OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Alix E. Harrow has been a student and a teacher, a farm-worker and a cashier, an ice-cream-scooper and a 9-to-5 office-dweller. She's lived in tents and cars, cramped city apartments and lonely cabins, and spent a summer in a really sweet '79 VW Vanagon. She has library cards in at least five states. Now she's a full-time writer living with her husband and two semi-feral kids in Kentucky. Her short fiction has appeared in Shimmer, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Apex, and other venues.

FORMAT/INFO: A Spindle Splintered will be published by Tordotcom on October 5th, 2021. It is 128 pages split over 11 chapters. It is told in first person from Zinnia's point of view. It will be released in hardcover and ebook formats.

About Brian: BRIAN EVENSON is the author of a dozen books of fiction. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine Volodine, Manuela Draeger, and David B. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship. His work has been translated into Czech, French, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Persian, Russia, Spanish, Slovenian, and Turkish. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Critical Studies Program at CalArts.

OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: J.S. Dewes is an author, cinematographer, and video editor with a degree in film production from Columbia College Chicago. Jenny cut her narrative teeth writing scripts for award-winning feature films and shorts which have screened at festivals and conventions all across the United States. A creative at heart, she enjoys video games, drawing, photography, graphic design, Pinterest, and all things visual.

Order The Maleficent Seven over HERE (US) and HERE (UK)

OFFICIAL AUTHOR WEBSITE: Tasha Suri is the award-winning author of The Books of Ambha duology (Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash) and the epic fantasy The Jasmine Throne. She is an occasional librarian and cat owner. She has won the Best Newcomer (Sydney J. Bounds) Award from the British Fantasy Society and has been nominated for the Astounding Award and Locus Award for Best First Novel. When she isn’t writing, Tasha likes to cry over TV shows, buy too many notebooks, and indulge her geeky passion for reading about South Asian history. She lives with her family in a mildly haunted house in London.

OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Becky Chambers is a science fiction author based in Northern California. She is best known for her Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series. Her books have also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the Women's Prize for Fiction, among others. She has two new works coming out in 2021: The Galaxy, and The Ground Within (the fourth and final Wayfarers novel), and A Psalm for the Wild-Built (the first of her Monk and Robot novellas). Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video games, tabletop RPGs, and looking through her telescope. Having hopped around the world a bit, she’s now back in her home state, where she lives with her wife. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day. 

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.

They're going to need to ask it a lot.

Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

FORMAT: A Psalm for the Wild-Built was published on July 13th, 2021 by Tor.com. It is 160 pages split over 8 chapters. It is told in the third person from the POV of Dex. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.  

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Sibling Dex is at a crossroads in their life. They’ve taken up the calling of a tea-service monk, a person who travels from village to village, offering comfort and tea to anyone who wants it. If you need a shoulder to cry on, a person to vent to, or a quiet corner to meditate, Dex is ready with tea and a willing ear. But Dex can’t help but feel that their life is still missing something. But when they make an impulsive decision to take a new route, they didn’t expect to come across a robot, something no one has seen in two centuries. One day the robots woke up and decided to leave humanity to figure out their own existence, and they’ve been gone ever since. But this robot has come in search of what they think is a straight-forward question: What does humanity need?

A Psalm for the Wild Built is one of those books where not a lot happens, yet you still feel utterly content after reading it. Becky Chambers, queen of “slice of life” sci-fi, manages to perfectly capture an emotional state that I think many can identify with: that sense that nothing is really “wrong” with your life, and yet you still feel like it is lacking something. You go through the motions with your job, wondering why there’s an emotional hole that never quite fills. Chambers is just excellent at somehow snaring an emotional essence and distilling it into her writing, and I identified with Dex in a way I haven’t with other characters for a while.

Chambers also excels at creating idyllic visions of the future, where on the whole people are decent and humanity has figured out some big picture questions like how to best live in balance with the environment. This aspect is part of what contributes to the cozy feel of A Psalm for the Wild-Built. The conflict doesn’t come from other people, it comes from the characters wrestling with existential questions that are plaguing them. Dex and their eventual robot acquaintance cover a lot of topics as they converse, always in a way that feels natural and not like a textbook analysis of a problem. This little novella offers food for thought about ecology, personhood, the importance of comfort, and more, all within a conversation between two characters.

