Fresh Fiction: Remembering Our Heroes

Each generation is defined by events and wars that shape its collective memory. Next week, we remember those who died fighting for our country with the celebration of Memorial Day. It’s also a popular day for family gatherings, and reunions are a fine setting for re-tell family history—maybe tales of heroism and bravery. We all have our heroes. This week in Oklahoma we witnessed the selflessness and heroism of people tested by the forces of nature. Teachers protected their students from the destructive tornados as and save countless lives. In Dallas we had a fireman lose his life ...

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The Nomadic Alfred Bester, Renaissance Man

Science fiction is loaded with important authors, and you can hardly swing a stick in the crowded forest without hitting one author who's influenced hundreds of others. However, if you speak with enough genre writers, one name will likely come up often: Alfred Bester. "Alfred Bester was one of the handful of writers who invented modern science fiction," wrote Harry Harrison, while others such as James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck), Samuel R. Delany, Neil Gaiman, William Gibson, Joe Haldeman, Robert Silverberg and Bruce Sterling have lined up to emphasize the importance of Bester's fiction ...

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Capital-B Belief

I was raised by an atheist so staunch that I didn’t pick up on the Christian allegory in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books until I re-read them in college. So for me, Aaron Hartzler’s memoir Rapture Practice was—pardon the pun—a revelation*.

I’m not exaggerating, though: Capital-b Belief is something that I have immense respect for, but I’ve never felt like I’ve succeeded in completely wrapping my mind around it. Maybe it’s one of those You Know It If You Feel It things? But this book, despite the vastly different life experience that ...

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What Scares You About Science Fiction?

I listened to a podcast entitled Gripping Science Tales Need Not Be Science Fiction on NPR recently. It included interviews with cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, theoretical physicist Brian Greene and novelist Ian McEwan. The discussion was predominantly about the depiction of science in fiction. They clarify that their focus is specifically on fiction stories that happen to include real-life science as opposed to science fiction which, they imply, overhypes and skews science. This position both pleased and irked me at the same time.

It pleased me because there is an obvious enthusiasm about the presence of science elements in fiction. I ...

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Forbidden Romances

I recently finished a book that worked for me on some levels, but didn't give me a case of overall great book squee. The book, The Englishman by Nina Lewis (Omnific, 2013), focused on a young professor in her first tenure-track position at a small liberal arts college in the South, and her relationship with her mentor, a senior colleague who is older than her, and who is, in a way, her boss. One of the elements of this book that I'm still pondering is the fact that the romance was, for all intents and purposes, forbidden. Not ...

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Forever YA: Teenage Hormones and 'September Girls'

BOOK REPORT for September Girls by Bennett Madison

Cover Story: Gorgeous

BFF Charm: Eventually

Swoonworthy Scale: 3

Talky Talk: Subversive

Bonus Factors: Mermaids, Beach Summer

Relationship Status: Honeymoon Stage

Cover Story: Gorgeous

This is an underwater cover I can totally get behind. It's spooky and dark, and the murky light shining up from the deep rather than down from the surface is sinister, rather than hopeful. One figure in the kiss is reaching out to the other, and it could be romantic, or just a little bit scary.

The Deal:

The summer after Sam's mom takes off to ...

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A Debut with a Flair for the Grotesque

Although I write about YA books almost exclusively in this column, I do, extremely occasionally—the last time was in 2011, for David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary—branch out. As I’m a huge sucker for stories about boarding schools for prodigies—geniuses, criminals, musicians, you name it—I’m making one of my rare exceptions for M. M. Vaughan’s middle-grade debut.

According to The Ability, 12-year-olds have a special gift: They can use 100% of their brain, which allows for accelerated learning and, in some very special cases, abilities like telekinesis and telepathy. During World War ...

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Still a Stranger After All

“The word for 'book' in all the known languages of the earth is vallon, 'chamber of words'...”

I suspect that once in a while every reviewer comes across a book for which they will have no idea what to write. A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar is one of those books. On the one hand, it is an affecting book that speaks of the power of literacy, of reading, and of stories. On the other, it is a distancing and wholly unengaging story.

A Stranger in Olondria chronicles the life of Jevick of Tyom, from his adventures as a ...

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The Challenge of No Words Wasted

I’ve always wanted to chat with picture book author Linda Ashman. She’s written a big stack of well-crafted picture books I’ve enjoyed over the years with my own children, as well as the students with which I worked as a school librarian.

Now’s my chance, I decided, at the recent release of two new books she’s written. In Rain!, illustrated by newcomer Christian Robinson, Linda—as Kirkus’ starred review notes—chooses just the right words to tell an exuberant tale of kindness. And in Peace, Baby!, illustrated by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff, she offers children a gentle ...

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Fresh Fiction: Summer Blockbusters

I’ll admit that one thing we do is enjoy summer movies. As our family changes, we’ve gone from scary date films (my husband is a fan of Jaws and Halloween) to safe G and PG-rated films, and then back to the R-rated films for date nights. So, summer is always a bit exciting as we plan family trips to the movies. We’re lucky in our town to have access to a few new theaters that combine great watching technology with fantastic food choices; now you can get a really nice meal and wine. But my husband and ...

