Books

Dark Spires is Back in Print

~ Cheryl

Dark SpiresOne of the things that has occupied me over the summer is learning to do book layouts. Doing paper books at Wizard’s Tower just isn’t economic unless I do most of the work on book production myself. Obviously I needed a book to practice on, and I chose Dark Spires because it was my first book and currently out of print. It seemed a real shame to have a book that has so many great local writers in it, including Colin Harvey, that was a print book but is only available electronically. The proof copy arrived last week and I’m pretty pleased with it as a first attempt.

The book contains a variety of stories all inspired by the idea of Wessex. The authors include Liz Williams, Gareth L. Powell, Jo Hall, Roz Clarke, Eugene Byrne, Gay Haley and Colin Harvey himself.

I will have copies available at BristolCon at a convention special price of £8. It will be £10 from the piranhas in due course. I’ll see if I can rig up a way of pre-ordering it so that no one misses out on the con price. If you are in the US, I’ll be sorting something out for you. Collect from BASFA should be an option.

Book Review – Lovecraft Country

~ Cheryl

Lovecraft CountryOld Howard has been in the news a lot of late. Everything from his ugly representation as the World Fantasy Award to the bizarre devotion that he seems to inspire in the people who run the World Fantasy Convention has been picked apart. It is kind of like if the Hugo was a bust of Heinlein, and 25% of programming at all Worldcons was about Heinlein, and Heinlein was someone whose work was only tangentially regarded as SF. Weird, one might say. But neither gibbous nor squamous.

Various attempts have been made to re-assess Lovecraft and his legacy in fiction. Jonathan L. Howard’s Carter & Lovecraft is one such. So is The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, which I have sat on my Kindle waiting to be read. The other well known one is Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, which I have read recently and can therefore review.

It isn’t a book that is easy to review if you happen to be white and British, because you are a fair way away from the things Matt is writing about. But I did enjoy the book, and there are enough positive reviews about by more knowledgeable people whose opinions I trust to suggest that Matt has once again delivered a fine novel. If you are interested in my verdict, you can find it here.

River Kingdom Cover Reveal

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

River Kingdom cover
As announced last month, Wizard’s Tower will shortly be launching a brand new book by Juliet E. McKenna. This fabulous cover is by Ben Baldwin. I’ll be announcing details of how to pre-order the book soon. In the meantime, here’s some blurb.

Imaginary friends should be a comfort when other consolations fail. But what if these longed-for companions think different? What if they’re none too pleased to be summoned? What if untamed magic can spawn creatures from daydreams or nightmares? Could something eerie half-glimpsed in a shadow actually be there?

Shadow Histories of the River Kingdom introduces a brand new fantasy setting from acclaimed author Juliet E McKenna. This volume brings together stories previously available in a range of publications, not all easily found, as well as some new material.

Welcome to the River Kingdom, where shadows can be all too solid and dangerous.

And here’s the full wrap-around.

riverkingdomfull

The book has a really great map by Sophie E. Tallis as well. Sadly we can’t do color, fold-out interiors, but something else interesting may happen.

Foz Meadows in The Salon

~ Cheryl

Last week I did an interview with Foz Meadows about her recently published novel, An Accident of Stars. As might be expected when you get two ranty feminists with a strong interest in gender together, we had a lot to talk about. In particular I wanted to talk about how Foz manages to do a whole bunch of things I would not normally recommend when writing a trans character and make them work. One of the reasons for this, of course, is that if you create a world in which transphobia doesn’t exist then most of the usual rules go out of the window.

Of course we managed to find lots more topics to discuss as well. In particular Foz sheds some light on her thinking when creating the matriarchal society in the world of her book. Foz also explains how the book is, in part, about the “Susan Problem”, something which all teenage girls who read Narnia will recognize.

Along the way there’s a brief shout out to the wonderful Trudi Canavan, and some words of praise for Seanan McGuire’s wonderful Every Heart a Doorway.

The interview took place over Skype with Foz in Queensland and me in England, so the sound quality isn’t up to studio standards. But hey, video phone call to Australia; we are living in the future.

Bristol Festival of Literature News

~ Cheryl

The website for this year’s Bristol Festival of Literature has started to roll out publicity. You can see the whole thing here, but I wanted to highlight a few things that may be of particular interest to you folks.

