Favorite Books of 2022 & Year in Review
Jan
03
2023

Happy New Year! Last year was another not-so-great year in a lot of ways, and the last couple of weeks included a storm that knocked out our power for two days and was overall an unpleasant experience. But I also got to visit a cat cafe and spend time with some adorable kitties as an early Christmas gift, and as usual, I read some wonderful books.

One of the biggest highlights of 2022 was the eleventh annual Women in SF&F Month, which was filled with amazing essays by speculative fiction authors discussing their thoughts, experiences, and work. It featured the following guest posts (which are eligible for nonfiction/related work awards):

Every year, I reflect on what I read over the last year and make a list that feels right for my thoughts and feelings about that particular set of books. This year, I came up with 10 books I wanted to highlight: 8 released in 2022, 1 slightly older book, and 1 much older book. Other than the first two—my Book of the Year and Book of the Year Runner-Up—these are not ranked but appear in alphabetical order.

Cover images link to Bookshop. As an affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Favorite Books Released in 2022

Cover of The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

Book of the Year
The Final Strife (The Ending Fire #1) by Saara El-Arifi
My Review
Read an Excerpt

Saara El-Arifi’s debut novel, the first book in an epic fantasy trilogy inspired by Ghanaian folklore and Arabian myths, is phenomenal. Set in a perilous empire with destructive tidewinds and social classes based on blood color, it follows three women striving to make an impact on their world. Sylah, whose mission to win the tournament that would make her the leader of one of the empire’s four guilds was ruined years before, finds new purpose in using her knowledge of the trials to aid another. Anoor seeks to prove herself to the mother who hates her by competing to succeed her as Warden of Strength, but when she learns more about the cruel treatment of the other classes, she’s driven by the desire to improve lives instead. And Hassa (my favorite character) uses the fact that she’s overlooked and underestimated as a clear-blooded person to hide clandestine activities.

Simultaneously thoughtful and fun, The Final Strife explores injustice amidst storylines about uncovering mysteries about the world, a newfound friendship with potential for romance, and a tournament that’s about a variety of types of strength, not just who can fight the best. This fantasy setting feels real and lived in due to having a rich history that’s fleshed out through the characters’ perspectives, oral stories, and epigraphs. With a prologue that drew me in immediately and wonderful worldbuilding, storytelling, protagonists, and pacing that kept me hooked, The Final Strife is easily my favorite book of 2022.

Babel by R. F. Kuang - Book Cover

Book of the Year Runner-Up
Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R. F. Kuang
Read an Excerpt

Babel is set in a version of our world in the 1800s, but in this scenario, England’s power came from silver-working enchantments done by skilled translators. The magic system is a word nerd’s dream, and I loved the classroom lectures on translation and etymology, which were engagingly written and full of interesting tidbits, and the extra details in the footnotes. This is a story about a young man who loves and excels at languages and translation but has to grapple with his growing understanding of how this magic exploits other peoples while raising England. It’s both a gripping novel and a fascinating exploration of the betrayal and imperfections of translation, and of course, colonialism and revolution as well.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan - Book Cover

Daughter of the Moon Goddess (The Celestial Kingdom #1) by Sue Lynn Tan
Read an Excerpt

Daughter of the Moon Goddess, an epic fantasy novel inspired by the legend of the Chinese moon goddess Chang’e, is one of those books that was easy to sink into and get lost in with its fantastic mythology and storytelling. In this version of the tale, Chang’e had a daughter, Xingyin, that she kept secret while she was imprisoned on the moon. But when the empress of the Celestial Kingdom visits, Xingyin is forced to flee her home and leave her mother behind. While hiding her identity, she becomes a prince’s companion and a great archer—and plans to save her mother from exile. I loved the mythology and the immortal realm, Xingyin’s drive and ambition, and even the love triangle that developed. (Heart of the Sun Warrior, the second part of this duology, recently came out, but I haven’t read it yet.)

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh - Book Cover

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
Read an Excerpt

Nothing extraordinary is ever done out of reason or logic, but because it’s the only way for your soul to breathe.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a retelling of the Korean folktale “The Tale of Shim Cheong,” but in this version, a girl named Mina dives into the waves as the Sea God’s sacrifice to save the titular character from her fate. She does this for her brother, who is in love with Shim Cheong, but once Mina is in the Spirit Realm, she tries to find a way to save her people from the storms that they believe to be the Sea God’s curse—but of course, the truth differs from the stories she’s heard all of her life. This is a lovely, hopeful, fairytale-like book, and I appreciated its exploration of myths and the stories we tell. I especially loved that both girls’ desires were respected: Mina’s wish for her brother’s happiness that led her to throw herself into the sea and try to change things for the better, and Shim Cheong’s wish to remain with her family and the man she loved.

