New Books in Fantasy

Today I talked to L. R. Lam about Dragonfall (DAW, 2023).

Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the “gods” remember, and they do not forgive.

Thief Arcady scrapes a living on the streets of Vatra. Desperate, Arcady steals a powerful artifact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history. Only Arcady knows the artifact’s magic holds the key to a new life among the nobles at court and a chance for revenge.

The spell connects to Everen, the last male dragon foretold to save his kind, dragging him through the Veil. Disguised as a human, Everen soon learns that to regain his true power and form and fulfill his destiny, he only needs to convince one little thief to trust him enough to bond completely–body, mind, and soul—and then kill them.

L. R. Lam discusses influences to their latest novel—from 90s fantasy to the bubonic plague—issues of consent and point of view, and the ways writing near future science fiction has shaped their work in epic fantasy.

A. E. Lanier is a short fiction writer and educator living in Central Texas. More about her work can be found at aelanier.com.

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In his new novel Loki (Pegasus Books, 2023), Melvin Burgess follows the antics of Norse mythology’s trickster god as he takes the reader on a wild ride through legendary stories about the founders of Asgard. Born from a fire inside the hollow of a tree trunk, Loki arrives in Asgard as an outsider. Despite his cleverness and wit (or, perhaps, because of them), Loki struggles to find his place among the old patriarchal gods of supernatural power. Loki is an amusing and relatable contemporary retelling of a classic Norse legend.

Melvin Burgess is an award-winning writer of children’s and YA fiction.

Latoya Johnson is an editor, writer, and bibliophile with a master's in Humanities. Her research and writing interests include books and reading in popular culture, the public history of women's fiction, and women in Greco-Roman mythology.

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Daniel M. Ford’s new novel The Warden (Tor, 2023) follows Aelis de Lenti, a young necromancer in her first year as the Warden of Lone Pine—a small frontier village surrounded by sheep and little else. The story follows Aelis as she works to win over locals who are distrustful of magic generally, and necromancy particularly, and as she unravels a series of mysteries plaguing the town. All the while reconciling with the fact that she has graduated top of her class only to leave the charms and joys of urban life to live in the freezing middle of nowhere, in a tiny town plagued by goats.

Ford discusses the various influences on the novel—from RPGs to detective fiction—the ways his novel draws on and subverts tropes, and the differences between a good novel and a good Dungeons & Dragons session.

A. E. Lanier is a writer and teacher living in Central Texas. Most of her writing work is in short fiction, generally second world fantasy with some meandering towards horror.

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Today I talked to Kelly Barnhill about her book The Crane Husband (Tordotcom, 2023).

Our unnamed narrator, a fifteen-year-old girl, manages to care for her six-year-old brother and creative but irresponsible mother by skipping school and selling her mother’s artwork. Her father taught her everything useful before he died, and much like Katniss in The Hunger Games, she devotes herself to keeping her small family afloat (and dodging the social worker’s efforts to intervene). The Crane Husband opens with the arrival of her mother’s newest lover, an insolent giant crane that demands every bit of her mother’s attention while returning her affection with raucous sex and deep cuts from his razor-sharp beak.

From this surrealist beginning, things get progressively stranger. In some ways, this surreal, poetic novella reminded me of Australian author Kathleen Jenning’s eerie novella, Flyway. There are fatherless children fighting for survival, allusion to ancestral violence, and odd metamorphoses taking place in remote locations. Underneath the inexplicable events lie opposing motivations—the wish to escape both love and duty fighting with the desire to nurture and care for others. The two novels’ daughters are left to sort through the wreckage and attempt to make wise decisions.

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Today I talked to Olivia Atwater about her new book Half a Soul (Orbit, 2022).

When a nasty fairy Lord tries to take young Dora’s soul, her doting cousin, Vanessa, fights him off with a pair of iron scissors—but not before he can abscond with half of his desired bounty. As an orphan, Dora is already disadvantaged. After losing half her soul, her affliction manifests as the inability to feel emotions, which puzzles and angers her judgmental aunt. Dora meets her aunt’s hostility with a calm fortitude, but her inability to get angry also means she doesn’t stand up for herself when she is mistreated.