On the afternoon of Saturday October 22nd there will be an event at Bristol Museum called Ancient Egyptian Story-Telling. It will feature four writers, three of whom should be known to you. Justin Newland, Amanda Huskisson and Piotr Swietlik have all read at BristolCon Fringe, and Piotr has a story in Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion. The museum folks have been very efficient with the publicity. You can find out more here.

On Monday October 24th there will be an event at Bristol University called Ageing in the LGBT community. It will feature Alan Clark (author of Rory’s Boys, a comedy set in a retirement home for gay men), Dr. Jane Traies (author of The Lives of Older Lesbians), Dr. Paul Willis of Bristol University and Berkeley Wilde of The Diversity Trust. It will be chaired by me. Attendance is free, and it is 7:00pm at the Lecture Theatre, Helen Wodehouse Building, 35 Berkeley Square. I’ll have an official post up on the OutStories Bristol website in a day or two.

On Thursday October 27th there will be an event called Strong Women. Ominously it is going to be at Arnos Vale Cemetery, and it has a 10:00am start time so though I am on the panel I may be mainlining coffee throughout. I’ll let you know as and when I know more, but I’m sure you are familiar with the panel idea. I will take my copy of Fight Like A Girl to wave at people.

Finally on Saturday October 29th there is BristolCon, with Ken MacLeod, Sarah Pinborough, Fangorn and many other fine SFnal people.

I’ll be on Women’s Outlook on October 19th and I’ll be devoting the whole two hours to the Festival. Guests will include Joanne Hall, Dr. Paul Willis and Gav Watkins from the Festival.

Coming in Translation from Aqueduct

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

MonteverdeToday I got email from Aqueduct Press talking about their forthcoming releases. Among them was Monteverde: Memoirs of an Interstellar Linguist, a short science fiction novel by Spanish writer, Lola Robles. It has been translated by my friend Lawrence Schimel, so I immediately got in touch with him for more information. I’ll have more to say about the book in the near future. Today, however, I wanted to thank Aqueduct for taking a risk on a translated work. I also note that Lawrence has been telling me about science fiction in Spanish featuring trans characters, including a story by Lola and a forthcoming novel by Sofía Rhei.

It so happens that Lola and Lawrence will be at the forthcoming Eurocon in Barcelona. Possibly Sofía will too. And of course I will be there. I’m looking forward to it.

Freedom Youth in the News

~ Cheryl

The Bristol Cable has just run a nice little article about Free to be Me, the history of Freedom Youth that was launched at Bristol Pride this year. The article also includes a few quotes from some busybody called Cheryl who was on hand as an expert in local LGBT history.

By the way, the layout was done by Joe Burt who also did Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion and the Colin Harvey novels for me, and is published by my friend Richard Jones at Tangent Books. Richard, like me, is heavily involved in the Bristol Festival of Literature, about which you will be hearing much more in the run up to the end of October. And on that subject, Pete Sutton was on Radio Bristol talking about the festival yesterday. This listen again link is here, and Pete comes on at about 1:22.

Mike Carey at Waterstones

~ Cheryl

As promised, I have uploaded the other Mike Carey interview to Salon Futura. This is the one that we did at Waterstones in the evening. It is almost an hour long, so we have a lot more time to talk about Fellside. Mike and I go on a little rant about the economics of private prisons. The conversation also touches on films. The Girl with All the Gifts is due for release on September 23rd. Here’s the trailer.

One of the reasons I didn’t want to release this too soon is that Mike would have had to kill me, because during the interview he mentions the possibility of a prequel to The Girl with All the Gifts. That book is now official, so I no longer have to worry.

Inevitably Mike and I talk about the X-Men. Indeed, I suspect that we could have talked about superhero movies all evening had not one or two people been scowling at us from the audience. Obviously I mentioned the Felix Castor novels, which led us on to the idiocies of publisher branding policies. We even managed to mention the Steel Seraglio books, which Mike wrote with his wife, Linda, and daughter, Louise.

The sound quality is rather poor in places, for which my apologies. My little microphone doesn’t cope well with a cavernous shop, and there were all sorts of issues with capturing audience questions. Hopefully it is all listenable.

This event was arranged by the Bristol Festival of Literature. My thanks to Pete Sutton for doing a fine job.

Next week in the Salon I’ll have the full version of my Finncon interview with Cat Valente.

Finns for Hugos

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

MaresiCore
Yeah, I am lamentably late publishing anything for Women in Translation Month. It is, after all, the last day of August. But I didn’t want to talk about these two books until the current year’s Hugo excitement was over, because they are both candidates for next year.