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A Picture Book That Packs a Punch

Some picture books really pack a punch.

Matthew Olshan’s The Mighty Lalouche is one. It tells the eccentric story of a slight (but nimble) postman who is fired from his job in Paris “one hundred and a few-odd years ago,” all thanks to the introduction of electric autocars. Lalouche takes up boxing and meets a host of colorful characters in the ring (Old Shatterhand and the Misanthrope are but two), fighting in the name of “country, mail, and Geneviève,” his pet goldfinch. Fame and victory are sweet, but stationery stores still make him sad. Turns out those autocars ...

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‘At The Mountains of Madness’: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

Last time, I took a look at The Lovecraft Anthology, edited by Dan Lockwood. This time around, I'm looking at another graphic novel based on a Lovecraft book: At The Mountains of Madness, adapted and illustrated by I.N.J. Culbard (Deadbeats, The New Deadwardians). 

Published by Sterling, this volume adapts Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness in a classic style reminiscent of Hergé's Tintin. In the story, Professor Dyer leads an expedition to Antarctica in September of 1930. With a biologist, engineer, physicist and meteorologist, and a geologist on board, their mission is to take core ...

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When Short Fiction Grows into a Novel

Science fiction writers are often asked where they get their ideas, as if there is some patented and repeatable formula or process. Sadly, that's not the case. Coming up with ideas is not an easy game and there's no real answer to the question. This is why curmudgeonly-but-lovable Harlan Ellison, when asked where he gets his ideas, responds with "Schenectady."

Since story ideas are often hard to come by, it may not be surprising that when an author does come up with one, they may later choose to build upon that story. If the original idea was told ...

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Forever YA: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your…Oh, Never Mind

BOOK REPORT for Towering by Alex Flinn

Cover Story: Fancy Dress Returns

BFF Charm: A World of No

Swoonworthy Scale: 0? I guess?

Talky Talk: Insufferable

Bonus Factor: Drug Rings

Anti-Bonus Factor: Literally Everything About This Book

Relationship Status: It’s Not Me; It’s You

Cover Story: Fancy Dress Returns

Oh, hey, Fancy Dress. I saw you everywhere I looked in 2012, but this is the first time I have seen your face in 2013. I was hoping that the New Year would bring about more book cover options, but I was clearly a sweet summer child. Fancy Dress ...

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High Society Meets Low Murder in Jones’ Imperial Vienna

J. Sydney Jones’ introduction to Vienna came in 1968, when, as a college student from Oregon, he took advantage of a year-abroad program to study in the history- and culture-rich, but then rather “rough-hewn” Austrian capital. “Other kids my age,” he’s written before, “were off killing and being killed in Southeast Asia; I had a bad back and a high lottery number—4F and a lucky winner....I went to Vienna planning to become a lawyer; I left knowing I would be a writer.” That experience marked the beginning of Jones’ love affair with the old imperial city, a ...

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YA Paranormal, Angst Free

When Isobel Brannick’s mother gives her her first solo assignment, Izzy can’t help feeling a bit insulted: After all, she’s a BRANNICK. As the youngest in a long line of monster hunters, she’s had training, training and more training, and she’s capable of dealing with stuff WAY MORE HARDCORE than a measly haunted high school. Sure, she recently almost got drained by a vampire, but there TOTALLY were extenuating circumstances! It wasn’t HER fault that he read her mind and distracted her by talking about the mysterious disappearance of her older sister! That would ...

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Austen meets Glamour in 'Without a Summer'

“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”

—Jane Austen, Emma

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A Couple of Odd Ducks

I have elementary-aged daughters, and I often tell them how much I like weird people. I think most of us adults tend to think of childhood as this romantically quirky time, during which children readily accept the eccentricities of other children. And, yes, this happens sometimes (the younger they are, the more likely it is), but I’m also struck by how often it doesn’t happen in the elementary years. It’s remarkable to me at what young ages children identify the odd ones out and how they subtly exclude those a bit left of center, so to speak ...

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Fresh Fiction: It's All In the Label

I’m naïve: It’s got to be the only explanation why I seriously believed the New Adult label was just for Young Adult or YA books that were aged a few years. You know, instead of an angst-ridden teen with no parental figures trying to make it in life, to a character in their early 20s. I really understand why a young woman wouldn’t be enamored with falling in love with fiction in the same vein as her mom or forbid, grandmother, so why not give it a different label, like, oh, I don’t know, maybe ...

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Young Emily Dickinson, Mystery Solver

I’m nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody too?

Fifteen-year-old Emily is only somewhat embarrassed when a handsome young stranger finds her lying in a field of wildflowers trying to convince a bee to land on her nose. He quickly sets her at her ease, though, and while they never exchange names—they call each other Mr. and Miss Nobody—it’s quite clear from the first moment that they are kindred spirits, and she very much looks forward to seeing him again soon.

A few days later, he is found dead in a nearby pond.

So begins Michaela ...

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