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Creative Surgery by Clelia Farris

By John Folk-Williams

Creative Surgery by Clelia Farris

I am embarrassed to admit that I started reading Clelia Farris’s brilliant story collection Creative Surgery thinking I was in the middle of a different book. That can happen with Kindle. Everything looks the same. There are no beautiful covers, unique typefaces, pages to turn down. You just open and there is the text. I […]

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction in Translation Tagged With: art, Creative Surgery, deception, dystopia, identity, reality

Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

By John Folk-Williams

Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

I like writers who take risks in introducing their heroes. Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa sets this first book of The Nameless Republic series on the continent of Oon and its dominant country called Bassa. But unlike the image of the sleek figure on the cover art, the protagonist appears before us […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: caste, empire, fantasy, identity, magic, power, race

Fables of Need: this census-taker by China Miéville and The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati

By John Folk-Williams

This Census-Taker by China Mieville

I’m not sure what leads me to link these two books, as different and far apart in time as they are, but China Miéville’s this census-taker (2016)and Dino Buzzati’s The Tartar Steppe (1938) strike me as fables of human need. I’m not even sure what I mean by that, except that each book tells a […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction, International Speculative Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: boyhood, China Miéville, Dino Buzzati, fable, glory, magic, military, mountains, The City & The City, trauma

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

By John Folk-Williams

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

With a cascade of luminous and psychologically intricate prose, Arkady Martine’s A Desolation Called Peace picks up shortly after the conclusion of A Memory Called Empire. It’s another brilliant book that I find even richer than the first volume of this series on the Teixcalaan Empire and its remote satellite, Lsel Station. The two novels […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, Reviews, Space Opera Tagged With: alien minds, Arkady Martine, communication, galactic empires, identity, language, love, society

Lagoonfire and The Inconvenient God by Francesca Forrest

By John Folk-Williams

Lagoonfire by Francesca Forrest

Here are the first two completely captivating Tales of the Polity: the novelette The Inconvenient God and the short novel Lagoonfire. Their author, Francesca Forrest, suggests there will be more stories in her interview with the Little Red Reviewer. And I hope to see them soon. Forrest has a uniquely fascinating imagination that blends charming […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: compassion, gods, hopeful future, mystery, nature, religion

Linda Nagata’s Pacific Storm: A Review

By John Folk-Williams

10 Favorite SFF Books of 2021 Pacific Storm by Linda Nagata

I put off reading Linda Nagata’s Pacific Storm for a while because I was so enamored of her far future epics that I wondered about a nearish-future thriller set in Hawai’i awaiting the arrival of a powerful hurricane. Well, once I got into the story, I couldn’t let go. Pacific Storm has that feel-it-in-yours-bones tension […]

Filed Under: Indie SciFi, Reviews Tagged With: China, climate change, future history, government intrigue, Linda Nagata, politics, surveillance society, thriller

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Something is struggling to be born in this damaged and inspiring world, and I believe science fiction and its speculative cousins are helping us figure out what it is. It’s pushing the imaginations of fiction writers to bend and twist familiar forms to try to capture the forces that are hurling us into a barely conceivable future. This blog is my small way of exploring the half-perceived … Read More about About

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Reading: "Fear chews at you, though, and some artists don’t even realize they’re experiencing it until it overwhelms them." Business Musings: How Writers Fail (Part 2): Fear (Established Writer Edition) https://shar.es/afm95x via @KristineRusch

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Reading "His politics ..: in opposition to empire, racism, poverty, patriarchy, Christian dogma, and the emerging global capitalism of his time." William Blake: The Remarkable Printing Process of the English Poet, Artist & Visionary https://www.openculture.com/2022/05/william-blake-the-remarkable-printing-process-of-the-english-poet-artist-visionary.html via @openculture

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Hey @WashingTECH, Thank you for the follow!

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WashingTech Thank you for following me!!

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mrcarlson04

@LindaNagata is a writer I discovered last year, and have not looked back. Whether it’s SF or fantasy, she is a go to author on my short list. Check out her upcoming “Needle,” the third in the Inverted Frontier series. #writingcommmunity https://twitter.com/LindaNagata/status/1525939289866981376

Linda Nagata@LindaNagata

So—amidst all the grimness of the world—I have a new book coming out. NEEDLE is the third volume of my far-future series, Inverted Frontier. It’ll be out on July 12, with gorgeous cover art by the amazing Sarah Anne Langton (@xHelloSarahx).
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