The first ever Year’s Best African speculative fiction anthology with 2020 reprinted works from some of the most exciting voices, old and new. Short stories and authors: “Where You Go” by Somto O. Ihezue, “Things Boys Do” by Pemi Aguda, “Giant Steps” by Russell Nichols, “The Future in Saltwater” by […]
Read MoreArticles by: Mary Woodbury
Dew in the Morning, Shimmer Chinodya
Dew in the Morning is a tender, evocative novel of growing up, but in it we see the seeds of many issues which Chinodya will dwell on in his later novels: familial tensions, the taut interplay of tradition and modernity, ancestral beliefs and Christianity…A Bildungsroman, Chinodya captures the centrality of […]
Read MoreMahanadi, Anita Agnihotri
Translated by Nivedita Sen, with the subtitle: A novel about the river. In this novel, the tale of the river is entwined with the people through vignettes of their dynamic lives that are infused with myths, legends and archaeological anecdotes. Characters like Malati Gond, Neelkantha, Kuber, Bhanu Shitulia, Parvati and […]
Read MoreCloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr
In Cloud Cuckoo Land, the world may be falling apart but everything and everyone must come together…This novel of performative storytelling that is also a novel about storytelling is dedicated to “the librarians then, now, and in the years to come.” Two anxieties, reinforcing each other, are at play: the […]
Read MoreThe Annual Migration of Clouds, Premee Mohamed
This slim, literary dystopia explores a mother and daughter’s relationship in a setting ravaged by climate change. –Buzzfeed With keen insight and biting prose, Premee Mohamed delivers a deeply personal tale in this post-apocalyptic hopepunk novella that reflects on the meaning of community and asks what we owe to those […]
Read MoreStrange Beasts of China, Yan GE
The novel’s environmental ethos is also very much of the now, with numerous, vivid descriptions of urban decay competing with the natural world. As an example, there’s a wistful moment where the novelist sees a bird rise into the air with… “an elongated body and exquisite movements, feathers as pale […]
Read MoreMatrix, Lauren Groff
Pandemics recur in her stories, as do natural landscapes ravaged by climate change, as do women who are quietly incandescent with rage. –The Atlantic
Read MoreThe Island of Missing Trees, Elif Shafak
In The Island of Missing Trees, prizewinning author Elif Shafak brings us a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, memory and amnesia, human-induced destruction of nature, and, finally, renewal. –Penguin Elif Shafak hardly needs any introduction. Her beautifully designed books can be found everywhere, from airports […]
Read MoreSpotlight – Bijal Vachharajani
Click here to return to the series I virtually met author Bijal Vachharajani this past summer at Scotland’s CYMERA Festival of Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Writing. We talked with host and author Lauren James, along with author James Bradley, about how we were motivated to write stories that focus around […]
Read MoreBeautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney
Rooney is back with another bookish, epistolary novel — this time following two intelligent young adults navigating their personal lives amid the backdrop of environmental and social upheaval. –New York Times Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to […]
Read MoreDarklands, Arnav Das Sharma
India is reeling from an environmental catastrophe, water has replaced oil as the most valuable commodity, and our cities have become nightmarish places infested with gangs, secretive corporations, and powerful religious figures. Arnav Das Sharma’s coming-of-age novel in an all-too-real Indian dystopia falters But the promise of being a dystopic […]
Read MoreThe Body Scout, Lincoln Michael
Diamond-sharp and savagely wry, The Body Scout is a timely science fiction thriller debut set in an all-too-possible future, perfect for readers of William Gibson. In Michel’s cyberpunk New York of the future, climate change and repeated pandemics have ravaged the city; meanwhile, cybernetic body modification is de rigeur, and […]
Read MoreBackyard Wildlife – Apples and Whiskey
Back to Series Today’s post looks at local backyard wildlife and expands out to the province, particularly Cape Breton. It’s that time of year when the chill of autumn bites the air, just teasing after summer heat waves and ongoing post-tropical storms from hurricanes, such as Henri and Ida. We […]
Read MoreIndie Corner – Cai Emmons
Back to the Indie Corner series Thanks so much to Cai Emmons, author of Sinking Islands (a sequel to Weather Woman), for answering some questions about her new book. Sinking Islands is out September 14, 2021, from Red Hen Press. Cai is also the author of the novels His Mother’s […]
Read MoreHarrow, Joy Williams
In her first novel since The Quick and the Dead (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), the legendary writer takes us into an uncertain landscape after an environmental apocalypse, a world in which only the man-made has value, but some still wish to salvage the authentic.
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