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Excerpt: JULES, PENNY & THE ROOSTER by Daniel Pinkwater (Tachyon)

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In a couple of weeks, Tachyon Publications will release the latest book by Daniel Pinkwater: Jules, Penny & the Rooster. In his latest book, Pinkwater “brings his zany wit and wisdom to the magical adventures of a clever girl and her brave dog.” A novel “told with warmth and wit”, it is an “exploration of growing up, the power of family, and how sometimes the best things in life happen when you least expect them.” Fans of the author’s other Tachyon-published novels will no doubt find much to like in his latest. To whet readers’ appetite, the publisher has allowed CR to share an excerpt with you all. Here’s the synopsis:

Jules McShultz was promised a dog. Supposedly, she’d get one once her family moved from the city to the suburbs. But then her parents decided it still wasn’t the right time.

So Jules does what any intelligent girl would do. Instead of sulking, she enters an essay contest and wins first prize: A purebred Collie. And no one — not even Jules’s parents — can resist Penny, who is Jules’s perfect new canine pal.

Jules and Penny are ready to spend the summer exploring the woods by the house. But the woods are not at all what they seem to be. Magic and adventure await them just on the other side of an old stone wall.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: JAMAICA GINGER AND OTHER CONCOCTIONS by Nalo Hopkinson (Tachyon)

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HopkinsonN-JamaicaGingerUSsmOn October 29th, Tachyon Publications are due to publish the new fiction collection by Nalo Hopkinson: Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions. To celebrate, Tachyon has provided CR with an excerpt share from one of the stories, “Propagation”! Before we get to that, here’s the synopsis for the collection:

Caribbean-Canadian author Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, The Salt Roads, Falling in Love with Hominids) is an internationally renowned storyteller. This long-awaited new collection of her deeply imaginative short fiction offers striking journeys to far-flung futures and fantastical landscapes. Hopkinson is at the peak of her powers, moving effortlessly between art, folklore, science, and magic.

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as having “an imagination that most of us would kill for,” Nalo Hopkinson and her Afro-Caribbean, Canadian, and American influences shine in truly unique stories that are gorgeously strange, inventively subversive, and vividly beautiful. In her first stories since 2015, a woman and her cyborg pig eke out a living in a future waterworld; two scientists contemplate the cavernous remains of an alien lifeform; and an artist creates nanotechnology that asserts Blackness where it is least welcome.

The author has also written a short introduction to the story, included below before the story itself.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: CANDLELIGHT BRIDGE by Cara Lopez Lee (FlowerSong Press)

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LopezLeeC-CandlelightBridgeToday we have an excerpt from Cara Lopez Lee‘s Candlelight Bridge, a historical novel about family heritage during the Mexican and Chinese Revolutions. Published tomorrow, by FlowerSong Press, here’s the synopsis:

In 1910, twelve-year-old Candelaria Rivera and her family flee across the Chihuahuan Desert to America to escape the rising storm of the Mexican Revolution. Meanwhile, twenty-year-old Yan Chi Wong flees the Chinese Revolution and a shattering loss, also bound for America, where he’s nicknamed Yankee.

The unlikely pair meet in El Paso, Texas, where they fight to make a home in a world that does not want them, until a terrible desire threatens to destroy their lives.

Continue reading →

Very Quick Review: WORKING by Robert A. Caro (Knopf)

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carora-workingusA glimpse into what it takes to write epic non-fiction

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson: an unprecedented gathering of vivid, candid, deeply moving recollections about his experiences researching and writing his acclaimed books.

Now in paperback, Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life and work in these evocatively written, personal pieces. He describes what it was like to interview the mighty Robert Moses and to begin discovering the extent of the political power Moses wielded; the combination of discouragement and exhilaration he felt confronting the vast holdings of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas; his encounters with witnesses, including longtime residents wrenchingly displaced by the construction of Moses’ Cross-Bronx Expressway and Lady Bird Johnson acknowledging the beauty and influence of one of LBJ’s mistresses. He gratefully remembers how, after years of working in solitude, he found a writers’ community at the New York Public Library, and details the ways he goes about planning and composing his books.

Caro recalls the moments at which he came to understand that he wanted to write not just about the men who wielded power but about the people and the politics that were shaped by that power. And he talks about the importance to him of the writing itself, of how he tries to infuse it with a sense of place and mood to bring characters and situations to life on the page. Taken together, these reminiscences—some previously published, some written expressly for this book—bring into focus the passion, the wry self-deprecation, and the integrity with which this brilliant historian has always approached his work.

A few days ago, a friend of mine shared a link to Robert A. Caro’s 2019 New Yorker essay, “The Secrets of Lyndon Johnson’s Archives”. I found it to be a fascinating glimpse of what it takes to write the kind of histories that Caro is known for. As I read, I was reminded that I actually had Working, and decided to dive right in. It’s a fascinating memoir about researching, writing, and interviewing. A very rewarding read, I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Very Quick Review: THE LAST ENFORCER by Charles Oakley, w. Frank Isola (Gallery)

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OakleyC-LastEnforcerAn interesting, albeit limited memoir

A memoir from Charles Oakley — one of the toughest and most loyal players in NBA history — featuring unfiltered stories about the journey that basketball has taken him on and his relationships with Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, James Dolan, Donald Trump, George Floyd, and so many others.