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel - Book Cover

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
My Review
Read an Excerpt

Kaikeyi is a “what if” style reimagining of the story of the queen who exiled the hero Rama in the Indian epic the Ramayana, told from her own perspective. Her prettily written narrative had me hooked from the very first page, and Kaikeyi was a remarkable protagonist who channeled her anger at the patriarchy into doing her best to make the world a better place. I appreciated that she was compassionate but also had her flaws and lacked self-awareness at times, and I admired her determination to carve a place for herself in a world that wanted to prevent a woman with ambition from being her fullest, truest self. Kaikeyi’s voice and story, her discovery and mastery of the magic of the Binding Plane, and her familial ties were all fantastic, as were the more epic scenes involving gods and other supernatural beings.

Cover of One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig

One Dark Window (The Shepherd King #1) by Rachel Gillig

One Dark Window, the first book in a dark fantasy duology, is one of the most fun, difficult-to-put down books I’ve read this year. Set in a kingdom where the only acceptable form of magic is rare cards with different powers created by a king long ago, people who have their own innate magic are hunted. Elspeth, the protagonist, is hiding magic that has saved her life: ever since she touched a Nightmare card as a child, she’s heard a voice in her head, which belongs to something that can make her more powerful when she’s in danger. I particularly enjoyed the lore surrounding the Shepherd King and the cards he created, the dynamic between Elspeth and the monster she carries (which Rachel Gillig discussed here), and the romance with the king’s nephew, who has secrets of his own. It also had a fantastic ending—I always appreciate it when authors don’t wrap everything up easily or take the easy way out, as is the case here.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez - Book Cover

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
Read an Excerpt

The Spear Cuts Through Water is the most unique, creative book I read this year. It’s difficult to describe with its interweaving narrative—it’s memories and pieces of a tale told by your lola (grandmother), it’s a play in a mythical theatre performed in your dreams, it’s a journey through a fantastical world of royal demigods and telepathically linked tortoises. It’s a love story (according to your lola, who disagrees with other family members’ beliefs that it is not); it’s connected to the spear you hold in your dream, the one that you’ve seen hanging on your family room mantel; it’s an account of how the moon god escaped her imprisonment, aided by two young men who traveled with her. It’s a gorgeously written myth, an ambitious novel exploring family and redemption.

A Thousand Steps into Night by Traci Chee - Book Cover

A Thousand Steps into Night by Traci Chee
Read an Excerpt

Long ago, in the noble realm of Awara, where all creation, from the tallest peaks to the lowliest beetles, had forms both humble and divine, there lived an unremarkable girl named Otori Miuko. The daughter of the innkeeper at the only remaining guesthouse in the village of Nihaoi, Miuko was average by every conceivable standard—beauty, intelligence, the circumference of her hips—except for one.

She was uncommonly loud.

A Thousand Steps into Night had me hooked from those first few sentences, and I found Miuko’s story and adventures in a land with Japanese-influenced mythology a delight. I also really loved the things that Traci Chee discussed in her Women in SF&F Month essay about it—the way she examined heroism and what makes a hero, the desire to shake things up instead of restoring status quo, the discovery that “bad” qualities can actually be strengths, and the acknowledgment that changing the world is a community project. This is such a charming, thoughtfully executed story, both an adventure and an exploration of being a girl who doesn’t fit into the box marked “Proper Lady” in a patriarchal society.

Favorite Books Published Before 2022

Cover of Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip

 Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip

I’ve been on a quest to read everything Patricia A. McKillip has written after discovering her short story collection Wonders of the Invisible World, followed by her enchanting novels The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and The Changeling Sea. (However, I have been taking my time as I want to savor every word.) When I heard the devastating news of her death earlier in 2022, I decided to read one of her books I hadn’t read yet: Alphabet of Thorn, which I had recently gotten as a birthday gift.

And it was exactly the sort of reading experience that is uniquely McKillip, magical and warm with exquisitely crafted prose and a dash of whimsical, understated humor. (Such as when Nepenthe is told her face looks just like one seen on an old parchment: “The librarian looked curiously at Nepenthe; she wished she could take off her head and look at herself.”) With multiple threads and characters, it’s difficult to briefly summarize, but it’s largely about an orphan, a translator taken in and raised in a library, who is utterly enchanted by a book written in a thorny language that comes to her with ease. From its pages, she learns the true story of The Emperor of Night and the Hooded One, a ruthless conqueror and the powerful masked sorcerer key to his success. Theirs is an epic love story, and one of the themes that runs through the novel is the invisibility of women: women who did great feats but were forgotten, women who had to hide parts of themselves to follow their dreams.

Although this is not my favorite of McKillip’s novels (that would be The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and The Changeling Sea), it’s the best book released before 2022 that I read this year and one of the best books I read this year, period.

