Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the 12 Awards in 12 Months Challenge, the Women of Genre Fiction Challenge, and the Space Opera Challenge. This book won pretty much every freakin’ award available to SFF writers: 2013 BSFA Winner 2013 Golden Tentacle Winner 2013 Nebula Winner 2013 Tiptree […]
Read More Book Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann LeckieBy Kameron Hurley I’m going to tell you a story about llamas. It will be like every other story you’ve ever heard about llamas: how they are covered in fine scales; how they eat their young if not raised properly; and how, at the end of their lives, they hurl themselves – lemming-like- over cliffs […]
Read More We Have Always Fought: Changing the Women, Cattle & Slaves Narrative(Image features Cordelia Vorkosigan, nee Naismith, from the Vorkosigan Saga; an amazing example of a kick-ass heroine!) I was reading an SFR with a “kick-ass” heroine recently. The book is universally lauded. But something happened early on that ensured I wouldn’t go on to finish it, much less read the rest in the series. The heroine was […]
Read More How NOT to Write Kick-Ass HeroinesBy Nancy Jane Moore At a recent meeting of my writers’ group, we discussed fight scenes while critiquing an early draft of my novel in progress. The discussion went something like this: “Women fight differently from men,” one of the guys said in pointing out that the sword fight scenes didn’t vary much. I didn’t […]
Read More Fighting and GenderOne of my favourite authors, and personal heroines, died on Monday. I am grieving, as I’m sure many of her fans are, and I’d like to send out my deepest condolences to her friends and family. The world has lost a great light. But what is remembered, lives, so here’s a tribute I put together […]
Read More Farewell, Ursula K. Le GuinMan Plus by Frederik Pohl My rating: 3 of 5 stars Read for the 12 Awards in 12 Months Challenge and the SF Masterworks Reading Challenge and Science Fiction Masterworks Reading Club here on Goodreads. This novel won the 1976 Nebula Award. Some books stand up to the vicissitudes of time better than others. I’m […]
Read More Book Review: Man Plus by Frederik PohlBy Anastasia Stepanova (translated from Russian) … And here we are flying over the uninhabited island of Devon and we observe a strange picture: in the distance below, a few white points swish. Common sense suggests: these are the most dangerous inhabitants of the Arctic – polar bears. But the closer the plane to the middle of the […]
Read More The Mars 160 ProgramShards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the Military Spec Fic Reading Challenge, the Second Best Reading Challenge, the Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge, the Hard Core Sci-Fi Reading Challenge, and the Space Opera Reading Challenge. This book was nominated for the Locus Award. My opening […]
Read More Book Review: Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster BujoldTimescape by Gregory Benford My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the 12 Awards in 12 Months Reading Challenge, the Apocalypse Now! Reading Challenge, the Hard Core Sci-fi Reading Challenge, and the SF Masterworks Reading Challenge and the Science Fiction Masterworks Book Club. Method of the world’s destruction: A major failure of chemical balance […]
Read More Book Review: Timescape by Gregory BenfordBy Susan Defreitas The Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz, highfalutin’ literary author though he may be, has famously mourned the fact that there will be no more Octavia Butler books. The iconic Black author, who won both a PEN Lifetime Achievement Award and a MacArthur “Genius” grant—not to mention the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Locus—died in 2006, leaving […]
Read More Octavia’s Daughters: Meet the New Queens of Spec Fic
