Gateways to SFF

 

This dreamy-eyed bookworm grew up in a small, rural town in Canada at the end of the twentieth century.

I devoured the Masters of SF on my mother's bookshelf. I read the treasured volumes in our family bookcase by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, the Grimm brothers, and Hans Christian Andersen. It was a challenge to fit in socially, so I made friends with Anne McCaffery’s dragons, Ursula K. LeGuin’s wizards, and Madeleine L’Engle’s Murry family tessering through the universe. They accepted me for who I was, while providing an escape from an often unloving, unfeeling world. 

When I grew into adult SFF, it was the late 1980s and early 90s. There were no ebooks. There was no BookTok and no Bookstagrammers to find book recommendations. So it was my big sister who introduced me to Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry.

Cover of the first Canadian and world-wide edition! (1984)

Goodreads link

I fell hard and fast for the series. Kay wrote lush Mediterranean-inspired scenes, political intrigue that kept me turning pages, and complex characters that made me swoon. And he was Canadian, like me!

Many of us love SFF because its complexity keeps us engaged and feeds our imaginations. To find a series that appeals to our senses, emotions, and intellect—to all the sides of us—is a gift. It gives us hope. It keeps us going in a world that can seem small and dark.

Today, it’s my great privilege to teach SFF to college students. For some, it’s their first introduction to the genres and I love seeing them explore the thought experiments and new worlds in SFF. The stories that resonate best with my students now are Octavia Butler’s literary granddaughters, such as Nnedi Okorafor, Larissa Lai, Cherie Dimaline, and Nalo Hopkinson. These writers combine globally-influenced myths and legends with beautifully crafted characters to tell stories that reflect on our pasts and present.

They show hope for the future while challenging us to be better. They dare us to dream of a world that respects all of us. A world that cherishes our unique contributions to our families and communities—and all the worlds of our imaginations.

This is what I learned as I read beside my family bookshelf and as I grew into SFF as a young adult. I hope I will always remember this lesson as I try to inspire the next generation of readers.

Until next time,

Mimi B. Rose.

My SFF Gateway Author: Morgan Llywelyn

 My gateway drug: the book that made me 💖SFF

As a wee ankle biter, I learned to read using the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. My dad read them to me until I got old enough to try to read to him (the fact that he napped through most of my efforts while remaining alert enough to help me sound out a word is a testament to his training as a soldier, I reckon). 

Then, I went through my Horatio Hornblower (series by C.S. Forester) phase. ~waves to the Indy~ Oh, and Poe. Can't forget the guy who wrote The Bells, which I imagine is a giant FU to his critics and debt collectors.

Then, school happened with its mandatory reading lists, which, blerg.

The books that finally brought me back into the fold of SFF were anything by Morgan Llywelyn. The Lion of Ireland, Red Branch, The Bard, Epona: The Horse Goddess, Grania, etc, etc. Sure, her Celtic works are typically classified as historical fiction, but stories dealing with magic and gods on earth are also fantasy. So, yeah, I credit her historical fantasies as my gateway, a divine door that's always unlocked and ready to welcome the world-weary to the time of legends and mythology. 

Favorite Reads of 2018

Favorite Books of 2018?

Book One of the Lady Sherlock Series

Elementary, my dear Watson.

It is no mystery which books I most enjoyed reading in 2018. It's all three books of a trilogy by Sherry Thomas. Yes. The first book came out two years ago. It simply took me a bit to get through my TBR pile. I'm glad I did. Charlotte Holmes is the youngest of four daughters and a little peculiar into the bargain. She has a fondness for cakes and an incredible mind for nuance and detail. She is also possessed of a keen notion of what she does and does not mean to accept from the lot in life prescribed to her both by her parents and by society's expectations. She devices a plan to thwart any notion to marry her off and finds there is a desperate price to pay.

In the company of Mrs. Watson, a widowed former actress, Charlotte begins unraveling mysteries - mostly for other young ladies of society. Word gets out, of course, about Charlotte's desperately ill (and fictional) brother Sherlock whose stunning intellect can solve a mystery merely from hearing it recounted by his devoted 'sister'. Still. Some secrets cannot stay secret forever and success comes with its own risks. A few of those might be fatal.

The books are beautifully written. The characters are wonderfully drawn. I love that Charlotte isn't neurotypical. Without a set of ironclad ethics, she'd be a serial killer in a skirt and it's a joy to be in her head staring at that line.

