The Lie Tree Frances Hardinge Costa Book Award (2015) Time to start 2016 with a confession. You ready for it? I’m in LOVE with Frances Hardinge. Last year, I discovered Hardinge when I read Cuckoo’s Song, which won the British Fantasy Award in the YA/middle grade category. So, when I saw that her newest, The…
A Look Back At My Year In Speculative Fiction
2015 is the year I challenged myself to read all the books up for speculative fiction awards. I failed. I probably didn’t even read half of all of the books up for speculative fiction awards this year–HOWEVER, to be fair to me, there were a lot more speculative fiction awards than I realized when I…
Losers Among the Winners: Two Books I Bounced Out Of
Other Systems Elizabeth Guizzetti Canopus Award Nominee (2015) The Shore Sara Taylor Guardian First Book Award Nominee (2015), Women’s Prize for Fiction Nominee for Longlist (2015) Not all books are winners. Not even all award nominated books are winners. So, it’s time for another round-up of the books I tried, but couldn’t finish. Other Systems is…
A Song For Ella Grey: Possibly Magical, But Not For Everyone
A Song For Ella Grey David Almond Winner, Guardian’s Children’s Prize* Some books have a kind of magic. It’s a subtle sort of thing, something difficult to articulate, but which has entirely everything to do with the way the prose “feels” in your head. There’s a dream-like quality to it that resonates with something deep…
A Test of Humanity: Karen Joy Fowler’s ‘We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves’
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Karen Joy Fowler Finalist for the 2015 Warwick Prize for Writing I’m going to start at the beginning, even though Karen Joy Fowler takes great pains not to. To start at the beginning, her narrator, Rosemary Cooke rightly points out, is to prejudice the reader. It is, I guess,…
No Gold Star for Castellucci, Only Tin
Tin Star Cecil Castellucci Winner of Starburst Award YA Tin isn’t much of metal. Tin doesn’t have the cache of gold or silver. It isn’t fun say like aluminium or molybdenum. Even steel and iron have a better reputations as being working class and tough. Tin is just… I dunno, kind of common and uninteresting.…
Laura Ruby’s ‘Bone Gap’ Is Accessible Magical Realism
Bone Gap Laura Ruby National Book Award for Young People’s Literature 2015 Magical Realism is one of those sub-genres/genres that, when it comes up in my science fiction and fantasy classes, I usually struggle to describe it: “Um… like magic is accepted as everyday… or people eat angels wings? I dunno. It’s a Latin American…
A Lack Of Fire In ‘Creative Fire’
Creative Fire Brenda Cooper Canopus Award Finalist Despite what your English teacher said, there’s a reason that cliché and tropes work. There are certain types of stories that we, as readers, never tire of. It’s different for different people, of course. For me, type of story that almost always works for me is that one…
‘Challenger Deep’ Is All Too Real
Challenger Deep Neal Shusterman National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Nominee (2015) Okay, wow. I’m not even sure how to articulate my experience with this book, because Shusterman’s Challenger Deep is not just a book you read. It’s a book you end up having a relationship with, an experience. It’s intense. I cried. Twice.…
Noelle Stevenson’s ‘Nimona’ Is An Adorable Supervillian Sidekick
Nimona Noelle Stevenson Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards Nominee for Best Digital/Webcomic (2015), National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Nominee for Longlist (2015) Pretty much everything I love about Nimona a graphic novel by Noelle Stevenson, (which is a metric ton), can be summed up by this singular panel: In brief, the story of…
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