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» NY Times: N.K. Jemisin reviews Corinne Duyvis, Carlos Hernandez, Sofia Samatar, Leena Krohn

» Pasadena Weekly: Close to the Heart profiles Harlan Ellison

» Scott Edelman’s new podcast Eating the Fantastic is now live, with guest Sarah Pinsker

» Ellen Datlow’s Photos from KGB February 17th, with Gemma Files and Carola Dibbell

» SF in SF hosts Daryl Gregory and Hannu Rajamiemi, March 6th

» KGB Fantastic Fiction presents Rio Youers and David Nickle, March 16th

» NYT: front page article Virtual Reality’s Sci-Fi Trip about how techies look to SF for inspiration

» Washington Post: Nancy Hightower reviews Hugh Howey, Dexter Palmer, Mo Daviau

» David Langford’s Ansible 342

» NY Times: N.K. Jemisin’s bimonthly SF/F column begins with reviews of China Miéville, Emma Newman, Charlie Jane Anders, Keith Lee Morris

» LA Times: Michael Hiltzik’s Five great sci-fi novels to make you forget ‘Star Wars’ are by Bester, Hoban, Orwell, Vonnegut, and Mitchell

» LA Times: Elizabeth Hand reviews Leena Krohn

» LA Review of Books: Toward a New Fantastic: Stop Calling It Science Fiction by Joshua Adam Anderson

» Chicago Tribune: Gary K. Wolfe reviews China Miéville and anthologies from Jonathan Strahan and Greg Bear

» Washington Post: Best science-fiction and fantasy books, December edition: Nancy Hightower reviews China Miéville, Lawrence M. Schoen, Johanna Sinisalo

» Jeff VanderMeer’s Epic List of Favorite Books Read in 2015

» NPR: No Warp Drives, No Transporters: Science Fiction Authors Get Real, about books by Andy Weir, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Neal Stephenson

» Huffington Post: Brian Clegg: Star Wars vs. Science Fiction

» Cato Institute: David Boaz on Science Fiction Authors Lost in the Myths of the 1950s, responding to the TV production of Childhood’s End

» New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2015 includes N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season and Michel Houellebecq’s Submission

» Tor.com’s Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2015

» Guardian’s Best Fiction of 2015 includes titles by Terry Pratchett, Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie, Kate Atkinson; Adam Roberts’ Best science fiction and fantasy books of 2015 includes titles by Robinson, Leckie, Reynolds, Stephenson, McDonald, Chambers, Liu, and others

» Slate: Laura Miller’s 10 Favorite Books of 2015 includes Kelly Link’s Get in Trouble and Oliver Sacks’ On the Move












   
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Tue 01 Mar 10:09 am

The 2016 Spectrum Awards finalists have been announced. Advertising “The Blessing of Athena”, Nico Delort “Discworld”, Bartosz Kosowski “Vishnu’s ...

Tue 23 Feb 11:19 am

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced the final ballot for the 2015 Bram Stoker Awards on February 23, 2016. Superior Achievement in a Nov...








March 2016 Table of Contents

Tuesday 1 March 2016  |  Magazine

march issue
The March issue features interviews with Lisa Goldstein and Fran Wilde, remembrances of David G. Hartwell, a column by Cory Doctorow, listings of forthcoming books through December 2016, and reviews of short fiction and books by Peter Straub, R.S. Belcher, James Gunn, and many others.

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 29 February 2016  |  Monitor

Brandon Sanderson's Calamity debuts at #2 at USA Today.

Laird Barron reviews Gary A. Braunbeck

Sunday 28 February 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's February 2016 issue

Without question Halfway Down the Stairs is a long overdue omnibus of horror stalwart Gary Braunbeck's short fiction. It's a massive tome weighing in at nearly 600 pages and it collects the vast majority of the author's output over the past couple of decades.

Periodicals: late February

Saturday 27 February 2016  |  Monitor

New issues of The New York Review of Science Fiction and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and what's new this month at Daily SF, Strange Horizons, and Tor.com

Reviews by Carolyn Cushman, February 2016

Friday 26 February 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's February 2016 issue

Reviews of titles by Carol Berg, Anne Bishop, Holly Black & Cassandra Clare, and C. Dale Brittain

Print Periodicals: February

Thursday 25 February 2016  |  Monitor

New issues of Analog and Asimov's

Gary K. Wolfe reviews Tim Powers

Wednesday 24 February 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's February 2016 issue

Like Three Days to Never, Medusa's Web features a California setting, a mysterious lost film of the silent era, and bits of time travel.

