be where the assassination attempt is made.
But the Master is not the only wedding party member to die at the altar as the admirals sister takes careful aim and screams out her revenge and Tanner falls as do others—all to pay penance for his crime of decades ago…
Fletcher Connolly hasn’t got a lot to lose. Since he, and half the galaxy, signed on to the rat race of the technological relics trade, Fletch has long since come to terms with the idea that he will join the ranks of the unlucky explorers that perish lightyears from home without a dime to his name.
As the first mate of an old, decrepit exploration ship–the Skint Idjit–things can’t get much worse. As if that isn’t enough, he has a hard time convincing himself his luck is bound to change when he finds himself stranded on the planet Suckass, on a remote branch of the Interstellar Railroad. With his new assignment an unlikely candidate to hide alien treasures, true to his personality, Fletch settles down to work on his tan.
But when disaster strikes and a member of his crew is killed, Fletch finds himself torn between loyalty to the surviving crew and the siren song of an unsuspected trove of A-tech.
Can Fletch save the Skint Idjit and her crew from a horrible death? Or will he ignore their dying screams and laugh all the way to the bank?
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July 15, 2016
Christmas in July Sale
Writer Stacy Claflin has organised a Christmas in July sale for holiday-themed e-books.
This weekend, more than 80 different e-books will be available for 99 cents or free. Two of mine are included, Christmas Gifts and Christmas Eve at the Purple Owl Café, along with more than 80 other great holiday reads in the genres romance, fantasy, mystery, suspense, humor and inspirational fiction.
The full list of participating books can be found on Stacy Claflin’s site.
So what are you waiting for? Christmas is coming (eventually), so grab yourself some cozy holiday reads now.
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July 14, 2016
New Release: Alfred and Bertha return in “The Three Quarters Eaten Dessert”
Alfred and Bertha, those crazy kids of the twenty-first century, are back for a new adventure. This time, they are having dinner with their neighbours, the Hoppenstedts – a dinner which quickly escalates into an argument.
A bit of background: Alfred and Bertha were born in response to the Not Really SF Short Story Challenge issued by writer E.P. Beaumont. At the time, there were a lot of complaints from certain quarters of the SFF sphere that literary writers were invading science fiction with their literary ways and that the virtues, values and scientific rigour of science fiction’s so-called “golden age” were being ignored. So the idea behind the challenge was to stage a counter invasion by writing a mundane short story – the sort of slice of life piece one would expect to find in literary fiction – and write it in the style of science fiction’s “golden age” of the 1940s and 1950s, complete with dated gender roles, “As you know, Bob…” dialogue and overexplanation of every mundane bit of technology.
My response to the challenge was The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg, a story about a married couple – Alfred and Bertha von Bülow – arguing at the breakfast table. And because I had so much fun chronicling Alfred and Bertha’s amazing life in the twenty-first century, I wrote more stories about them.
The Three Quarters Eaten Dessert is the latest of those stories. Once again, I borrowed the basic plot from a skit by legendary German comedian Loriot a.k.a. Vicco von Bülow. The skit in question is called Kosakenzipfel (Cossack’s Prick).
Lots of Latin, mansplaining, sciences versus humanities, totally random explanations of taxes, food – this story really has it all. So what are you waiting for? Experience the marvels of the twenty-first century today:
The Three Quarters Eaten Dessert
Bertha and Alfred, married for twenty years, enjoy a truly science fictional life in the twenty-first century. But in spite of all the technological marvels surrounding them, an argument about sharing a dessert at an upscale restaurant escalates and threatens their friendship with their neighbours, the Hoppenstedts.
This parodistic piece is a mundane short story of 6000 words or approximately 20 print pages, written in the style of science fiction’s “golden age” of the 1940s and 1950s. With bonus recipe.
More information.
Length: 6000 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, txtr, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books, Casa del Libro, Flipkart, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.
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June 29, 2016
Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for June 2016
It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.
So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some May books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.
Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. We have a whole lot of space opera and military science fiction this month as well as postapocalyptic fiction, dystopian fiction, paranormal romance, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, young adult fantasy, horror, two awesome short fiction anthologies, vampires, demons, fae, dragons, half-demon PIs, half-vampire PIs, sorcerers, starseers, star rebels, aliens, gargoyles, rock ‘n roll zombies, galactic conspiracies, forced marriages, the end of the world and much more.
Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.
As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.
And now on to the books without further ado:
Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories by Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell and others:
GUTTED: BEAUTIFUL HORROR STORIES – an anthology of dark fiction that explores the beauty at the very heart of darkness. Featuring horror’s most celebrated voices, as well as a number of exciting new talents: Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Paul Tremblay, John F.D. Taff, Lisa Mannetti, Damien Angelica Walters, Josh Malerman, Christopher Coake, Mercedes M. Yardley, Brian Kirk, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Amanda Gowin, Richard Thomas, Maria Alexander and Kevin Lucia.
What is beautiful horror?
Awe meets ache.
Terror becomes transcendence.
Regret gives way to rebirth.
Edited by Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward. With a foreword from Cemetery Dance magazine founder Richard Chizmar. Interior artwork by Luke Spooner. Cover artwork by Caitlin Hackett.
“Truly one of the best anthologies I have ever read.” – Paula Limbaugh, Horror Novel Reviews
The mysterious and powerful Starseers have Captain Alisa Marchenko’s daughter, and she will do whatever she must to get her back, even if it means traveling to their stronghold and confronting them personally. Unfortunately, her strongest ally, the cyborg Leonidas, may become a liability since the cyborgs and the Starseers have a long history of hating each other. It doesn’t help that Leonidas and Dr. Dominguez have a mission of their own, one that could jeopardize all that Alisa is fighting for.
There are rebels among the stars…
Meet eleven protagonists battling to save themselves and the ones they love. Human, cyborg, clone, or alien, they’ll find themselves pitted against intergalactic crime bosses, interstellar mercenaries, a quantum-wave-riding collective mind, and the universe itself. Along the way, there’s plenty of action, adventure, humor, and even some romance.
Written by the freshest voices in science fiction, these stories are short, but they’ll light your imagination like a solar flare. Strap yourself in and join the rebellion! Download this collection today.
Features stories by Lindsay Buroker, C. Gockel, Patty Jansen, Pippa DaCosta, James R. Wells, Christine Pope, L.J. Cohen, D.L. Dunbar, Anthea Sharp, Audrey Faye and Kendra C. Highley.
Two women are about to expose a terrible secret that will turn their world upside down.
For centuries the great river known as the Water Road separated the Altrerians in the north from the Neldathi in the south. When the Neldathi clans united and struck out across the river, the nations of Altreria formed an alliance, the Triumvirate, to drive them back. For more than a hundred years after, the Triumvirate kept the Neldathi barbarians at bay, fighting amongst themselves across the Water Road.
Antrey is a woman without a country, the daughter of a Neldathi mother and an Altrerian father. She’s found a role for herself in Tolenor, the headquarters of the Triumvirate, that’s given her access to a secret the alliance has kept for generations. When she finds it, she explodes with rage and embarks on a quest to find justice for the Neldathi people.
Strefer is a reporter without a story, desperately working the streets of Tolenor for any kind of lead. When Antrey flees the city, Strefer slips in and discovers her uncovered secret, stained with blood and fury. It’s the story of a lifetime, one powerful forces want to keep her from telling. With the help of a renegade Sentinel, Strefer sets out for a mythical city in hopes she can make the world listen to the truth.
Together, they’ll inflame the passions of a people and set the world alight. The Water Road – first book of The Water Road trilogy.
From Furies Forged by Michael Chatfield:
The Kalu are not a long lost nightmare anymore.
They came from the black.
They destroyed Rosho.
They ravaged Heija.
That was just the scouting force.
They are coming back.
