HARDCOVERS Months on list Last month
Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune (Tor) 1 –
The Mercy of Gods, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) 2 2
The
(date: 2024-12-22 07:04:57)
date: 2024-12-21, from: Locus Magazine
The Last Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison & J. Michael Straczynski, eds. (Blackstone 979-8-212-18379-6, $27.99, 450pp) October 2024.
Speaking of unusual ways to assemble an anthology, here we have The Last Dangerous Visions, nominally edited by Harlan Ellison, but also by Ellison’s executor J. Michael Straczynski, who added seven stories he solicited himself after Ellison’s death. By my count, nine of the 24 stories were among the nearly 90 …Read More
date: 2024-12-21, from: Locus Magazine
CanCon 2024 was held November 1-3 in person at the Sheraton Hotel in Ottawa, Canada. Guests of honour were Jennifer Brozek, Sarah Gailey, Diana M. Pho, Waubgeshig Rice, and Arley Sorg. A separate virtual CanCon was held on April 20 with roughly one hundred attendees.
There were 400 in-person registered attendees. Programming featured 115 panelists and 107 items on writing, literature, and more, such as ‘‘Post-Colonial Perspectives on the Post-Apocalypse’’ …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/cancon-2024/
date: 2024-12-20, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
Judgment Day is still possible.
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/229-warnings-from-your-future
date: 2024-12-20, from: John August blog
Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week. This week, we look at how fantasy epics use their wizards, world building and wonder to create their own kind of magic. Our collection includes: Game of Thrones – “Pilot” by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss […] The post Featured Friday: Fantasy Epics first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/featured-friday-fantasy-epics
date: 2024-12-20, from: Locus Magazine
The Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS) has announced the finalists for the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for Best Classic Fiction.
Six other works were also considered: “Death and the Senator”, a 1961 short story by Arthur C. Clarke; That Hideous Strength, a 1945 …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/2025-prometheus-hall-of-fame-award-finalists/
date: 2024-12-20, from: Locus Magazine
If you have a science fiction nerd for a parent, then you know it is impossible to shop for them over the holidays. They have read every SF title from the ‘Best of’ lists and have a personal pulp collection from decades past. Here are six recent science fiction titles reviewed by our experts that we think your dad hasn’t read yet (unless he has a Locus subscription), in …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/6-science-fiction-books-your-dad-doesnt-own-yet-a-gift-guide/
date: 2024-12-20, from: Locus Magazine
The Locus Bestsellers for September include top titles: Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune (Tor), Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (Tor), Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Red Tower), and The Book of Bill by Alex Hirsch (Hyperion Avenue).
HARDCOVERS Months on list Last month
Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune (Tor) 1 –
The Mercy of Gods, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) 2 2
The
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/locus-bestsellers-december-4/
date: 2024-12-20, from: Locus Magazine
At the Fount of Creation, Tobi Ogundiran (Tordotcom 978-1-25090-803-2, $21.99, 224pp, hc) January 2025.
At the Fount of Creation is a thrilling conclusion to Tobi Ogundiran’s Guardians of the Gods duology, packed with cinematic action and with more deities from the Yoruba pantheon making an appearance. It continues the story of Ashâke, a failed acolyte who is later revealed to be the vessel for the surviving orisha, and is …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/at-the-fount-of-creation-by-tobi-ogundiran-review-by-archita-mittra/
date: 2024-12-20, from: Literature & a Latte blog
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/how-to-carve-out-time-to-write-during-the-festive-season
date: 2024-12-19, from: Locus Magazine
We’re in the thick of the holidays, and we’ve got another quick video for all of you this week. Come by and have a look — we’re super excited to tell you all about the top new releases in the SF, fantasy, horror, and YA books! Support what we do and keep up-to-date on all of our videos by subscribing to the channel!
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/weekly-youtube-video-is-up/
date: 2024-12-19, from: Locus Magazine
GigaNotoSaurus 9/24 Diabolical Plots 9/24 Hexagon Fall ’24
September’s GigaNotoSaurus is Monte Lin’s “Here in the Glittering Black, There is Hope”, which introduces Kavita, the captain of a ship contracted out to the ultrarich to go out and bring back previous materials from the reaches of space, staying young thanks to cryo-sleep while generations pass on Earth. She’s part of a tradition, a movement to the stars …Read More
date: 2024-12-19, from: Locus Magazine
Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune (Tor Books 879-1-250-88120-5, $28.99, 416pp, hc) September 2024.
Fans of TJ Klune’s enormously popular The House in the Cerulean Sea were no doubt thrilled to hear about the unexpected sequel, Somewhere Beyond the Sea. The continuing story of Arthur, Linus, and the group of orphaned magic children they care for is as heartfelt and political as readers could want. Make no mistake, …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/somewhere-beyond-the-sea-by-tj-klune-review-by-colleen-mondor/
date: 2024-12-18, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
If you don’t talk to your kids about Final Draft, who will?