New Books : 23 February

Tuesday 23 February 2016  |  Monitor

Dexter Palmer's Version Control, Glen Hirshberg's Good Girls, and titles by Bright, Dunstall, Estep, Sawyer, Schwab, and Underwood

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 22 February 2016  |  Monitor

Pierce Brown's Morning Star debuts at #1 on three lists.

Russell Letson reviews Carter Scholz

Sunday 21 February 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's February 2016 issue

Gypsy is the first collection of Carter Scholz material in a dozen years, consisting of the centerpiece title novella, a pair of short stories, an essay, an interview with Scholz (conducted by editor Terry Bisson), and a bibliography. As compelling as the shorter pieces are, it is the novella that grabs and won't let go.

New UK Books : February

Saturday 20 February 2016  |  Monitor

Recent UK titles, not published in the US, by John Ayliff, Markus Heitz, Sarah Pinborough, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Liz Williams

Paul Di Filippo reviews John Wray

Friday 19 February 2016  |  Reviews

Special to Locus Online

For a book concerned with time travel, The Lost Time Accidents is resolutely linear. Wray really has no use for the clichés of paradoxes and jumbled continuity. Instead he is intent on chronicling with grim humor the weight of eternity and mortality that afflicts all of us. In the case of the time-tormented Tollivers, they are the quivering canaries in the temporal coal mine of the cosmos.

Classic Reprints: February

Thursday 18 February 2016  |  Monitor

New editions of Cordwainer Smith's Norstrilia and titles by Orson Scott Card, Tanith Lee, Michael Moorcock, and Clark Ashton Smith

Laird Barron reviews V.H. Leslie

Wednesday 17 February 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's January 2016 issue

Michael Kelly's Undertow Press is a champion of literary horror and V.H. Leslie's Skein and Bone fits the mold of the quiet, nuanced work we've come to expect from this publisher. Leslie's collection is moody and atmospheric; cozy, yet far from comforting.

New Books : 16 February

Tuesday 16 February 2016  |  Monitor

Peter Straub's Interior Darkness: Selected Stories, Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country, Victor LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom, and titles by Brodsky, Henderson, Rossi, Salyards, Sanderson, and Wells

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 15 February 2016  |  Monitor

Lois McMaster Bujold's Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen debuts on four print lists; J.K. Rowling is #1 with forthcoming sales.

Tom Doherty: Story First

Sunday 14 February 2016  |  Perspectives

tom doherty
Excerpts from Locus Magazine's February Issue interview

First comes the story. But if the story can do good, it's a nice plus. It's a great thing if we can stimulate good ideas and future action by the young — if they’ll read this and then maybe go out and build it. Key people in NASA management believe many of their people got into sci­ence because they read science fiction when they were young and said, 'Yes, I want to do this.'

Periodicals: mid-February

Saturday 13 February 2016  |  Monitor

New issues of Aurealis, Fireside, Mythic Delirium, Perihelion, and Quantum Muse

Paul Di Filippo reviews Edward D. Hoch

Friday 12 February 2016  |  Reviews

Special to Locus Online

Primarily and correctly labeled a mystery writer, the prolific Hoch (nearly 1000 stories to his credit) also delved exuberantly into fantastika. And now, thanks to the efforts of an editor, an heir and a fan — and publisher Wildside Press — we get twenty-nine of his out-of-this-world tales neatly assembled in a single volume.

New in Paperback: February

Thursday 11 February 2016  |  Monitor

Titles by Anne Bishop, Marie Brennan, Patricia Briggs, Gail Carriger, Markus Heitz, Peter Liney, Adam Mansbach, Sarah Pinborough, Marc Turner, and Mark L. Van Name

Faren Miller reviews Ian Tregillis

Wednesday 10 February 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's January 2016 issue

Like The Mechanical, first of Ian Tregillis’s Alchemy Wars trilogy, The Rising deftly inter­weaves three viewpoints and plotlines, but this sequel raises the stakes in its fantastical North America devoid of Brits and rife with industrial magics.

