Second Starred Review

Mon 28 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kij Johnson, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

Kij Johnson just put a line through an item on her bucket list: The Privilege of the Happy Ending has received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews — great news, especially following the first starred review the book received from Publishers Weekly.

After the great popularity of At the Mouth of the River of Bees, we’re changing things up a bit and splitting the run on this book so that we will have some hardcovers available.

Here’s an excerpt from the review or read the whole thing on Kirkus’s site.

★ “While the entries are uniformly excellent in pacing and prose, the standouts may be the collection’s opener and closer. ‘Tool-Using Mimics’ spins out a half-dozen explanations for a vintage photo of a young girl with tentacles that lead to piercing questions about how much we can know about the past, other species, and each other. The titular novella, which also won a World Fantasy Award, is a compelling fairy tale about a little orphan girl and her talking hen that poignantly interrogates the ways we determine which stories take center stage. A strange and glimmering jewel for any genre fiction collection.”

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Boundary-Pushing Wow

Fri 4 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kij Johnson, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

We just got the proofs from the printer for Kij Johnson’s forthcoming second collection, The Privilege of the Happy Ending: Small, Medium, and Large Stories. We’re going to do a short hardcover run along with the regular trade paper edition, so it was fun to design a jacket extending out from Sophia Uceda’s lovely cover art. Proofs are always a two-edged sword though as I hope not to find any errors as that would slow up production even as at the same time I hope I do find any remaining errors as it would be better to find them now rather than opening up the finished book and finding them. So, fingers crossed: no errors!

And, good news came in from Publishers Weekly — which I immediately shared with our distributor and international rights agents — the first trade review has come in and it’s a star:

The devastating title tale follows another young girl and her cherished talking hen as they barely escape a swarm of monsters who devour anything with flesh. Johnson’s keen eye for the mysteries of human nature shines as her characters experience love, loss, growth, and betrayal, all made delightfully strange. These boundary-pushing, magic-infused tales are sure to wow.

Read the whole review here.

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Starred Review for Lost Places!

Wed 21 Dec 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Sarah Pinsker, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

We’re sending out review copies of Sarah Pinsker’s collection, Lost Places, coming in March, and now we get to share the good news that it has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly!

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Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Stars

Mon 18 Feb 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Sarah Pinsker, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

Such good news for next month’s release of Sarah Pinsker’s collection: a third starred review! This lovely review is courtesy of the fine folks at Booklist:

“Pinsker’s stories have murder houses that speak, dream children that emerge from the sea, and a car shaped like a narwal, but the heart of this debut collection lies in its people. The women protagonists, many of whom love women, are adapting to or resisting new ways of life: a punk musician insists on playing live and driving manually while her world depends on recorded immersive experiences and self-driving cars; a girl adjusts to a robotic grandmother as she and her father leave their home country; in ‘Wind Will Rove,’ a community that left Earth long ago asks why it still holds on so tightly to Earth’s history and art and whether it should let go of it entirely in order to embrace the new. A particular highlight is ‘In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,’ a story primarily about Millie’s impeding loss of her husband, where the sf gem at its core takes a backseat to the tree house George built with his children and to the question of whether he did his best to make the world a better place. This collection from an exciting new voice in speculative fiction is both haunting and hopeful.” — Leah von Essen

 

 

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2018 by the Numbers

Mon 19 Nov 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Andy Duncan, Claire G. Coleman, John Schoffstall, starred review, Su Wei, Vandana Singh, year's bests| Posted by: Gavin

Before this week disappears I wanted to post about the year in Small Beer. The year out in the world is very dark although I refuse to be pessimistic about the present and the future. I believe everyone rises together and that working with that in mind is the way to live. One of the ways I can deal with all the crap right wing antihumanists are throwing at us around the world — besides going to protests, calling politicians, tweeting in desperation, lying on the floor, donating to nonprofits, and listening to audiobooks instead of the news — is to keep making things. Some of those things go out into the world, some of them are breakfast, some of them are ephemeral toys me and my kid make. The biggest things I make, with Kelly and the work of many other people, come out from Small Beer Press.

Every year I want to look back and see that we’ve published stories I haven’t read before — seems like a good place to throw in a reminder that we’re always looking for work by women and writers of color; our submissions are always open and we still ask for paper subs because there are two of us and we want to read everything.

