Tag: present writers

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean, Gwyneth Jones, Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede, Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress, Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman, Robin McKinley, Laurie Marks, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman,Rosemary Kirstein, Karen Joy Fowler, Susan Cooper, Ellen Klages, Lisa Goldstein, C.J. Cherryh, Kate Elliott, and Molly Gloss.

I keep noticing that a lot of the authors I want to profile with this series wear a lot of hats, and that is certainly true of Madeleine Robins. (Also could probably rock a stylin’ cloche, but Marissa Picks Hats For Writers is a different blog series, let’s not get sidetracked.) Robins has published in fantasy, mystery, and romance. I can only vouch for the first two, but they’re both really good, and I would make a bet on the last one based on that.

I think one of the things I particularly like about the Sarah Tolerance mysteries that is also true of Robins’s two stand-alone fantasies is that they have a very strong sense of place. In most of her work, that place is urban in some way or another, but also she has a keen eye for characterization within its context. (Which…is the ballgame. Characterization without context is incoherent.) Her books are witty but never jokey at the expense of the story, fun without losing sight of serious life issues. In fact in some ways I think they’ll be the perfect pandemic rereads.

Let’s get on that.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean, Gwyneth Jones, Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede, Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress, Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman, Robin McKinley, Laurie Marks, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman,Rosemary Kirstein, Karen Joy Fowler, Susan Cooper, Ellen Klages, Lisa Goldstein, C.J. Cherryh, and Kate Elliott.

My favorite history professor in college started the semester by telling us, “If you don’t read science fiction, you should start now, because that’s the mindset you need to cultivate for this class.” The blend of settings Molly Gloss uses in her work gives me the impression that she feels the same. She moves from science fiction to historical fiction and back again, sometimes in the same collection, with a seamless sense of the continuity of human experience–including the fundamental strangeness and dislocation of being a thinking person. Whether it’s generation ships or WWI-era rodeo riders, Gloss has a deft hand with characterization.

Her new collection, Unforeseen, is one of the most comprehensively readable collections I’ve read in years. Some of the pieces in it are quite old, others new to this collection, and it’s lovely to see new work out from her again. Her stories are so vital and living, they’re just what I need right now. Maybe you do too.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean, Gwyneth Jones, Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede, Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress, Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman, Robin McKinley, Laurie Marks, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman,Rosemary Kirstein, Karen Joy Fowler, Susan Cooper, Ellen Klages, Lisa Goldstein, and C.J. Cherryh.

Kate Elliott has had a prolific and varied career in SFF that is only getting stronger every year. She has even, conveniently, put together a page to tell you where you might want to start with her books depending on your tastes! I call that considerate.

My personal favorites are–and everyone who knows me will be shocked to hear this–the trilogy with “cold” in their titles–Cold Magic and its sequels. They’re funny and adventurous and doing an alternate history thing that is not the common run of alternate history things. (Phoenicians many years on!) But the other series range from space opera to epic fantasy with lots of non-standard stops along the way. Elliott is great at taking a genre and constructing it, rather than deconstructing it–deciding what makes an epic fantasy interesting to her and doing it that way from the ground up rather than borrowing bits and pieces of genre furniture. Many/most of her books are medium-to-long books that exist in series, but generally with defined endings rather than meandering around.

Elliott has been at this since the mid-90s, and while she’s definitely picked a few things up along the way, I still like the Jaran books quite a lot–I feel like they hold up. The other thing she’s managed to do since the mid-90s, and with increasing skill, is to be a supportive presence around the writer community. In both cases, we’re very lucky.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean, Gwyneth Jones , Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede, Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress, Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman, Robin McKinley, Laurie Marks, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman,Rosemary Kirstein, Karen Joy Fowler, Susan Cooper, Ellen Klages, and Lisa Goldstein.

When I heard that C.J. Cherryh had been named SFWA Grand Master, I half-shouted, “well, it’s about time!” Cherryh has been incredibly prolific for literally longer than I’ve been alive. She has over eighty novels and loads of short stories. She’s won all the major awards. If Cherryh is not a Grand Master, the term has no meaning.

So with all that gigantic body of speculative fiction work to consider, there’s always the question: where do you even start? I have several answers.

