Page 12 - Ellen Datlow News Today

The magazine of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror field with news, reviews, and author interviews

With Samuel Delany, I think his best book is Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, but it was written in the expectation of finishing the story in a sequel that isn’t going to happen. So I’d suggest starting with the brilliant and self contained Babel-17. Actually, I think I’m going to say the same thing I do with Heinlein—feel free to start with anything where the book is less than an inch thick. Charles Dickens—don’t start. No, that’s unfair. David Copperfield are his least...

In October, Clarkesworld will celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of its very first issue, but for those of us behind-the-scenes, July (the seventh, to be precise) is where it all began. I was set on this path after a late-night conversation about the state of online fiction with Sean Wallace at Readercon. If you know your history, the state of things at that time could be best summarized as “in disarray.” There was very little respect for the medium and even less stability as markets came...

Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we cover Livia Llewellyn’s “Bright Crown of Joy,” first published in Ellen Datlow’s Children of Lovecraft anthology in 2016, and reprinted last year in Nick Mamatas’s Wonder and Glory Forever anthology. Spoilers ahead, but this one is very much worth tracking down and reading yourself. “Aft...

“La Signora,” by Bruce McAllister, is a dark fantasy about a teenage American living in an ancient Italian fishing village with his parents. He’s invited by his friends to go night-fishing on one special night, and although he knows his parents would disapprove, he goes anyway. This short story was acquired and edited for Tor.com by consulting editor Ellen Datlow.   I do not think they will sing to me. —T. S. Eliot   As a boy of thirteen, bookish but very American, I lived for two yea...

Novel of the Year The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga) Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey) The Invention of Sound, Chuck Palahniuk (Grand Central) The Sun Down Motel, Simone St. James (Berkley) Novella of the Year Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom) Crossroads, Laurel Hightower (Off Limits) True Crime, Samantha Kolesnik (Grindhouse) The Worm and His Kings, Hailey Piper (Off Limits) Short Story Collection of the Year Thin Places, Kay Chronister (Undertow) Velocities...

Author photo illustration credit: Paul Sizer We are a people who do not forget. We’re thrilled to share the cover of Flowers for the Sea, the debut novella from author Zin E. Rocklyn—releasing October 19, 2021 from Tordotcom Publishing. Flowers for the Sea is a dark, dazzling debut novella that reads like Rosemary’s Baby by way of Octavia E. Butler. We are a people who do not forget. Survivors from a flooded kingdom struggle alone on an ark. Resources are scant, and ravenous beasts circ...

Victoria Isabel Santiago Yap was born May 23, 1990 in Manila in the Philippines and grew up in Quezon City. She at­tended Ateneo de Manila University for her first two years of undergrad, then moved to the US, where she earned a BS in Marketing from San­ta Clara University in 2013. That summer she attended the Clarion Writers Workshop, and since 2016 she has served as secretary for the Clarion Foundation. She worked in the tech industry in the Bay Area and in London before completing an MBA a...

that one enough.” “ Dita.” Coco stopped pacing around and whacked me on the head with a rolled-up copy of the latest Shop-A-Rama weekly—not a lethal weapon in late October, even with the coupon sheet insert. “ Don’t dis the Dickens. It’s Christmas but it’s secular, barely a mention of Jesus or Christianity. It’s all about the spirit of the holiday, which is something everyone can relate to—Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pagans—” “Yeah. Because here in Happy Valley, there are...

Ellen Datlow’s career as the doyen of “year’s best” editors began with The Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Col­lection in 1988 (with co-editor Terri Windling), and the series was renamed The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror with the third annual col­lection. After 21 volumes, the series ended, but Datlow continued with 2009’s The Best Horror of the Year Volume One. We’ve now arrived at the 12th entry. If you combine the two series, only the late Gardner Dozois and his The Ye...