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Book Review: Assimilation, Love & Other Oddities, by Lyn Gala

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Ondry and Liam have settled into a good life, but their trading is still tied up with humans, and humans are always messy. When political changes at the human base lead Ondry to attempt a difficult trade, the pair find themselves entangled in human affairs. Liam wants to help the people he left and the worlds being torn apart. He also wants to serve Ondry with not only the pleasures of the nest but also by bringing human profits. Ondry has no hope of understanding human psychology in general, he only knows that he will hold onto his palteia with … Read more

Traditional Shifters

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Today’s topic comes from Angel Martinez: “Traditional shifters and why people have forgotten them”. By traditional shifters, I’m guessing she means werewolves and the like – creatures that appeared in films and novels before the last 10-20 years? I love a good werewolf tale as much as anyone else, and remember the days before Teen Wolf and Twilight when werewolves were something to fear, not objects for teenaged (and adult) lust. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. :) I remember when I first saw An American Werewolf in London. I must have been close t0 16 at the time, … Read more

Announcement: Greenwode and Shirewode, by J Tullos Hennig

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QSF’er J. Tullos Henning has two re-releases coming out soon: GREENWODE Book One of The Wode by J Tullos Hennig DSP Publications 978-1-63216-437-7 Paperback 978-1-63216-438-4 eBook B00I8PEYWE audiobook The Hooded One. The one to breathe the dark and light and dusk between…. When an old druid foresees this harbinger of chaos, he also glimpses its future. A peasant from Loxley will wear the Hood and, with his sister, command a last, desperate bastion of Old Religion against New. Yet a devout nobleman’s son could well be their destruction–Gamelyn Boundys, whom Rob and Marion have befriended. Such acquaintance challenges both duty … Read more

My Favorite Dragonriders

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I just saw the news (in EW, of all places) that there’s finally going to be a Dragonriders of Pern movie. I am thrilled, elated, and scared. This series is one of my most beloved in the sci fi realm – I started reading it in my early teens, and fell in love with it. My mom had this bookshelf in our third bedroom, next to where the dogs were crated at night. The shelves went up and up and up to the ceiling in the tiny home, and about in the middle were her two shelves of sci fi … Read more

Announcement: Idolatry, by Rebecca Cohen

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QSFer Rebecca Cohen has a new Fantasy out called Idolatry: Upon taking the throne as High Lord of Katraman and Liege of Scura, Lornyc Reagalos’s focus on rebuilding one city and reassuring another leaves little time for his husband, Methian. Added to that, he must contend with the unexpected revelation that his grandfather, Romanus, set up his own religion and named an enigmatic figure called The One as its deity. Through some twisted interpretation of the signs left by Romanus, the Cerulean Cult comes to believe Lornyc is their god and invites him to sanctify the Cult as part of … Read more

Will Anarchy Ever Be a Viable Option?

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Will anarchy ever be a viable option? In my heart, I’m an anarchist. I don’t like people who try to control others or tell them what to do. I have no desire to impose my will on anyone, and I don’t want anyone attempting to impose their will on me. However, I’m realistic enough to recognize anarchy would not work in our current society. Left to their own devices, I’m sad to acknowledge many people would take the opportunity to exploit others in every imaginable way. That’s where the human race stands at the moment. Without the threat of consequences, … Read more

That Wendingo Ate My Baby

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I watched the last season of Teen Wolf with great interest, as the sow expanded beyond the small California town of Beacon Hills to Mexico, and embraced some shifters and other supernatural bad-asses from other cultural traditions. That got me thinking – what other cultures and beasties are ripe for new stories in the paranormal genre? Every culture has its own set of traditional stories and legends from which to choose, along with a unique set of superstitions. As a child, I had a huge fascination with Native American tales – especially the ones abut little white kids kidnapped and … Read more

Shining a Light on Prejudice

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Today’s topic is from QSF’er Tracy Rowan: “Off the top of my head: How do you think about the role of gender and orientation in the future or in fantasy worlds? If you posit a distant future or a fantasy world with the same prejudices as exist in our world, why? If you don’t, why?” Of course, the easy answer is “because I’m the writer and I said so.” But that masks a more complex one. What’s different about a society that accepts its LGBT population, vs. one that doesn’t? We’ve come to a point where we generally have widespread … Read more

Elves in the Tropics

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OK, so I’m fresh back from an island adventure with our two friends from Italy, so I’m in a tropical frame of mind. Thinking about it, I realize that most “traditional” fantasy takes place in forests and plains and woody places. But what about tropical locales, like Hawaii? Were the famed “menehune” – a short people who were credited as fairies and tricksters in Polynesia, really elves? I’ve read a few stories that touched on tropical locations (Stephen Donaldson’s books come to mind) but very little actually set in such a locale. So my questions to you today – can … Read more

Love Among the Test Tubes

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Today’s topic comes to us from QSFer Sadie Rose Bermingham: “How to tackle love stories in a world where reproduction is a process that takes place entirely in a test tube and babies allocated according to a means test and regardless of orientation or marital status?” It’s a great question. How does the human element fit in when procreation is entirely done by science? I’ve seen a few books that have tackled this topic, most notably in “Ethan of Athos”, where a planet of men reproduces solely via artificial wombs. Such technology in our current society, if evenly applied to … Read more