Does Harrison Ford’s Participation in Blade Runner Sequel Confirm Deckard is NOT a Replicant?

Harrison Ford will reprise his role as Rick Deckard in a sequel to Ridley Scott’s science fiction classic, Blade Runner. After much speculation, Ford is confirmed to return in the upcoming production. From Collider:

Harrison Ford is officially returning as Rick Deckard in the sequel to Alcon Entertainment’s Blade Runner with Academy Award nominated director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy) in talks to direct. Last we heard about the film Ridley Scott, who directed the original 1982 film and will produce the sequel, confirmed earlier reports that Ford was interested in the script and said the film would shoot this year.

Turns out Scott was optimistic. Ford will return, but production is not slated for early 2016. Before that, Ford will be seen in The Age of Adaline and the much anticipated upcoming Star Wars: Episode Seven.

Fans are talking, though: does Ford’s participation as a much older Deckard confirm that the character was not a replicant? We’re undecided.

Blade Runner Sequel to Begin Production

The long-awaited sequel to director and producer Ridley Scott’s 1982 cult classic Blade Runner will begin filming in 2015. From Indiewire:

Scott said that he won’t direct "Blade Runner 2," but will stay on as a producer, with filming scheduled to get underway next year. There's no word why he opted out of the director's chair, but considering his next project is "The Martian" with Matt Damon, he probably just doesn't have the time anymore. But he's been deeply involved, working on the script with "Blade Runner" scribe Hampton Fancher, and Scott even spilled a few more details about the rumored and highly expected return of Harrison Ford as Deckard.

The original film was adapted from the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.

Though the original film tanked with critics, the neo noir dystopian film set in a dank and uncomfortable 2019 Los Angeles quickly made stars of both Scott and Harrison Ford, who played retired police officer Rick Deckard who will reprise the role in the new film.

Young Adult Fiction: The Caller by Juliet Marillier

Summer Gathering, when the rebels of Shadowfell are planning to challenge the evil King Keldec, is approaching rapidly. Caller Neryn, with whom we have made a long journey, still has two Guardians to go before her training is complete. But the White Lady, Guardian of air, is not in the best state. The Master of Shadows(fire) is a trickster who may or may not advise her on how to protect the rebels’ Good Folk allies from cold iron, which makes them sick and can kill them. Worse, Keldec now has his own Caller, who is less scrupulous about what he does to the Good Folk he calls. Neryn’s beloved Flint, the rebels’ double agent, known to his comrades as Owen Swift-Sword, is fed up with his life at court and what he's forced to do as an Enforcer, but has no choice. Can he trust his closest friends in the Enforcers or not? 

The story in Raven Flight (Knopf) has been built up over the last two books in this series. Here it comes to a dramatic climax. Neryn has to make some decisions she doesn’t necessarily like. At the same time, she meets people from the other side whom she can like and respect and even finds herself, at one point, pitying the king and wondering what he might have been like under other circumstances. 

You do tend to forget the heroine is only 16, especially in a world where that’s an age where you might easily be married, but I think that any teens who have read the other two books will be happy with this one. 

Don’t read this without having read the first two books, but if you haven’t, I do recommend this series. ◊

Sue Bursztynski lives in Australia, where she works as a teacher-librarian. She has written several books for children and young adults, including Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly and the YA novel Wolfborn. Her blog The Great Raven can be found at http://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.

SF/F: The Very Best of Tad Williams by Tad Williams

Though certainly not the household word that Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin has become, Tad Williams is one of the icons of the fantasy world.

Since the publication of his first novel, Tailchaser’s Song, in 1985, his dozen novels, eight works of non-fiction as well as the inclusion of his short fiction in various magazines and anthologies have showcased his thoughtful and imaginative prose.

The Very Best of Tad Williams (Tachyon) showcases the work of this engaging author. Most of the stories collected here have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. Bound together in this way, though, they create a sort of living retrospective of the author’s work. Obviously, Williams’ many fans will eat this up. However, those who have been thinking about reading some of his work but have been hesitating will find this book a great indoctrination, especially since many of his novels are massive in both size and scope. Beginning with a more bite-sized stories may well appeal to those wary of making the huge time investment into most of Williams’ novels.

And it won’t surprise Williams’ fans one bit to hear that the author may well be on the cusp of an even broader readership. Williams’ very charming debut novel, Tailchaser's Song, a fantasy set in a world peopled (ahem) by cats, is currently under development as a feature-length animated film. More news on that as it develops. ◊

SF/F: Lovecraft’s Monsters edited by Ellen Datlow

I can’t imagine that there is a serious reader of SF/F and horror fiction in the English language that does not know Ellen Datlow’s name.

