The Thing Meets The Handmaid’s Tale: Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

The Thing Meets The Handmaid’s Tale: Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

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Camp Zero by Michelle Min (Sterling Atria Books, April 4, 2023)

Camp Zero, Michelle Min Sterling’s debut, is a climate change novel that takes place in a near future where only the wealthy can enjoy the best the world has to offer as the temperature and sea levels rise rapidly, forcing them to take refuge in floating cities, virtual worlds, and the great white north.

These wealthy individuals are invading Canada by buying up tracts of land where they can escape the 110-degree (F) average temperatures of places like LA. Meyer, a classic tech-bro architect, has a vision of Camp Zero, a far north city of geodesic domes, and has brought together a team of locals to build it, although that may not be his real agenda. He has also brought in a team of “hostesses,” complete with a madam, to keep the executive staff happy and as occasional treats for the “diggers.” Grant, the camp’s latest hire, is an English teacher fresh out of prestigious Walden University, eager to cut ties with his wealthy family and settle into a quiet academic life surrounded by Nordic furniture and fields of snow.

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Goth Chick News: Nicolas Cage as Dracula? Yes, Please

Goth Chick News: Nicolas Cage as Dracula? Yes, Please

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I recently enjoyed one of my periodic, cathartic rants about the state of vampires on film in the past couple of decades. Having had it with the very liberal license the entertainment industry has taken with my favorite classic monster, I was happy to share that Hollywood was finally going to give us a seriously violent throw-back version in the form of The Last Voyage of the Demeter. However, though I took exception to vampires being depicted as angsty, flannel-wearing mopes who despised their own blood-sucking nature, I never mentioned believing that vampires should not have a sense of humor.

I mean, if you had to hang around watching humans for roughly 590 years, you’d have to be able to laugh at stuff, right?

If you think about it, Dracula must appreciate the irony of his situation. Certainly director Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War, The LEGO Batman Movie) screenwriter Ryan Ridley (Ghosted, Rick & Morty), and comic book writer Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible) gave it a lot of thought, which is why you should mark your calendars for April 14th.

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New Treasures: Rubicon by J.S. Dewes

New Treasures: Rubicon by J.S. Dewes

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Rubicon by J.S. Dewes (Tor Books, March 28, 2023). Cover art by Shutterstock

J.S. Dewes’ two-book debut series The Divide was published in 2021 to plenty of breathless acclaim. In her mid-year wrap-up of The Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the Year, Sadie Gennis at Vulture called opening book The Last Watch “one of the most stunning sci-fi series debuts of recent years… [a] nail-biting space epic,” and Booklist proclaimed it “a bravura debut that blends great action with compelling characters.”

Her new novel Rubicon arrived this week, and it sounds right up my alley. A military SF novel that blends A.I. with a twisty plot and a far future setting, Rubicon has been called “A fresh and forward-looking story about the costs of “forever” wars… Witty and readable, it features an endearing cast of characters and fast-paced action” by Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly says it’s “A standalone outing that is simultaneously thoughtful and pulse-pounding… Fans of smart military sci-fi will be riveted.“

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Senator, You’re No Jack Kennedy. Continautors – Yes or No?

Senator, You’re No Jack Kennedy. Continautors – Yes or No?

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Official continuators of a literary series can engender mixed emotions. Some folks are happy to see more stories of a character they like – even if the creator has died. Others feel that only the original author should write that character and they should lie in the grave together.

Characters eventually enter the public domain. Though exactly when varies in different countries; and it’s not always clear, regardless. But the rights holders (often the family of the author, or their Estate) contract with someone to continue the series. I have read several official continuations (though I still haven’t gotten around to Ben Black’s Philip Marlowe. And as I recall, Poodle Springs didn’t do anything at all for me). I’m gonna talk about a few, with comments on the concept, mixed in.

Tony Hillerman/Anne Hillerman

Anne Hillerman had previously written some non-fiction when she took over her late father’s Navajo Tribal Police series. The ONLY reason she is writing these books is because she owns the rights. Quite simply, her continuation novels are terrible. And are a bastardization of her father’s books. I wish someone could prevent her from any more of them.

Anne completely transformed her father’s series. She was not interested in writing more books in his style. Expanding from ‘Leaphorn and Chee.’ they are now officially ‘Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito Novels.’ She has completely shifted the emphasis to Bernie Manuelito. Chee is an emasculated husband who would be better off completely out of the books. They’re now like Lifetime movies about Bernie and her issues with her mom and sister, and unhappiness with Chee’s attitude at least once a book. It’s exhausting read them.

Louisa Bourbonette is now so annoying, I wish that Leaphorn (who was actually lobotomized by a gunshot wound in the first two books) would dump her.

Stargazer (the sixth book) is the worst continuation novel I’ve ever read. Well, I actually, partly read. The first five books were bad, and that one was so terrible, I abandoned it part-way through.

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The Cambion Journals series ends with Rise of the Despoiler by Andrew Paul Weston

The Cambion Journals series ends with Rise of the Despoiler by Andrew Paul Weston

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Rise of the Despoiler: The Cambion Journals, Book Six, by Andrew P. Weston (Raven Tale Publishing. Kindle edition; released Mar 2023, 186pages).