The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu - Cover Image

The Tangleroot Palace: Stories by Marjorie Liu
My Review

Technically, I read much of The Tangleroot Palace in 2021, but it still stands out as a highlight when looking over books I completed in 2022—it is one of the best short story collections I’ve read, after all! These seven tales—six short stories plus one novella—are all quite different from one another since they encompass a variety of subgenres, settings, tones, and styles, but they also have some common threads and seem like they are in conversation with each other in some ways. Marjorie Liu’s introduction says they share “a longing for home, friendship, love—characters often driven by a weary hope in the possibility of something good.” Although I did prefer some stories to others, I appreciated and enjoyed them all and didn’t think there were any that were far better or worse than the rest. I especially loved how Marjorie Liu parceled out details, as I often was unsure about what was going on at first but there was enough of a hook that I wanted to find out—and everything tied together wonderfully in the end.

 

Review of The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi
Dec
13
2022
The Final Strife
by Saara El-Arifi
608pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 9/10
Amazon Rating: 4.6/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.6/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.3/5
 

As an Amazon Associate and Bookshop affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

The Final Strife is Saara El-Arifi’s debut novel and the first book in The Ending Fire trilogy, an epic fantasy series inspired by Ghanaian folklore and Arabian myths. It’s also a spectacular first novel with fantastic worldbuilding and storytelling (the epigraphs and oral tales are especially wonderful additions), and I was eager to read more of it every time I had the chance. It had been some time since I’d been this immersed in a book from beginning to end, and I haven’t read anything I’ve enjoyed as much or thought worked as well since, making The Final Strife my current favorite of this year.

It’s set in a perilous empire, dangerous due to both the tidewind, a destructive blend of blue sand and salt air that sweeps through the land wreaking havoc every night, and the people in power. It mainly follows three young women—one from each social class based on blood color—striving to impact their world in their own way: by helping another prepare for a tournament to choose a guild’s leader, competing to become a Warden of one of the four guilds, or using the fact that she’s overlooked and underestimated to hide clandestine activities.

Sylah was born with the red blood of the elite that would enable her to do blood magic, but she never learned the runes since she was kidnapped by rebels. During the Night of the Stolen, this group sneaked into the homes of several noble families, swapping Sylah and the other highborn children with their own blue-blooded babies. These revolutionaries raised the children they abducted to understand just how terribly those with blue blood were treated: they were forced to do manual labor, such as working plantation fields; they could be brutally executed without a fair trial; and they were impoverished. The rebels also trained the children, preparing each of them for one of the tournaments to determine the next Warden of one of the four guilds—strength, truth, duty, or knowledge. Sylah was a strong fighter and an especially promising candidate for a future Warden of Strength, but the rebels’ plans to install these children in positions of power someday failed when they were discovered and massacred—except for Sylah and her mother, who alone managed to escape. Filled with grief over the loss of her loved ones and destiny, Sylah lost herself in drugs and became an addict, earning money by fighting in the pits run by the so-called fifth guild leader, the “Warden of Crime.” She’s especially wistful when the tournament she was supposed to enter draws near, but she has an opportunity to influence it after all—even if it’s not how she’d always imagined—when she breaks into the rooms of the Warden of Strength’s daughter and meets Anoor.

Anoor is a rarity, having reached young adulthood after being left in another child’s place on the Night of the Stolen. Although most parents killed the replacement children, the Warden of Strength at the time did not. Too many people would question her ability to protect the empire if they knew she had failed to protect her own daughter, so she hid the fact that her child was taken. She raised Anoor as her own, sending her to an elite school and arranging for her to mix a dash of her blue blood into a servant’s red to do blood magic. However, the Warden despised Anoor and made it clear she resented her for not being her trueborn daughter. Wishing to prove herself after a lifetime of abuse and belittlement, Anoor enters the tournament that will decide the next Disciple of Strength, who will prepare to succeed her mother when her term ends in ten years. But when she agrees to teach Sylah blood magic in exchange for being trained for the various strength trials, Anoor comes to realize just how sheltered she’s been from the horrors the other classes endure—and determines to win so she can better their lives, blue- and clear-blooded alike.

Hassa is a servant due to the clear blood that runs through her veins. Like all with her blood color, her tongue and hands were removed when she was a baby—the empire’s punishment for a rebellion that happened 400 years before. Most red- and blue-blooded people ignore those they see working with their special tools designed to accommodate their lack of hands, and they don’t tend to learn even the basics of the servants’ language: as long as their orders are followed, the other classes don’t care what those serving them might have to say. But Hassa has befriended one of the only people outside their community who does understand what some of their body movements mean: Sylah. And Hassa knows more about her friend and the empire than Sylah realizes, using secret tunnels and her invisibility to others to hide her doings, in pursuit of a better life for her people.