Not only is Datlow a sharp and observant writer, for 30 years she has been one of the ranking editors in the genre. She was the fiction editor at OMNI and is the editor of over 50 anthologies, many of which have been featured somewhere in January Magazine over the years. (Often under my byline. And I’ll admit it: I’m a fan.) So needless to say, when a book with Datlow’s name on the cover enters my world, I sit up and pay attention.

In this case, though, there was more than one reason to take notice. In Lovevcraft’s Monsters (Tachyon), Datlow brings together some of the top SF/F and horror writers working today and has them play in Lovecraft’s bizarre world. And that’s a delight. To see the likes of Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Bear and many others writing what is, in one way, very much like Lovecraftian fanfic is very little short of wonderful.

Nor is this Datlow’s first foray in this sub-sub genre. In 2009 she edited Lovecraft Unbound, a book that contained “mostly new stories inspired by Lovecraft.” In Lovecraft’s Monsters, Datlow says she feels she has pushed “thematic boundaries to the breaking point,” with stories from some authors not known for the type included in the anthology.

The stories are weirdly wonderful. But so, also, is the artwork: spectacularly rendered original illustrations appear throughout John Coulthart.

If you loved Cthulhu, Shoggoths, the Deep Ones and the other monsters that haunted Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s sad and creepy vision, you’ll gobble up Lovecraft’s Monsters.

Holiday Gift Guide: Eragon: Collector’s Edition by Christopher Paolini

The story of how Eragon (Knopf Books for Young Readers) came to print is as magical as anything that happens in this fantastical series.

Los Angeles-born, Montana-raised and entirely homeschooled, Christopher Paolini was 15 when he began to write what would become Book One in the Inheritance Cycle.

Paolini and his family self-published the book in 2002, selling almost 10,000 copies through a concerted family effort to move the book. Then the big break: bestselling author Carl Hiassen was vacationing in Montana. A bookseller gave the author a copy for Hiassen’s then 12-year-old stepson. The kid loved the book, and said it was even better than Harry Potter. Hiassen called his editor at Knopf who didn’t waste a lot of time in signing this wunderkind with a pen to a publishing contract.

Knopf released their first edition of Eragon in 2003 when Christopher was 19. The rest, as they say, is history. Within six months, the Knopf edition had sold a million copies and his second novel, Eldest, sold close to half a million copies within a week of publication, making it the fastest selling title in Knopf’s history. Now not quite 30, Paolini is given rock star treatment when he makes public appearances: greeted by screaming fans in the thousands.

This 10th anniversary collector’s edition of Eragon was released in October of this year, very much with the holiday buying market in mind. The book is bound in faux-leather embossed with gold foil. Inside are six original colour illustrations by award-winning artists: Michael Hague, Donato Giancola, Ciurelo, John Jude Palancar and Raoule Vitale. It all makes for a pretty expensive package, but this is likely intended to be a gift for someone who already know and loves Paolini’s work and will cherish this special edition.

Fiction: PostaPoc by Liz Worth

I have to admit I began reading PostaPoc (Now Or Never) because of a misconception.

The book is by Liz Worth and the book’s (probably intentionally) jarring design and toneless typography had me thinking it was called PostaPocLiz, which seemed such a sensible name for a post-apocalyptic novel, I couldn’t think why it hadn’t been done before. It was only after I began to read that I realized the book is called PostApoc and  it was the debut novel of an author whose non-fiction work I was already familiar with. By then, though, there was no turning back: I was 10 or 15 pages in and already hooked.

Worth is the author of Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto. That book was good, but PostApoc is quite different. Actually more PostaPocLiz than rock journalism, but there are echoes of that, as well.

PostaPoc is elegant and surprising. The language is beautiful: Worth conjures up strong and lasting images to create her dying world. Here from the beginning of chapter one:

Outside, the dogs have all gone wild. Can you hear them? Can you feel them down there, voices shaking through loose skin?

At night their jowls fill with thunder. The howling is like wind wringing out hollow moans from the peaks of their spines, a chill that crawls through all the cracks in the windows.

Despite this poetry, the world dies without thunder. No zombies or blasted cityscapes, just a cyberpunk rendering of what the end might look like, with everything reduced to basics and everyone just struggling with survival.

Young Ang is part of an underground music scene who obsesses about the end of the world. They obsess so deeply that, when that end comes, Ang can’t help but feel as though she is in part to blame.

And then that survival. And struggles. And our own doubts, as well look back with her and try, against all instinct, to look ahead. The end is surprising. Unexpected, yet perfect. With everything concluded, but nothing wrapped up. PostaPoc is entirely riveting and worthwhile. ◊


Monica Stark is a contributing editor to January Magazine. She currently makes her home on a liveaboard boat somewhere in the North Pacific.