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/wont-someone-please-think-of-the
date: 2024-12-18, from: Locus Magazine
Rachel Winterbottom has joined Penguin Random House UK imprint Transworld as sci-fi and fantasy publishing director. Winterbottom is scheduled to start working in the newly created role in March 2025, reporting temporarily to managing director Kimberly Young. Winterbottom has worked as an editor for Gollancz as well as HarperVoyager UK. Young said,
Rachel brings with her a magical combination of a deep passion for the SFF genre and a genuine …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/winterbottom-joins-transworld/
date: 2024-12-18, from: Final Draft blog
“I would argue that the movies, the plays, the stories that endure
and certainly that resonate in the most populist and global way are the
ones where we’re not just observing a piece of storytelling, we’re
participative in some way and it’s connective. How can any of us who are
flawed humans connect with a flawless hero? The beauty of Wade
[Deadpool] and Logan [Wolverine] is that really, they’re two
anti-heroes. They do not abide by typical moral codes. They both have
been scarred deeply. And I think one thing that’s really interesting
about them is that the worst thing that’s ever happened to them is also
the source of their superpowers. Which I think, by the way, is something
worth thinking about in all our lives – that the things that we had to
get over are also the source of our strength,” says writer/director of
Deadpool & Wolverine Shawn Levy.
In this episode,
we discuss the elements that Levy thinks make a great hero and also a
powerful villain like Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin).
“There was
something really juicy about [Cassandra’s] twinship with Charles Xavier,
that this villain is a new villain who has never been in a movie, who
has never been anywhere other than the pages of a Marvel comic book. But
there is this connective tissue to deep beloved, extensive mythology
with Professor X and Charles. So we did lean into her resentment, her
envy of Charles. You know, I think maybe one of my favorite couplets of
our writing in this movie is when Cassandra says to Wolverine, ‘He must
have really loved you.’ And he says to Cassandra, ‘He would have loved
you too. He would have torn a hole in the universe if he knew where you
were.’ I get goosebumps saying it now!” says Levy.
We also
break down that hilarious fight scene between Deadpool &
Wolverine that takes place entirely inside a Honda Odyssey.
To hear more insights about the highest grossing R-rated comedy of
all time, listen to the podcast.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/write-on-deadpool-wolverine-writer-director-shawn-levy
date: 2024-12-18, from: Locus Magazine
The New York Public Library (NYPL), the Brooklyn Public Library, the Queens Public Library, and others have released their annual lists of most-borrowed books. The 2024 announcement features a list of books tabulating check outs for the combined boroughs.
On the “Citywide” list, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Knopf) was the most checked out book for the combined boroughs of New York for 2024. Third place was …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/new-york-public-library-best-books-and-top-check-outs/
date: 2024-12-18, from: Locus Magazine
Blood of the Old Kings, Sung-il Kim (Tor 978-1-25089-533-2, $27.95, 368pp, hc) October 2024.
Sung-il Kim’s 2016 fantasy novel Blood of the Old Kings features heroic characters and an innovative, engaging magic system. It makes for a breezy fantasy story where exposition is skillfully allotted in brief bursts that don’t mar its pacing. And the action scenes are breathlessly propulsive. Those ingredients launch a tale of a band of …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/blood-of-the-old-kings-by-sung-il-kim-review-by-sean-dowie/
date: 2024-12-18, from: Literature & a Latte blog
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/how-to-use-internal-links-in-scrivener-projects
date: 2024-12-17, from: Locus Magazine
Demon Daughter, Lois McMaster Bujold (Subterranean Press 978-1-64524-219-2, $45.00, 224pp, hc) January 2025. Cover by Lauren Saint-Onge.
I first read Lois McMaster Bujold’s Demon Daughter when it was initially released in e-book. Now that it is coming out from Subterranean Press in hardcover – the latest of the Penric and Desdemona novellas set in the World of the Five Gods to do so – I have read it again …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/demon-daughter-by-lois-mcmaster-bujold-review-by-liz-bourke/
date: 2024-12-17, from: Locus Magazine
The Bookseller has created a list of their top 30 UK and Ireland editors of 2024, using available data from Circana Bookscan and factoring in other achievements like literary prizes. The rankings feature several editors and works of genre interest, including:
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/bookseller-top-uk-editors-2024/
date: 2024-12-17, from: Author’s Union blog
Authors Alliance celebrated an important milestone in 2024: our 10th anniversary! Quite a lot has changed since 2014, but our mission remains the same. We exist to advance the interests of authors who want to serve the public good by sharing their creations broadly. I’m pleased to share our 2024 annual report, where you can find […]
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/12/17/authors-alliance-2024-annual-report/
date: 2024-12-17, from: Locus Magazine
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced the recipients of its 2024 scholarships and diversity grants.
