Hello! I’m Alix E. Harrow (u/alixeharrow), along with Garth Nix (u/Garth_Nix), Lev Grossman (u/LevGrossman), Nghi Vo (u/NghiDVo), Tamsyn Muir (u/tazmuir), and Veronica G. Henry (u/vhenry07). Together with Tomi Champion-Adeyemi, we collaborated on a new short story collection with Amazon Original Stories called Into Shadow (out now, Free with Prime and in Kindle Unlimited, in ebook and audiobook formats), available here.
We’re here to chat with you about the new collection, our books, projects, and more! As we’re all in different time zones, we will be answering questions throughout the day (with, in my case, breaks to wrangle kids and/or hyperventilate over my brief digital proximity to this list of writers). Ask us anything!!!
Here’s a bit more about the Into Shadow collection:
Some truths are carefully concealed; others merely forgotten. In this spellbinding collection, seven acclaimed fantasy authors create characters who venture into the depths where others fear to tread. …
Is it just me or does the dialogue between the characters jar a little with the setting, genre, and themes?
Edit: meant to say modern Americans having a casual conversation.
Besides something like Farseer or ASOIF to some extent
I’ve been trying to find new books to read, but fantasy and sci fi books rarely have humans as the protagonists, and I’m personally much more invested in non-human characters.
And not like elves and dwarves, I mean like dragons, beastfolk, faeries, eldritch horrors and stuff like that. Also, when I say protagonists, I mean like POV characters, not just relegated to sidekicks.
Thanks in advance!
Ok first off I wanna apologize for this incoherent rant, I’ve just stayed up all night readings cause I’m currently sick and bored to death.
For years I’ve been basing the books I read off of the rating, which was dumb to begin with. Reviews are so much better, honestly.
Anyway so this whole thing started with Colleen Hoover. Not sure if she has any stans here but idk, fuck her books man. Everyone was raving about November 9, and I was like okay I’ll give it a shot. Had to buy my own damn copy and read it twice. God was it bad. I was curious to see what it had on goodreads, as I was expecting it to have at least lower than a 4. Nope, I was so damn wrong. This dog water novel has a 4.27, like what the actual hell.
Anyway I needed to cleanse my brain after reading that and was craving some classics, so I decided to pick up We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson. And damn did I love this. Anyway I wanted to know what it had on goodreads, and guess …
Russian writers, French, English, American before 1920 always have characters (men and women) fainting whenever they get the least bit upset. I know women wore tight corsets that made it hard to catch their breath, but that doesn’t explain the men? Shakespeare, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Fitzgerald–its not just for dramatic effect, it was a real part of life. Why?
Is it weird to read books intended for a YA audience as a 40 year old? It’s not all I read, but I’ve had a couple of people kind of mock me for it when they saw what I was reading (it happened with The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein and Unwind).
I talked about it with a few of my friends, and half think it’s weird to read stuff for teenagers, and half think there’s nothing wrong with it. For me, a good story is a good story, no matter who it’s intended for. I’m just curious about what other people think.
Looking to dive a little deeper into the genre than the widely known classics and am wondering if anyone can suggest some good lesser known stories.
The Last Watch is not hard Scifi, but then again neither is the expanse according to their authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham.
I’m about half way through JS Dewes first “the Divide” book that came out in 2021, the Last Watch, and it’s very fun. The writing is engaging, some of the action can be a little confusing to where I have to re read it, but otherwise it’s very fun. No info dumps. Lots of foreshadowing to keep you reading, not really sure of most folks story lines.
Idk, I like it, it reminds me of the human chapters of Children of Time by Adrian Tchaicovsky a bit. There’s FTL, space folding/worm Holes, artificial gravity, but within limitation.
Someone else besides Iain M. Banks wrote a Culture novel? Ben Aaronovitch, the author of the Rivers of London series, used to work as a scriptwriter for classic Doctor Who, and he wrote The Also People in 1995 to mix together both series.
The Seventh Doctor and his companions Bernice, Roz, and Chris have escaped a brutal war that killed one of their friends, and they’ve come to heal and recuperate on an Culture Orbital – or, in the obvious renaming used to avoid copyright issues, a Dyson Sphere occupied by “The People,” a hybrid humanoid-machine intelligence society of spectacular technological advancement. (“Let me put it this way,” said the Doctor. “They have a non-aggression pact with the Time Lords.”) Unmentioned is that he’s also been hiding a very dangerous engineered humanoid named Kadiatu there, under guard by the sarcastic drone aM!xitsa, which he forgot to mention to the Orbital’s controlling Mind. The Mind, by …
Like the title says. Is there any Science Fiction (or Fantasy for that matter) with an extraterrestrial being as the main character?
Edit: I tried to answer all of you, but now its just too many suggestions to reply to all of them. Thank you all for the recommendations!
I liked dragon’s egg though wish it had more human pov !
A pretty common trope in Sci-fi, but I’m really in the mood for a good space pirate romp!
What are your favourites?