The first few pages of The Final Strife are a shining example of how to write a prologue. It starts with a typical night in the empire’s capital city, showing the danger of the tidewind and how wealthier people and their homes are better protected from its destruction. Then the focus turns to a tavern in a poorer part of the city, where a griot tells a tale: a very important one, that of the Night of the Stolen. The oral story is lifelike, vivid, and rhythmic, and I could clearly hear the cadence of the teller’s voice and the beat of his drum. This is a wonderful introduction that relates a lot about the setting in just a few pages and drew me into the story immediately—and from there, this book had me from beginning to end.

Although The Final Strife is mainly set in the capital of an empire with only 13 cities, it seems vast and epic due to rich history and storytelling that makes it feel real and lived in. The fantastic epigraphs add to this effect, as well as the interludes containing more oral stories, such as that of the clear-blooded people’s rebellion 400 years before and the tale of the god Anyme and the spider. I just loved all the details that fleshed out this world, especially since part of the story involves characters seeking the truth after finding a piece of a map that doesn’t fit the historical accounts they’ve all heard. The way Saara El-Arifi parcels out information leading to bigger revelations is expertly done, and there are some great twists—even when they’re expected, they work well because of how it gradually builds to the clear conclusion. (And there was still a revelation right at the end that I was not anticipating at all.)

This novel also had an interesting approach to the tournament storyline. There were different sets of trials for each guild, and the trials for the next Warden of Strength shown through Anoor’s perspective were about more than just fighting opponents. Although targets and combat were part of the test, competitors also had to prove their skills in other areas: tactics, stealth, blood magic, and strength of mind. And even once there was a victor, the winner was not automatically installed in their new position, but instead, they would spend the next ten years preparing to follow the current Warden. Sometimes the next leader had already been in that position before, but if they were new to it, they had plenty of time to learn before being thrust into a leadership role. (That said, it did seem a bit short-sighted that there didn’t seem to be any runners-up in training just in case the next Warden has some sort of accident like being wiped out by a tidewind before starting their term. But then, maybe that will be addressed in a later book in the series since this one focused on the competition more than the ins and outs of the guilds.)

Like the fantasy aspects, the social aspects of the world were well done. Although it certainly has fun parts between the tournament and a developing friendship (or maybe romance), The Final Strife is largely a story about injustice. This setting does not have obstacles for women or LGBTQ+ people—as shown through the lives of the three main characters, a trans woman and two women who are attracted to each other—but instead, has divisions based on blood color. The different classes do not always fit neatly into boxes, even in addition to two individual characters’ situations being reversed: although clear-blooded servants and blue-blooded workers are definitely treated worse than those with red blood, many of the latter are just doing their best to make a living. There are plenty of red-blooded people who need to take jobs doing necessary tasks like cooking and cleaning for those people who actually are living in luxurious homes dining in splendor.

All three main characters are interesting and sympathetic for various reasons. Anoor is part of a wealthy, respected family, but she’s not had a great life since her mother hates her and cannot get past any part of her that reminds her she is not her biological daughter, like her having a curvy figure so unlike her own. However, Anoor has still absorbed the propaganda about how everyone is treated justly, and she’s horrified to see how things really are in poorer parts of the city after Sylah takes her there: particularly, that fair trials do not actually apply to other people and they can be brutally executed without one. As a bright, dreamy, optimistic person, she then seeks to educate herself and consider what she might do to improve conditions for everyone if she does become the next Warden of Strength.

Sylah was raised to believe in justice and revolution, but she’s been depressed and jaded since the night she lost her family and her role in their mission. Part of her arc involves questioning her father’s methods and some of the teachings she grew up with, some of which stem from seeing that some red-blooded people are just ordinary kitchen workers with no real power of their own. And, despite the fact that her relationship with Anoor had a rocky start given that she broke into her rooms and was presumed an assassin, the two young women with the sunshine/grumpy dynamic start to develop a friendship—one that seems like it could turn into more as they grow closer, although there is a love triangle since Sylah was reunited with a man she had a relationship with in the past.

As much as I enjoyed both Anoor and Sylah’s stories, Hassa was easily my favorite character. She doesn’t have as many pages as the other two, probably because specific details about what she’s up to are kept mysterious and gradually revealed over the course of the novel. I loved the way her story unfolded and seeing all the pieces come together, and I have such a soft spot for quiet characters who are underestimated and use others’ perception of them to their advantage. (And I was excited to see the author state that Hassa will have a bigger character arc in the next book in an interview on The Fantasy Hive.)