It would be nice to have a Finnish author or two on the ballot in Helsinki, wouldn’t it?

Of course, this being Finland, both books are by women, and both have strongly feminist themes. I wouldn’t expect anything less of my amazing Finnish friends. Both are translations. But there the similarities end. The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo was originally written in Finnish and is science fiction. Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff was originally written in Swedish and is YA fantasy. Both are great books in their own way.

So if you’d like to know more, check out my reviews. You can find The Core of the Sun here, and Maresi here.

Mike Carey in the Salon – Part I

~ Cheryl

Fellside
Today on Salon Futura I posted the audio from my interview with Mike Carey on Ujima Women’s Outlook back in May. We were mainly discussing his latest novel, Fellside, but conversation also strayed onto The Girl with All the Gifts and the X-Men.

Mike’s comments are particularly interesting in view of the US Department of Justice’s recent decision to stop using private prisons. Whether the UK will follow suit is very much open to debate.

As I note in the interview, I was also scheduled to interview Mike at Waterstones that evening. I have edited the audio from that and hope to have it online for you later this week. In the meantime, here is Part I.

Paul Cornell in The Salon

~ Cheryl

Here’s another Ujima interview that I am posting because the Listen Again link has expired. In keeping with our theme of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who, here is Paul Cornell.

Obviously the main topic of conversation was Paul’s Shadow Police novel, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes. We also discussed some of his other projects, including This Damned Band which is now available as a graphic novel. Along the way we discuss diversity in fiction, fandom, and why a vicar’s husband is so obsessed with devil worship. At one point I do actually say, “this interview has gone completely off the rails”, which I guess shows you how much fun Paul and I were having.

If you haven’t bought Who Killed Sherlock Holmes yet, you might like to listen to Paul read from it at his recent BristolCon Fringe appearance.

Next week, Mike Carey.

Cavan Scott in The Salon

~ Cheryl

I have been working on processing some of the interview material that I did for Ujima and has now vanished from the Listen Again service. This week will be mainly about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who, with a bit of Star Wars and The Beano thrown in. I’m starting up with Cavan Scott who does all of those things. Later in the week I’ll bring you Paul Cornell as well.

Here’s Cav. I had the poor man in the studio for a whole hour. With the music, news and ads removed it boils down to about half of that. Among other things we talk about how he came to have the #1 selling book in the whole of the UK.

Book Review – Full Fathom Five

~ Cheryl

FullFathomFiveHere’s another book with a trans character in it. This one was very different. As I note in the review, blink and you will miss the fact that the character is trans.

On the one hand, that’s not good because it means that there are aspects of being trans that don’t get explored. If it is too easy to be trans in an SF or fantasy world then the problems faced by trans people don’t get discussed. For quite a long time I worried that this book might be one of those. But then I finally worked out why (I think) Max Gladstone chose to use a trans character as the protagonist (yes, the protagonist) of Full Fathom Five, and then I was very happy that he had done so.

Full Fathom Five is an interesting book in other ways too. It is mainly about things like offshore banking, the difficulties faced by small nations trying to stay independent in a world run on trade, and the power of faith.

You can find my review here.

New Juliet E. McKenna Book Forthcoming

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

Now there’s a nice thing to be able to announce. In October Wizard’s Tower will be publishing Shadow Histories of the River Kingdom, a new collection by Juliet E. McKenna. This volume brings together stories previously available in a range of anthologies and in online and SF convention publications, not all easily found, as well as some new material. There will be a map by the very talented Sophie E. Talis, and a specially commissioned cover by Ben Baldwin (who also did the Aldabreshin Compass covers).

And what’s more the book will be available as a paperback as well as an ebook.

Yeah, the economics suck, but guess who has been teaching herself InDesign so that she can do this. There may, ahem, be another announcement forthcoming soon about a different book.

We’ll be teasing the cover in September. In the meantime, if anyone is interested in review copies, do let me know. I should be able to do PDF ARCs at some point in September.

It sure feels good to be a publisher again.

Book Review – Too Like the Lightning

~ Cheryl

TooLikeTheLightningI am continuing to work my way through books that do interesting things with gender. The latest victim subject is Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer. This is a book that attracted a lot of critical attention when it came out, and deservedly so as it does a lot of interesting things. My review is very long.