So, in 2018 we published 2 issues of our million-year-old zine — still the best zine named after Winston Churchill’s Cobble-Hill Brooklynite mother, Jennie Jerome — LCRW and 6 diverse and fascinating books. To break down the books a little:

7 starred reviews — feel free to grab the illo above and put it into the hands of Netflix, review editors, &c.
5 US debuts
3 novels, 3 short story collections
3 women, 3 men
1 translation
2 NPR Best Books of 2018
1 Washington Post Best of the Year
plus 4 reprints:
— Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands, 3rd printing, June 2018
— Kij Johnson, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, 5th printing, June 2018
— Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen, 9th printing, November 2018
— Naomi Mitchison, Travel Light, short run reprint, November 2018
Somewhat related: 1 MacArthur Fellowship (so we had a sale — sort of still going)

The books:

Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories by Vandana Singh
“Magnificent.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review), Top 10 SF, Fantasy & Horror Spring 2018
“hopeful, enriching” — Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

The Invisible Valley: a novel by Su Wei, translated by Austin Woerner
“pleasantly picaresque” — Publishers Weekly
“complex, colorful characters” — Kirkus Reviews
“shocking and gritty” — Library Journal
“lushly atmospheric and haunting novel” — Booklist

Half-Witch: a novel by John Schoffstall
NPR Best Books of 2018
“Genuinely thrilling.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“a marvel of storytelling” — Amal El-Mohtar, New York Times Book Review

Alien Virus Love Disaster: Stories by Abbey Mei Otis
“A breathtaking reading experience.” — Booklist (starred review)
“An exciting voice. . . . dreamy but with an intense physicality.” — Washington Post “5 best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2018”

Terra Nullius: a novel by Claire G. Coleman
NPR Best Books of 2018
Stella Prize finalist
“Imaginative, astounding.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Highly recommended.” — Library Journal (starred review)

An Agent of Utopia: New & Selected Stories by Andy Duncan
“Zany and kaleidoscopic.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Evocative, playful, and deeply accomplished.” — Booklist (starred review)

The zine

fiction: 9 women, 3 men
nonfiction: 1 woman
poetry: 3 women, 2 men
2 first publications

So far next year, besides helping with the ongoing progressive revolution, we’re planning on making many Small Beer things including 2 (or maybe 3) issues of LCRW and at least 3 books:

1 debut
1 novel, 2 short story collections
2 women, 1 man
4 Reprints
— Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic, January 2019
— Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic, February 2019
— Sofia Samatar, Tender: Stories, trade paperback, April 2019
— Sarah Rees Brennan, an, In Other Lands, trade paperback, September 2019

And one or both of us are planning to be at Boskone (Boston, February), AWP (Portland, OR, March), WisCon (Madison, WI, May), Readercon (Boston, July), Brooklyn Book Festival (September), & maybe more, who can say?

We published a lot of things to read this year and we know at least 2 people (us!) loved them. Hope you get a chance to read and enjoy them, too.

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A Star Sooner

Thu 15 Nov 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Sarah Pinsker, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

The first trade review is in for Sarah Pinsker’s debut short story collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea and it is a star from Publishers Weekly! Next year’s going to be all Sarah, all the time: her debut novel Song for a New Day comes out later in the year from Ace. What fun! For the moment, here’s the review:

This beautiful, complex debut collection assembles some of Nebula winner Pinsker’s best stories into a twisting journey that is by turns wild, melancholic, and unsettling. In the opening story, an injured farmer adjusts to living with a cybernetic arm that thinks it is a stretch of road in Colorado. “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” tells the story of a woman piecing together her husband’s enigmatic past after a stroke leaves him speechless. “No Lonely Seafarer” pits a stablehand against a pair of sirens as he attempts to save his town from its restless sailors. In all of Pinsker’s tales, humans grapple with their relationships to technology, the supernatural, and one another. Some, such as Ms. Clay in “Wind Will Rove,” are trying to navigate the space between technology as preservation and technology as destruction. Others, such as Kima in “Remembery Day,” rely on technology to live their lives. The stories are enhanced by a diverse cast of LGBTQ and nonwhite characters. Pinsker’s captivating compendium reveals stories that are as delightful and surprising to pore through as they are introspective and elegiac.

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2nd Star for Terra Nullius

Fri 28 Sep 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Claire G. Coleman, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

I’m delighted to see that Claire G. Coleman’s debut Terra Nullius has received its second starred review, this one from Library Journal! I saw it on Barnes & Noble, so go there to read the whole thing:

“Demonstrates Coleman’s promise as a creative storyteller. VERDICT Highly recommended.”
—Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis

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An Agent of Utopia gets a PW Star!

Mon 24 Sep 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Andy Duncan, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

Following the first pre-pub trade review for Andy Duncan’s An Agent of Utopia (“Stories that borrow from American folklore, history, and a plethora of literary sources to forge fantasy worlds that are intimately familiar. . . . A rare book that blends fun with fury and tomfoolery with social consciousness.” — Kirkus) here’s the second . . . and it’s a star from Publishers Weekly!

Zany and kaleidoscopic, the 12 stories in Duncan’s third collection draw on Southern traditions of tall tales and span time periods, continents, and the realm of human imagination to create an intricate new mythology of figures from history, literature, and American folklore. . . .  This is a raucous, fantastical treat. (Nov.)

Read the full review here.

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PW Star!