New Yesterday: Dying is My Business by Nicholas Kaufmann

Imagine that you can not die. That no matter what you did -- or did not do -- after your final breath, another would come. If this were the case, it might determine the course of your whole life: or what was left of it. And that’s just what Trent has done, working for a gangster doing the sort of jobs that get people killed. Well, most people, anyway. For Trent there is no risk. Every time he dies, he wakes right back up again.

Even so, the business of coming back from the dead isn’t entirely painless. Here, in the opening scene of Dying is My Business (St. Martin’s Griffin), we see the process from Trent’s perspective:

It’s not as easy as it looks to come back from the dead.

It’s a shock to the system, even more than dying is. The first new breath burns like fire. The first new heartbeat is like a sharp, urgent pain. Emerging from darkness like that. the sudden light is blinding, confusing. Coming back from the dead feels less like a miracle than like waking up with the world’s most debilitating hangover.

Depending on your perspective, there are worse things about that process than the pain. Trent himself doesn’t even know how it all works, only that it does. Part of the reason might just be that his own memory only goes back about a year. Everything before that is a big question mark. One thing he does know: the process -- whatever it is -- is not without cost. In the first place, he can not sleep. Ever. In the second place, someone always has to die. If not him, then someone else and one thing Trent always sees when he comes back from the dead is someone else’s corpse. It doesn’t always make sense -- to him, at least -- but it is always the case.

When Trent’s boss, Underwood, sends him out on a mission to retrieve an antique box from some squatters in an abandoned warehouse, he thinks it will be a piece of cake. But the “squatters” turn out to be a great deal more than the homeless people they appear to be and Trent finds himself in a mad world of bad magic and evil creatures where he must take part in an almost myth-like battle between good and evil. The only thing that has him even believing his eyes is the oddness in his own history.

As much as I enjoyed Dying is My Business I’ve had an awful time trying to write about it: everything I say makes it sound trite and lame (witness “myth-like battle between good and evil”) and even cliche. The only thing that makes the book move beyond the expected is author Kaufmann’s fine sense of urban fantasy, plus a sharp, dark humor and a pure inventiveness that keeps you wondering just what the hell could happen next.

Dying is My Business is very, very good. And it makes me suspect that there will be more just like it to enjoy some time soon. ◊

Young Adult Fiction: All Our Yesterdays By Cristin Terrill

Em is in a cell next to Finn, a boy she cares about, but hasn’t seen since they were locked up. The Doctor has been torturing them to get a vital piece of information. And in a hidden place in her cell, there’s a piece of paper from a future self (or is that past?): “You have to kill him.” 

The “him” is the boy she once loved, when she was Marina, rich and spoiled, living next door to an even wealthier family with two sons, the brilliant young politician-in-waiting and his shy, geeky but gorgeous younger brother. He invented a time machine and the only way to prevent dreadful things happening was to travel into the past with it and stop it being invented by killing him. Of course, this means that she and Finn, too, will cease to exist...

Time travel novels are great fun, even when they’re meant to be serious. You always wonder how the next author will deal with all the paradoxes time travel would cause. In All Our Yesterdays (Disney-Hyperion) you can tell that author Cristin Terill has thought carefully about it and worked on the consequences. In the context of this novel, at least, she convinces me. She has also played with all the cliched tropes -- you mustn’t meet your past or future self or the universe will explode or some such -- and poked her tongue out at them, in the middle of a dramatic scene. 

One cliche Terill does hang on to is the one where the heroine has a choice of two gorgeous boys, but in this case, the reader knows from the beginning which one she will end up with, just not how.

What I particularly liked, as a fan of old-style SF, is that the mad scientist of this genre is given a background, a reason for turning mad and a time when he was a teenage boy and had family and friends who loved him. It’s a nice touch.

If you’ve read all those enthusiastic blurbs saying that this is for fans of The Hunger Games, forget it; it’s not remotely like that book, and I have yet to find a book that is. Those blurbs just cash in on the fame of the other book and don’t do justice to either. It’s a bit like comparing every fat fantasy saga to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings when there’s nothing quite like it.

With that said, All Our Yesterdays is an enjoyable book and well worth reading. ◊

Sue Bursztynski lives in Australia, where she works as a teacher-librarian. She has written several books for children and young adults, including Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly and the YA novel Wolfborn. Her blog The Great Raven can be found at http://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.

Young Adult: Black Spring By Alison Croggon

I heard about Black Spring (Walker Books), a work of fantasy inspired by Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, at the Reading Matters Conference, where the author spoke, and decided to give it a go. I read Wuthering Heights for school and was curious to see what this author would make of it, so bought a copy.

First, the language: the author has done a very good job of getting that right. It reads pretty much like a 19th century book, to my eyes at least. The story is very similar to the original, with some changes. For example, Lina, the Cathy character, has no older brother and Damek, the Heathcliff of this novel, is related to the king and is imposed on the family. That makes a big difference to the storyline.

