200th Post! And My Top 5 Forest Fantasy Recommendations #WyrdAndWonder

Wow. I can’t believe I’ve posted two hundred times already on this blog. While this feels like an important milestone, I am relatively unprepared for it. I didn’t plan anything special. No giveaways or special features. No discounts (lolz this blog is free anyway).

However, I have been participating in the month long celebration of all things Fantasy known as Wyrd and Wonder. For that, I’ve gathered a list of my Top 5 favorite Fantasy reads which are somehow related to the theme of FOREST. Anyway, here it is:

My Top 5 Forest Fantasy Books

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

This is probably the most recent thing I’ve read with a prominent forest in it (excluding Bear and the Nightingale, and The Girl in the Tower cause I’m trying not to make this whole month about those two books). I finished it for last year’s #WyrdAndWonder (2021), and wondered whether or not Emily Tesh should win the 2021 Astounding award (ultimately I said no). Even though I didn’t pick it for the award, I still thought it was an excellent read! I loved the language Tesh employed, and the mythical creatures revealed throughout the novella (primarily The Green Man, and Dryads).

Overall, I highly recommend.

The Runelords by David Farland

RIP David Wolverton (aka David Farland). I haven’t read much of Farland’s writing, but I recognized the name as an often acclaimed friend and mentor to Brandon Sanderson. I believe many in the writing community were upset to hear of his passing.

His most well known series, The Runelords, presents a pseudo-medieval world in which people can transfer attributes (like grace, or strength) through a process called endowments. Individuals with many endowments become super-human and are known as Runelords.

I only read book one of the series, but it was and interesting premise (and not hard to see the influence it had upon Sanderson) which quickly revealed itself to be quite profound. During the first book, which gives the series its name, the main character must find his way through a magical forest which is haunted by wights. I won’t give away too much about what happens, but suffice to say, this forest is the kind of forest we think of when we think about forests in a fantasy setting. Not quite the trope codifier (which I assume is Tolkien), but just a really great example of its use.

Highly recommend.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

I’m sure this book will come up in a lot of posts this #WyrdAndWonder, so I won’t spend a ton of time talking about Naomi Novik’s great fairy tale inspired novel. What I enjoyed about the forest in this book was just how ALIVE it felt and how menacing.

Definitely a great read!

Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor

Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor, admittedly has many different kinds of stories within its pages, and most of them (if I remember correctly) do not have much to do with a forest. However, a few stories do, and what I liked so much about their representation here, is that they are so much different than the typical wooded settings we’re used to in a western fantasy setting.

There are all kinds of forests (like say . . . a palm forest) all over the world, and we really get reminded of that throughout this book.

Plus Okorafor is just an amazing author. I really need to do a re-read of her works for the blog sometime. Anyway, definitely read this one!

Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson

I’m sure nobody is surprised to see Brandon Sanderson on this list. Despite the fact that his worlds span continents, oceans, and even outer space, not a lot of forest settings immediately jumped to my mind when considering his work. However, Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell is good enough to fill in any supposed lack of forestry within the Cosmere. This forest is insane.

Essentially, the forest is haunted by “cognitive shadows” (called Shades) or ghosts which will effectively kill anything they touch, therefore creating a new Shade. This forest is so dangerous to the world’s inhabitants that people living near it have developed a set of rules for traveling through them which might keep them alive. There are three:

1. Do not kindle a flame
2. Do not shed the blood of another
3. Do not run during the night

I think you can probably guess what ends up happening during the story hahah. Anyway, I like this one because it’s a nice little glimpse into other parts of the Cosmere, and (IMHO) is generally not like any of the other stories we’ve read in that universe. Perhaps some might consider it a random one-off, but for me, it just makes things more interesting. If you’re a fan of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere, I’d say this is a must read, and if not, probably still check it out anyway. It’s a lot of fun.

That’s it!

