Quote of the Day, Hugos Swept by Women Authors, Malorie Blackman Joins Doctor Who, Phinney Books Expands, A Study in Honor by Claire O'Dell, Geekerella by Ashley Poston,Hull Metal Girls by Emily Skrutskie, and Another Side of Paradise by Sally Koslow

Quotation of the Day

"If we want to become a nation of readers, you need to have more

bookstores.... I always say the best way to die is to be just sitting in

a chair reading a book, and to suddenly just expire. But throughout my

life, I remember the individuals who've left a huge mark on me, whether

teachers, parents or friends. I think that's the most valuable thing. In

your toughest times, you look back and know that those individuals have

propped you up, put you on their shoulders so you can walk better.

Hopefully, I can be that support for others in my personal and business

life."

--Kenny Leck, owner of BooksActually

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38004128 bookstore, Singapore, in an

interview with Channel NewsAsia

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38004129

Women authors swept the Hugo awards this year at Worldcon, and I couldn't be happier! I am particularly excited for NK Jemisin's third award for her Stone SF series, which I read and found fascinating, though I can't say it's the type of series you enjoy, per se. It's a groundbreaking work, but it's also political and dark and desperate in it's insights. Congratulations to all the winners.I only wish Ursula LeGuin was still around to see all her compatriots sweep the awards this year.

Awards: Hugos; John W. Campbell

The winners of the Hugo Awards and for the John W. Campbell Award for

Best New Writer were announced by Worldcon 76 yesterday in San Jose,

Calif., and can be seen here

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38001447.

Among the many winners:

Best Novel: The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

Best Novella: All Systems Red by Martha Wells (Tor)

Best Novelette: "The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer

(Clarkesworld, 9/17)

Best Short Story: "Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™"

by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, 8/17)

Best Related Work: No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by

Ursula K. Le Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Best Graphic Story: Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood by Marjorie Liu,

illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image)

Best Series: World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold (Harper

Voyager; Spectrum Literary Agency)

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Rebecca Roanhorse

I'm so excited for the new season of Doctor Who, which debuts on BBC America in October, with the 13th Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, a woman. That they've got a famous YA author on board just makes it that much more thrilling. 

TV: Malorie Blackman Joins Doctor Who Writing Team

Malorie Blackman, author of more than 60 books for kids and young adults

and a former U.K. Children's Laureate, is "one of the writers

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38027931

working on the new television series of Doctor Who," the Bookseller

reported, noting that Blackman is "the first black writer to pen an

episode for the series." She joins Ed Hime, Vinay Patel, Pete McTighe

and Joy Wilkinson, all of whom were announced this week by the BBC as

writers for the series, which launches this fall with Jodie Whittaker as

the 13th Doctor.

"I've always loved Doctor Who. Getting the chance to write for this

series has definitely been a dream come true," said Blackman, whose

short story "The Ripple Effect" was published in 2013 to celebrate the

50th anniversary of the show.

"We have a team of writers who've been working quietly and secretly for a long time now, crafting characters, worlds and stories to excite and move you," said Doctor Who

showrunner Chris Chibnall. "A set of directors who stood those scripts

up on their feet, bringing those ideas, visuals and emotions into

existence with bravura and fun. Hailing from a range of backgrounds,

tastes and styles, here's what unites them: they are awesome people as

well as brilliant at their job. (It matters!) They love Doctor Who. And

they've all worked above and beyond the call of duty in an effort to

bring audiences something special, later this year."

I will admit that when this gentleman opened this fancy new bookshop in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, where Jim and I used to live when we first landed here in the PNW, I was unsure he'd be successful.  I'd watched the wonderful used bookstore down the street, The Couth Buzzard, be sold off to become a coffee shop with a bookstore attached (and moved far down the street towards Greenwood). However, Nissley has managed to pull it off, and now he's opening another branch in tony Madison Park. Best of luck to him and to the new store! 

Phinney Books Owner Opening New Seattle Store

Tom Nissley, owner of Phinney Books

Seattle, Wash., is planning http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38042389

to open Madison Books in the city's Madison Park neighborhood by

November, the Madison Park Times reported, adding that the store will be

"filling a void felt in the neighborhood for more than a decade."

"We just get that there's this hunger for having this store right in the

middle of everything," said Nissley, who has owned Phinney Books in

Phinney Ridge since 2014.

Madison Books wasn't his idea, "but that of longtime resident Susan

Moseley, who spent some time reaching out to potential partners before

tapping Nissley," the Park Times noted.

"I think she's been trying to get a store in the neighborhood ever since

Madison Park Books closed in 2005," he said. "I had not been looking to

expand. Susan got in touch with us, and just the more that we talked

about it, the more appealing it sounded."