When Dora’s aunt decides it’s time to present Vanessa to the ton in London, Vanessa insists that Dora come along, although it’s generally accepted that Dora will never find a husband at the advanced age of twenty-one. Dora is left alone at the mansion of her hostess for several days, while Vanessa is taken to fittings and shown around. She decides to defy convention and explore London on her own. While in a mysterious bookstore, she meets the only titled man in London deemed less marriageable than herself—the sneering Lord Sorcier, who specializing in insulting remarks when he’s not performing three impossible spells before breakfast.

His manner is enough to drive most people away, but Dora doesn’t react to his scorn. When circumstances throw them together, they get along amazingly well. In meantime, her meddling aunt and their hostess think they have finally found a match for Dora—the Sorcier’s best friend, a military physician who lost an arm and is not deemed a good match for most young ladies because of his injury.

Faced with the arrival of romance in her lonely life, and the discovery of vexatious injustices in society, Dora will have to sort out who or what could evoke some emotion in her damaged soul.

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The Daughters of Izdihar (Harper Voyager, 2023), like last year’s A Master of Djinn, is set in a world similar to Egypt, during the time of the suffragette movement. American-Egyptian author Hadeer Elsbai has chosen to focus even more on social justice issues, through her two main characters, rich spoiled girl Nehal, and struggling bookworm Giorgina. Both have magical powers, as well as an interest in women’s rights, but while Giorgina’s poverty and traditional father make her susceptible to intimidation, Nehal has grown up feeling entitled and being allowed to express her opinions. However, when Nehal is forced into marriage, and bristles at needing her husband’s permission to enroll in a school to train magicians, she starts to realize that even wealth and status can’t make up for the subservient status of women.

Nehal and Giorgina become unlikely allies, brought together both through their politics and their proximity to Nico, Giorgina’s husband.

Hadeer studied history at Hunter College and later earned her Master’s degree in library science from Queens College. Aside from writing, Hadeer enjoys cats, iced drinks, live theater, and studying the 19th century. She is also a gigantic A Song of Ice and Fire nerd, having read George R.R. Martin’s books before the show. The series remains a constant inspiration.

You can follow Gabrielle on Twitter to get updates about new podcasts and more @GabrielleAuthor.

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A road trip novel, The Revivalists (Harper, 2022) is intimate, funny, and at times, shocking. It has only the dystopian setting in common with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. While Cormac’s characters are shadow figures on a stage devoid of meaning, our narrator, Bill, and Penelope, his wife, seem like people we know, or even, reflections of ourselves. Their concerns and reactions serve as mirrors for us to imagine ourselves in a future where 70% of the population died, and the conveniences of modern life have vanished. Bill, a psychologist, and his wife, Penelope, a skilled fund manager, have experienced different stages of their marriage, including initial intimacy followed by the challenges of raising a willful daughter. Bill, easy-going, perhaps almost lethargic at times, is conflict averse, but Penelope, a Black woman who fought for everything she’s ever had, is determined to steer her daughter in the right direction in life.

When the pandemic separates parents and daughter on different sides of the continent, and they learn through the ham radio that their daughter is joining a dangerous cult, Penelope is galvanized into action, insistent that they must come to the rescue. There ensues an odyssey through the USA, and encounters with idealists and opportunists of varying ideologies, as well as the lonely or loony. A love story about two people with different dispositions, as well as the damaged people they come into contact with, The Revivalists is a meditation on how far we’re willing to go for someone we love, as well as an exploration of what happens when the fabric of society unravels.

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Today I talked to Tanvi Berwah about Monsters Born and Made (Sourcebooks Fire, 2022).