That’s the list. My top five favorite fantasy stories featuring forests in them. Also, if you haven’t already, please check out a little original piece of fiction I started for #Smaugust last year called Failmor Woods, which was written around a FOREST theme.

Now let’s see some comments. Have you read any of the stories I posted about? What were your thoughts. Any not on my list which should be? I’d love to here about them.

See you next time!

Lolz (only) Two Book Recommendations From Indie Presses

No YOU! have a Jurassic London Altar

Wow, leave it to #SciFiMonth to just keep brining in the gut checks.

After barely cobbling together a list of five international (to me) authors last Friday, I looked ahead to the challenge list and saw this Friday’s challenge was to make recommendations from indie presses or self-published authors.

Pfff. Easy.

No problem at all. I’ve backed tons of kickstarters by small presses (Upside Down (Apex), and Temporally Out of Order (Zombies Need Brains) come to mind immediately). Looking back I was a particularly big fan of Jurassic London back in the day and my book shelves are probably sagging a bit from the weight of all the titles I’ve bought from them: The Builders, Jews Versus Omnibus, Speculative Fiction 2013, Speculative Fiction 2014, Unearthed (digital), The Good Shabti, and my pride and joy The Extinction Event!

This, you may say, is a pretty hardy list, and you would be right. The only issue is that . . . I haven’t actually fully read many of these, and also . . . as seems to be my issue quite often, there’s a lot of Fantasy here.

But this is Sci-Fi month not Fantasy month so let me dig through the Goodreads list and see what I can come up with . . .

Aha!

I’ve found two sci-fi titles which I will heartily recommend. And that will have to be the way of it.

The first title I’ve chosen is Future Tense fiction: Stories of Tomorrow from Unnamed press. It’s a great anthology, which I’m kicking myself for not having reviewed here on the blog. The list of authors featured is quite long, and each one of them brought their A-game to this collection. Authors like Nnedi Okorafor, and Annalee Newitz immediately stood out to me, but others will likely recognize Charlie Jane Anders and Paolo Bacigalupi. The ones I didn’t know shined just as brightly as those I did. I think Newitz’s When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis was my favorite but I also enjoyed Okorafor’s Mother of Invention and Konstantinou’s Burned-Over Territory. I highly recommend this one to any near-future-thinking readers out there.

My second choice was a bit of a surprise, as this author usually publishes through Tor Books, but for Miniatures, it seems like goliath John Scalzi chose indie publisher Subterranean Press to create this fun little book. I won’t claim to know how any of the inner workings of Scalzi’s mind . . . well how they work, but this collection really puts some of his wackier ideas on display. There’s a story in which yogurt becomes sentient and takes over earth (I believe there is an episode of Netflix’s Sex, Love, & Robots that took it’s premise from this). It’s been a long enough time since I’ve read it that I’m having some trouble remembering the details, but I know that I enjoyed it immensely. Thankfully, I reviewed Miniatures back in back in 2017 so you can take a look at that.

Well . . . How’d I do?

Not to be too harsh a critic on myself but I’m gonna say not well. Even if we broaden the prompt to all speculative fiction, my list of indie titles is pretty old, and I didn’t include ANY self-pub’d authors on here, despite having self-pub’d my own work. I guess it seems that I’ve been in Hugo Land for quite a while now, and have not spent much time reading Indie Land.

But there’s always tomorrow! Why not dive in then.

I’m anxious to see what the other #SciFiMonth peeps have been reading that I’ve been neglecting. If you have recommendations for me please post them in the comments (if they’re blog posts that’s cool too just drop the link).

Until Next time!

Five (non-American) Authors I Want to Read

Edited these together on my phone so . . .

So this is actually something of a failed post.

It’s November, which means there are a plethora of different challenges going on and hashtags to follow. There’s #NaNoWriMo for authors hoping to bust out 50k towards their next novel (you can do it!), #Norsevember for all the Viking lovers out there (Valhalla beckons my dudes), #Dinovember for . . . well for dinosaur lovers (RAWR!!). There’s even a challenge if you just don’t feel like shaving.