A Study in Honor by Claire O'Dell is a fresh and intelligent take on the Sherlock Holmes/Dr Watson stories with an exciting plot and beautiful prose that transports you to the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Here's the blurb from Publisher's Weekly:This riveting mystery (fantasist Beth Bernobich’s first work under the O’Dell pseudonym), set in near-future Washington D.C., spotlights delightfully fresh adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous characters. After Dr. Janet Watson loses her arm in an attack by the New Confederacy, she is discharged from the Army and returns home. She meets the fascinating, if infuriating, Sara Holmes, and they become roommates in Georgetown, Va., where, as two black women, they are not entirely welcome. Watson observes troubling patterns in her new job at the VA, and these, along with prompts from Holmes’s top secret connections, send the women on a high-stakes search for answers. As the mystery unfolds, it departs from direct Doyle parallels and takes on an entertaining life of its own. Attention to detail about futuristic elements, such as Watson’s mixed feelings about her temperamental mechanical arm, helps construct a believable setting. Readers who pick this up for the novelty of Watson and Holmes as black women will be impressed by how well O’Dell realizes them as full, rich characters. This is a real treat for fans of Conan Doyle and SF mysteries.

I completely agree with the PW reviewer's assessment, that the characters are fully realized, and the book itself a treat to read. I couldn't put it down, and though I despise political novels, the politics herein were germane to the story and gave it an air of reality, as if you could visit Watson and Holmes in DC at any time. Their lives as black women of different social castes (Holmes is rich while Watson is poor) makes them all the more intriguing, yet it also provides readers with a view into the reality of being a woman of color in America, where you're bound to encounter prejudice and sexism no matter how much money you have. I'd give this ripping yarn an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes a good dystopian SF mystery.

Geekerella by Ashley Poston is a clever YA novel that takes the Cinderella story and fine tunes it for today's celebrity culture in Hollywood, California. While it has fun protagonists in Elle and the celebrity who hates being famous,Darien, (standing in for the handsome prince), the whole story comes off as a bit too glib and goofy, with moments of eye-rolling cliche residing right alongside poignant moments in which readers empathize with orphaned Elle trying to find her way around a cruel stepmother and ugly-on-the-inside stepsister (the stepsisters are twins, but one of them is actually a nice lesbian who apparently doesn't have the spine to stand up to her evil twin). Here's the blurb:

Cinderella goes to the con in this fandom-fueled twist on the classic fairy tale romance.
Part romance, part love letter to nerd culture, and all totally adorbs, Geekerella is a fairy tale for anyone who believes in the magic of fandom. Geek girl Elle Wittimer lives and breathes Starfield, the classic sci-fi series she grew up watching with her late father. So when she sees a cosplay contest for a new Starfield movie, she has to enter. The prize? An invitation to the ExcelsiCon Cosplay Ball, and a meet-and-greet with the actor slated to play Federation Prince Carmindor in the reboot. With savings from her gig at the Magic Pumpkin food truck (and her dad’s old costume), Elle’s determined to win…unless her stepsisters get there first.
Teen actor Darien Freeman used to live for cons—before he was famous. Now they’re nothing but autographs and awkward meet-and-greets. Playing Carmindor is all he’s ever wanted, but the Starfield fandom has written him off as just another dumb heartthrob. As ExcelsiCon draws near, Darien feels more and more like a fake—until he meets a girl who shows him otherwise.

The prose is clean and zippy, but even though we all know how Cinderella ends up with the prince, Poston manages to seed the plot with enough twists that you don't mind waiting to get to the HEA. A beach read for those who like modern reworkings of fairy tales, I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun read.

Hull Metal Girls by Emily Skrutskie wasn't really what I was expecting at all. This YA science fiction novel sounded like a fierce feminist take on Halo-like SF, but it became more of a social science fiction story with Doctor Who's Cybermen overtones. The prose is precise and the plot, while seemingly straightforward, gets mired in political messes way too often. Here's the blurb: Aisha Un-Haad would do anything for her family. When her brother contracts a plague, she knows her janitor's salary isn't enough to fund his treatment. So she volunteers to become a Scela, a mechanically enhanced soldier sworn to protect and serve the governing body of the Fleet, the collective of starships they call home. If Aisha can survive the harrowing modifications and earn an elite place in the Scela ranks, she may be able to save her brother.
Key Tanaka awakens in a Scela body with only hazy memories of her life before. She knows she's from the privileged end of the Fleet, but she has no recollection of why she chose to give up a life of luxury to become a hulking cyborg soldier. If she can make it through the training, she might have a shot at recovering her missing past.
In a unit of new recruits vying for top placement, Aisha's and Key's paths collide, and the two must learn to work together—a tall order for girls from opposite ends of the Fleet. But a rebellion is stirring, pitting those who yearn for independence from the Fleet against a government struggling to maintain unity.
With violence brewing and dark secrets surfacing, Aisha and Key find themselves questioning their loyalties. They will have to put aside their differences, though, if they want to keep humanity from tearing itself apart.