New Books : 9 February

Tuesday 9 February 2016  |  Monitor

John Wray's The Lost Time Accidents and titles by Benulis, Brown, Duane, Landers, McKillip, Offutt, Pears, Remic, Ryan, Sanderson, and Turner

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 8 February 2016  |  Monitor

Brandon Sanderson's The Bands of Mourning and Kevin Hearne's Staked debut.

Kameron Hurley: The Sad Economics of Writing Short Fiction

Sunday 7 February 2016  |  Perspectives

kameron hurley
From Locus Magazine's February Issue.

The abysmally low payment terms for science fiction and fantasy short story markets have been a sad topic of conversation among writers for de­cades. Gone are the days when writing and selling a short story would pay your rent (unless you’re selling to Tor.com).

Periodicals: early February

Saturday 6 February 2016  |  Monitor

New issues of Apex, Clarkesworld, Forever, GigaNotoSaurus, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Lightspeed, Nightmare, and The Dark

Locus Bestsellers, February

Friday 5 February 2016  |  Magazine

scalzi
Bestsellers from specialty bookstores are led by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor's Welcome to Night Vale, Andy Weir's The Martian, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Mercy, and titles by Chuck Wendig and R.A. Salvatore.

Locus Magazine's New & Notable Books, February

Thursday 4 February 2016  |  Magazine

February New and Notable books include Harlan Ellison's Can & Can'tankerous and titles by Boroson, Files, Krohn, Matheson, Miéville, Morrow, Strahan, and Williams.

Paul Di Filippo reviews Ben Bova

Wednesday 3 February 2016  |  Reviews

Special to Locus Online

Any preconceptions that readers might have had about imaginary limitations regarding the kind of fiction that Ben Bova produces will be blown away by the broad spectrum of stories here...

New Books : 2 February

Tuesday 2 February 2016  |  Monitor

Lois McMaster Bujold's Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, the US edition of Alastair Reynolds' Poseidon's Wake, and titles by Aronovitz, Bedford, Bova, Cheney, Duncan, Hill, Hines, Hogan, Hunter, Kelly, Maresca, Price, Reichert, Saintcrow, Snyder, and Wallace

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 1 February 2016  |  Monitor

Karen Moning's Feverborn debuts on three lists.

February 2016 Table of Contents

Monday 1 February 2016  |  Magazine

february issue
The February issue is the annual Year in Review issue, with the 2015 Recommended Reading List, essays on the year's works by Gary K. Wolfe, Ellen Datlow, Paul Kincaid, and many others, and the 2015 Locus Poll and Survey ballot; there's also an interview with Tom Doherty, an obituary of David G. Hartwell, and reviews of short fiction and books by Tim Powers, John Wray, Carter Scholz, and many others

Gary K. Wolfe reviews China Miéville

Sunday 31 January 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's January 2016 issue

Most of China Miéville’s fiction describes a spectrum between the almost formal preci­sion of novels like The City & The City and Embassytown and the more exuberant textual irruptions of Kraken or Railsea, and his style can range from a kind of ornate dialectical Mervyn Peake to the hardboiled irony of the post-Raymond Chandler school. His new no­vella, This Census-Taker, approaches neither extreme.

Periodicals: late January

Saturday 30 January 2016  |  Monitor

New issues of Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Kaleidotrope, and January content at Daily SF, Strange Horizons, and Tor.com

Karen Burnham reviews AfroSF v2

Friday 29 January 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's January 2016 issue

It is gratifying to see science fiction from around the world getting a little more traction. Hartmann should be commended for giving voice to authors who haven't gotten much genre attention, and for providing us with a wide sampling of what African authors have to offer.

New UK Books : January

Thursday 28 January 2016  |  Monitor

Tricia Sullivan's Occupy Me and titles by Gavin Smith and Ian Whates

Russell Letson reviews Nancy Kress

Wednesday 27 January 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's January 2016 issue

What strikes me about this volume — 21 stories from more than three decades of production — is how Kress's sensibility remains intact across the range of science-fictional subtypes she employs. She remains always an observational writer who manages to get inside her characters' skins — working stiffs or middle-class moms or heiresses or narcissistic nobles.

New Books : 26 January

Tuesday 26 January 2016  |  Monitor

Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky, Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Blades, and titles by Armstrong, Dietz, Hearne, Lowe, Sanderson, Shearin, and Wood

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 25 January 2016  |  Monitor

Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars: The Force Awakens remains in the top 5 on three print lists.