Amanda Helms, Somto Ihezue, Elis Montgomery, A.W. Prihandita, Ayida Shonibar, Tehnuka, and Ash Vale are winners of the $500 Diversity Grants, given to “underrepresented, diverse people who have an interest in the horror writing genre, including, but not limited to writers, editors, reviewers, and library workers.”
Catherine Yu won the $2,500 Horror Writers Association Scholarship. …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/2024-hwa-scholarship-and-grant-recipients/
date: 2024-12-17, from: Final Draft blog
Maybe you’re a fan of movies and have thought about becoming a
screenwriter, but you never took the time to follow through with it. Or
maybe it never occurred to you that screenwriting is a possible career
option.
Well, there are many people — myself included — who have
made a living writing screenplays, and it’s definitely the best job I
ever had. So if you think you have cinematic stories to tell, but still
don’t know if such a venture is worth your time, here are 5 Reasons To Be a Screenwriter.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/5-reasons-to-be-a-screenwriter
date: 2024-12-17, from: Locus Magazine
Liz Pelletier, publisher of Entangled Publishing, is Publishers Weekly’s 2024 Person of the Year.
Entangled Publishing—which includes genre imprints Red Tower, Entangled Teen, and Amara—had a breakout year in 2023 with the publication of bestseller Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Other notable titles include Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer and the Crave series by Tracy Wolff.
Pelletier founded Entangled in 2010 “to bridge the gap in the …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/pelletier-named-pw-person-of-the-year/
date: 2024-12-17, from: Locus Magazine
Hannah Onoguwe is the winner of the 2024 Working Class Writers Grant for her work “Eyes of the Igbadai”.
The $1,000 grant is presented annually by the Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) to “speculative fiction writers who are working class, blue-collar, financially disadvantaged, or homeless, who have been historically underrepresented in speculative fiction due to financial barriers which make it hard to access the writing world.”
Other authors shortlisted for this …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/onoguwe-wins-working-class-writers-grant/
date: 2024-12-17, from: John August blog
Many of the biggest AI models have been trained on film and TV dialogue, and writers are furious. John and Craig explore the legal, ethical and philosophical implications of this revelation, our emotional reactions to it, and offer strategies for picking the right hills to die on. But first, we follow up on the definition […] The post They Ate Our Scripts first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/they-ate-our-scripts
date: 2024-12-17, from: Locus Magazine
The Nightward, R.S.A. Garcia (Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-334575-1, $19.99, 448pp, tp) October 2024.
The Nightward is R.S.A. Garcia’s first traditionally published novel. From the outside, it looks like a work of epic fantasy in the classic mode, in which a small team of heroes must outwit and stand against a nebulously defined threat to all they know and love. A closer examination, however, finds it taking this classic form …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/the-nightward-by-r-s-a-garcia-review-by-liz-bourke/
date: 2024-12-17, from: Locus Magazine
Anderson, Brad C.: Ashme’s Song (Shadowpaw Press 9781998273164, $19.99, 402pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 12/17/2024)
SF novel. Ashme, a genetically enhanced New Mesopotamian has the ability to control computer systems at will, destined to help her oppressed people. But she is stuck caring for her neurologically frail twin brother.
Heitz, M. Turville: Black River (Crossroad Press/Mystique Press 9781637891346, $14.99, 350pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 12/17/2024)
Fantasy novel. Kyle Nelson, …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/new-books-17-december-2024/
date: 2024-12-16, from: IF Database News
IFDB has allowed you to hide a user and their reviews, comments, lists, and polls since 2008. At that time, the feature was called “plonking,” which is an old term from Usenet. Now, we use the modern standard term, “muting.” (This is just a rename; the feature works the same way it did before.)https://ifdb.org/news?item=154
date: 2024-12-16, from: Locus Magazine
Brandon Sanderson’s Wind and Truth (Tor), fifth volume in his Stormlight Archive, debuts strongly on print lists, ranking #1 on three of them and #2 on the fourth.
Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT 12.22 LAT 12.14 USAT 12.08 PW 12.16 Amz (12.16) UK: Amz UK (12.16) Canada: Amz.ca (12.16)
Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed
10×3 10×2 150 15×3 100 100 100
Hardcovers
Aster, Skyshade …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/weekly-bestsellers-16-december-2024/
date: 2024-12-16, from: Final Draft blog
There is nothing quite like horror to ring in the holiday cheer. While
the holiday season offers your favorite formulaic rom-com that brings
that feeling of joy to our cold hearts, Christmas-themed horror movies
designed to scare audiences during the most wonderful time of the year
have become more popular than ever.