There was so much pain and suffering from the converted Scela soldiers that I found it difficult to get past that, and also difficult to get by the politics of adults who would sacrifice children for their own agenda (to remain in power). The bitterness and ugliness of these children and teenagers who are used as pawns is nearly overwhelming at times, and it detracts from the space opera plot. It's one of those books that you'd enjoy if you like reading dystopian robot stories with political subplots. Not really my thing, so I'd have to give it a C, and recommend it to those who don't mind brutality and politics (and abused children) in their SF.

Another Side of Paradise by Sally Koslow was something of an impulse buy, because I've always been a fan of F Scott Fitzgerald and his troubled wife Zelda. This book is based on the journals and letters of Fitzgerald's amour Sheilah Graham, a Hollywood gossip columnist whom he lived with and loved until his death. I have to say that I was drawn in to the whole world of Fitz and Sheilah during the late 30s, and while I was aware that he was an alcoholic, I was not aware that he had months of sobriety where he'd try to work and create and love the women in his life. I never thought of Fitzgerald as a weak man, but this novel paints him as immature, weak, cruel and self destructive. Sheilah, who suffered every kind of abuse from Fitzgerald, was a fool to continue to return to him after one of his benders, but she was seemingly unable to let him go, for some bizarre reason (I think they had a toxic codependent relationship). Here's the blurb:

In 1937 Hollywood, gossip columnist Sheilah Graham’s star is on the rise, while literary wonder boy F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career is slowly drowning in booze. But the once-famous author, desperate to make money penning scripts for the silver screen, is charismatic enough to attract the gorgeous Miss Graham, a woman who exposes the secrets of others while carefully guarding her own. Like Fitzgerald’s hero Jay Gatsby, Graham has meticulously constructed a life far removed from the poverty of her childhood in London’s slums. And like Gatsby, the onetime guttersnipe learned early how to use her charms to become a hardworking success; she is feted and feared by both the movie studios and their luminaries.
A notorious drunk famously married to the doomed Zelda, Fitzgerald fell hard for his “Shielah” (he never learned to spell her name), a shrewd yet softhearted woman—both a fool for love and nobody’s fool—who would stay with him and help revive his career until his tragic death three years later. Working from Sheilah’s memoirs, interviews, and letters, Sally Koslow revisits their scandalous love affair and Graham’s dramatic transformation in London, bringing Graham and Fitzgerald gloriously to life with the color, glitter, magic, and passion of 1930s Hollywood. Pulbisher's Weekly:Koslow takes on the tumultuous affair of ambitious Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham and literary lion F. Scott Fitzgerald in this dishy interpretation of Graham’s memoir, Beloved Infidel. Here, Koslow plays off the “weakness and self-deception” of British expat Graham, who reinvents herself in America to hide a poverty-stricken childhood in a London Jewish orphanage and a sexless first marriage to a salesman. Fitzgerald, who comes to Hollywood to reignite his writing career while battling alcoholism, is preoccupied with thoughts about his mentally ill wife, Zelda, and his own fading fame. Though generously peppered with the big names and gossip of the 1930s, the narrative is driven by the tortured relationship between Graham and Fitzgerald in which both succumb to the worst in each other. This version aims to excuse and soften Graham’s unrepentant opportunism—“telling lies” is “no harder than breathing,” she says. And it plays up a version of Fitzgerald as a diligent craftsman and mentor rather than as a mean and abusive drunk. Koslow may be rewriting a feel-good version of the Graham-Fitzgerald romance, but it’s an intoxicating one.

I didn't really feel this was an "intoxicating" romance, it was a sadly codependent one, with the self-hating Graham seemingly unable to leave Fitz, even after he beats her up. There's also not a whiff in this book of the scandal of Fitz consigning Zelda to a prison-like insane asylum, even when she was able to gain control over her alcoholism. There were also many who felt that Zelda wrote and edited several of his books, which was why he wasn't as successful writing anything in later years. I've been a fan of Fitzgerald's prose since I was a preteen, but after reading this book, I want to burn all of my copies of Fitzgerald's works because he was as much of a misogynistic asshat as Hemingway. Though the prose was strong, I felt the plot was slow, and I disliked reading about the domestic violence and abuse that Fitz rained down on Graham during their years together. I'd give this book a C, and a trigger warning for domestic abuse survivors.