Paul Di Filippo reviews Michael Cobley

Sunday 24 January 2016  |  Reviews

Special to Locus Online

If you want a rousing space adventure full of sense of wonder that is also ideationally challenging, then you need look no further than Ancestral Machines.

A Divergent Hunger Maze Game: A Review of The 5th Wave


Saturday 23 January 2016  |  Reviews

Special to Locus Online

I really didn't enjoy watching The 5th Wave, though it is hard to explain why, for by any conventional evaluation, it qualifies as a well-crafted diversion, not unlike many successful films of the recent past. Perhaps the problem is that the film is artfully following an overly familiar, even an exhausted pattern...

Gary K. Wolfe reviews Charlie Jane Anders

Friday 22 January 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's December 2015 issue

Charlie Jane Anders takes a number of fascinat­ing genre risks in All the Birds in the Sky, her first SF/F novel, and one of the most prominent is implied by that slashmark between SF and F: the basic concept of the story revisits the aging but indomitable trope of science versus magic, centered around the two best-friend main char­acters, one of whom is a powerful witch and the other a brilliant, cutting-edge scientist.

Print Periodicals: mid-January

Thursday 21 January 2016  |  Monitor

New issues of Analog, Asimov's, Black Static, and Interzone

Paul Di Filippo reviews Morgan Llywelyn

Wednesday 20 January 2016  |  Reviews

Special to Locus Online

Only the Stones Survives is a melancholy, elegiac yet ultimately life-affirming tale, written with bardic simplicity, clarity and elegance. It concerns a pivotal era of change...

New Books : 19 January

Tuesday 19 January 2016  |  Monitor

Tim Powers' Medusa's Web and titles by Akers, Allan, Carey/Carey/Carey, Chen, Matheson, Tallerman, Tassi, and Wallace

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 18 January 2016  |  Monitor

Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars: The Force Awakens is #1 on three print lists.

Mary Rickert: Resonance

Sunday 17 January 2016  |  Perspectives

mary rickert
Excerpts from Locus Magazine's January Issue interview

My big takeaway during my most recent time thinking of this was that I'd chosen a life of devotion. Devotion is an old fashioned word, and it's a long game. When you live a life of devotion, the point isn't what you get. The point isn't any kind of result other than — did you devote yourself that day? Did you write, did you listen today, did you read, did you think of stories today, did you practice?

Periodicals: mid-January

Saturday 16 January 2016  |  Monitor

New issues of Apex, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Mythic Delirium, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Perihelion, and Uncanny

New in Paperback: January

Friday 15 January 2016  |  Monitor

Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem and titles by Bear, Bova & Choi, Green, Hendee & Hendee, Henderson, Hines, Reichert, Ringo, and Schwab

"It's Gravity Meets Night of the Living Dead!": A Review of 400 Days


Thursday 14 January 2016  |  Reviews

Special to Locus Online

My title describes how one imagines writer-director Matt Osterman might have pitched the idea of 400 Days, in a stereotypically succinct fashion, to skeptical Hollywood executives. Like many pitches, no doubt, it is not entirely accurate, for there are few if any specific plot similarities between this film and the referenced classics. Yet the pitch would be broadly defensible, inasmuch as 400 Days begins like a realistic depiction of near-future astronauts and devolves into a standard-issue horror film.

Russell Letson reviews Linda Nagata

Wednesday 13 January 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's December 2015 issue

My interest is caught when a science-fictional "war story" goes for more than guts-and-glory formulas, better ways to Blow Stuff Up, and exotic locales in which to do it. I find myself especially taken by attention to what might be called the soldier's dilemma — the tensions generated when duty and honor and competence must be exercised in the service of an unworthy, corrupt, incompetent, or illegitimate leadership.

New Books : 12 January

Tuesday 12 January 2016  |  Monitor

China Miéville's This Census-Taker and titles by Michael Cobley, Emily Foster, and Patricia Ward

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 11 January 2016  |  Monitor

Titles by Rick Yancey rise in the rankings.