Fair warning. These books are not romances, but they are lush and rich. Well worth reading.

Jeffe's Favorite Holiday Book

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is our favorite holiday book. I have a Christmas tradition that involves my favorite seasonal books. I keep them in the bins with the decorations and bring them out only at Christmastime, when they occupy a pride-of-place position on an end table.

I haven't brought them out this year yet, as I'm a strictly no-Christmas-until-after-Thanksgiving kind of gal, but they include A Child's Christmas in Wales, A Christmas Carol, and some pretty-picture books like Santa Fe Christmas.

I at least flip through them every year - and many of them are from my childhood, so they're a reminder of the continuity of those family celebrations.

But the one I think of first, and always with a smile, is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

It was published in 1972 and I think I might have a first edition. (I'll have to check when I get it out!) My stepdad Leo married my mom in summer of 1973 and I remember him getting that book and reading it to us out loud as we sat in the living room, between a lively fire in the fireplace and the towering, twinkling Christmas tree.

This book is so damn funny. I remember we all laughed until we wiped tears from our eyes.

Revisiting it as an adult, I've discovered this book says so much about the true values that Jesus taught - loving our neighbors, practicing tolerance and compassion, including everyone in celebrations, not just those we approve of. It's about people learning to be better - both the "awful" ones, and the ones who already thought they were good.

Highly recommend.

Two Books that Freaked Me the F*ck Out

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is, appropriately enough, our favorite horror or scary book.

Now, I don't really a lot of horror or scary books, because I am a fragile flower. I've never really gotten the point of reading something to be frightened or horrified. So, when I thought about what my favorite books in this genre would be, I could think of exactly two. 

But it's cool because they're by friends - which is the only reason I read them.

I really loved them, too, even though they freaked me the fuck out. 

A HUMAN STAIN, by Kelly Robson - who most usually writes SFF, is a wonderful story that starts with low-level dread that gradually builds to a truly freakifying conclusion. Read it if you love gothic slow-burns. Avoid if you have a tooth phobia. You can read it in BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR, Volume 10, which I'm sure is fabulous, since Ellen Datlow edited it. I, of course, *won't* be reading that!

Megan Hart started out writing erotic and nuanced romance, but has moved into more horror lately. LITTLE SECRETS is a haunted house story that also plays on the insecurities of pregnancy and the strain that - and moving into a freaky house! - puts on a marriage. Read it for the subtle build of terror and rich story. And don't worry - the cat's okay. 

Favorite Books

Joyous Yule, northern hemisphere! Happy Litha to the southern hemisphere!

We do this every year - we write about our favorite books of the year as if there were any hope that I had read a single book that had actually come out this year. That's because the TBR pile is deep and wide. And this year, I managed to read something that was actually published this decade, so that's progress, right? A good portion of my problem is that for ten years, I had a secret TBR stash - paper books - all hidden away from the mildewing influence of saltwater and damp. 

So my two favorite books are the first two books in a trilogy by Ilona Andrews. 

Burn For Me and White Hot

The trilogy is a paranormal mystery series. Tortured, brooding, scary hero. Plucky, resourceful heroine. Add some romance, lots of sexual tension, magic, bad guys not afraid to kill millions of people, and clues that seem to lead nowhere and you have yourself a really fun time. Super enjoyable books. Love the characters. These are stories I look at when I want to take a finely crafted, well paced story. The last book in the series is also good, but it got a little bogged down in recapping the first two books and the story lost some of its edge for me. I still bought it, mind, but if I had to stack rank the series, book 2 is the best, book 1 is a damned close second and the third book is definitely third.

The other books I read this year that I would call favorites were books I read under some really terrible circumstances. They were whatever I could get my hands on that would take my mind off what was happening. They were 1980s historical romance novels with plots I couldn't possibly recount now. Nor could I tell you the titles or the authors. It wasn't that the books were stellar. It was that by picking them up to distract myself, I discovered that I'd stopped reading over the past few years because I was having trouble seeing my Kindle. Put a paper book in my hand and magic happened. I read. And I read and I read. For two weeks straight I made it through a book a day. A little making up for lost time, I think. Just for the sheer, physical pleasure of scanning a line of text for the joy of it. And have it not be some dire health assessment for someone I love. Those books were the best books because I got to remember how much I love to read and how very much I'd missed it.