The technology is about the same, but the social structure is somewhat different. The north has its own royal family, which raises money by means of the Vendetta. Only those related to the ruler are exempt. If someone kills a person related to you, you must kill them and, in turn, be killed by someone in that family and, before you go off to commit your murder, you have to drop off some cash at the palace. Entire villages are wiped out because it's compulsory. If the royal coffers are low and nobody has a vendetta going, the king ensures one is started. Oh, and the victim not having a family doesn't prevent vendetta; in this case, the last family who hosted them must avenge the death.

Then there are the wizards, who don’t seem to do a lot apart from terrorizing villagers and issuing orders. On the other hand, if a girl is born with the violet eyes of a witch, she is killed. Presumably the wizards don’t want competition. Lina is a born witch, but the family move south for some years and then are allowed to move back without her destruction.

Interesting as all this is, I’m not sure that the Vendetta, at least, adds anything to the novel. If the author wanted to have a disaster in the village, a plague would surely have done the trick.

Despite all this, I’m sure Black Spring will have a lot of fans. It may do well for fantasy fans who aren’t ready to try the original. Those readers who, like me, have read the Bronte book, will have the fun of following the storyline and seeing how connected it is to the original. And I have to say that Lina is a somewhat more sympathetic character than Cathy: I have long thought that Cathy and Heathcliff are among fiction’s more obnoxious lovers, who thoroughly deserve each other. 

But as a YA novel, it really needs very good readers, the kind who could handle the original, and if they can handle Wuthering Heights, why not give them the original?

Still, it’s well worth a read and hopefully, anyone who discovers and enjoys Black Spring first will check out Wuthering Heights, and that can be no bad thing. ◊


Sue Bursztynski lives in Australia, where she works as a teacher-librarian. She has written several books for children and young adults, including Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly and, most recently, the YA novel Wolfborn. Her blog, The Great Raven, can be found at http://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.

Teenagers at the End of the World: Young Readers Dance with Dystopia

Why are young readers so enthralled with fiction focused beyond the end of the world? Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series. Veronica Roth’s Divergent books. David Estes’ Dwellers. Ally Condie’s Matched. I could go on. Easily. On and on and on. It’s a long list. And growing. Dystopia is hot with kids right now. The question is, why?

The Guardian’s “Children’s Book Doctor,” Julia Eccleshare, figures she might have it worked out. Eccleshare suggests that dystopian novels “offer young readers the chance to think about what kind of world they would create for themselves if they could forge everything again.” As Eccleshare points out, “Breaking and making is at the heart of a great many stories; the devastation of the old highlights the importance of the new when it is rediscovered or reinvented.”

In addition, stories such as these empower children by trusting them with roles far beyond reality. Typically, the destruction wipes out "good" adult rulers; children step into the breach. It's not a new fictional phenomenon. Earlier examples include Robert Swindells Brother in Land, a classic title of the 1980s reflecting then current concerns about the possibility of a nuclear bomb being dropped, in which a group of children have to manage on their own after the adults have been destroyed and Marcus Sedgwick's Floodland, published at the turn of the millennium, in which, having seen her parents sail away to safety, a young girl has to navigate Eel Island and its inhabitants if she is to survive when the east of England is subsumed by flood water. In both, and in the many dystopian novels of today, an apparently bleak world is re-imagined and lit up by children who understand clearly what is worth saving as they step from childhood to adulthood. Frequently, family is let go while friendship or trust in others becomes the future foundation. Navigating that space is what all adolescents need to do which is why they like this kind of fiction so much.

You can see the full piece here.

SF/F: The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth

Though best known for her children’s books, Kate Forsyth has now written two adult novels in a row on fairy tale themes. Bitter Greens (on this year’s Aurealis and Ditmars lists, the Australian awards for speculative fiction) was about the young woman who wrote a version of the Rapunzel story back in the 17th century, intertwined with the Rapunzel tale itself. That one was historical fantasy, The Wild Girl is straight historical fiction centered around those collectors of tales, the Brothers Grimm, as seen by the girl next door, Dortchen Wild, who would eventually marry one of them and told them about a quarter of the stories in their collection. But the fairy tales are there anyway, again intertwined with the main story, though not in exactly the same way as in Bitter Greens. There are quotes from the stories Dortchen Wild told Wilhelm Grimm, carefully connected with whatever is happening in that part of the novel.
Dortchen Wild, daughter of an apothecary and no mean herbalist herself, falls in love with Wilhelm Grimm when she is just 12 and he a few years older. He is the big brother of her best friend Lotte, kind and handsome and probably doesn’t know she exists, except as someone who knows many of the folk tales he and his brother Jakob are collecting.

