The Wild Cards universe has been thrilling readers for over 25 years. In Carrie Vaughn’s “The Thing about Growing Up in Jokertown,” a group of teenage jokers yearn to explore outside the confines of their strange little neighborhood and get a real taste of the Big Apple.
[Read “The Thing About Growing up in Jokertown” by Carrie Vaughn]
Oona’s blood is a river delta blending east and west, her hair red as Tennessee clay, her heart tangled as the wild lands she maps. By tracing rivers in ink on paper, Oona pins the land down to one reality and betrays her people. Can she escape the bonds of gold and blood and bone that tie her to the Imperial American River Company?
[Read “The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage” by Alix E. Harrow]
“The Story of Kao Yu” is a new fantasy short story by the legendary Peter S. Beagle which tells of an aging judge traveling through rural China and of a criminal he encounters. Of the story, Beagle says it “comes out of a lifelong fascination with Asian legendry — Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Indonesian — all drawn from cultures where storytelling, in one form of another, remains a living art. As a young writer I loved everything from Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee mysteries to Lafcadio Hearn’s translations of Japanese fairytales and many lesser-known fantasies. Like my story ‘The Tale of Junko and Sayuri,’ ‘The Story of Kao Yu’ is a respectful imitation of an ancient style, and never pretends to be anything else. But I wrote it with great care and love, and I’m still proud of it.“
After the collapse of civilization Nora and her family live a quiet life in the Midwestern Plains until a great fiery god of the sky descends and makes her an irresistible offer—an offer that will take her away from those she loves forever. “Dragons of Tomorrow” is a standalone story by the author of the Stranje House series, available now from Tor Teen.
Odds are that you’ve missed one of the best articles Tor.com has published this year.
Don’t worry; it happens! Tor.com publishes nearly 4000 non-fiction articles every year, ranging from quick news items to lengthy and unique features, so there’s bound to be stuff that heads downstream unnoticed.
That’s why this year we’re collecting Highlights From Tor.com’s Articles in 2016 into one handy list! Check out some great writing advice, read the personal stories that shook us up inside, and peruse some of the weirdest stuff that bubbled up onto the website this year.
This Christmas, the Robert Jordan estate is offering a special holiday treat for fans of the author’s epic Wheel of Time fantasy series: The English-to-Old-Tongue Dictionary!
The Old Tongue is a fantasy language within Jordan’s Wheel of Time that is typically used in the story to signify important aspects of the universe, the knowledge of which proves key in the series’ ongoing battle against the Shadow. While it is reminiscent of Tolkien’s ground-up creation of Elvish languages for The Lord of the Rings, The Old Tongue differs in that Jordan took a top-down approach, creating a dictionary of terms from which some basic suffixes, roots, and usage rules emerged.
Much has been said—over and over again and usually with well-intentioned sciolism—about those blasted Eagles in The Lord of the Rings.
There is actually precious little written about Tolkien’s imperious birds of prey, and I suppose that’s why it’s easy to armchair criticize the good professor for his use of them as eleventh-hour saviors. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some important distinctions to make. And what’s not to love about giant raptors? Since the rocs of Eastern legends and Marco Polo’s apocryphal adventures, everyone is fascinated by the idea of big birds, right?
“The Survivor”
Written by James Schmerer
Directed by Hal Sutherland
Animated Season 1, Episode 6
Production episode 22005
Original air date: October 13, 1973
Stardate: 5143.3
Captain’s log. While patrolling near the Romulan Neutral Zone, the Enterprise detects a one-person craft drifting. It belongs to Carter Winston, the famous space trader and philanthropist, who’s been missing for five years. His fiancée, Lieutenant Anne Nored, is an Enterprise security guard. Once Kirk and Spock verify his identity and McCoy gives him a physical, Nored gets to see him.
As soon as he sees her, he breaks off the engagement. He crashed on Vendor and was nursed back to health, and his experiences, he says, means he no longer loves Nored.
We want to send you a copy of Erin Summerill’s Ever the Hunted, available now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt!