Power those reactors, charge those rail cannons and ready the fighters. The Free Fleet is going to war.
Sorcerer Sebastian Light has long used his powerful magic to corner the market on demon hunting in Detroit. With control over the elements, he can burn through bounties almost as fast as the Ministry can issue them—much to the chagrin of the Motor City’s other hunters. But after a group of vampires taints him with their blood in an effort to turn him, collecting bounties is the least of his worries.
The Athena Operation by Dalton Cortner:
In a future where wars and poverty are quickly on the rise, the universe has hit its ultimate enemy: itself. Once known for their dedication and loyalty to the good of the universe, the seythra, a strong-willed alien race, have attacked and declared war on the rest of the universe. Now, throwing their immense numbers against the opposition of the Confederate Military, hope is dwindling. Trust between factions, races, and planets are weakening by the moment. What caused the seythra to rebel? Why can they no longer be reasoned with? And most importantly, can anyone stop them in time?
Seraph Aydrian, an infamous soldier one reprimand away from termination, must lead an army of soldiers, mercenaries, and civilians against the seythra assault and not only stop the chaos and destruction, but uncover the dark and sinister motives that are driving the murders.
Reese Pierpoint is half human, half fae, and one hundred percent trying to figure out how to live with both sides of her heritage.
When the deaths of three local kids turn out to be sacrifices, Reese finds herself plunged into the world her overprotective mother had been shielding her from all her life.
Bran Malcolm – half human, half demon PI – is on the hunt for the creature responsible for the deaths. A creature who is using the dead children’s blood to create a doorway to escape his prison.
But when Bran crosses paths with Reese, he falls for her – hard – and the distraction has him off his game. Until Reese becomes the focus of the killer’s plan. Now Bran’s on a mission to do anything to keep her safe.
Even if it costs his life.
On sale until July 1!
Of A Dark Heart by Chris Foster:
A supernatural killer. A prophetic gargoyle. A tale of revenge.
Excalem wants vengeance.
His daughter lay cold upon the coroner’s slab. Someone had taken her from this world. Yet there was no trace of harm. There were no answers to the questions he asked. She was simply gone. Pale. Cold. Dead.
Excalem hands in what little morals he had in exchange for the sword.
Walking through the desert, cracked terracotta under his feet and endless blue above he thinks he has gone mad. Or died. He is out of water, out of place and feels out of time. This is a world he didn’t believe in not long ago. Nowhere both its name and description. He cannot stop, he is the cat after the rat but the dog is coming.
Both pursued and pursuing, he knows only one thing.
There will be vengeance.
The Gargoyle said so, and rocks don’t lie.
Eclipse of the Heart by J.L. Hendricks:
Why do I have to be the girl of the prophecy?
Then there is the ripper threat too, everywhere I turn in Sendryl we’re attacked. There’s a car bomb that hurts one of my team members, badly.
All guys are confusing. Fae or Human, doesn’t matter. When it comes to affairs of the heart, they’re all the same. Fillie thinks I can have either one, but do I trust them with my heart?
It may not matter if the trial goes bad or we don’t make it back to Earth.
It’s time for me to put on my big girl panties and make a choice.
This is Book 4 of The Interdimensional Saga
Massive Unrest by Michael Hustleborn:
When the dead no longer rest in peace, nobody rests in peace.
Johnny, an American rocker living in Germany, dreams of stardom. Just when it looks like it might happen, people start dying in droves. The problem is they’re not staying dead. Johnny and his new friend Lena are sent scurrying to survive, but while Johnny can definitely rock a crowd, he’s no doomsday prepper. When they team up with a modern-day ax-wielding viking, things start looking up, but all is not as it seems.
A zombie plague is spreading across the planet faster than a joint at a rock concert and the madman who released the virus is still out there. To make matters worse, he’s not even close to being done yet.
As everyone scrambles to find a place that’s defensible against massive hordes of undead, one crucial question remains: Who is the bigger threat, the living or the undead?