If you ask a New York Knicks fan about Charles Oakley, you better prepare to hear the love and a favorite story or two. But his individual stats weren’t remarkable, and while he helped power the Knicks to ten consecutive playoffs, he never won a championship. So why does he hold such a special place in the minds, hearts, and memories of NBA players and fans?

Because over the course of nineteen years in the league, Oakley was at the center of more unbelievable encounters than Forrest Gump, and nearly as many fights as Mike Tyson. He was the friend you wish you had, and the enemy you wish you’d never made. If any opposing player was crazy enough to start a fight with him, or God forbid one of his teammates, Oakley would end it.

“I can’t remember every rebound I grabbed but I do have a story — the true story — of just about every punch and slap on my resume,” he says.

In The Last Enforcer, Oakley shares one incredible story after the next — all in his signature, unfiltered style — about his life in the paint and beyond, fighting for rebounds and respect. You’ll look back on the era of the 1990s NBA, when tough guys with rugged attitudes, unflinching loyalty, and hard-nosed work ethics were just as important as three-point sharpshooters. You’ll feel like you were on the court, in the room, can’t believe what you just saw, and need to tell everyone you know about it.

I was looking forward to reading this memoir. Like many people, Michael Jordan’s prime years with the Chicago Bulls was my introduction to basketball. Oakley was one of Jordan’s earlier teammates, and is one of his closest friends, but was traded away to the Knicks just before the Bulls embarked on their epic six-championships run. This is his story, complete with honest, blunt appraisals of his teammates, the League (now and then), and more. It’s got plenty of interesting insights and illuminating stories. But in many ways, it also comes across as rather one-note. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE PAST IS RED by Catherynne M. Valente (Tor.com)

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ValenteCM-PastIsRedThis summer, Tor.com are due to publish The Past is Red, an intriguing-looking new post-eco-apocalypse sci-fi novella by Catherynne M. Valente. Check out the synopsis:

The enchanting, dark, funny, angry story of a girl who made two terrible mistakes: she told the truth and she dared to love the world.

The future is blue. Endless blue… except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown.

Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she’s the only one who knows it. She’s the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it’s full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time.

But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected.

Catherynne M. Valente’s The Past is Red is due to be published by Tor.com in North America and in the UK, on July 20th, 2021.

Also on CR: Interview with Catherynne Valente (2012); Guest Post on “The Long Orbit of Radiance“

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Interview with GAVIN G. SMITH

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SmithGG-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Gavin Smith?

Just some guy. (He’s a science fiction and fantasy writer with a track record for action oriented stories.)

Your third Bastard Legion novel, War Criminals, is due to be published in July. How would you introduce the series to a potential reader? And what can fans of the series expect from this instalment?

So the high concept pitch for Bastard Legion is the Dirty Dozen/Suicide Squad (depending on your age) meets Aliens. It’s about a mercenary penal legion recruited from the 6,000-strong convict population the Hangman’s Daughter (an interstellar prison barge). They are led by the cheerful, if possibly psychopathic, ex-black ops soldier Miska Corbin and the VR ghost of her dead dad.

War Criminals will see the Legion engaged in a full scale war for the first time! (Previously it’s been smaller-scale black ops.) Continue reading →

Interview with CHRISTOPHER RUOCCHIO

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RuocchioC-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Christopher Ruocchio?

I am the author of Empire of Silence, a new space opera/epic fantasy out in July. I am also the Assistant Editor for Baen Books, where I have edited the military SF anthology Star Destroyers and the upcoming Space Pioneers. I sold my first novel — this novel — at age 22. I graduated from North Carolina State University, where I studied English Rhetoric and Classics. I am a boxer, and former fencer, and the owner of half a suit of replica first century Roman armor. I worked as a waiter for seven years, during which time I wrote and paid my way through college at the expense of any sort of social life. I remain an enthusiastic student, and am blessed with what I consider the world’s greatest family, a lovely girlfriend, and better friends than one of my stormy disposition perhaps deserves. Continue reading →

Upcoming: FELIX CASTOR SERIES by Mike Carey (Re-Issues, Orbit)

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This year, Orbit is re-issuing Mike Carey‘s Felix Castor series: The Devil You Know, Vicious Circle, Dead Men’s Boots, Thicker Than Water and The Naming of the Beasts. Above and below are the new covers. Here’s the synopsis for the first novel:

Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stomping ground. It may seem like a good ghostbuster can charge what he likes and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle, but there’s a risk: sooner or later he’s going to take on a spirit that’s too strong for him.

When Castor accepts a seemingly simple ghost-hunting case at a museum in the shadowy heart of London, what should have been a perfectly straightforward exorcism is rapidly turning into the Who Can Kill Castor First Show, with demons and ghosts all keen to claim the big prize.

But that’s business as usual: Castor knows how to deal with the dead. It’s the living who piss him off…

Carey has recently been publishing as M.R. Carey, including the critically-acclaimed and best-selling The Girl With All the Gifts and its sequel, The Boy on the Bridge. The Felix Castor novels are published by Orbit in the US and UK.

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Also on CR: Review of The Girl With All the Gifts

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter