Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee is a terrifying collection of short stories to review. The stories themselves are rarely scary in the traditional sense, but their individual complexity and astonishing level of variety make this an impossible book to encompass in just a few paragraphs.
It’s not that there aren’t any hooks or approaches; it’s more that there is such a bewildering number of them that, as a reader or reviewer, you feel somewhat like you’ve wandered onto a hitherto undiscovered island full of skittery, unfamiliar species that keep turning out to be something else than what you initially expected. More than a review, Conservation of Shadows needs its own monograph. Towards a Taxonomy of Yoon Ha Lee’s Short Fiction, maybe.
Oh my. Look what I just spotted on Kathleen Bartholomew’s blog: In the Company of Thieves, a brand new collection of Company stories by Kage Baker.
From Tachyon Publications’ site:
The employees of Dr. Zeus Incorporated travel through (and meddle with) history in Kager Baker’s final collection of six stories of espionage, capers, and important affairs gone terribly wrong.
The Company, a powerful corporate entity in the twenty-fourth century, has discovered a nearly foolproof recipe for success: combining time travel and immortal employees. They specialize in retrieving extraordinary treasures out of the past, gathered by cybernetically-enhanced workers who pass as ordinary humans. Whether a client wants a jewel worn by Cleopatra, an original Shakespeare folio, or to make a baby with the genes of Socrates and Marilyn Monroe, Dr, Zeus can make dreams come true. But there is one major rule that must not be broken: the recorded particulars of history cannot be changed. The operatives of the Company must function with extreme stealth and caution, since avoiding the curiosity and greed of everyday mortals proves much more difficult—and sometimes ridiculous—than anyone had foreseen.
Included in this exciting collection are four previously uncollected stories, “Mother Aegypt” (a classic tale of Transylvanian intrigue), and one brand new story from a collaboration with Kage Baker’s sister, Kathleen Bartholomew. History awaits, though not quite the one you remember.
And just look at that cover by Tom Canty! The font alone… Oh my. Add to that four previously uncollected stories, and one new story completed by Kage’s sister Kathleen (who I interviewed extensively here earlier this year), and, well… I’m excited about this one. Ridiculously excited.
In the Company of Thieves is due out in October 2013 from Tachyon Publications.
In Brandon Sanderson’s new YA fantasy novel, a teenager named Joel wants nothing more than to become a Rithmatist. Rithmatists have the power to give life to two-dimensional figures called Chalklings. They’re also the only defense humans have against Wild Chalklings, who have recently taken over Nebrask and are threatening to overrun the entire American Isles.
Joel, the son of an ordinary chalkmaker, can only watch from the sidelines as Rithmatist students practice their art. But when students start disappearing, Joel and his friend Melody end up helping with the investigation. This will lead them to a discovery that will change Rithmatics—and their world—forever…
As you may know, Justin Landon (of Staffer’s Book Review) and Jared Shurin (of Pornokitsch) have been working on a collection of the best genre-related non-fiction content published on the web in 2012. The book, called Speculative Fiction 2012, just came out from Pandemonium Fiction and contains fifty reviews and essays from the wonderful world of genre blogging across an amazing range of styles and opinions. (Full disclosure: the book contains one of my reviews.)
You can currently purchase Speculative Fiction 2012 in paperback as well as ebook formats. All proceeds from sales of this book will be donated to Room to Read, a charitable organization that supports literacy and gender equality around the world. In addition, many of the writers (including me) have donated the payments for our essays to the same charity.
It’s 1976, and the rule of the Roman Catholic Church is absolute. A stable theocracy prevails across Europe. The Reformation never happened. A papal crusade prevented Henry VIII from taking the throne. Martin Luther became Pope Germanian I. The Church is in charge of all aspects of life, from government and culture all the way down to personal relationships.
Ten year old Hubert Anvil is an incredibly gifted soprano, but as puberty approaches, his voice will break, inevitably destroying his ability to sing in the higher registers. Hubert’s superiors are considering an “alteration”: removing the offending parts of his anatomy before hormones ravage his angelical voice….
The Alteration is a 1976 alternate history novel by English novelist, poet and critic Kingsley Amis. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel. This new edition, out on May 7th from NYRB Classics, also features an insightful new introduction by William Gibson.
Lucius Shepard’s new collection Five Autobiographies and a Fiction is required reading for fans of the author. People who have never read anything by Shepard may love it too, but because of the specific nature of this set of stories, it’ll definitely have more impact on readers who are familiar with the author. If that’s you, I’d go as far as saying that this is nothing less than a must-read, because it will dramatically change and enrich your understanding of the author and his works.
As the title of this new collection indicates, Shepard approaches aspects of his own life and personality from five different directions. Calling these stories “autobiographies” is as meaningful as it is deceptive. “Pseudo-autobiographies” or even “meta-autobiographies” would be more appropriate, but it’s understandable why Shepard and Subterranean Press avoided those horrible mouthfuls.
Heath Ransom, the main character of Jamil Nasir’s new novel Tunnel Out of Death, is an endovoyant investigator, which means he uses his enhanced sense of empathy, combined with futuristic immersion tank technology, to solve mysteries and track people in the etheric world. While trying to find the consciousness of a rich comatose woman in the astral sphere, he encounters something he’s never seen before: a black tear in the not-quite-reality he accesses during his investigations.
Inexorably pulled into this odd black tunnel, Ransom’s mind enters the body of a young man who has just been given a drug overdose in an attempt to make his death seem like a suicide. While inhabiting this unfamiliar reality and body, Ransom discovers that the initial investigation he was contracted for has much farther-reaching implications than he could have possibly imagined….
Over the last few years, Mercurio D. Rivera has published some great, intriguing science fiction short stories in markets such as Interzone and Asimov’s. He’s been anthologized in one of Hartwell & Cramer’s annual “Best of” collections, received several honorable mentions in the Gardner Dozois ones, and had a story included in the John Joseph Adams anthology Other Worlds Than These. Thanks to NewCon Press, you can now find a goodly number of his short stories in the excellent new collection Across the Event Horizon.
Reading this book was an odd experience for me, because the one story by Rivera I was familiar with, which I also thought to be his best known story, is possibly the one that’s least representative of his general style: the World Fantasy Award-nominated “Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us.” Maybe that’s why it was placed towards the end of this collection: it forces the reader to experience Rivera’s entire range before hitting that spectacular, shocking story. Of course regular readers of Interzone, where the author contributed a number of these pieces, will have a different experience. For me, Across the Event Horizon was somewhat of a revelation.
Former police inspector and current private investigator Adamat is summoned to the Skyline Palace to help resolve a baffling mystery: during a brutal coup against Adro’s monarchy, every single member of the Royal Cabal uttered the same cryptic phrase right before dying: “You can’t break Kresimir’s Promise.” Field Marshal Tamas, who coordinated the coup with a small group of other powerbrokers, needs Adamat’s perfect memory and investigative skills to figure out what this may mean.
Adamat conducts his investigation while Tamas begins the brutal work of purging the country’s nobility and pacifying the capital during the inevitable civil war. His first priority is hunting down an uncommonly powerful member of the Royal Cabal who managed to escape the palace during the coup. Tamas assigns this duty to his son Taniel, a talented powder mage who has just recently returned to the city with a mysterious young savage named Ka-Poel. Gradually it becomes clear that the overthrow of the monarchy was just the start of a series of events that will change the world forever….
Far Beyond Reality 