1. The Pride of Chanur. The first of the Chanur series, this has strong family themes, interesting aliens, lots of derring-do…basically all the things you might want in a Cherryh novel. For those of you who love cats, the fact that the protagonist’s species is similar to felines may be a bonus, but if you’re not a starry-eyed cat person, it’s not the kind of cat content that gets annoying.
2. Finity’s End. Did somebody say strong family themes? The Alliance-Union books are full of families having family drama at FTL speeds. This one happens to be a favorite for me, just because of the shape of the characters or maybe because I read it at just the right time. It’s sharper and less murky than some of the others, and the sense of space is amazing in it.
3. Foreigner. This is the beginning of a series that is still ongoing; book 21 is due out later this year. Don’t worry, you can stop at any time! Seriously, it’s divided into trilogies, each of which is doing its own thoughtful and related thing. There’s a lot of science fiction that posits that what humanity has over other species and/or robots is our capacity to love. The Foreigner series actually considers that: what would it look like if an alien species had similar but different primary emotional wiring, what if it was not just “aliens are broken, those poor aliens who Know Not Love,” but rather “here’s how they work that’s related, here are the places they and humans could trip over the differences.” I find it fascinating, and I love watching the relationships that work in their own weird ways.

There are plenty of other good places to start if you have an interest in Cherryh’s considerations of love, loyalty, humanity and the other, but those are my recommendations. I’m really glad that she’s still around giving us more ideas every year.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean, Gwyneth Jones , Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede, Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress, Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman, Robin McKinley, Laurie Marks, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman,Rosemary Kirstein, Karen Joy Fowler, and Susan Cooper.

There are writers who are just like their books. Who are just exactly like you’d think they’d be, and if you’ve loved their books you are not the least bit surprised when they are like that. (coughPamelacough) And then there are writers like Ellen Klages, whose books show an extremely different side than the first thing you see of them when you meet them at a convention.

Ellen is popular as a toastmaster for good reason. She is improvisational and funny and knows how to find the common points in a crowd and work them for in-jokes–or create new in-jokes all her own that everyone is immediately invited into.

But her fiction is another thing completely. Her toasts are not insensitive, but her fiction is actively sensitive. This is the thoughtful inward part, and it’s amazing. Klages particularly shines when she’s writing historical fiction about (mostly) girls and women who don’t fit the expectations put on them in their time. Her work is tender and thoughtful and conflicted as well as funny, and the relationships in it are extremely strong. I love how Klages writes budding scientists and would like to see more of that kind of character done as well as she does it–but in the meantime I’m glad she’s showing a good way.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean, Gwyneth Jones , Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede, Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress, Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman, Robin McKinley, Laurie Marks, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Rosemary Kirstein, and Karen Joy Fowler.

Some poetry you memorize on purpose, because you want to keep it with you always. Some poetry you memorize accidentally, because you read it enough times, over and over again, that your brain automatically knows that the verse says wood bronze iron fire water stone and not the order in which those elements appear in the book. That’s where I am with the prophecy poems in the Dark Is Rising series: I read them so many times that there are entire passages, not just the poems, that will be with me always. If that series was all Susan Cooper had ever written, it would be worth appreciating her for just that.

But, of course, it’s not. There’s the Boggart trilogy, a very different take on the same region’s myths. There’s the dreamlike Seaward; there are historical and time travel books. Cooper has also written picture books and screenplays. Her breadth is startling–many people who adored Greenwitch or Over Sea, Under Stone have no idea what a variety of other things Cooper has done. She keeps turning her hand to new things, and we’re so lucky that she does.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean, Gwyneth Jones , Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede, Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress, Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman,Robin McKinley,Laurie Marks, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Rosemary Kirstein.

Karen Joy Fowler’s speculative genre credentials are impeccable, and her mimetic genre credentials are also impeccable. It’s easy to immerse in her writing, knowing that when she applies a trope from one genre set or another, it’s on purpose, it’s all deliberate. Her work is as speculative as a particular piece needs it to be, no more and no less, but the range on that is huge, from the entirely mimetic Jane Austen Book Club to the first contact novel Sarah Canary.

Fowler has won bunches of awards, the World Fantasy, the Nebula, the PEN/Faulkner. But she also was one of the founders of another, the Otherwise Award which was formerly named the Tiptree. (It’s kind of a big deal.) That kind of appreciation of others shines through in her fiction and makes it more insightful and bigger-hearted. I’m never sure what I’m going to get in a Karen Joy Fowler story, but that’s actually the appeal–it is literally never “oh, this again,” it’s always a different balance and a different angle.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean,Gwyneth Jones , Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede,Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress,Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman,Robin McKinley,Laurie Marks, Ellen Kushner, and Delia Sherman.