Mon 30 Jul 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Claire G. Coleman, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

Sliding in here from sunny yet muggy San Diego to share my delight that Claire G. Coleman’s forthcoming debut novel Terra Nullius has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly:

“Coleman stuns with this imaginative, astounding debut about colonization. . . . Coleman universalizes the experiences of invaded indigenous populations in a way that has seldom been achieved. Artfully combining elements of literary, historical, and speculative fiction, this allegorical novel is surprising and unforgettable.”
— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Read the full review here and follow the author on twitter here.

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A Breathtaking Reading Experience

Tue 24 Jul 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

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Starred Review for The Winged Histories!

Tue 22 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Shelf Awareness, Sofia Samatar, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

We’re very happy to see that Sofia Samatar’s The Winged Histories received a starred review today from Shelf Awareness:

“Like an alchemist, Sofia Samatar spins golden landscapes and dazzling sentences. . . . The Winged Histories is a fantasy novel for those who take their sentences with the same slow, unfolding beauty as a cup of jasmine tea, and for adventurers like Tav, who are willing to charge ahead into the unknown.”

Sofia also has a new story today in The Revelator:

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“spare, fierce, and rich” — Starred review for The Entropy of Bones!

Fri 8 May 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

Yeah! This is why we’re publishing two books by Ayize this summer. The first review has come in the The Entropy of Bones and it’s a star from Publishers Weekly!

“This spellbinding novel shares a setting—the present day, layered with magic—with Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People and The Liminal War, but it stands well on its own. “Normal” is not part of protagonist Chabi’s world: she was raised on a houseboat in Sausalito, Calif., and has been mute from birth, but she discovers she can push her mental voice into people’s minds. Faced with public school and its hazards, she asks a local martial arts master, Narayana, to teach her to fight. Narayana makes Chabi a weapon: a superhuman bar fighter and brawler. She’s able to shatter skeletons with her understanding of the powers of entropy. Chabi uses her deadly skills first to protect a likable trio of marijuana farmers, then as a security guard for an impossibly rich hotel magnate who’s as dangerous in his own way as Narayana. Rooted in Chabi’s voice, the story is spare, fierce, and rich, and readers will care just as much about the delicate, damaged relationship between Chabi and her mother as the threat of world destruction. (Aug.)”

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Spider in a Tree gets a starred review from Booklist

Tue 15 Oct 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., starred review, Susan Stinson| Posted by: Gavin

Great news for Susan Stinson: Spider in a Tree has just received its fourth trade review and the best was saved for last. Booklist’s starred review goes out today:

“As a Puritan preacher who suspends listeners above the sulfurous fires of hell, Jonathan Edwards commands center stage in this compelling historical novel. With mesmerizing narrative gifts, Stinson exposes readers to the full force of Edwards’ brimstone sermonizing. But she also lets readers hear Edwards’ voice in other registers, giving compassionate reassurance to his troubled wife, extending tender forgiveness to a despairing sinner, reflecting pensively on how God manifests his wisdom in a lowly spider. But the Edwards voice that most readers will find most irresistible is his inner voice, laden with grief at a young daughter’s death, perplexed at his spiritual status as master of a household slave. . . . An impressive chronicle conveying the intense spiritual yearnings that illuminate a colonial world of mud, disease, and fear.”

Kirkus did not love the book. C’est la vie! Publishers Weekly gave it a very strong review and picked it as an Indie Sleeper. And Library Journal also just reviewed the book this week:

“Famous theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) comes to life in this mid-18th-century story of the First Great Awakening, a revivalist movement that swept Protestant Europe and the American Colonies. . . . Weaving together archival letters, historical detail, and fictional twists, Stinson vividly resurrects this emotional historical period prior to the American Revolution.”

The book is flying off the shelves in the Pioneer Valley and now we are seeing it beginning to be picked up regionally and nationally. Yesterday Susan read at the Yale Divinity School (where Edwards studied—check that photo above!) and tonight she is reading at the Stockbridge Library (where Edwards also lived) and with luck she will get either to sit at or take a photo of Edwards’s desk.

The she is off to California—the most open of the events is at MCC-San Francisco before coming back here for readings at Amherst Books, Porter Square (with Kelly!), and KGB Bar and the Book Reading Series in NYC. Busy times!

October 15, 6:30 p.m. Stockbridge Library, Stockbridge, Mass.
October 23, 12 p.m., American Studies, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
October 24, 4 p.m. Religion, Politics, and Globalization Program, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
October 25, 7 p.m. MCC-San Francisco. Reading and reception,150 Eureka Street, San Francisco, CA 94114
October 30, 2 p.m. reading, talk, Q&A, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
November 13, 8 pm. Amherst Books, Amherst, Mass.
November 18, 7 pm. Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass. (with Kelly Link)
November 21, 7 p.m. Drunken Careening Writers series, KGB Bar, NYC (with Holly Hepp-Galvan and John Schuyler Bishop)
December 15, 5 p.m. Bloom Readings, Washington Heights, NYC

Author photo courtesy: Jeep Wheat.

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