The entire world laid to waste. There are no second chances.
The ancient machine that produced icefire was destroyed twenty years ago, but the deadly magic is again on the increase. No one understands why or where it’s coming from.
Icefire controls the weather and massive changes in weather patterns plunge the northern half of the inhabited world in deep drought. The tide of refugees swells, but as long as no one knows where the icefire is coming from, nowhere is safe.
King Isandor sends people to investigate a concentration of icefire in the mountains at the border, but two consecutive patrols both vanish. It appears that, after having suffered badly in wars, the neighbouring country Arania is on the offensive, and is using icefire as weapon. Their culture is harsh and their barbarism knows no boundaries.
Meanwhile two young meteorology students make a string of discoveries about icefire that will change the way the people understand the world. They’re on the threshold of the age of enlightenment, but vital knowledge necessary to save their world may well get lost when war overruns the inhabited world.
Only 99 cent until July 4!
The Martian Inheritance by T.S. Paul:
Athena Lee and her sidekick Wilson return for this action packed adventure. Athena is sent to Mars on a secret mission to help capture a war criminal responsible for the deaths of thousands. He is hiding on the Planet Mars. Athena has family she had never met on the Red Planet. This is her chance to visit them. The Cabal has given the fugitive shelter and is plotting to rule. Mysteries and plots abound as Athena discovers the meaning of her inheritance.
Coins for Charon by P.J. Post:
This Romance brought to you by the end of the world…
The only way out is the river, two short blocks away.
Jem and Pixie are fighting for their sanity, while Holly lies unconscious, burning with fever. Keats and Casey can only watch her eyes with dread, and be ready should she turn. Sam is fighting for love, for a life and for happiness. Emily is fighting to hold them together.
And they are all looking to Lane for salvation, but he’s out of second chances, out of options and quickly running out of time as the city burns to the ground.
Two blocks might as well be forever, the streets are overrun with Button Eyes. And for as long as they remain, no secret will be safe, no sacrifice will be held sacred, and no life precious; before all is done, Freemont will have its due.
Author’s Note: Coins for Charon is the sixth and final Episode of Feral.
Two years ago, The Pulse—a sudden shift in Earth’s electromagnetic field—caused a global blackout and wiped a minute from mankind’s collective memory. This event introduced superhuman powers to our world and changed everything as we knew it.
Now two young women are caught in the chaos of a changing world:
Christina Chung, an antisocial misfit whose force fields are fueled by the social bonds she broke during the event of her transition.
Former coke addict Sarina Baumann, whose reality-altering power forces her to abandon everything she holds dear.
The girls find themselves entangled with the renegade hero Radiant and the authorities that made him. The three must find a way—and a place—to be the heroes they’re destined to become. But sometimes, even the heroes fall…
“As the first wisps of atmosphere touched the badly damaged explorer ship, the craft was on it’s own AI–the pilot and nine of the ten occupants were already dead.
The only alive human lay in the robo-doc tank in the rear of the ship where he’d been for almost a full week. He had been injured during an asteroid incursion and had been placed in the robo-doc then. Now he lay half awake, half in a stupor, not knowing that the rest of the Drake’s crew were probably dead.
Boathi sphere ships had come upon the Drake twenty light years out-wards, and had so severely damaged the ship, that even as the pilot lay dying and he kicked it into AI and called on full FTL, their fate looked sealed…
Inside the robo-doc tank, the surviving human lay in the liquid bath surrounding him, and he was still in that stupor of drugged medical aid. While he couldn’t read it, on the interior visor, lay the dashboard with information for the patient—and it appeared he had still another two and a half days in here.
Alone…
Defenseless and in a sealed tank, as the AI would try to keep the robo-doc up and running to enable his recovery…at least that was it’s next task…”
Plague Cult by Jenny Schwartz:
In a small Texas town a desire for love becomes a curse that could unleash a deadly plague.
