Marching lions and lambs
What's it gonna be, nature? What's it gonna be.
Wrong Genre Book Covers
The Obelisk Gate as a Harlequin novel was suggested by Eric Hortop. Rachel apologizes most sincerely to N.K. Jemisin. Have a funny idea for a Wrong Genre Cover? Just hit the big purple button below and if Rachel likes your suggestion, she'll make it in a future issue. Go on! Do it now.
Announcements
Coming soon: Wizards & Spaceships is a brand new podcast from Rachel A. Rosen and poet David L. Clink. We’ll be discussing sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fiction, why we love the things we do, and why genre nerds need to lose the snobbery. The first episode will be launching in April, but in the meantime, you can check out our website at Wizards and Spaceships.
Love a rom-com about life after ballet? Sushi and Sea Lions has the happy ever after you’re looking for! The author, Rachel Corsini, has a book signing on April 5 at Tiny Raccoon Books in Sayville, NY. If you don’t live in NY, you can get your Rachel Corsini fix here.
Show Cat
A LINE FROM A WIP
His rotund belly covered in strawberry hair was bruised purple and yellow, mottled with pink and red burns, blisters forming as he hobbled through the jungle he did not know.
Book Report Corner
by Zilla Novikov
Remember when you were 14 years old and you sat on the edge of your bed and put a new CD in your Walkman and your headphones over your ears and as you listened to the music you thought, "This musician has been here, inside my bedroom, inside my skull. They must have been here. They understand."
And then you got older and you weren't 14 anymore and that sense of wonder from someone who understands a part of yourself you'd never been able to articulate doesn't happen so often, and besides, most feelings are universal so what's the magic in someone perfectly encapsulating a sensation, a feeling, that everyone has anyway. It's not special. It's not about you, alone in your bedroom, wondering what it would look like to find a connection.
This book hit me like a burning dump truck.
There's a special kind of lonliness that's not queer specifically, anyone can feel it, but it hits the part of myself that doesn't know who I am and who anyone else is either, not in their entirety, not what it means to be an authentic self, to stop reaching for something perfect and bury white hands in the filth and squalor because it's better to feel unclean than nothing. Anything's better than being cold.
If you're queer, or lonely, or burning, read this.
Fiction You Can Sink Your Teeth Into
Gideon only wants to go to Magnus and Abigail's 11th anniversary party because she really wants to eat a dessert. So I thought it fitting that we prepare that dessert to go with reading Gideon the Ninth. Make your own with the recipe on the Night Beats Blog.
DID YOU KNOW?
Newsletter subscribers get bonus content—a deleted chapter from Rachel A. Rosen's novel Cascade, and a prequel story So Human As I Am. A companion story to Instant Classic, “Have You Considered Self Publishing”. Plus, download the pdf e-book of The Sad Bastard Cookbook: Food You Can Make So You Don't Die.
Did you miss the download link? It's not too late! Find it here.
Author Interviews
Every Tuesday, the Night Beats blog features an interview with an awesome author. Are you an author with a cool new project? Apply for an author interview!
Sabitha: Ready for a space opera adventure that will take you around the solar system? We’ve got you covered. A.L. MacDonald, can you tell us about your book Orbiting Fortunes?
A.L.: Orbiting Fortunes is a science fiction novel set in the not-too-distant future. Alan Mercier has left his life as a cop on Mars behind and now flys a space junker, fighting over valuable debris in Earth's orbit. One find in particular pulls him into the dangerous and murky world of pirating. He discovers that it's harder to walk away from the cop life than he thought.
Sabitha: Dramatic! What inspired you to write this?
A.L.: I love space and spaceships. Lots of people say that, sure, but I love them ten times more. I am a huge fan of Star Wars, Andy Weir and Chris Hadfield (both as an astronaut and an author). I regularly watch hours of live stream footage of SpaceX assembling their new starship in Texas. I wanted my book to imagine what the future of those starships will be. We can't fly them yet, so this is as close as we can get.
Read the rest of the interview here.