Books

Kazuo Ishiguro’s New Novel Is A Weird Mess, But It Still Moved Me

Kazuo Ishiguro’s brand new novel, The Buried Giant, is a puzzling departure. It’s not just that the author of The Remains of the Day is writing an epic fantasy about ogres and a dragon. It’s also that it’s written in a weird, pseudo-fancy style, and it’s hard to love. But I did end up kind…

Emily Mandel’s Station Eleven Is A Finalist For The PEN/Faulkner Award!

Emily St. John Mandel’s post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven was already a finalist for the National Book Award, but now it’s racked up another encomium. It’s one of the finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award. And separately, George R.R. Martin pimped it pretty hard for the Hugo. Here’s what the judges had to say about this year’s…

The One Ebook You Have to Read If You Love Digital Books

You have not read a truly digital book until you’ve read The New World. The novella is about a woman trying to reclaim her dead husband’s head from a cult-like cryogenics company. But more than that, it is the most ambitious attempt I’ve seen at exploring a future where books lack physical form and are…

Is The “Fix-Up” The Best Kind Of Science Fiction Novel There Is?

Everybody knows that short stories are where science fiction writers really get to experiment, and the most perfect pieces of narrative often happen at shorter lengths. But we also love to explore a world at the length of a whole book. So that makes the “fix-up” the best of both worlds, right? Top image: Voyage…

There’s Going To Be 20 Star Wars Book Prequels To The Force Awakens

No, that’s not a typo. Lucasfilm and Del Rey have announced that between now and the premiere of Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens, there will be 20 new Star Wars books published, all set in the time between Return of the Jedi and the new, upcoming movie. On the plus side, these aren’t…

What’s Your Favorite Book To Talk About With Other People?

Some books best lend themselves to quiet contemplation, and then there are books that you simply have to talk about with someone else. Today, we want to know about the books you’re never tired of talking about. Tell us what the book is and why you love to talk about it. Is it to theorize…

Biggest Worldbuilding Mistake Made By Isaac Asimov And Frank Herbert?

Both Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels and Frank Herbert’s Dune books imagine empires in space. But everything we know about technological change and development suggests that an empire could never spur rapid enough technological development to make it in space, argues an article in Time Magazine. Top image: Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov Writing in…

Some Of The Weirdest Pen Names Science Fiction Authors Have Used

The name Eando Binder sounds exotic and kinkily Teutonic — but it’s actually a pseudonym for Earl and Otto Binder, who turned “E and O” into the science-fictional-sounding “Eando.” Learn the origins of James S.A. Corey, Murray Leinster, James Tiptree Jr., and other unusual SF pen names, over at Barnes & Noble. (But not Cordwainer…

Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant only came out last week, but it’s already making steps to go to the big screen. In a Guardian article about the author being “on side of the pixies and the dragons,” Ishiguro confirmed that Scott Rudin had bought the film rights. [via Empire]

Star Wars Is Getting Its First Canonical LGBT Character

The Star Wars universe just got a little more diverse. When Paul S. Kemp’s Lords of the Sith novel is released on April 28th, it will include a character named Moff Mors — an Imperial, a lesbian, and the first canonical LGBT character in the franchise. Not much is known about Mors, although according to…

Gemini Cell Is A Great Love Story That Deals With The True Cost Of War

Myke Cole’s “military fantasy” Shadow Ops series has been unpredictable all along. In Control Point, he told the origin story. In Fortress Frontier, he narrated a quest, while in Breach Zone, he zoomed in on a single battle. With his latest installment, Gemini Cell, he does something really unexpected: a romance. Some spoilers ahead… Granted,…

If You Want To Rant More Eloquently About Television, Read This Book

We all obsess endlessly about television, but we don’t really understand how those wavy images appear on our screens. Themore we try to demystify the process of making TV, the more mysterious it seems. That’s why it’s great that veteran TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach has written an ultimate book of knowledge. Grillo-Marxuach, who created the…

The Live Action Rats Of Nimh Movie Is Still Happening

After six years of radio silencethere’s been movement on the new Rats of Nimh movie. That’s right – they’re making a live action Nimh movie with CG rats and real people. Imagine how horrifying Nicodemus is going to look! Deadline is reporting MGM has acquired the rights to Robert C. O’Brien books Mrs. Frisby &…

Young Lois Lane Investigates A Teacher In This Prequel To Her YA Novel

Lois Lane heads from the pages of DC Comics to her very own Young Adult novel this May, but you can read a teaser of what’s to come with this new short story from Gwenda Bond detailing the young Lois’ first day at a new school — and she’s already getting herself primed for a…

Ted Chiang explains everything to you! If you’re in Washington State, you ought to make a beeline to the University of Puget Sound, where Ted Chiang will give a talk on “Technology and the Narrative of the Self” on Tuesday. Top image: Christian Pearce, Contact the author at [email protected]. Or follow her on Twitter.

io9 Newsstand: Best Stories from the Week of March 1 – 7

This week’s stories are all about the passage of time, traveling in time, and things that occur when time happens all at once. Quiet Hour by Peni Griffin | Crossed Genres Magazine Mama looked gray and small, her face covered by the oxygen mask: an echo of the day Papacito died, but Mama, at least,…

Ask All Your Questions About Those Rediscovered Lost Fairytales!

Maria Tatar is the translator of the newly discovered trove of fairytales, lost for over a century, but just recently uncovered. Ask her all your questions about The Turnip Princess, the history of fairytales and folklore, and anything else you want to know! In addition to her new book, The Turnip Princess and Other Newly…

Read A Story From This Newly Discovered Trove Of Lost Fairytales

A previously lost treasure trove of fairytales has, after 150 years, been uncovered. Here, take an exclusive first look at one of the collection’s stories, involving an enchantment, a series of clever tricks, and a crow who is not quite what he seems. In 1850, around the time when the Grimm brothers were working on…

Yay, This Fantasy Novel Actually Lives Up To Its Superb World-Building

As a genre, fantasy tends to live or die on its world-building. But great world-building, by itself, doesn’t make a novel great. And sometimes, a fantasy book can spend so much time establishing its backstory, the story never seems to take off. That’s why A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Scwhab is such a…

io9 Book Club Is In Session! Let’s Talk About Robert Repino’s Morte!

Welcome to the monthly meeting of the io9 Book Club. This month, we’ve read Morte by Robert Repino. Jump into comments to get started talking about it! For those unfamiliar with the io9 book club, here’s how it works: You read the book. We create a special book club post on io9 when the meeting…