Ruth Warner is estranged from her family. She loves them, but her magic makes her an outsider in Bideer, Texas. Ruth has built a new life in New York. She’s a healer at the Collegium, respected and…lonely. Sometimes, you have to go home.
Ruth’s boss orders her to Bideer after a local coroner reports a suspicious death. Could the new cult in town, a lonely hearts club, be playing reckless games with a death curse?
But if Ruth is going home, she’s not going alone.
Shawn Jackson is a Collegium guardian, a mage trained to fight evil. He’s also a man accustomed to keeping secrets. He’s a hollerider, a huntsman; one of those who birthed the legend of the Wild Hunt. When he unleashes his magic, terror rides with him.
As evil stalks an innocent town, the dedicated healer and battle-hardened marine must heal their own broken hearts to prevent a devastating plague.
***
Warning: “Plague Cult” includes a haunted house, an unconventional ghost, and a home renovation love story.
If you love your paranormal romance fast-paced, intense and chilling, “Plague Cult” is irresistible.
The Defenders’ Apprentice by Amelia Smith:
The Defenders’ order is dying, but that’s no surprise. After all, they’ve been in hiding for over a hundred years, and apprentices are getting harder to find – hardly anyone can see the dragons any more.
Eppie picked pockets on the streets of Anamat for years before one of the Defenders noticed her. She hid well, but one day she picked the wrong pocket, or was it the right one? She sets out to help try to save the dragon Tiada, but if her mentor and the others fall in the battle, who will defend the dragons against the next set of invaders?
Forget what you think you know of the universe. This is Sinphoria.
The universe writhes under the influence of sin—a primal bond empowering infernal creatures.
The phoenix Mira is a sentient being born of the stars. Her purpose is to rid the universe of the demonic beings that plague it. The self-governed world of Malstyx is a breeding ground for sin and corruption. Mira’s kin feel that Malstyx is beyond saving. If the situation escalates and threatens other worlds, then they would step in and purge Malstyx of all its inhabitants. It was up to Mira to prove them wrong and keep the shadows at bay.
Apocalypse Hill by Matthew Stott:
The end of the world is just a game.
The Hill arrived in Apoc, in the far north of England, during a storm. The soil was soaked in ancient blood and the grasses that clung to its slopes were slashes of vicious crimson. The Hill did not arrive by chance. The Hill came for a reason.
There’s Mary, who saw her mother murdered when she was still in single digits and is now being pushed to do something dreadful by forces she can’t understand. There’s Bill Reed, trying to distract himself from worrying about his daughter by focussing on his latest novel, who finds himself waking to a world of familiar faces turned monstrous. And then there’s Alice, a horror movie loving young girl sat in a car alone in the night as she awaits her Dad’s return, trying to ignore the unnatural noises creeping from the shadows outside.
Dark forces are at play in Apoc Hill. The inhabitants will become unwilling pawns in an ancient game between the darkness and the light. An ancient game that could see the entire world laid waste.
‘Apocalypse Hill’ is the first part in author Matthew Stott’s thrilling new supernatural fantasy miniseries.
The Matching by Angeline Trevena:
There was a time when a girl’s wedding day was the happiest day of her life.
In Falside, girls are a rare commodity; protected, controlled, and tracked by the administration. They spend their days idly waiting to be married off to the highest bidder.
When the marriage announcements include Tale’s lover, Freda, the women will do anything to stop the match from happening.
Their relationship is forbidden, and as members of the resistance, they’re already risking everything.
But as their attempts to stop the wedding fail, both women have to decide what they’re willing to sacrifice for love.
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June 26, 2016
Rest in Peace Götz George a.k.a. Horst Schimanski
I was planning to blog about the slyly subversive content of Independence Day today, in response to an article about the movie I vehemently disagreed with. However, then I saw on Twitter that German actor had died aged 77, which completely derailed my plans. Here is an obituary from the Süddeutche Zeitung and here is one from the Deutsche Welle.
