Feb 252021
Feb 242021
Booklist: For fans of hard science fiction chase tales like Corey J. White’s Repo Virtual (2020) or Daniel Suarez’s Change Agent (2017).
Feb 172021
Vanessa Taylor and Drew Pearce will adapt Elizabeth Bear’s short story “Dolly” (Asimov’s). Following a competitive bidding war, the project has landed at Apple Studios. Academy Award-nominee Florence Pugh is attached to star. Pugh is repped by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, Curtis Brown and Associates and attorney Ziffren Brittenham. Taylor is repped by ICM Partners, Robert Offer at Sloane Offer Weber Dern. Pearce and his Point of No Return Films is repped by WME and Jim Gilio and Warren Dern at Sloane Offer Weber Dern. Bear is represented by Jennifer Jackson at the Donald Maass Literary Agency and WME.
Feb 162021
Publishers Weekly: Barrett debuts with a delightful office romance for the #MeToo era…. Barrett expertly captures both the frenzied intensity of sex as distraction and the awkward drop back into reality as Corrine and Wesley face the limitations of their situation, but it’s the personal growth of both protagonists that really set this rom-com apart. This is a winner.
Feb 122021
Library Journal: Born to serve and protect, Warlord Princes are sworn to their Queen. Daemonar Yaslana has always been bossy and protective, but he has reached an age where his behavior walks a fine line, and an emotional attack on his sister by a young Queen results in Daemonar beginning a new set of lessons under Witch, the Queen that many think of as old myth. When a curse is revealed to be rising in Kaleer, Daemonar along with his uncle and father, the High Lord and Demon Prince, respectively, must use his skills to uproot the stain before it sets too far. For Warlord Princes are their Queen’s weapons, and they will destroy any enemy—even if it wears a beloved face. Bishop (Wild Country) leans into references and characters from past books to build a century-spanning saga, tying together pieces of plot and creating new stakes that could break hearts and power. VERDICT The latest “Black Jewels” novel (after The Queen’s Bargain) continues to deliver dark fantasy with lush worldbuilding, strong characters, and high-stakes action.
Feb 112021
Rebecca Mix’s debut novel THE ONES WE BURN, a sapphic YA fantasy in which a blood-witch’s mission to assassinate the prince she is betrothed to is compromised by the discovery of a deadly plague—and by the beautiful princess intent on stopping it, to Alyza Liu at Margaret K. McElderry Books, for publication in fall 2022, by Kiana Nguyen at Donald Maass Literary Agency (World English).
Feb 102021
Congratulations to all our DMLA authors who were chosen for the 2020 Locus Recommended Reading List!
NOVELS – SCIENCE FICTION
Machine, Elizabeth Bear (Saga; Gollancz)
Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
NOVELS – FANTASY
Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom)
Stormsong, C.L. Polk (Tordotcom)
The Midnight Bargain, C.L. Polk (Erewhon)
Creatures of Charm and Hunger, Molly Tanzer (John Joseph Adams)
FIRST NOVELS
Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido)
Beneath the Rising, Premee Mohamed (Solaris)
The Space Between Worlds, Micaiah Johnson (Del Rey; Hodder & Stoughton)
COLLECTIONS
The Best of Elizabeth Bear, Elizabeth Bear (Subterranean)
NOVELLAS
Yellow Jessamine, Caitlin Starling (Neon Hemlock)
SHORT STORIES
“The Translator, at Low Tide“, Vajra Chandrasekera (Clarkesworld 5/20)
“Unlike Most Tides“, Darcie Little Badger (Drabblecast 5/3/20)
Feb 082021
A
uthor of BENEATH THE RISING Premee Mohamed’s THESE LIFELESS THINGS, about a woman who survived the end of the world and the young anthropologist who discovers her journal years later, a discovery that could shed light on the Invasion and turn the unyielding mystery of the short war into a story of hope and defiance, to David Moore at Solaris Books, for publication in 2021, by Michael Curry.
Feb 052021
Publishers Weekly: Hugo and Nebula Award–winner Wells brings her solitude-craving, media-loving killer robot protagonist another step closer to independence in the entertaining sixth entry in the Murderbot Diaries series (after Network Effect). A dead body found in Preservation Station mall propels Murderbot, a SecUnit, into a new contract as a consultant in the murder investigation. Murderbot hopes to gain the refugee status that would enable it to stay in the Preservation Alliance, but it’s an uphill battle as rogue SecUnits are feared as unhinged killers—an unfounded fear in this case, as Murderbot wants nothing more than to catch up on its favorite soap opera in peace. Vexed by the illogical humans it’s forced to work with, Murderbot patiently explains its way through the clues it uncovers, and Senior Officer Indah can’t help being impressed with Murderbot’s investigative skills and surprisingly compassionate regard for life. Murderbot’s wry observations of human behavior are as humorous as ever and the mystery is thoroughly satisfying. This is another winning series installment.
Feb 042021
Publishers Weekly: Burke (Semiosis) uses a futuristic world to comment on the present in this politically charged dystopian novel. In a near-future America where human clones are stigmatized as second-class citizens and an authoritarian “Prez” titillates his patriot cult with sloganeering straight out of the Big Brother playbook, a nationwide mutiny is brewing. When the government releases a vaccine against the rampaging Sino cold—purportedly to induce herd immunity nationally, but secretly to sicken the mutineers—the narrative refracts the ensuing chaos through the experiences of four characters: Avril, Irene, and Berenike, young Wisconsin women from various walks of life who discover they are clones of one another; and Peng, the scientist who cloned them and who has a hand in the virus’s release. Burke endows her characters with distinct personalities and conjures a frighteningly real sense of national destabilization as events spiral out of their control. Though the ending is somewhat anticlimactic, references to coronaviruses and a nation wracked by social unrest are sure to resonate. This hits close to home.