But the years go by. Napoleon invades. The small German country of Hesse become the kingdom of Westphalia, ruled by Napoleon’s extravagant and heedless younger brother, Jerome. The Grimms and Dortchen’s family have a lot more to worry about than a romance that might or might not happen. And Dortchen has been abused horribly by her father, one of the nastier characters I have come across in fiction recently.

This is a wonderful piece of historical fiction. It is based on an idea expressed by Valerie Paradiz in Clever Maids: The Secret History Of The Grimm Fairy Tales, that the Grimm brothers got their stories, not from illiterate peasants and old grannies at the spinning wheel, but from middle class, educated young women of their acquaintance, starting with the girl next door.

As with all good historical fiction, history has been interpreted. There will always be some things we don’t or can’t know. When that happens, the author has to pull together the facts we do know and come to a conclusion. Forsyth has been done that very well. The author has taken only a few minor bits of license, which she mentions in her afterword, but she has done it intelligently, researching the period and the people thoroughly and making it all believable. It’s strange, reading The Wild Girl, to imagine that all this was going on while the Regency was happening in England and Jane Austen was writing gentle, witty romances.

I hadn’t realized that the first edition of the Grimm stories was a flop. Live and learn! Another thing: I always thought the Grimm stories were nastier and more violent than their counterparts in other countries, but this isn’t always the case. While reading The Wild Girl I was comparing Grimm stories with those of Perrault and others. “Sleeping Beauty” in Grimm ends with the princess and her prince wandering off happily into the sunset; the French Perrault story doesn’t and with the princess awakening. She has a monster for a mother-in-law: literally! One who tries to eat her and her children. “Aschenputtel” has some gruesome bits, but at least Grimm’s Cinderella isn’t a murderer like her Italian counterpart, Cenerentola, whom I discovered on  the Sur La Lune Fairy Tales web site. The story of “Little Red Riding Hood” is nastier in the French version.

Whether you love fairy tales or historical fiction or romance, there is something for you in The Wild Girl. ◊

Sue Bursztynski lives in Australia, where she works as a teacher-librarian. She has written several books for children and young adults, including Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly and, most recently, the YA novel Wolfborn. Her blog, The Great Raven, can be found at http://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.

Paranormally Excellent

If you’ve been wondering about what might take the high spots on a list of the top paranormal fantasy novels of recent years you may now rest. The wonderful Paul Goat Allen has tackled the topic for the Barnes and Noble blog, laying to rest any need for the loss of sleep you might previously have had while pondering the question.

“We are in the midst of a glorious Golden Age of paranormal fantasy,” writes Allen. “The last ten years, specifically, in genre fiction have been nothing short of landscape-changing.”

And he’s right, of course. Just look at the contenders: Kim Harrison, Kat Richardson, Charlaine Harris, Charlie Huston and Cherie Priest are just a few of the names you figured might show up… and who do.

As Allen says, his list includes books which “are not only extraordinarily good, but have also dramatically influenced -- and continue to influence -- the course of the genre.” That list is here.

Young Adult: The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress

Author, actor and director Adrienne Kress (Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, Timothy and the Dragon’s Gate) attacks her first young adult novel with cinematic verve. In her newest book, Kress delivers a high-spirited study of the nature of heroism at the hands of a trio of girls in a steampunk world.

The Friday Society (Dial) brings us lab assistant Cora, magician’s assistant Nellie and Michiko, the flight assistant: all three game girls who assist powerful men. They meet under mad circumstances and are united at the discovery of an unsolved murder that may have links to each of their lives. The book is period, but still entirely contemporary in tone, as one can see from the opening lines:

And then there was an explosion.

It was loud. It was bright. It was very explosion-y… 

Kablooey.

That was the technical term for it.

So there is a lightness to The Friday Society, but never a silliness, and Kerr maintains that balance with an almost perfect zen. Kress’ starring three are charming -- competent, intelligent and anything but typical -- but Kress’ secondary characters are almost as interesting. ◊

Sienna Powers is a transplanted Calgarian who lives and works in Vancouver, B.C. She is a writer and conceptual artist.

Best Books of 2012: Science Fiction/Fantasy

This is the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Books of 2012 segment of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2012 feature. Also available are our picks for best books for children and young adults,  best crime, mystery and thriller fiction of 2012, in two parts: one and two. As well, here are the best cookbooks of 2012. Still to come: our contributors’ selections of the Best Fiction and Best Non-Fiction. Look for them in the coming days.