The Steerswoman series. There are four out already, apparently Rosemary is at work on not one but two more (oh that is so hopeful), but the four that already exist make me so happy.

The thing about the Steerswoman books is that they are about people who are trying to figure out their world. They’re about people who value knowledge. And they’re about people who have actually followed through on what that means in practical terms and come to a lot of ideas about kindness and equality that serve advancing knowledge really well, that unfortunately a lot of people in our world don’t think ahead enough to get to. But one of the great things about books that are thoughtful about that kind of thing is that they encourage their readers to be more thoughtful too.

They are beautifully exploratory, these books. The protagonists are allowed to make extremely human mistakes in love and deduction and everything else that is important in life. And yet they keep on. In the face of sometimes staggering odds, they keep on. I only meant to reread the first two for this project, but now that I have, I just want to keep going–because they’re not just philosophically great, they’re also delightful page-turners, well-characterized and tightly plotted. I am over the moon to find that we have two more coming. I simply cannot wait for more of Kirstein’s work, and if you haven’t had the joy, run don’t walk to download the ebooks or order paper copies delivered from your nearest friendly struggling retailer.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean,Gwyneth Jones , Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede,Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress,Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman,Robin McKinley, Laurie Marks, and Ellen Kushner.

It’s a little strange and yet also wonderful to write two of these in a row when my favorite book by the pair of authors is the one they wrote together. Because as I said last month–The Fall of the Kings is my favorite Ellen Kushner book, and it’s also my favorite Delia Sherman book. They’re a married couple who managed to do something together that was even more amazing than what they do separately–it’s magical and immersive, and I love it so much.

But Sherman does have an entire quirky and individual body of work away from Riverside, and writing these two posts in such quick succession made me think carefully about what I like about that body of work apart from The Fall of the Kings. Remove the favorite, and what have you got? And for me the answer is that Sherman is an absolute champ at historical fantasy. The texture and detail of how the characters’ motivation and plot arise from their context and setting, the way that magic can arise from a knowledge of place and time–that’s where she really shines.

You can take a quick tour through a chocolate box sampler of these skills with Sherman’s short story collection, Young Woman in a Garden, in which she demonstrates a variety of inspirations and settings, rather than just one or two. Even within the 19th century in the United States Sherman has an ear for place, context, dialect. If you have time you can pick up one after another of the longer works to see her range–but one collection will give you a taste of it incredibly quickly. It’s a treat, and it’s a gift.

This is the latest in a recurring series! For more about the series, please read the original post on Marta Randall, or subsequent posts on Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sherwood Smith, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Dean,Gwyneth Jones , Caroline Stevermer, Patricia C. Wrede,Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Kress,Diane Duane, Candas Jane Dorsey, Greer Gilman, Robin McKinley, and Laurie Marks.

The first several times I mentioned a book by Ellen Kushner, my mother would ask, is it that Ellen Kushner? It is, it is that Ellen Kushner–because my mother listened to NPR’s Sound and Spirit, and that was how she knew Ellen’s name.

But for me, Ellen Kushner meant Riverside, and still does. She’s written other things–Thomas the Rhymer, notably, although there have been others–but her masterwork in fantasy is the series of stories clustered around Riverside, starting with Swordspoint and blossoming into more, The Privilege of the Sword and The Fall of the Kings and eventually the Tremontaine serial.

Though these settings have been shared with other writers, starting with her wife, writer Delia Sherman and going on to a bevy of other talents through the serial, a reread of Swordspoint makes it clear how many of the ideas were layered in from the very beginning. Other talents have brought their own strengths and richness to the stories–but only because Kushner built the space for them into it in the first place. Some of the references are tiny, astonishing in retrospect. Some anticipate current trends by decades. It is a marvel of concise implication, and it isn’t even my favorite of her works. (That would be The Fall of the Kings.) I think this is actually a case where taking up any thread will give you an edge of the tapestry, and I definitely recommend that you do so.

Every time certain other Kushners are referred to by their last name alone, I think, “WHAT? She would neve–oh, that guy,” and remain staunch in my conviction that if they don’t mean Ellen Kushner, they really should specify. Because we all know which is the original.