In our narrator Koral’s world—an oceanic world full of sea monsters, brutal heat, and only a few islands—choices are limited. Koral belongs a to class of people called Renters, who don’t own land, or in many cases, even have proper dwellings. The Landers live protected inside a cool place called the Terrafort, safe from the dangers that the Renters experience every day.

Koral’s angry father, quiet mother and sick little sister depend on her and her brother Emrik to earn enough to keep the simple dwelling they live in, and to buy her sister’s medicine. Koral’s family are, by tradition, Hunters, a special class of Renters which have a few more privileges, than most others. Hunters catch and train the wild sea monsters called maristags, which are used in the Glory Race held every four years.

This year, however, it looks like Emrik and Koral’s luck has run out. They have one maristag, a female, left, but fail to catch a male to breed her with. In desperation, Koral finds a way to participate in the Glory Race, although she will be the first Renter to do so. Not only must she race with a barely tamed maristag and a decrepit chariot, she must also bear the hostility of both the Landers and the other Renters for not knowing her place. The three days of the race are nonstop action, with unexpected attacks by swarms of aqua bats, rebel Renters, and other charioteers looking to scare Koral off, as well as tense encounters with Dorian, a former Lander friend of Koral’s who is competing against her. It seems like almost no one believes that Koral can win this race.

Except her sick little sister.

You can follow Gabrielle on Twitter to get updates about new podcasts and more @GabrielleAuthor.

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A clever magical mystery which needs your full attention, Comeuppance Served Cold (Tordotcom, 2022) challenges this podcaster to write a review without a spoiler. The novella begins with what appears to be the murder of a young dark-haired woman, followed by the departure of a masked person who might be the perpetrator. Or maybe not.

Nothing what it seems like, except that the pompous powerful Mr. Earnshaw, and his misogynist son Francis really are as despicable as they first appear to be. (They do get their comeuppance, though). Earnshaw, whose nickname is the White King, runs a commission to license magicians. His son Francis leads a group called the Order of Saint Michael, which metes out punishment when his father wishes his own hands to stay clean. The White King and Francis have targeted people from the waterfront, such as Violet, a Black speakeasy owner, and her brother, a shape shifter, in their efforts to clean up Seattle and regulate magic.

The battle lines are drawn. But what does Dolly White, a no-nonsense caretaker for Mr. Earnshaw’s drunken daughter, Fiona, have to do with any of this? Corpses on ice, magical jewels, a bespoke suit, and a precious mask will all make their appearances as this sly tale unwinds.

Marion Deeds was born in Santa Barbara, California and moved to northern California when she was five. She loves the redwoods, the ocean, dogs and crows. She’s fascinated by the unexplained, and curious about power: who has it, who gets it, what is the best way to wield it. These questions inform her stories. Fun Fact: She once lost her glasses when they fell into a glacier.

You can follow Gabrielle on Twitter to get updates about new podcasts and more @GabrielleAuthor.

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In R. F. Kuang’s Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (Harper Voyager in 2022), we meet Robin Swift. Orphaned by Cholera in Canton in 1828, he is brought to London by a mysterious Professor Lovell, who trains him in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, to prepare him for enrollment in Oxford University’s Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Yet as Robin soon finds out, the glamour and glory of Babel is not all it seems, and thriving at the center of knowledge and power demands complicity in the violence and militarism of empire….

Tune in to this NBN episode to hear Rebecca discuss what motivated her to write Babel, the inspiration behind Babel’s magical system of silver-working and the histories of anti-colonial struggle she wanted to illuminate in her writing, how real-life friendship inspired the friendships of Babel, the importance of sensitivity readers to imagining more diverse and complex characters, the joy of learning languages and the importance of collaboration to writing such a multilingual book, how her writing process has changed and grown since working on The Poppy War trilogy, the intersections and divergences between fiction and academic writing, and her current draft-in-progress on magician PhD students in Hell.

R. F. Kuang is author of The Poppy War trilogy and a PhD student in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University.

Jennifer Gayoung Lee is a writer and data analyst based in New York City.

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