One challenge/hashtag that I always enjoy following is #SciFiMonth. It’s put on by @imyrl over at There’s Always Room for One More and Lisa from Dear Geek Place (they also hosted #WyrdAndWonder, which I had a ton of fun doing back in may. You can see my WyrdAndWonder Wrap up post for everything I worked on for it!). I was pretty stoked and eagerly looking at the list of challenges for different posts I might do on this blog.

I saw today’s challenge was “International Authors” and was like pff I got this. I’ve been making an effort to try to diversify my reading a bit and I think in general I’ve succeeded. I’ve been tracking the 2021 Hugo Awards this year, and I think the breadth of voices represented by the finalists are better than in years past. Just following this year’s candidates has already widened my horizons somewhat, and I think in general the industry has made some strides (although there is still lots more to be done).

So I dove right in and began making my list. I apparently did not read the part where it said no US/UK authors. The UK is international to me so . . . I put some on here. Oops.

Anyway, the exercise was not a total waste because it really opened my eyes to a few things:

• I’m aware of more fantasy than SciFi – The names that came to mind immediately were those of Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher), and Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexican Gothic; Horror but def also Fantasy)
• Authors I assumed were international were are also American – Nnedi Okorafor (Nigerian-American), and Aliette de Bodard (French-American).

Anyway, the list I did create is not on prompt, but it is still a list of authors and their books which I’m excited to read so I figured I’d share the list anyway. Here goes . . .

Cixin Liu (Chinese)

I think Chinese Science Fiction is really having a moment the last couple years. This I’m sure is in no small part because of the success of Liu and his Hugo Award winning novel, The Three Body Problem. He also has a few other titles which look amazing. The one I’m most excited for is called Ball Lightning. Pretty much had me on the title alone but if it’s half as good as The Three Body Problem, I’m sure I’ll be blown away.

Stanislaw Lem (Polish)

I think if I had let it, this entire post could have been filled with Science Fiction writers from the Eastern Bloc. At some point, I was inspired to read as much of those kinds of works as possible, but — as with this post — my plan failed. I managed to read through Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Monday Starts on Saturday. Apparently, it soured me to the whole experience because I haven’t read any others, but Lem has always remained in the back of my mind. I keep hearing that Solaris is the one to read, so I think that’s what I will do!

Tade Tompson (British-Yoruban)

I keep seeing this name around recently, although it seems like he’s been around for quite a while. A quick google shows me that he made a big splash with Rosewater (2016), and the rest of the Wormwood Trilogy. Obviously I’ll want to catch up on those, but it looks like he has a new standalone book coming out in 2021 called Far From the Light of Heaven. In order to try to stay on the Sci-Fi theme of this post, I think it’s perhaps better to start there.

Ian Banks (British)

So, Ian Banks is a huge name in science fiction. I read Hydrogen Sonata, back in 2012 (wow that feels so long ago!) and was pretty much blown away. I’ve often been told that while that is a great book, it’s not even his best. I’m considering starting from the beginning with Consider Phlebas, and just reading the whole way through. Wish me luck!

Tamsyn Muir (New Zealand)

I don’t think Tamsyn Muir really needs much explanation. She pretty much exploded onto the scene with Gideon the Ninth, and has kept the momentum with Harrow the Ninth. There’s supposedly two more books in the Locked Tomb series and I will be anxiously awaiting both of them.

You made it!

Congrats! You made it through all five. Please let me know what you think of my list? Have you read any? Is there a better choice I don’t know about? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time!

Review of ‘Remote Control’ by Nnedi Okorafor

This was supposed to be my beach read last week. Something short which wouldn’t take too much investment as I knew I’d be spending a lot of time with family, and it would be hard to squeeze in time for reading.

Wow did that plan fail.

I finished up another library book just before my trip, and was still waiting for my next hold to come in so I figured I could read a little of this, and then finish it while at the beach.