The Final Strife was a near-perfect book for me: simultaneously thoughtful and fun with some unique details that made it stand out, such as the devices used for blood magic. The pacing, worldbuilding, story, and oral tales were all wonderful, and the only reason I’m not giving it a 10 is simply there are books and characters that I personally love more. However, The Final Strife is a phenomenal book—my favorite I’ve read this year by far—and The Battle Drum is perhaps my most anticipated new release coming in 2023.

My Rating: 9/10

Where I got my reading copy: ARC from the publisher.

Read an Excerpt from The Final Strife

Read Saara El-Arifi’s Women in SF&F Month 2022 Essay, “Routes to my roots”

The Leaning Pile of Books
Nov
27
2022

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound like they may be interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included, along with series information and the publisher’s book description. Cover images are affiliate links to Bookshop, and I earn from qualifying purchases.

Last week brought two upcoming books, both of which sound fantastic!

Please Note: The description for the first book listed below does contain spoilers for the first book in the series. If you’re viewing this post in a web browser, this should be hidden until you click the “View Spoiler” link, but the description may show up if you are reading this elsewhere (by email or feed reader, for example).

Cover of The Ivory Tomb by Melissa Caruso

The Ivory Tomb (Rooks and Ruin #3) by Melissa Caruso

The final book in the Rooks and Ruin trilogy will be release on December 6 (trade paperback, ebook).

The Hachette website has excerpts from the previous books in the series, The Obsidian Tower and The Quicksilver Court. If you’ve read the first book and want an overview of characters and what happened, Melissa Caruso’s website has a refresher from the first book (so far, as she’s hoping to add refreshers for more books when she has time).

I had the absolute best time reading The Obsidian Tower, which kept me riveted: it has a spooky castle with a door that should never be opened for some reason (but is, of course!) and a mysterious fox-like chimera who seems to have always been in the castle. And why does the protagonist kill everything she touches when her family normally has magic that brings life? (I also reviewed The Quicksilver Court, which I didn’t find as captivating though I did enjoy it.)

This series is set in the same world as Melissa Caruso’s first trilogy, Swords and Fire, but it’s not necessary to start with the previous series since this follows different characters about 150 years later. However, I loved this series (especially after the Crow Lord’s appearance in the second book) and reviewed all three books:

  1. The Tethered Mage
  2. The Defiant Heir
  3. The Unbound Empire

The book description of The Ivory Tomb is behind spoiler tags since it does contain spoilers about the Door that must not be opened in the first book.

 

Cover of Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

This horror novel will be released on March 21, 2023 (hardcover, ebook, audiobook). Set in the 1900s, it’s partially inspired by the history of female homesteaders in the American West.

 

Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and a bracing new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling.

”If the literary gods mixed together Haruki Murakami and Ralph Ellison, the result would be Victor LaValle.”—Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.

The Leaning Pile of Books
Nov
20
2022

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound like they may be interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included, along with series information and the publisher’s book description. Cover images are affiliate links to Bookshop, and I earn from qualifying purchases.

Last week brought a book I pre-ordered and a soon-to-be-released book in the mail, and I’m also highlighting a horror graphic novel that I’m a bit late with!

In case you missed it, here’s what was posted since the last one of these features:

And now, the latest books!

Cover of Heart of the Sun Warrior by Sue Lynn Tan

Heart of the Sun Warrior (Celestial Kingdom #2) by Sue Lynn Tan

The latter half of the Celestial Kingdom duology was just released last week (hardcover, ebook, audiobook). The Harper Collins website has text and audio samples from Heart of the Sun Warrior.

The publisher’s website also has text and audio samples from Daughter of the Moon Goddess, the first book in the series.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess, a novel inspired by the legend of Chang’e, was one of my most anticipated books of this year and ended up being one of my favorites I’ve read this year. I really enjoyed Xingyin’s story and relationships, and the Immortal Realm is a fantastic setting.

 

The stunning sequel to Daughter of the Moon Goddess delves deeper into beloved Chinese mythology, concluding the epic story of Xingyin—the daughter of Chang’e and the mortal archer, Houyi—as she battles a grave new threat to the realm, in this powerful tale of love, sacrifice, and hope. 

After winning her mother’s freedom from the Celestial Emperor, Xingyin thrives in the enchanting tranquility of her home. But her fragile peace is threatened by the discovery of a strange magic on the moon and the unsettling changes in the Celestial Kingdom as the emperor tightens his grip on power. While Xingyin is determined to keep clear of the rising danger, the discovery of a shocking truth spurs her into a perilous confrontation.

Forced to flee her home once more, Xingyin and her companions venture to unexplored lands of the Immortal Realm, encountering legendary creatures and shrewd monarchs, beloved friends and bitter adversaries. With alliances shifting quicker than the tides, Xingyin has to overcome past grudges and enmities to forge a new path forward, seeking aid where she never imagined she would. As an unspeakable terror sweeps across the realm, Xingyin must uncover the truth of her heart and claw her way through devastation—to rise against this evil before it destroys everything she holds dear, and the worlds she has grown to love . . . even if doing so demands the greatest price of all.