While horror films—more
specifically slashers—are often reserved for Halloween, Damien Leone’s
Terrifier 3 paid homage to classic Holiday slashers Black
Christmas and Silent Night Deadly Night, all of which make
the season terrifying. But what is it about these movies that works? And
more importantly—how do you write a Christmas horror movie?
https://blog.finaldraft.com/3-ways-terrifier-3-slays-holiday-horror
date: 2024-12-16, from: Locus Magazine
The Historical Novel Society (HNS) has issued a call for proposals for their 2025 conference (HNS25), open December 15, 2024 to January 15, 2025.
This year, the conference theme is ‘‘A Celebration of Historical Fiction in its Many Forms,’’ and HNS25 program chair Christopher M. Cevasco “welcomes proposals of panels, talks, and readings with a focus on historical fantasy, alternate history, time travel, steampunk, and historical horror, among other forms …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/hns-call-for-proposals/
date: 2024-12-16, from: Final Draft blog
“What happens when you disassociate? What happens when you’re separate from yourself? What happens when you’re no longer yourself? Is there a camera language that can embody that, that can execute that? In the film, when Elwood walks into the white house, he looks left he sees the sawhorse thing that they’re beat on. He looks to the right, he sees Hamish [Linklater, who plays Spencer]. And then when he looks to the left again, he’s in front of the camera because he separated from it. He’s having an out of body experience,” says director and co-writer of Nickel Boys about his unusual technique for shooting his protagonist Elwood’s point of view.
On today’s episode of the Write On podcast, we speak with RaMell Ross about his new film Nickel Boys about two young Black men who get sent to a reform school in 1960’s Jim Crow South. The film is heartbreakingly beautiful and already getting plenty of Oscar buzz.
In the interview, Ross admits he didn’t know how to write a screenplay when he decided to adapt Colson Whitehead’s book Nickel Boys, so he began the process by using written storyboards to visualize the scenes, which were later converted into a screenplay with the help of co-writer Joselyn Barnes. We also discuss his decision to limit the violence depicted on screen.
“It’s a tough space because on one hand, you want people to understand the things that happened and their horror. But I feel as a culture, we’ve been overexposed to it and specifically overexposed as it relates to people of color because we don’t have so many iterations of visuals of people of color. If that’s most of it, then how does that work on the culture and psyche?” says Ross.
Ross also shares his take on writing a movie with historical elements.
“I don’t think that what we understand to be history is history. I think that it’s a collection of familiar ways of analyzing or engaging with the past that fits comfortably in the socio-political language of reflection. I don’t know what it’s like to be a person in the past. And I know that a lot of the narratives that we have these days are guided by a person’s either nefarious unconscious or they have another type of motivation behind them. And so I want people to think about the past as something that has the freedom of interpretation, that we would like to be given to all of the things that we’ve done in our lives. I just don’t believe in historical reproduction,” he says.
Listen to the podcast to find out more about Ross’s unconventional filmmaking process.
https://blog.finaldraft.com/write-on-nickel-boys-writer-director-ramell-ross
date: 2024-12-16, from: Locus Magazine
Her imagination, creativity, and thirst for learning have been near-constant companions, but artist/illustrator CHRISTINE MITZUK didn’t initially consider working as an artist. Her career started after college while working as a production artist and graphic designer at a few design and marketing firms for about seven years. She gained insight into client work and procedures to help a project flow along. As a freelance artist she uses several of these …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/spotlight-on-christine-mitzuk/
date: 2024-12-16, from: Locus Magazine
An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth, Anna Moschovakis (Soft Skull 978-1-59376-783-9, 208pp, $16.95, tp) November 2024. Cover by Gregg Kulick.
I’m continually interested in how the coronavirus pandemic does – or commonly doesn’t – make its way into fiction. It’s such a huge event, but one that “realistic” novels, movies, and television series seem hesitant to engage with, opting instead for a kind of hazy …Read More
date: 2024-12-15, from: Locus Magazine
CLIO EVANS is now represented by Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency Ltd.
HAYAO MIYAZAKI is this year’s recipient of the Forry Award for lifetime achievement in the SF field, presented by The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. Miyazaki is the founder of Studio Ghibli and an Academy Award-winning filmmaker. The award, named for Forrest J Ackerman, has been given annually since 1966.
SEANAN MCGUIRE, writing …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/people-publishing-roundup-december-2024/
date: 2024-12-15, from: Locus Magazine
Clarkesworld 9/24
In “The Music Must Always Play” by Marissa Lingen in the September issue of Clarkesworld, aliens crash land in Minnesota, but are all killed as a result, before the residents of Earth have a chance to meet them. It’s a unique take on a first contact story, focusing on Maryam, a member of the team studying the crash, who feels guilty for not being at home …Read More
https://locusmag.com/2024/12/clarkesworld-short-fiction-reviews-by-a-c-wise-3/