Starting off with something I haven’t put up online because the link isn’t out yet - the August 2020 issue of Locus (non specfic people, Locus is one of the biggest international SF magazines) contains a review of Chosen Spirits by Ian Mond. Here’s my favourite bit:
It infuriates me, then, that a novel as passionate, as angry and a smart as Chosen Spirits has not been published outside of India. We need more books like this, books that speak to the experiences of people living in other parts of the world, books that rail, through the prism of science fiction, against populism, racism and oppression, books that confirm that the problems we face are global, not local.
It’s always such a pleasure to be seen from spaces that often feel a far away as… outer space? Haven’t been in Locus since 2005, and I have no idea how a copy of Simoqin got to them then. In this case, I know exactly how it reached them - thanks to other Indian/South Asian writers talking about it, and I’m deeply grateful for that, and this is how fields grow. I’ll put up links when they do. Incidentally, if you are reading this outside India, the ebook is still out on all the ebook stores, though if you’re planning to get it do so soon, because I’ll be taking it down, for Mysterious Reasons I Hope I Get To Reveal Soon.
Genretalk
The curse of sequel-hungry fans, it seems. Writers who have eager readers demanding their work and ignoring the many hundreds of other amazing similar things they could have read are incredibly lucky, not to mention financially sorted for life during extremely economically unstable times, and while I wholly agree that authors shouldn’t be put on grinding schedules and should have as much time as they need to finish their work and it’s tougher than ever to finish these mammoth series, a curse, really? Also,Patrick Rothfuss’s editor believes he hasn’t written anything for years and you know what, I’m really looking forward to the third book of the trilogy but if you are too, please use that waiting time to discover other books instead of putting off reading until the next Rothfuss release? There’s a dizzying range of wonderful books out there.
(Interlude: a splendid thread of Indian speculative short stories from TG Shenoy )
Speaking of Top Household Name Authors, if you’re reading this, you’re probably either better informed than I am about the This Year’s Big Hugos Kerfuffle, or you know nothing at all about it in which case it’s not worth your time finding out. It’s pretty clear which side of this divide I would be biased towards if I were inside that scene at all, but even if I’m not, from a distance I am delighted that regardless of how badly the ceremony was presented, the winners were amazing - Time War and Poppy War have both been recent favourites, and going through the list of winners and nominees will definitely lead to finding authors you love/are going to love, and all the winners also delivered tremendous speeches that led to tremendous threads all over SFF Twitter and caused much relevant procrastination from the current secret project I am procrastinating on, much shaking of fists and much silent cheering. The industry of imagination is being reimagined right now, this was long overdue and it’s so exciting that it’s finally happening, and the future looks… brighter? I certainly hope so.
More of the things to read and see
Gautam Bhatia’s The Wall is available for preorder and is out soon. I had the pleasure of blurbing it, was most impressed, and am eagerly awaiting the next in the series.
What the heroin industry can teach us about solar power
Which cities have the most surveillance cams?
The panopticon is already here
The worst answer to climate anxiety: Wellness
China’s ancient ties with Indian Buddhism
On writing fiction in a burning world
Have been intending to read this for the longest time, it has been in my Endless TBR Pile, but seeing a lot of squeeing online over the new sequel to Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth. Link is to Kindle edition as I don’t see a local paperback.
Avni Doshi got a Booker longlisting! The Girl In White Cotton. Indian litfic is having a bigger year than most in the Outer Spheres, mostly debuts, which is even better. Also out soon? Nisha Susan’s collection of short stories, The Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook, which is also also joining the Endless TBR - what a delightful cover, too.
Are you all watching the BBC Suitable Boy adaptation? Reading that book as a mid-teen made me realise Indians could do this thing where they wrote novels for a living, so I have much to thank and blame that book for. An affection for it has only grown even as my memory for its contents has turned foggier and foggier, and it has been 800 years since then, so I cannot possibly watch the show objectively despite knowing exactly what happens when books are adapted (or not adapted, which has been the story of my last 15 years since I first sat down with a film producer to discuss adapation) to screen.
Olivia de Havilland, last lioness of the studio system. I tried to rewatch Gone With The Wind recently. I could not.
A Vanilla Ice biopic is coming. Where is the Baba Sehgal rap-only biopic?
Here are some ducks I enjoyed
Back in a bit
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