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
If you’ve ever liked anything by Kim Stanley Robinson (Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, Sixty Days and Counting, The Years of Rice and Salt, et al) you will enjoy 2312. If this is your first visit to Robinson’s terraforming worlds, you’re in a for a helluva treat. Robinson is sharp and strong and simply at his best here. Never mind dystopia: this is utopia, and it doesn’t get much better. A terrorist organization or individual has bombed a city on the planet Mercury. Uncovering whodunnit leads to a conspiracy so deep, it penetrates to the very roots of Mercurian history, right back to Earth’s own polluted history. Robinson fans will recognize his keen sense of place and value for the environment as well as his hopeful vision. -- Lincoln Cho

Hair Side, Flesh Side by Helen Marshall (ChiZine)
Sometimes you hear people talking about the new face of horror. Well huddle closer, children. Hair Side, Flesh Side is it. This is author Helene Marshall’s debut story collection, but she’s no stranger to these shores. In 2011, she published a ground-breaking poetry collection, Skeleton Leaves, that among other things was selected for consideration for the Bram Stoker Award for excellence in horror. Marshall is a Doctoral Candidate at Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto and holds a Ph.D. in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from University of Toronto. So then when you discover stories that hinge so sharply on themes and strands garnered from Marshall’s extensive intellectual travels, it is on a certain level, unsurprising. What surprises is what she does with it. Marshall’s stories are frightening, touching, quirky, sexy and deeply lyrical. The 15 stories each seem deeply grounded in reality, making the otherworldly explorations all the more real. -- Sienna Powers

Railsea by China Miéville (Del Rey)
You can call China Miéville’s Railsea young adult fiction if you want, but I won’t, nor do I think history will, either. This is a sharp, almost steampunk retelling of the Moby Dick story, but the captain here is at the helm of a mole-hunting train. Though the story is satisfying, as always the chief delight of a Miéville novel is Miéville himself. Here again, I wonder at the YA label, as the language seems sophisticated beyond younger readers. What does remain clear is this author’s skill. Un Lun Dun, Perdido Street Station, The City & The City and on, Miéville writes beautiful, memorable books. Adventures a reader can carry through their life. Railsea is another beauty in a growing bouquet of simply wonderful books. -- Linda L. Richards

Redshirts by John Scalzi (Tor)
In a year of sharply, inventive books, Redshirts may have been the sharpest, most inventive thing I read. As anyone who has watched even a bit of Star Trek knows, a Redshirt is a character who will die not long after being introduced. It’s such a truism, the word has leaked into language. I’ve seen it on sitcoms. “He’s a Redshirt,” says one character to another and everyone knows what is meant. This cultural knowledge is what John Scalzi’s Redshirts is predicated on. It’s an idea that could have failed dismally, but he makes it work. Hell: he makes it sing. In fact, it is this cultural knowledge that Scalzi hinges his book upon, but there is so much more here than meets the eye. On one level, it is a classic old school science fiction adventure, with a highly hilarious edge. On another, we get to witness what goes on in the lives of characters we would not normally ever get to see: those bit players we’re aware of just off stage left. On still another, it’s not until after you’ve finished this particular journey that you realize that Scalzi has skillfully interwoven thoughtful comments on the very nature of death into his narrative. Bottom line: though you might like Redshirts on the first pass, you’ll realize it’s an even better book than you thought it was after a couple of weeks of thinking back. -- Lincoln Cho

Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution edited by Ann Vandermeer (Tachyon)
When Ann Vandermeer began editing an annual steampunk anthology in 2008, it didn’t create a huge ripple. I was reading steampunk at that time and had been for years, so I understand how difficult Vandermeer’s job must have been just talking about the sub-genre, let alone getting people to understand what it was. Most recently, steampunk has practically slipped into the mainstream and it seems everyone is talking about it and filming it and writing it. It’s even slipped into furniture design. And Vandermeer has the enviable position of having been in the vanguard. Her annual anthology offers up the best of the lot that seems always to be getting better and everyone who cares about such things knows it. It strikes me that this third edition is the best yet. Labels aside, Steampunk III is a strong  and sharp collection of writing. You don’t have to be a fan of steampunk -- or even really know what it is -- to enjoy this work. In any case, it collects the writing of not only the sharpest, newest voices in steampunk, but also a great many who bring their authority to all types of explorative writing. The list is deep, but we find works by Lev Grossman, Cherie Priest, Garth Nix, Bruce Sterling, Jeffrey Ford and many others. This is a great collection. -- Lincoln Cho

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Harper)
If nothing else, you can love this one for the beauty of the collaboration: between them, Pratchett and Baxter have both ends of SF/F pretty well covered. Baxter writes the sort of hard SF one would expect from someone with degrees in mathematics and engineering. From his debut with 1991’s Raft to his 2012 Doctor Who novel The Wheel of Ice, Baxter’s work has been informed by strong scientific research fueled by understanding of the philosophies of the human condition. Pratchett, on the other hand, is best known for his highly comedic Discworld fantasy series, which represents a different sort of world building altogether. It’s an absolute delight that putting these two together has resulted in exactly the book one would hope for from such a collaboration: The Long Earth snaps with hard science and just the right amount of humor. In the book, we discover that parallel worlds have been breached by the discovery and implementation of some fairly simple technology revolving around… a potato. Though this sounds like a silly premise, in these skilled hands it not only works, it fairly sings. Enough so that I’m looking forward to the second installment in what is being billed a two book series. -- Lincoln Cho