Deluxe Edition Cover of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash (Deluxe Edition) by Neal Stephenson

This thirtieth anniversary hardcover deluxe edition of Snow Crash is coming out on Tuesday (November 22). The Penguin Random House website has a sample from the novel and the ability to look inside this version of Snow Crash, beginning with Neal Stephenson’s foreword for this edition. As this mentions, there are a couple of scenes about Lagos included with this version of the book.

 

Now in a gorgeous new hardcover edition featuring never-before-seen material, the “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators

Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.

Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30 U-Stor-It. He spends most of his time goggled in to the Metaverse, where his avatar is legendary.

But in the club known as The Black Sun, his fellow hackers are being felled by a weird new drug called Snow Crash that reduces them to nothing more than a jittering cloud of bad digital karma (and IRL, a vegetative state).

Investigating the Infocalypse leads Hiro all the way back to the beginning of language itself, with roots in an ancient Sumerian priesthood. He’ll be joined by Y.T., a fearless teenaged skateboard courier. Together, they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.

Cover of Where Black Stars Rise by Nadia Shammas and Marie Enger

Where Black Stars Rise by Nadia Shammas and Marie Enger

This horror graphic novel, a reimagining of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, was just released last month (trade paperback, ebook).

The Nightfire website has a few pages from the interior, as well as more information on the comic and its inspirations from writer Nadia Shammas, artist Marie Enger, and editor Kelly Lonesome.

 

“Where Black Stars Rise boldly pushes the limits of what a comic can do. …It’s a gorgeous work. I loved it.” —Trung Le Nguyen, author of The Magic Fish

Nadia Shammas and Marie Enger’s Where Black Stars Rise is an eldritch horror graphic novel that explores mental illness and diaspora, set in modern-day Brooklyn.

Dr. Amal Robardin, a Lebanese immigrant and a therapist in training, finds herself out of her depth when her first client, Yasmin, a schizophrenic, is visited by a nightly malevolent presence that seems all too real.

Yasmin becomes obsessed with Robert Chambers’ classic horror story collection The King in Yellow. Messages she finds in the book lead Yasmin to disappear, seeking answers she can’t find in therapy.

Amal attempts to retrace her patient’s last steps—and accidentally slips through dimensions, ending up in Carcosa, realm of the King in Yellow. Determined to find her way out, Amal enlists the help of a mysterious guide.

Can Amal save Yasmin? Or are they both trapped forever?

“Strange is the night where black stars rise, and strange moons circle through the skies. But stranger still is lost Carcosa…” —From The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

Guest Post by Neom Author Lavie Tidhar
Nov
08
2022

I’m thrilled to have a guest post by Lavie Tidhar to share with you today! He’s the editor of The Best of World SF (Volume 1 and Volume 2), and his writing includes the World Fantasy Award–winning novel Osama and the science fiction novel Central Station, which received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Neukom Literary Arts Award for Speculative Fiction, and the Xingyin Award (among several other award nominations). Neom, a standalone novel set in the same world as Central Station, is out today!

 

Cover of Neom by Lavie Tidhar
More Information & Book Excerpt

About NEOM:

Today, Neom is a utopian dream—a megacity of the future yet to be built in the Saudi desert. In this deeply imaginative novel from the award-winning universe of Central Station, far-future Neom is already old. Sentient machines roam the desert searching for purpose, works of art can be more deadly than weapons, and the spark of a long-overdue revolution is in the wind. Only the rekindling of an impossible love affair may slow the inevitable sands of time.

“This was superb and I’m in awe of Tidhar’s vision. He’s conjured up a futuristic city that feels simultaneously ultramodern and also run down. The rich histories of the region and its cultures are seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of this fully-realized world.”
—The Speculative Shelf

The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. It is a tech wonderland for the rich and beautiful, an urban sprawl along the Red Sea, and a port of call between Earth and the stars.

In the desert, young orphan Elias has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world. But the desert is full of mechanical artefacts, some unexplained and some unexploded. Recently, a wry, unnamed robot has unearthed one of the region’s biggest mysteries: the vestiges of a golden man.

In Neom, childhood affection is rekindling between loyal shurta-officer Nasir and hardworking flower-seller Mariam. But Nasu, a deadly terrorartist, has come to the city with missing memories and unfinished business. Just one robot can change a city’s destiny with a single rose—especially when that robot is in search of lost love.

Lavie Tidhar’s (Unholy Land, The Escapement) newest lushly immersive novel, Neom, which includes a guide to the Central Station universe, is at turns gritty, comedic, transportive, and fascinatingly plausible.

