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You are here: Home / Archives for story-telling

Moon Witch Spider King by Marlon James, A Review for Wyrd & Wonder

By John Folk-Williams

Moon Witch Spider King

Marlon James’ Moon Witch Spider King (second book of the Dark Star trilogy) impressed me at first as everything I had missed in the first novel, Black Leopard Red Wolf. There was a story of emotional depth I could link into and a brilliant character I could care about, as opposed to the strangely alienating […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction, Wyrd and Wonder Tagged With: fantasy, identity, immortal, Marlon James, memory, power, story-telling, supernatural

Slipping by Mohamed Kheir – A Review for #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

Slipping by Mohamed Kheir

Mohamed Kheir has written in Slipping a brilliant series of stories that drop their characters out of time and space for brief periods and interweave their narratives to challenge the limits of story-telling. The effect is like a folding of reality itself as the terms of their lives change directions in a stray encounter here, […]

Filed Under: Science Fiction in Translation, SciFiMonth, Short Fiction Tagged With: dreams, Egypt, memory, politics, power, reality, singing, story-telling

The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo #WyrdandWonder

By John Folk-Williams

Singing Hills - Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Look, I can’t pretend to keep up with the outpouring of fine SFF writing we are now witnessing, so I’m dipping into the recent past to discuss a pair of stories that are so perfect in their way that it’s hard to write about them. Nghi Vo is a storyteller of dazzling gifts, and her […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction, Wyrd and Wonder Tagged With: Asian fantasy, empire, love, memory, nonbinary, shape-shifting, story-telling

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi

By John Folk-Williams

Frankenstein in Baghdad - SFF in translation

In Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad, it takes a neighborhood of strange characters, rather than an over-reaching scientist as with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to create a monster. And it takes a good story, whether or not it is true, just so long as it is believed. There are many stories and levels of truth in […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction, Reviews, Science Fiction in Translation Tagged With: Baghdad, Frankenstein, justice, Mary Shelley, narrative, story-telling, truth, war

Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home: Dialogue Between Present and Future

By John Folk-Williams

Ursula K. LrGuin Always Coming Home

When Samuel R. Delany reviewed Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home on its publication in 1985, he referred to science fiction as a dialogue between present and future. That happens to be a good way of thinking about this unique work. It is part imaginary ethnography and part literary anthology of a people, the […]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: Always Coming Home, ceremonial life, culture, nature, power, story-telling, technology, Ursula K. Le Guin

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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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