The book doesn’t do too well on the gender front. It is one of those SF novels that tries to speculate about the future of gender without bothering to engage much with what people are saying about their genders now. How it does on political philosophy, which encompasses the main thrust of the book’s argument, is still open to question because there is at least one more book to come.

You can find my review here.

This Week on Ujima – Pete Sutton, Hate Crime & Teenagers

~ Cheryl

Yesterday’s Women’s Outlook show was supposed to kick off with Sarah Hilary talking about her fabulous new crime novel, Tastes Like Fear. However, Sarah is not well, and Pete Sutton gamely stepped in at the last minute to talk about his debut short story collection, A Tiding of Magpies.

Special congratulations were due to Pete and Ian Millstead (both of whom are in Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion) because their stories in North by South West got honorable mentions in the latest Year’s Best Horror anthology from Ellen Datlow. I apologize profusely to Ellen for describing her as the Simon Cowell of the horror industry, but I did say that she’s a much nicer person.

Pete and I also talked briefly about the forthcoming Bristol Festival of Literature. We provided a sneak preview of some of the exciting events that will be happening.

Next up I talked to Jaya Chakrabarti and Paul Breedon about a Peace Picnic that they organized in Knowle West last weekend. There have been some fairly unpleasant hate crime incidents in south Bristol since the Brexit vote, and the community wanted to do something to stand in solidarity with the victims.

You can listen to the first half of the show here.

The second half of the show was given over entirely to a group of young people on a National Citizenship Scheme training program. We had them in the studio as a sort of work experience thing, part of which involved getting interviewed live on air by Paulette and myself. They did very well.

You can listen to the second half of the show here.

The playlist for the show was as follows:

  • Chic – My Forbidden Lover
  • The Pointer Sisters – We Are Family
  • Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Peace, Love & Understanding
  • The O’Jays – Love Train
  • Marvin Gaye – Abraham, Martin & John
  • Stevie Wonder – Superstition
  • Bob Marley – Get Up, Stand Up
  • Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child

Book Review – Lizard Radio

~ Cheryl

Lizard Radio - Pat SchmatzHere is the last of the book reviews I promised you of books with trans characters in them. This one is a Tiptree winner, and oddly enough the one that I was least impressed with.

This review is fairly spoilery. It has to be that way, otherwise I could not explain the problems I have with it. So if you are spoiler averse, don’t click. To read what I have to say about the book, click here.

There will be more trans-related book reviews coming soon, but we are now into August and it is Women in Translation Month, so I need to swap obsessions for a while.

Book Review – Every Heart A Doorway

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Every Heart A Doorway - Seanan McGuireContinuing my reviews of books featuring trans characters, today I am taking on what appears, at least in my little corner of the world, to be one of the most talked about books of the year. If you see someone raving about how good this book is, listen to them.

Oh, and it is a novella, so it is a nice, quick read. There’s not much pain on the “to read” pile.

I wouldn’t need to talk about it, except that it has a trans character so I have to. You can find my review here.

Book Review – Masks And Shadows

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Masks And Shadows - Stephanie BurgisAs promised, I have posted another review of a book containing a trans character. This one is very different from The Fifth Season. Masks and Shadows is set in our world, in the 18th Century, and therefore has to navigate the actual social attitudes of the time. Stephanie Burgis has achieved this by making clear just how vile the behavior of rich aristocrats was at that time.

By the way, some of you might wonder at my inclusion of eunuch at trans, particularly one who still identifies as straight male. However, people of the time regarded eunuchs as a third gender, and they suffered social discrimination regardless of how they identified.

The book is also interesting because it is, in part, about the history of music. Burgis has played in orchestras, and studied music history in Vienna. The story is set in the Eszterháza Palace and Joseph Haydn is a major character.

I really enjoyed this book. It has a gorgeous cover too. You can find my full review here.

Book Review – The Fifth Season

~ Cheryl

The Fifth Season - N.K. JemisinI have been reading books, honest. Quite a few of them, in fact. There are lots of books featuring trans characters being published right now and I need to keep up. Finding time to write reviews is another issue, but as I have an essay to write I should get some thoughts into electrons.

Today, therefore, I wrote four book reviews. I’ll publish them over the next week. Given the previous post, and the fact that the Hugo voting deadline is this weekend, I am starting with The Fifth Season.

I am happy but unsurprised that Jemisin has done some good work with trans characters in the book. She knows what she’s doing. Having read the book I am also unsurprised at how well it is doing in this year’s awards.

You can find my review here. I can haz The Obelisk Gate nao, plz?