The Year’s Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois (St. Martin’s Press)
The 29th publication of this annual needed little announcement. Every year, this anthology rounds up the very best of SF/F from the previous year, offering readers the chance to see what genre masters are up to plus giving us a glimpse of where things are headed with the best of the best from the brightest of young things. As usual, the anthology begins with a summation of the previous year by the editor. Here Dorzois puts emphasis on the importance of the e-book on various trends in SF/F, but also the importance of magazines that publish fiction, regardless of format. “If you’d like to see lots of good SF and Fantasy published every year,” the editor admonishes, “the survival of these magazines is essential, and one important way that you can help them survive is by subscribing to them.” It’s a good point, too. Especially in this context, since almost all of the fiction in this anthology was initially published in a periodical of some description. This time out, the more than 300,000 words in the anthology includes short stories by Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Maureen F. McHugh, Pat Cadigan, Elizabeth Bear and others. Gardner has a demonstrated talent for finding the best of the best and this year’s offering is no exception. -- Lincoln Cho

Triggers by Robert J. Sawyer (Ace)
Though the sharp but sadly short-lived 2009-2010 television series based on his novel Flashforward introduced Robert J. Sawyer to a wider audience than ever before, the novelist’s work has been solid, respected and awarded for over two decades. Like much of his work, 2012’s Triggers rides the edge of a couple of genres. The author seems pleasingly unconcerned about where those edges should fall. President Seth Jerrison narrowly missed assassination. In the hospital while doctors try to revive him, another doctor is experimenting with memory erasing technology. At the same time, a terrorist bomb detonates, thrusting the President into cardiac arrest. When he has a near death experience, the President is flooded with memories not his own. Not long after, it becomes apparent that the memory altering technology has somehow embedded the Presdident’s own memories in some random person: a potential catastrophe, considering the classified nature of a President’s knowledge, especially since some of it relates to a top secret military mission that could impact countless lives. It strikes me that Sawyer is at the height of his powers here. A mature storyteller, sharing his worlds with us at his own easy stride. I couldn’t put it down. -- Linda L. Richards

Holiday Gift Guide: American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s edited by Gary K. Wolfe

When I pulled American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s (Library of America) out of the box, I gave a little “whoop” of delight. Beautifully presented in a boxed, two-volume set, the packaging instantly evokes the most tantalizing volumes of my childhood.

This anthology includes nine groundbreaking works from the infant age of novels of science fiction. The works included here defined a genre. Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, A Case of Conscience by James Blish, Who? by Algis Budrys, The Big Time by Fritz Leiber, The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett and The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson.

Read back to back in this way, one hears a naiveté and a very different tone and direction than one hears in contemporary science fiction. It is indeed arguable to say that today’s science fiction has a less self-conscious edge. And I would also hazard that the best contemporary works are more writerly and generally skilled. But there is a raw, exploratory tone to some of these novels. These writers were exploring territory as new as the worlds they were writing about, and just as uncharted. Where could these explorations possibly go? And yet, 50 and 60 years on, here they still are.

Have someone mad for science fiction on your holiday list? American Science Fiction would be a good choice. ◊

Lincoln Cho is a freelance writer and editor. He lives in the Chicago area, where he works in the high-tech industry. He is currently working on a his first novel, a science-fiction thriller set in the world of telecommunications.

SF/F: The Year’s Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

The 29th publication of The Year’s Best Science Fiction (St. Martin’s Press) edited by Gardner Dozois annual needs little announcement, yet not discussing it at least a bit would seem like an oversight. Every year, Dozois rounds up the very best of SF/F from the previous year, offering readers the chance to see what genre masters are up to plus giving us a glimpse of where things are headed with the best of the best from the brightest of young things.

As usual, the anthology begins with a summation of the previous year by the editor. This time Dorzois puts emphasis on the importance of the e-book on various trends in SF/F, but also the importance of magazines that publish fiction, regardless of format. “If you’d like to see lots of good SF and Fantasy published every year,” the editor admonishes, “the survival of these magazines is essential, and one important way that you can help them survive is by subscribing to them.”

It’s a good point, too. Especially in this context, since almost all of the fiction in this anthology was initially published in a periodical of some description. This time out, the more than 300,000 words in the anthology includes short stories by Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Maureen F. McHugh, Pat Cadigan, Elizabeth Bear and others. Gardner has a demonstrated talent for finding the best of the best and this year’s offering is no exception. ◊

Lincoln Cho is a freelance writer and editor. He lives in the Chicago area, where he works in the high-tech industry. He is currently working on a his first novel, a science-fiction thriller set in the world of telecommunications.