Two days later, I was posting four stars to goodreads and wondering what the heck I was going to read now. I finished this that quickly. I suppose I should have known . . .

Ever since I read Binti, back in 2017, Okorafor has been like pizza for me. I tell myself just one more slice (chapter), ok maybe two more but then that’s it! Only to realize later that I’ve crushed the whole thing in a sitting (send help about the pizza . . . the problem is getting out of control!).

I’m still getting caught up on everything she’s written (Broken Spaces & Outer Spaces, and Who Fears Death currently next in line), but I’ve managed to get a couple of her stories read, and have loved every one of them.

Anyway, this story was not different. Right from page one, I was already smiling as the book opens with a quote from Omar Little . . .

Yes, Omar Little from The Wire.

And it set the scene perfectly. As members of the town flee the presence of Sankofa, the “adopted Granddaughter of Death”, I could just hear them saying her name as they ran, much to the cadence of “Omar is coming!”

Another of Okorafor’s strong suits is worldbuilding.

It’s no surprise then that the world of Remote Control simply shines. Those who have read Okorafor before, will see a lot of new elements, but also recognize things from her previous stories.

For instance spiders seem to be a common occurrence, and in past books have always felt like some kind of unknowable architect, moving through the world with their own agenda, weaving a web of fate in which humankind is merely an unsuspecting fly.

After a quick google, I thought that perhaps this constant occurrence was meant to be Anansi, a popular figure in Akan folklore. A second google revealed:

Okorafor has spoken on Udide — and generally seems to have cornered the SEO on the term — during her TED Talk about Afrofuturism and how it is different and unique from Western, mostly white and male, Science Fiction.

In her novel, Lagoon, Udide the spider artist, is a vast spider who lives underneath the city of Lagos and is responsible for weaving the past, present, and future into the lives of the city. For Okorafor, Udide seems to be a metaphor for Science Fiction itself, and the socio-political power of stories. Science Fiction is a will-to-power. The question: What if?

Assuming her tweet holds true for the Remote Control as well, then it would seem Udide (or some aspect of Udide) is the large black spider Sankofa encounters in the very first chapter as she enters town:

“Good evening,” Sankofa said in Mampruli as she stepped up to the gate’s door. The spider paused, seeming to acknowledge and greet her back. Then it continued on its way up, into the forest of broken glass on top of the gate. Sankofa smiled. Spiders always had better things to do. She wondered what story it would weave about her and how far the story would carry.

Okorafor, Nnedi, Remote Control, pg. 10

We aren’t told its purpose, nor are we sure what business it has in the town, but it seems to give the weight of this moment some emphasis. Fate is at work here, or was, and is now scurrying onward toward whatever’s next.

In that same scene, we also see a grasshopper (prominent in Akata Witch and Akata Warrior), though I haven’t taken the time yet to familiarize myself with any symbolism related to it and what its appearance could mean.

A later scene shows us a wall filled with masks, which seems meant to invoke the Night Masquerade of Binti, or something similar in the Akata Witch/Warrior books.

In this way, all of Okorafor’s stories seem to take place in a kind of mythic African universe, but I don’t believe that they are the ‘same universe’ as we would say about the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere . . .

To me, this is incredibly refreshing, as I don’t feel the need to read every one of Okorafor’s novels, afraid I may miss something, but it does add a bit of added enjoyment to the stories I have read.

But considering I compared my compulsion to read her stories as equal to that of stuffing my face full of pizza . . . I will probably end up reading them all anyway.

Conclusion?

Go read this one. Probably read it twice. I’ve only begun to unpack everything that is packed into this relatively short novella, and I’m sure that upon second and third reads I will think about and discover even more. That seems to be the nature of things when reading Nnedi . . .

Anyway, that’s all for now. If you’ve got thoughts and opinions, please leave em in the comment section. I hope to hear from you there! See you next time!