Book Review: Shattermoon by Dominic Dulley

Dominic Dulley’s debut novel Shattermoon is a non-stop, action-packed space opera that’s full of entertainment and all of the classic ingredients of adventure you might want. On the surface it’s a regular mix of bandits, smugglers and imperial navy ships with a sassy heroine, but it quickly takes on a character and charm of its own.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Broken Stars edited by Ken Liu

Like much of the Science Fiction community, I’ve become very excited about Chinese Science Fiction of late. I read Ken Liu’s first collection of translated works, Invisible Planets, and the four Liu Cixin novels that have been translated so far, as well as meeting Liu Cixin for an interview. This new collection Broken Stars, which is both edited and translated by Ken Liu, is a hefty volume of almost 500 pages, including a fabulous selection of stories and some essays on Chinese Science Fiction. 

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor

The first Binti novella was truly wonderful and made a real impression when I first read it. The story constantly challenges the preconceptions of the reader even as it challenges the preconceptions of the characters within it. Binti comes from the Himba tribe in Namibia, a people who rarely leave their homeland and are looked down on by the majority Khoush.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Putting the Science in Fiction Audiobook

Thrilled to announce that the audiobook of Putting the Science in Fiction -- narrated by the talented tag-team of Kevin T. Collins and Emily Beresford -- is now available wherever audiobooks are sold. It's more than 11 hours of advice from real-world experts on how to craft more realistic and compelling stories. Plus the hilarious foreword written by Chuck Wendig, of course.

There's a free sample of the audio on the book's Amazon page.

Book Review: 2001: An Odyssey in Words edited by Ian Whates & Tom Hunter

To celebrate the centenary of Arthur C. Clarke’s birth, NewCon Press has produced a volume of stories that all contain exactly 2001 words. It’s a fantastic concept, giving rise to a great selection of brief yet entertaining stories but, even with a page count of around 200 pages, that still amounts to rather a lot of stories for me to cover in a single review. Some of the contributions have a definite Arthur C. Clarke feel to them, others reference various of his well-known works, notably ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, and others are just great Science Fiction. There’s a chance that with so much to comment on, I could end up writing this review in 2001 words, too.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Rejoice, A Knife to the Heart by Steven Erikson

The arrival of an alien intelligence to intervene in Earth’s affairs signals an end to violence, illness and environmental degradation. You would think this would be good news, but a lot of the rich and powerful, as well as the violent and sadistic, are not very happy at all. As force fields spread across the Earth to protect wildlife habitats and weapons become obsolete, the book cycles between numerous characters to see how their lives are affected.





Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

The Gondolier in Yoruba

It's been quite a while since I had a new translation of The Gondolier, so to start 2019 here is the Gondolier in Yoruba, its 41st language.

Awako oju Omi 

Enu oko oju omi mi la inu ibu omi to dake roro ja. Oko yii ti wulo fun mi fun opo odun, o gbe awon ero yi ilu ka ni abe itoni awon baba nla mi.

Orun n wo ni awon ilu atijo, eyi ti o n yi ibu omi naa si dudu, o wa laarin awon ile alapata ti o dara. Mo min ategun irole sinu.

Nje ibomiran wa wa ti o dara ju ilu iyanu ti onibuomi yi lo bi? Bi oko naa ye wo inu ile ipamo re lo, mo duro lați gbe oju mi soke pelu itelorun lati wo oju orun ti o ti n su.


Ipari

Reviews of 2018

This year I've written 28 book reviews on SF Crowsnest, including a lot of fantastic books by newly discovered authors. This has only been a part of the 85 books I've read altogether this year though.

Of course this means that yet again I've managed so much reading and reviewing because I've hardly written any fiction. I co-wrote one short story during the summer, and that's it for new fiction. I had 2 long stories published though: the Parsec Award finalist The Long Afternoon of Sir Rupert Moncrief on Gallery of Curiosities and the novelette Quivira, co-written with Jonathan C. Gillespie. My article 'Waste Management in Science Fiction' was also published in Putting the Science in Fiction.

More recently, I've been doing some work on editing my very first novel which has yet to see the light of day. That will keep me busy for a while...

Book Review: Nebula Awards Showcase 2018

This is my second ‘Nebula Award Showcase’ in quick succession, a volume that presents a mixture of excerpts from and complete winning and shortlisted stories, novelettes, novellas and novels from the prestigious award voted for by members of the SFWA. I generally read only Science Fiction but, of course, there’s a second, silent ‘F’ in SFWA, which means that fantasy is included, as well as horror and associated speculative genres. 

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Englebert in Hungarian

In slightly late news, my story Englebert, first published in Daily Science Fiction, was published in Hungarian last April in the magazine Galaktika.

My name is even on the cover!


This is my second story in the magazine, following on from A Few Good Men back in 2009. I knew they'd accepted the story last year, but they forgot to tell me it was published. It's not my firts surprise translation though!