★ 10/12/2015
Nebula- and Hugo Award–nominated Schoen (Calendrical Regression) spins an emotional, richly imagined tale in this novella. In the far future, the Fant, an outcast race of anthropomorphic “uplifted” elephants, are at the mercy of a powerful alliance of hundreds of worlds and races that would destroy them and their home planet, Barsk, in order to wrest control of the drug koph, which allows its users, known as Speakers, to speak to the dead. Jorl ben Tral (a member of the Fant and a Speaker himself) is compelled to discover why his best friend, Arlo, committed suicide, while Pizlo, Arlo’s six-year-old son, hears whispers that lead him to take his own fateful journey. Meanwhile, a young uplifted otter named Lirlowil is forced to put her own talents as a Speaker to the ultimate test. Schoen’s vivid writing makes the Fant and the other species intensely relatable, elevating familiar themes of predetermination, prophecy, and the power of memory. Even as the Fant face genocide, their bravery and spirit makes this a hopeful and very human tale in a posthuman world. Agent: John Silbersack, Trident Media Group (Dec.)
For nearly two decades, Jim Killen has served as the science fiction and fantasy book buyer for Barnes & Noble. Every month on the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog and Tor.com, Jim shares his curated list of the month’s can’t-miss new SF/F releases.
For the last couple months, I’ve had the enjoyable task of reading my way through the seven nominees for the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novel, which will be handed out this weekend at 2016 SFWA Nebula Conference in Chicago. Regardless of which one takes home the prize, all seven are worthy contenders, spanning a variety […]
So maybe we aren’t the best awards prognosticators, but you’ll forgive us for making the wrong call on the winner of the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novel: after three previous nominations, we were sure N.K. Jemisin would finally take home the trophy for the dazzlingly accomplished, apocalyptic epic fantasy The Fifth Season. Instead, the […]
Editor’s note: The Nebula Awards are often described as the Academy Awards of SF/F literature. Like the Oscar, the Nebula is voted on by the members of an industry trade organization who are the professional peers of the award nominees—the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. There are seven nominees in the best novel category this year, […]
Editor’s note: The Nebula Awards are often described as the Academy Awards of SF/F literature. Like the Oscar, the Nebula is voted on by the members of an industry trade organization who are the professional peers of the award nominees—the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. There are seven nominees in the best novel category this year, […]