The Cambion Journals is a series of six novellas that ends with Rise of the Despoiler; it was just released March 15, 2023 (Raven Tale Publishing). Last August we highlighted the release of Book Three: The Siren Song and overviewed Andrew Paul Weston’s history with Black Gate.  Prior to that, veteran author and Black Gate contributor Joe Bonadonna reviewed Book One: A Hybrid’s Tale review and Book Two: Call of the Cambion.  Learn more about The Cambion Journals by reading the below novella summaries and visiting the author’s website and the series’ website.

“The world-building is sublime. Andrew Weston is a mastermind when it comes to world-building. He intricately lays the foundation in each book like a craftsman. It may be all in the author’s imagination, but on paper, it’s sheer brilliance. I got sucked into the world he created, and I loved every moment.” – N. N. Light – Amazon Vine Voice

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Vintage Treasures: What If?, Volumes 1-3, edited by Richard A. Lupoff

Vintage Treasures: What If?, Volumes 1-3, edited by Richard A. Lupoff

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What If, Volumes 1-2 (Pocket Books, 1980 and 1981) and Volume 3
(Surinam Turtle Press, 2013). Covers by Richard Powers and Gavin L. O’Keefe

Richard Lupoff was a True Believer. By which I mean he gave his career to science fiction, and both cared about it deeply and wrote about it fairly extensively — like Isaac Asimov, Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison, Terry Carr, Sam Moskowitz, Donald A. Wollheim, Barry N. Malzberg, Gardner Dozois, and a handful of other crusty old timers.

The thing about True Believers is they have opinions. Boy, do they. They’re happy to tell you when the Golden Age of Science Fiction actually was, what they think of modern SF, and what should have won the Hugo Award last year. And the year before that. They’re especially vocal about awards, come to think of it.

Lupoff didn’t just spout off about stories that were unjustly robbed of a Hugo Award — he actually did something about it. In 1980 and ’81 he published two highly-regarded anthologies, What If? Volume One and Volume Two, which brazenly set out to “Remedy the Injustices of the Past Three Decades!” (that’s right there on the back cover copy) and collect the fiction that SHOULD have won the Hugo Award every year, starting with 1953 and working all the way up to 1965. In 2013, Surinam Turtle Press released the long-delayed third volume, presenting Lupoff’s selections for the fiction that should have been awarded SF’s highest honor in 1966-1973.

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Goth Chick News: Let Me Tell You a Story About Frankenstein

Goth Chick News: Let Me Tell You a Story About Frankenstein

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Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, illustrated by
Bernie Wrightson (Gallery Books, Illustrated edition, April 27, 2021)

Gather round horror fans, I have a dreadfully interesting tale to tell you.

We start in the year 1818, when Mary Shelley brought to life an iconic monster, touching upon many human failings and fears in the process. Frankenstein’s creation (we sometimes forget the monster did not have a name, although he does call himself, when speaking to his creator, Victor Frankenstein, the “Adam of your labors”) reminds us what can happen when we tamper with nature, and the horrors we are capable of creating. These themes have remained endlessly compelling, giving rise to roughly seventy-five Frankenstein-like movies, and more books and short stories than we can count.

Fast forward to 1983 when a 35-year-old artist named Bernie Wrightson, concluded a seven-year passion-project-tribute to his favorite monster. Originally published by Marvel Comics, Wrightson painstakingly created 50 detailed pen-and-ink illustrations to go alongside Shelley’s original Frankenstein novel. Wrightson (creator of Swamp Thing in 1971) often reminded fans that Frankenstein wasn’t a project he was being paid for, and that his illustrated version was a labor of love which he worked on in between paying gigs.

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New Treasures: Summer’s End by John Van Stry

New Treasures: Summer’s End by John Van Stry

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Summer’s End (Baen Books, December 6, 2022). Cover by Sam R. Kennedy

John Van Stry is a darling of the indie publishing world. He’s self-published dozens of science fiction novels, including eleven volumes in the Portals of Infinity series, and 18 in The Valens Legacy, written as Jan Stryvant. Summer’s End is his first book with an established publisher, and it caught my eye this week at Barnes and Noble. It’s the tale of newly graduated Ship Engineer Dave Walker, who takes a job on the Iowa Hill, described as:

An old tramp freighter running with a minimal crew and nearing the end of its useful life, plying the routes that the corporations ignore and visiting the kinds of places that the folks on Earth pretend don’t exist. Between the assassins, the criminals, and the pirates he needs to deal with, Dave is discovering that there are a lot of things out there that he still needs to learn.

That’s the paragraph that sold me, and helped move this book up near the top of my already-towering TBR pile.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Avenging Women

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Avenging Women

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Lady in the Iron Mask (USA, 1952)

Much as Your Cheerful Editor loves it when it’s the women in a movie who are plying the swords, he must admit that the swashbuckling films of the 20th Century betrayed women wielding their weapons as often as they glorified them. Filmmakers kept putting swords in ladies’ hands because it’s such an attractive image, but then usually gave those sword-swingin’ women short shrift. Most of the time this was just reflexive sexism of the “Of course women don’t fight as well as men” variety, but toward the end of the century, during the backlash against the rise of feminism, the attitude was often open scorn. There are a lot of things I miss about moviemaking from Hollywood’s golden era, but endemic misogyny isn’t one o them.

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