Charlie Jane Anders: Whimsy Death Match

Sunday 10 January 2016  |  Perspectives

charlie jane anders
Excerpts from Locus Magazine's January Issue interview

What I was consciously thinking about as I was writing and revising All The Birds in the Sky was this narrative about finding where you be­long in the world, and coming of age — the notion that we define ourselves through others, and we try to find people we belong with and can commu­nicate with.

Faren Miller reviews Will Elliott

Saturday 9 January 2016  |  Reviews

From Locus Magazine's December 2015 issue

Like most Americans, I came late to The Pilo Family Circus, since Will Elliott's unnerving deep-black comedy, a first novel, appeared in Australia in 2006... By now, Elliott is a multiple award-winner — au­thor of a trilogy and two further unrelated novels — and with The Pilo Traveling Show he returns to the Circus on his own time.

Paul Di Filippo reviews Jason Gurley

Friday 8 January 2016  |  Reviews

Special to Locus Online

Jason Gurley's Eleanor exhibits some of the transcendent but hardnosed New Age mysticism of Paulo Coelho's work, hybridized with the gritty, pain-driven otherworldliness of Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking series. As an example of the "as above, so below" theory of existential harmony and disharmony, it does its job with micro-machined precision.

Locus Bestsellers, January

Thursday 7 January 2016  |  Magazine

scalzi
Bestsellers from specialty bookstores are led by Jim Butcher's The Aeronaut's Windlass, Andy Weir's The Martian, and titles by Chuck Wendig and R.A. Salvatore.

Locus Magazine's New & Notable Books, January

Wednesday 6 January 2016  |  Magazine

January New and Notable books are by James Bradley, Stephen King, Microsoft, Mary Rickert, Gene Wolfe, and others.

New Books : 5 January

Tuesday 5 January 2016  |  Monitor

Johanna Sinisalo's The Core of the Sun, Keith Lee Morris' Travelers Rest, and titles by Arthur, Bara, Benson, Dennard, DuBois, Flint & Dennis, Hendee & Hendee, Kristjansson, Llywelyn, Mamatas, McLean, O'Keefe, Older, Stone, Weis & Hickman, and Zahn

This Week's Bestsellers

Monday 4 January 2016  |  Monitor

Titles by Andy Weir and Stephen King remain the top-ranking genre titles.

Cory Doctorow: Wicked Problems: Resilience Through Sensing

Sunday 3 January 2016  |  Perspectives

cory doctorow
From Locus Magazine's January Issue.

A problem is said to be "wicked" when the various parties engaged with it can't even agree what the problem is, let alone the solution. As the name implies, wicked problems are hard to deal with. More than a decade ago, the Federal Communica­tions Commission got its first inkling of a wicked problem on its horizon.

Periodicals: early January

Saturday 2 January 2016  |  Monitor

New issues of Clarkesworld, Forever, Galaxy's Edge, GigaNotoSaurus, Lightspeed, Nightmare, and Shimmer

January 2016 Table of Contents

Friday 1 January 2016  |  Magazine

january issue
The January issue features interviews with Mary Rickert and Charlie Jane Anders, a new column by Cory Doctorow, an international report from Brazil, and reviews of short fiction and books by China Miéville, Robert Jackson Bennett, V.H. Leslie, Stephen King, Nancy Kress, and many others.



Earlier posts by category:
Monitor | Reviews | Perspectives | Magazine

Earlier posts by month:
2015: December | November | October | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January

2014: December | November | October | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January

2013: December | November | October | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January

2012: December | November | October | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January

2011: December | November | October | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January

2010: December | November | October | September | August | July | June

March 2016

march cover

Lisa Goldstein • Cory Doctorow • Forthcoming Books • Fran Wilde



2015 Recommended Reading List

Vote for the Locus Awards Today! Locus Poll & Survey


Locus seeks InternsDigital Editions available



Nick Mamatas Guest Post–“Influence Without Anxiety Or, What’s That Sneaking A...

Wed 20 Jan

I suppose I wear my influences on my sleeve — most of them anyway. My most recent novel, the dipsomaniac zombie story The Last Weekend, is a tribute to some of them. Mike Berry at the San Francisco Chronicle nailed it: “it is the shades of Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, John Fante and other hard...
Lisa Goldstein Guest Post–“Traveling in History”

Wed 13 Jan

There’s a passage in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost that gave me pause when I first read it: “For I must tell thee, it will please his grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement…” Thank goodness for the glossary, which...





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