Seventeen year-old Britta Flannery is at ease only in the woods with her dagger and bow. She spends her days tracking criminals alongside her father, a legendary bounty hunter—that is, until her father is murdered. The alleged killer is none other than Cohen Mackay, her father’s former apprentice. The only friend she’s ever known. The boy she once loved who broke her heart. She must go on a dangerous quest in a world of warring kingdoms, mad kings, and dark magic to find the real killer. But Britta wields more power than she knows. And soon she will learn what has always made her different will make her a force to be reckoned with.
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For over a thousand years, Order and Chaos have molded the island of Recluce. The Saga of Recluce chronicles the history of this world through eighteen books, L. E. Modesitt, Jr.’s most expansive and bestselling fantasy series. Available now from Tor Books, Recluce Tales: Stories from the World of Recluce collects seventeen new short stories and four popular reprints spanning the thousand-year history of Recluce.
First-time readers will gain a glimpse of the fascinating world and its complex magic system, while longtime readers of the series will be treated to glimpses into the history of the world. Modesitt’s essay “Behind the ‘Magic’ of Recluce” gives insight into his thoughts on developing the magical system that rules the Island of Recluce and its surrounding lands, while “The Vice Marshal’s Trial” takes the reader back to the first colonists on Recluce. Old favorites “Black Ordermage” and “The Stranger” stand side-by-side with thrilling new stories.
Below, we’re excited to share “The Forest Girl,” a new story about a historical figure before he became a legend to be feared… and respected.
Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff is a first-person young adult novel, presented as a record written by the titular character. When Jai, a young woman fleeing her father, arrives at the Red Abbey for shelter, she brings on her heels the danger of the outside world. The abbey is a female-only space filled with learning, home and hearth; it exists to protect and preserve women’s rights and rites. Maresi must discover, through trial and danger, who she is and what path she is called to serve—and protect her home in the process.
The novel (which is first in a series) won the highest honor for young adult fiction in Finland, the Finlandia Junior Award, in 2014. Since then, the Red Abbey Chronicles have been translated across the globe—in Chinese, German, French, and more. Amulet Press has picked them up for publication in the US beginning in early 2017.
Witches, carnivals, and fairy tales are among the 40 fantasy books kicking off 2017. Check out a newly illustrated version of Beauty and the Beast; visit the legendary Caraval; hop into established worlds with Recluce Tales and The Heart of What Was Lost; and hunker down for a magical winter retelling with The Bear and the Nightingale!
I started to watch the first season of Supergirl just as I was reading CB Lee’s debut superhero-pulp YA novel Not Your Sidekick, so superheroics are a little on my mind. Even if I haven’t made it to the end of Supergirl’s endless optimism and antics yet. (I’m savouring it. It’s gorgeous fluff with problems and great dialogue. And Kara Danvers is—there is no other phrase for it—an adorable dork.)
For me, superheroes are a problem. Fundamentally, they’re unaccountable: violent vigilantes who frequently see themselves as better than everyone else and, because of their abilities, are beyond the power of the law to discipline when they—inevitably—ignore things like the right to due process, and, you know, the importance of not murdering people or locking them up indefinitely on mere suspicion of wrongdoing. Superheroes are might makes right personified and given narrative support.
[Fortunately, Not Your Sidekick isn’t a traditional superhero story.]
Born to a man who can’t possibly understand, and the woman who chose him over her magic.
Born to take care of two brothers who have powers they must, at all costs, hide.
Born to leadership.
Born to duty.
Minerva.
Nnedi Okorafor recently shared the covers for the paperback edition of her novel Akata Witch as well as the forthcoming Akata Warrior, both created by Greg Ruth. The two have collaborated before, as Ruth illustrated the covers for the German editions of some of Okorafor’s novels. However, the Akata books provided a particular challenge, as he explains in a Muddy Colors blog post about race and artistic growth.
We’re back with the morning in publishing, from helping kids expand their reading comfort zones to lessons on social media for aspiring authors and agents alike.