Young Adult: The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore

It seems ironic that the author who suffered a scandal for weaving too much fiction into his memoir should come back as part of a writing team that claims no earthly connection. Some would say there is room for scandal at the heart of Full Fathom Five, the writer’s factory Frey set up to create new projects. We won’t go into that here, as it’s been well covered in the press and may, in any case, be old news. The new news is the master creation: under the pseudonym of Pittacus Lore, Frey and other of his factory writers recreated themselves as the author of the bestselling Lorien Legacies. The author’s bio looks like this:

Pittacus Lore is Lorien’s ruling Elder. He had been on Earth preparing for the war that will decide Earth’s fate. His whereabouts are unknown.

Which, of course, does not even play at truth, or even reality, but rather enhances the story that Frey and company have come to tell. Fair ball? I’m not really sure, but if the wildfire sales that have driven this series for the past few years are any evidence, Frey is onto something here. After all, everyone knows: kids dig pretend.

The Rise of the Nine (HarperCollins) is the third book in what is being forecast as a six book series. Readers who have been following the exploits of Number Four are in for a shock about Sarah and will get to finally uncover the identity of Number Eight.

Science fiction at its finest is spirit lifting and mind-expanding. This isn’t that. The Rise of Nine is both compelling and contrived: an odd combination that apparently works for a large number of readers. In fact, over 1.25 million readers have tuned into this exciting series already, a number no doubt fueled by the 2011 Michael Bay film based on the first book, I Am Number Four. While the film made bags of money, the critics heaped it with vitriol and the books are somewhat like that: forgettable, overwrought space schmaltz that, nonetheless, have a huge following.

If you take all of that as read, we’ll be hearing a lot more from Pittacus Lore as time moves on. ◊

Linda L. Richards is the editor of January Magazine and the author of several books.

Young Adult: Blood Storm by Rhiannon Hart

In Blood Storm (Random House Australia) Princess Zeraphina and Rodden, the King's right-hand man, are both “harmings,” a kind of vampire who isn’t actually undead, but does need blood; it doesn’t have to be human and they make the most of small creatures such as rabbits and squirrels. But now beggars and other unlikely-to-be missed folk have been found drained of blood in the streets. Sailors and their ships are going missing.

In Blood Song, the previous book, Rodden and Zeraphina made their way north to Lharmell, home of the vampires, and stopped a mass Turning, killing the leader of the harmings. Back then, the harmings weren't too bright, but now someone is actually planning. They have to be stopped, but Rodden's kingdom has been refusing to believe anything is wrong and Zeraphina's mother wants her to come home and get married. And they are both running short of yelbar, the stuff they need to tip their arrows if they're going to kill the horrors up north...

This novel is better than the first. The universe is more developed and we learn why the south part of the continent is colder than the north, and it isn't because Antarctica is nearby. We learn about Rodden's past, which isn't pretty.

Despite the pretty cover, Blood Storm is not a standard paranormal romance; it's an action adventure with romance in it, although Zeraphina's love for Rodden is an important part of her motivation. The heroine is not a Mary Sue, nor a Chosen One, and if she's good with a bow and arrow, she has earned it with a lot of practice; any other abilities she has are the result of being a harming, if a special harming who has experimented. She also has a brain she is willing to use. ◊

Sue Bursztynski lives in Australia, where she works as a teacher-librarian. She has written several books for children and young adults, including Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly and, most recently, the YA novel Wolfborn. Her blog, The Great Raven, can be found at http://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.

All Hail the Hugos

Authors Jo Walton, Kij Johnson, Neil Gaiman and Ken Liu, along with the TV series Game of Thrones and Doctor Who, are among the recipients of the 2012 Hugo Awards, given out annually by the World Science Fiction Convention (aka “Worldcon”). Presentations were made yesterday during Chicon 7, held in Chicago.

Best Novel: Among Others, by Jo Walton (Tor)

Best Novella: “The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Science Fiction, September/October 2011)

Best Novelette: “Six Months, Three Days,” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)

Best Short Story: “The Paper Menagerie,” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

Best Related Work: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition, edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight (Gollancz)

Best Graphic Story: Digger, by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form): Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R.R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten and Alan Taylor (HBO)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form): “The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)

Best Editor (Short Form): Sheila Williams

Best Editor (Long Form): Betsy Wollheim

Best Professional Artist: John Picacio

Best Semiprozine: Locus, edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.

Best Fanzine: SF Signal, edited by John DeNardo

Best Fan Writer: Jim C. Hines

Best Fan Artist: Maurine Starkey

Best Fancast: SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente

The John W. Campbell Award for the best new professional science-fiction or fantasy writer of 2010 or 2011, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award): E. Lily Yu

A full rundown of this year’s Hugo finalists can be found here.