If you lived in Germany in the past sixty years, you will have seen Götz George in a movie or on TV at some point. He was the son of Heinrich George and Bertha Drews, two of the biggest stars of Weimar Republic and Third Reich era Germany, and his career spanned a stunning 63 years, longer than either of his parents.
Götz George debuted at age 15 alongside a teenaged Romy Scheider in the romantic melodrama Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (When the white lilac blooms again), which hides an interesting look at single motherhood in postwar Germany behind its sappy exterior and silly songs. In the 1960s, he fought Fu-Manchu and appeared alongside Lex Barker and the late Pierre Brice in several Winnetou movies and even wound up getting the girl over Winnetou and Old Shatterhand (I’m sure they found consolation in each other).
But Götz George’s big breakthrough came in 1981, when he took the role with which he would be identified for the rest of his life: Horst Schimanski, the unapologetically working class cop from Duisburg in the Ruhrgebiet, whom George played for 32 years, first in the long-running crime drama series Tatort und later in his own eponymous series.
If you haven’t grown up with the staid and dull West German television of the 1970s and much of the 1980s, it’s hard to imagine what a revolution Schimanski was. Because until 1981 (and throughout the 1980s at least) German TV cops were distinguished elderly gentlemen in tweed jackets who solved genteel crimes in genteel upper middle class suburbs and whose antics had nothing whatsoever to do with anybody’s real life. Here is an example from 1980 featuring Schimanski’s immediate Tatort predecessor Kommissar Haferkamp (played by Hansjörg Felmy, a fine actor who deserved better than this).
And now take a look at Götz George’s debut as Horst Schimanski in the Tatort episode Duisburg Ruhrort.
The first three and a half minutes are a tiny masterpiece of characterisation, opening with a lingering shot of Horst Schimanski’s back (showing off Götz George’s impressive muscles in a non-male-gazey way that was rare before the 2000s) and the industrial Ruhrgebit landscape behind him. The camera then follows a clearly hung-over Schimanski through his kitchen, as he makes himself an anti-hangover cure, gathers up the beer bottles left over from last night and leaves, all to the stains of “Leader of the Pack” by The Shangri-Las (edited out of the YouTube video because of stupid copyright issues). Within the space of a few minutes you immediately know who this guy is and he hasn’t even said a single word yet.
And when Schimanski finally speaks at the 3 minute mark and yells, “Klappe, du Idiot, und hör auf mit dem Scheiß” (Shut up, you idiot, and stop that shit!) to the elderly man who is throwing his furniture out of the window, even the last viewer realised that Kommissar Haferkamp and his genteel fellow inspectors had left the building and that the future had arrived. And many viewers weren’t happy at all.
Contrary to popular belief, Götz George wasn’t the first person to utter the word “Scheiße” on German TV, that honour belongs to Dietmar Schönherr who said it back in 1966 in the science fiction TV classic Raumpatrouille Orion. Nonetheless, the foul-mouthed utterances of Horst Schimanski caused a massive firestorm among more conservative viewers, because won’t someone think of the children, who will now learn such horrible words from TV (which struck me as ridiculous even at the age of eight, because everybody I knew already knew those words). And of course it’s only appropriate that Götz George, who was reportedly named after the most famous curser in German literature, would be the one to normalise swearing on German TV. Coincidentally, no one in 1981 complained about the racial epithet used in the dialogue shortly after the “Scheiße” bit, which is very telling.
Horst Schimanski continued to be unconventional and controversial (more controversy was caused by Götz George appearing nearly naked in the 1984 episode Zweierlei Blut – even my parents were horrified, while I quietly hoped he would drop the towel). Gone were the genteel upper middle class suburbs, instead Schimanski investigated crimes in working class neighbourhoods and dealt with thefts of union funds, football hooligans, sexual child abuse and racist attacks on Turkish-Germans (coincidentally, Schimanski even had a Turkish German lover in the 1985 episode Zahn um Zahn). The huge success of the Schimanski Tatorte and the social realism of the crimes and settings ushered in an era of socially conscious Tatorte that still continues today.