In UFO Reality in 1983, British UFOlogist Jenny Randles coined the term ‘The Oz Factor’:
“…a sensation of being isolated, or transported from the real world into a different environmental framework…”
The Oz Factor was the first thing I thought of watching The OA, the first in a flotilla of vastly different and very good science fiction shows that arrived on Netflix just before Christmas. The OA is far and away the most obtuse of all of them but it’s also, I’d argue, the most rewarding.
What do you call a gathering of Leias? Last week, the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus, a science fiction-themed Mardi Gras parade organization, held a parade in honor of Carrie Fisher, with all of the attendees channeling Princess Leia in all of her forms. There are dozens of delightful photos, but we especially appreciated the physical embodiment of this wonderful mashup.
Photo by Michael DeMocker, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Please enjoy this encore post on the career of Mary Shelley, originally published on Friday, Oct 14, 2016.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley will always be linked to the novel Frankenstein and those who know her name might think of her as having had her life defined by that single iconic work. But when the book was first published in 1818, Mary was a girl of twenty-one. Many other endeavors became important to her as she grew in maturity.
Frankenstein was merely the first major accomplishment. In her lifetime, she wrote six more novels, numerous short stories, two dramas, travelogues, biographies, and she compiled collections of poems by her late husband Percy Bysshe Shelley that brought him international attention.
Welcome to the weekly reread of Camber the Heretic!
Last time, Javan and Tavis concocted a plot to trap Rhys, and the prelates of Gwynedd met to choose a new Primate—with deadly consequences. This week our heroes race to save the last of the Gabrilite and Michaeline Orders before the regents can destroy them, Rhys falls into said trap, and Tavis confronts a terrible dilemma.
If you’re anything like us, your TBR pile for 2017 is a teetering stack of books you can’t wait to read—and that’s just upcoming titles! With the New Year come resolutions about going to the gym more, eating better… and more than a few bookish resolutions as we work through our personal backlists or decide to try a new genre or author. No surprise, there’s more than one Tumblr tag devoted to sharing reading goals (because yay community and accountability!), and they can range from weekly steps to one big goal for the year, like…
What are your bookish resolutions for 2017?
After last year’s Sherlock Christmas special, “The Abominable Bride,” it seemed particularly cruel that we would have to wait another entire year for a full season of Sherlock. Now the gang’s all back, and we get our first crack at a new story with “The Six Thatchers.”
We want to send you a copy of each of the first two X-Files Origins books, Agent of Chaos by Kami Garcia and Devil’s Advocate by Jonathan Maberry, available January 3rd from Imprint!
In the spring of 1979, 17-year-old Fox Mulder has bigger problems than applying for college. Five years ago, his younger sister disappeared from their home and was never heard from again. Mulder blames himself, and his mother blames his father, who has retreated into his top-secret work for the State Department. In Fox’s senior year, his dad has moved him to Washington, DC. While Mulder doesn’t mind the fresh start and not being known as “that kid with the missing sister,” he’s still obsessed with finding Samantha. So when a local boy turns up dead and another child is abducted, Mulder can’t stop himself from getting involved. Could there be a link to his sister’s case? As he uncovers the truth, Mulder and his friends find themselves on the trail of a serial killer. Sucked into a world where conspiracies, the occult, and madness overlap, Fox Mulder starts to believe.
In the spring of 1979, 15-year-old Dana Scully has bigger problems than being the new girl in school. Dana has always had dreams. Sometimes they’ve even come true. Until now, she tried to write this off as coincidence. But ever since her father’s military career moved the family across the country to Craiger, Maryland, the dreams have been more like visions. Vivid, disturbing, and haunted by a shadowy figure who may be an angel … or the devil. When a classmate who recently died in a car accident appears before Dana, her wounds look anything but accidental. Compelled by a force she can’t name, Dana uncovers even more suspicious deaths—and must face the dangerous knowledge that evil is real. But when a betrayal of faith makes her question everything, she begins to put her faith in being a skeptic.
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