Another Science Fiction
Lavie Tidhar

A while back, I got one of those ideas I have for books that make no sense for anyone to write. This comprises pretty much all my books – A Man Lies Dreaming has the preposterous elevator pitch of “Adolf Hitler: Private Eye” and The Escapement was “a clown western”, and so on. You get what I’m saying.

So I had one of those ideas.

And the idea was that, as much as I love the sort of American science fiction I grew up on, I wanted to write something that was the total opposite of it. I wanted to write “a science fiction novel where nothing happens”. No action-adventure plot. No lone space cowboy saving the world. No galactic empires and exploding spaceships and all that. In fact, it was going to be a book where America never even got mentioned. It was, in short, a ridiculous idea, and the only thing I knew with any certainty was that no one was going to publish it.

I was briefly living back in Israel at the time, and became fascinated with the area around Tel Aviv’s central bus station. The station itself is a giant monstrosity, a cavernous mini-universe with its own nuclear fall-out shelter. Around it live a community of the dispossessed: African refugees and economic migrants from Asia, in crumbling Bauhaus neighbourhoods that became Tel Aviv’s drug and prostitution hotspot a long way back.

It was, in short, an ideal space to write a science fiction novel around.

I grew up reading American SF in translation. Lord of Light and Nova, Dune and Gateway, Zenna Henderson and Anne McCaffrey and Andre Norton, The Stars My Destination and City and Ringworld. You know. The classics. Asimov and PKD. Le Guin and Silverberg. And so on.

I wanted to write, I decided, a novel where nothing happened, about people who didn’t save the galaxy or had adventures. Instead of a lone hero I would write about the big extended family that I knew all too well. Where your second cousin’s aunt by marriage isn’t talking to your great uncle’s son from the other side because of whatever happened at your third cousin’s Bar Mitzvah two decades ago. A world where a lone hero couldn’t exist because to exist they must live in a network of familial obligations. You can’t go off to have adventures when you have a bris to go to first.

This, I knew. Space cowboys saving the universe I knew less about.

But I wanted to take all the shiny toys from those books I loved. The robots and the spaceships, the bio-hacking and the A.I., domed cities on Mars and broken down androids, even sand worms, and all the rest of it. And then, I wanted to put them in the background and sort of ignore them and just write about the little people who have to live their lives against that shiny, Golden Age future.

All I knew for sure was that no one was ever going to publish it.

So I came up with a plan. Some of my favourite science fiction came from the days of the pulp magazines. Authors would write the book in sections that worked as stand-alone short stories. They would then sell the stories to the magazines, get published and even be paid. Later on they took the stories, put them together and made them back into a novel. City. Lord of Light. Foundation. I could go on.

I knew, at that point, that I could sell short stories. And if I did it in this way, I could also take my time writing it, and write “proper” books in the meantime, and just work on my Central Station (as I decided to call it) stories/novel when I had a chance.

It pretty much worked, too. I wrote it over five or six years and sold the stories as planned, and then I tried to put it back together again into a book and couldn’t quite work out how it all fit together, and the only thing I really knew for sure was that no one was going to publish it anyway. I figured I would put it out myself, but my agent, for some reason, liked the idea of the book and convinced me to hold off on it and then sold it to Tachyon. Who then sent me a page of editorial notes that told me exactly how to make all the pieces fit to make it back into the novel I imagined.

So, as it turned out, I was wrong. Central Station did get published, and then it continued to get published around the world, and it even picked up some awards along the way.

I don’t get it either! Some readers always complain they didn’t like it because “it has no plot” and “nothing happens” – which was kind of the point.

Over the years I kept writing short stories set in the same extended universe – some on Mars, or Titan, or Earth again – but the idea of coming back to that universe in another novel proved elusive, and besides, I had other things to write. But then came the pandemic, and by the second lockdown we had I could think of nothing else to do but to step back into something that gave me comfort. The image of a robot and a rose came into my mind. I thought I’d write a tiny science fiction story. I wrote it. One day a robot comes to the city of Neom, on the shores of the Red Sea. It buys a rose and takes it into the desert…

I was about to send it off when it occurred to me I had no idea why the robot had come to Neom. Why it bought a rose. Why it carried it out to the desert. What was this robot doing?

I wrote another story to find out. Then another. Then realised I wasn’t writing short stories at all – I was writing the chapters of a novel.

I wrote the rest of it just to find out what happens.

These days I don’t often write a book not knowing where it goes. This was a novelty, and I wrote it purely for fun, following the lives of imaginary people (and a talking jackal and a bad-tempered robot) as the world froze around me. I’d gone back to the world of Central Station, and back into its ethos – that this was to be not an American SF novel but another kind of science fiction. It moves from Earth to the outer reaches of the solar system, and back, and there is even some peril, of a sort, but no one has to save the world because people are too busy making a living and mourning or falling in love and looking after elderly relatives. They live everyday lives, against the shiny background of a science fiction future.