CONCLUSION: A Psalm for the Wild-Built is an intimate story of one person’s journey through the wilderness seeking answers. It’s quiet but never dull, and easily flies by in an afternoon. It’s a perfect escape from our chaotic world and offers a hopeful glimpse of a world that doesn’t have all the answers, but gives you the space to try and find them on your own.

Order The Astounding Antagonists over HERE (US) and HERE (UK)

OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Elizabeth grew up on a hearty staple of fairy tales, myths, and songs. Her passion for storytelling began around age 10, when she started writing fanfics for Sailor Moon, Sweet Valley, and Star Wars, and posted them online to discover, "Wow, people actually read my stuff. And that's kinda cool!" But after one of her teachers told her she had "too much voice" in her essays, Elizabeth took a break from creative writing to focus on not flunking English. Over the years, Elizabeth became a film and video game composer, and even went so far as to get a doctorate in music composition. But she always missed writing, and she turned to penning stories when she needed a breather from grad school. One day, she decided to write and finish a novel—for kicks, at first, then things became serious—and she hasn't looked back since. Elizabeth graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in music and a secondary in East Asian Studies, and she completed her graduate degrees (MM, DMA) at The Juilliard School. She grew up in Northern California and Tokyo, Japan, and now resides in New York with her husband and two daughters.

FORMAT/INFO: Six Crimson Cranes was published on July 6th, 2021 in the US by Alfred A Knopf Books for Young Readers. It is 464 pages split over 40 chapters. It is told in the first person from Shiori's point of view. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.

​ OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Princess Shiori has a secret: she can use magic, something that her people believe is only used by demons and those who work with them. Shirori’s kept her secret for years, until the day Shiori and her stepmother Raikama each discover the other’s magical abilities. To ensure Shiori can never tell another person of her secret, Raikama turns Shiori’s six brothers into cranes and places a curse on Shiori: for every word she speaks, one of her brothers will die. Magically transported to a far corner of the empire, Shiori finds herself alone, unable to speak, and enchanted so that no one can recognize her as the princess. But every curse can be broken, and Shiroi won’t rest until she finds a way to break this one – even if she has to steal from a dragon to do so.

Six Crimson Cranes is a wonderfully enchanting East Asian fairy tale retelling with a fierce heroine that will win your heart. Shiori may not be able to talk for most of the book, but that doesn’t make her an idle protagonist. She’s constantly working towards ending the curse, whether that’s scraping together a living as a maid at an inn or stealing magic roots from a dragon. She’s not perfect: she’s impatient and can get into trouble, but never in a way that makes you aggravated at the character. And Shiori never finds a task beneath her. If she has to scrub dishes or work with plants that burn her hands, she will. Whatever helps accomplish her goal.

The author does a wonderful job of balancing Shiori’s inability to speak out loud with the need to drive plot and character growth forward. The first person POV gives Shiori an internal monologue, and an enchanted paper bird can communicate with Shiori telepathically, giving her a way to talk through her problems with another character. But these workarounds never come at the expense of the tension that exists with the knowledge of what will happen if Shiori ever talks. It’s a testament to how well Lim crafted the story that every time I put Six Crimson Cranes down, I found myself unwilling to speak, because my brain had internalized that speaking out loud was a danger. And it isn’t just words that can kill her brothers; uttering a single sound can trigger the curse as well. That makes some of Shiori’s ordeals extra fraught, as she can’t yell out a warning or shout in sudden shock.

I also really enjoyed the mysteries that help drive the story forward. Shiori eventually arrives at the keep of an allied warlord, one whose political situation is tied to that of Shiori’s family. So while Shiori is trying to find out why Raikama cursed her and how to break that curse, she’s also drawn into unraveling a plot within the keep itself, one that is connected to a larger plot in the empire.

Tying it all together is a slow burn romance in the background. It’s not the dominating thrust of the story, and it’s slightly predictable, but in a way that makes it all so satisfying when it comes together. You know what’s going to happen and you get to have a big ol’ cheesy grin when it finally does.

CONCLUSION: Six Crimson Cranes is a worthy first half of a duology, and has absolutely hooked me for the sequel. Those who enjoy YA fantasy (or really fantasy at all) should give this a read without hesitation. My only small complaint is that I wish that more time was spent with Raikama to better explore her character and motivations, but the author still accomplishes a great deal in the small time spent with the character. Six Crimson Cranes has a fantastic set-up for book two, and honestly it cannot get here soon enough.