Now, thirty-five years later, part of what makes the old Schimanski Tatorte so fascinating is that they offer a glimpse into a postwar working class world of grimy towns and rusty industrial estates, of corner pubs and allotment sheds, that was already rapidly vanishing by the time those episodes were shot (see this clip from Das Mädchen auf der Treppe for an example, complete with music by Tangerine Dream). And indeed, the dying pangs of the old industry occasionally became the subject of Schimanski episodes.
Revolutionary as the Schimanski Tatorte were, they might have been even more revolutionary, if Götz George had had his way and had been allowed to play Schimanski as a gay man. But if a working class cop saying “Scheiße” and ending up naked on a football field caused controversy, that would have been nothing against the firestorm caused by a gay man working as a cop in a mainstream TV show. And so Schimanski was resolutely heterosexual with a succession of lovers.
However, in the very early episodes, George still plays Schimanski as a closeted gay man who is infatuated with his straightlaced partner Tanner, played by Eberhard Falk who preceded Götz George into that great Ruhrpott in the sky in 1994. It’s never made explicit, but the signs are there, if you know where to look, perhaps never clearer than in what would be Schimanski’s finest hour and probably the best Tatort of all time, the 1982 episode Kuscheltiere (Plush toys). Trigger warning for harm to children:
In this Tatort episode, Schimanski tackles the illegal adoption industry where Vietnamese kids are sold to childless German couples (there’s a drug smuggling plot, too). When one of the kids winds up dead, Schimanski and Tanner get involved. Once again, it’s a ripped from the headlines case, because a lot of couples adopted Vietnamese children in the 1970s and early 1980s and often had to deal with blatant racism.
The most memorable moment of this episode comes near the end (here, though you should really watch the whole thing), when Schimanski realises why the couple to whom he’d traced the dead kid could still present a living adopted kid, namely the kids were twins and one died (of natural causes). At the very end of the episode, the adoptive father shows up with the surviving kid in tow and basically dumps her onto Schimanski, complaining that he paid sixty thousand Deutschmarks for the kids and then one died, his wife fell into depression and besides, the neighbours are talking and a kid like that doesn’t really belong into a nice German suburb anyway. And Schimanski tenderly takes the abandoned little girl in his arm, turns her away, so she won’t see it, and punches out the vile father. Then he takes the little girl home, where Tanner (who’d gotten kicked out by his girlfriend) is waiting on his doorstep. “Tanner”, a delighted Schimanski announces, “We have a kid.”
It’s a powerful scene, which is made even more powerful, if you view it as the precursor to gay parenthood that it was never allowed to be (though Schimanski and Tanner shared a flat – totally platonic of course – for a while). The little girl reappeared in later Schimanski episodes BTW, though sadly the name of the actress is lost to history.
Götz George left Tatort in late 1991 and continued to appear in increasingly high profile films such as Schtonk and Rossini, two of the biggest hits of the German film boom of the 1990s. In 1995, he portrayed Weimar Republic era serial killer Fritz Haarmann in Der Totmacher (The Deathmaker) and won the best actor award at the Venice film festival. He returned to playing Schmimanski in the eponymous series in 1997 (which was not nearly as good as his Tatort years), while continuing to play difficult characters in German movies. He played Joseph Mengele and in 2012 even his own father, Heinrich George. Götz George continued to act up to his death – his final TV drama will be broadcast sometime later this year.
Impressive as those later movies are, the part with which Götz George will forever be identified is still Horst Schimanski. So rest in peace, Götz George, and thank you for helping to blow away the genteel mildew of West German TV. Say hello to Tanner up there and have a beer on me.
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June 24, 2016
There will be no golden age…
So Britain (well, Wales and England minus London) voted to leave the European Union today. I’m pretty pissed off about this, because I rather like Britain, have lived in London for a while and also like to visit on occasion. I probably won’t be doing that again anytime soon, cause I don’t feel like visiting countries which make it very clear they don’t want me there.