I think I’m happy with that.

Photo of Lavie Tidhar British Science Fiction, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Award–winning author Lavie Tidhar (A Man Lies Dreaming, Unholy Land) is an acclaimed author of literature, science fiction, fantasy, graphic novels, and middle grade fiction. Tidhar received the John W. Campbell, Xingyun, and Neukom Literary awards for the novel Central Station, which has been translated into more than ten languages. He is a book columnist for the Washington Post and recently edited the Best of World Science Fiction anthology. Tidhar currently resides with his family in London.
The Leaning Pile of Books
Oct
23
2022

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature in which I highlight books I got over the last week that sound like they may be interesting—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included, along with series information and the publisher’s book description. Cover images are affiliate links to Bookshop, and I earn from qualifying purchases.

There are no new posts since the last one of these features, so let’s get straight to the books!

Cover of The River of Silver by S. A. Chakraborty

The River of Silver: Tales from the Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty

This collection of stories related to the Daevabad Trilogy came out in audiobook earlier this year, and it is now also available in hardcover and ebook formats. The publisher’s website has audio and text samples from The River of Silver, as well as all three books in the trilogy:

  1. The City of Brass
  2. The Kingdom of Copper
  3. The Empire of Gold

My husband pre-ordered a signed copy of this plus signed copies of all three Daevabad books for me for Christmas and gave them to me as an early present. The River of Silver was one of my most anticipated 2022 releases since I rather enjoyed the Daevabad books for their blend of history and myth—especially the second book, which was one of my favorites of 2019 with all its politics and family drama. (The trilogy’s conclusion was also one of my favorite books of 2020.)

 

Bestselling author S. A. Chakraborty’s acclaimed Daevabad Trilogy gets expanded with this new compilation of stories from before, during, and after the events of The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Empire of Gold, all from the perspective of characters both beloved and hated, and even those without a voice in the novels. The River of Silver gathers material both seen and new—including a special coda fans will need to read—making this the perfect complement to those incredible novels.

Now together in one place, these stories of Daevabad enrich a world already teeming with magic and wonder. Explore this magical kingdom, hidden from human eyes. A place where djinn live and thrive, fight and love. A world where princes question their power, and powerful demons can help you…or destroy you.

A prospective new queen joins a court whose lethal history may overwhelm her own political savvy…

An imprisoned royal from a fallen dynasty and a young woman wrenched from her home cross paths in an enchanted garden…

A pair of scouts stumble upon a secret in a cursed winter wood that will turn over their world…

From Manizheh’s first steps towards rebellion to adventures that take place after The Empire of Gold, this is a must-have collection for those who can’t get enough of Nahri, Ali, and Dara and all that unfolded around them.

Cover of The Luminaries by Susan Dennard

The Luminaries (Luminaries #1) by Susan Dennard

This YA contemporary fantasy novel will be released on November 1 (hardcover, ebook, audiobook). The publisher’s website has an excerpt from The Luminaries.

Susan Dennard ran a choose-your-own-adventure story involving this world and protagonist on Twitter in 2019. It was a lot of fun, and I looked forward to seeing the discussion about which poll options were best and seeing where the story went every day. Though this story differs from the novel, I’m curious about the order of monster hunters and have also been enjoying the new daily choose-your-own-adventure that started a few days ago.

 

From Susan Dennard, the New York Times bestselling author of the Witchlands series, comes a haunting and high-octane contemporary fantasy, about the magic it takes to face your fears in a nightmare-filled forest, and the mettle required to face the secrets hiding in the dark corners of your own family.

Hemlock Falls isn’t like other towns. You won’t find it on a map, your phone won’t work here, and the forest outside town might just kill you.

Winnie Wednesday wants nothing more than to join the Luminaries, the ancient order that protects Winnie’s town—and the rest of humanity—from the monsters and nightmares that rise in the forest of Hemlock Falls every night.

Ever since her father was exposed as a witch and a traitor, Winnie and her family have been shunned. But on her sixteenth birthday, she can take the deadly Luminary hunter trials and prove herself true and loyal—and restore her family’s good name. Or die trying.

But in order to survive, Winnie enlists the help of the one person who can help her train: Jay Friday, resident bad boy and Winnie’s ex-best friend. While Jay might be the most promising new hunter in Hemlock Falls, he also seems to know more about the nightmares of the forest than he should. Together, he and Winnie will discover a danger lurking in the forest no one in Hemlock Falls is prepared for.

Not all monsters can be slain, and not all nightmares are confined to the dark.