I’m also pissed because clueless Americans like this dude writing for The Atlantic, who should really take a hard look at their own country, blame Angela Merkel and her refugee policy (which I wholeheartedly support) for the anti-EU vote in the UK rather than the xenophobic propaganda peddled by rightwing politicians and large parts of the UK media and the economic inequality caused by decades of incapable UK governments (Was there ever a good one? Not as far as I remember and my memory goes back to Thatcher’s first term).
Now I do feel sorry for those who voted “Remain” and get dragged out of the EU and into the economic mess the UK has made for itself against their will. And coincidentally, I noticed an uptick in requests to translate UK birth certificates in the past few months, as UK citizens who have been living and working in Germany for years or decades, are often married to Germans and have children here, are looking to apply for German citizenship, because they are worried that they will be subject to restrictions after the UK leaves the EU and because they want to retain the freedom to travel, work and live without restrictions in the EU. Meanwhile, EU citizens living in Britain have many of the same fears and probably rightfully, too, given the massive xenophobic undertones of the “Leave” campaign. I certainly sympathise.
But regarding those who voted “Leave”, I don’t have much sympathy for them. It seems that those who voted “Leave” honestly believe that the UK is swamped by refugees and immigrants (even though the whole UK has taken in fewer Syrian refugess than many medium sized German cities), that the EU is threatening their sovereignty (Uhm, the Queen is still there and so is David Cameron, at least for now), that no longer contibuting to the EU will automatically mean more prosperity (even though it will also mean the loss of all those EU subsidies the UK used to receive) and that leaving the EU will magically return their country to some imaginary golden age of the past that never was.
But this isn’t going to happen. Britain isn’t going to get its empire back. The UK is never going to look like Downton Abbey or Upstairs Downstairs again (and the very point of those shows was that the Victorian/Edwardian era was built on massive inequality and exploitation). Nor is the UK ever going to look like the cosy honest and hardworking working class folk idylls of Call the Midwife or Made in Dagenham again (and once more the point was very much that those supposed idylls weren’t so idyllic). And it certainly won’t look like the Midsomer Murders, which is probably a good thing, given the exorbitant murder rate in those cosy rural communities.
Those days are over, if they ever existed in the first place, and they’re not coming back. The British mining and steel and textile industries aren’t going to magically rise again and what’s left of the British steel industry is already seeing the effects of the Leave vote. Meanwhile, a lot of the industries that still exist are going to be negatively affected. The international banks residing in the City of London are already considering relocating to Frankfurt or Dublin or Paris. Airbus might well decide to scale back its plants in Bristol and Broughton or close them altogether. BMW might also decide that even if the Mini is marketed as a quintessentially British car, they don’t necessarily need to manufacture it in Oxford, especially since some models are already built in Austria. Ditto for General Motors and the Vauxhall plant at Ellesmere Port. Because giant multinational corporations depend on being able to move products and components across borders with minimum hassle and if the UK creates unnecessary hassle, they will simply go elsewhere. And the ones who will be most affected by this are the very same angry white working class voters who apparently overwhelmingly voted “Leave”, because they wanted to take their country back.
But the country they’ll get won’t look like Downton Abbey or Midsomer Murders or even Call the Midwife. Instead, it will look like a Ken Loach movie (who coincidentally called for Britain to leave the EU, while at the Cannes film festival, which is supported by EU funds, where he received the Palme d’Or for a movie about unemployed Britons that was very likely also supported by EU funds) or the beginning of Threads (which starts with a panning shot of Sheffield where it looks so grubby I assumed the apocalypse had already happened), grimy, grey and depressing, because all of those EU funds which supported urban renewal schemes in impoverished parts of the UK are suddenly gone.
So here’s your future, Britain, trapped in an endless Ken Loach movie. Hope you enjoy it!
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