May Day!
It's bread that we fight for, but we fight for you to read our books too.
Wrong Genre Book Covers
The Divine Comedy as a bathroom joke book was suggested by Dale. 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
An Aurora Awards Hat Trick
The Aurora Awards shortlist has been announced! Rachel is nominated in three categories:
Best Novel: Blight (The Sleep of Reason #2)
Best Short Story: “What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire’s Yacht?”
Best Fan Related Work: Wizards & Spaceships podcast
If you are a member of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA), you can vote for her (and the many other talented nominees) through the CSFFA website between June 6 and July 12. And hey, if you’re not, membership is only $10 CAD and gets you a package of a ton of books to read.
Catching up with Wizards & Spaceships
Speaking of Wizards & Spaceships, we recently dropped our second season finale, “In Praise of Difficult Women,” featuring the great Silvia Moreno-Garcia! Stay tuned this month for a very special season 3 opener!
And if that’s not enough of Rachel talking, check out her interview on Work In Progress, talking about dystopian and political speculative fiction!
Night Beats Goes to TriCon
We’re so excited for the very first TriCon in Halifax over the May 15-17 long weekend! A full schedule has been posted on the website!
You can hang out with Rachel A. Rosen at:
Saturday, May 16 @ 9:30 am: A Marxist Analysis of The Writing Industry
Sunday, May 17 @ 11:30 am: De-Industrialization of the Frontier: Proletariat Themes in Science Fiction
Hang out with Nicole Northwood at:
Friday, May 15 @ 2:30 pm: (At) Home in Speculative Fiction
Saturday, May 16 @ 8 am: Social Media Presence, Audience Building and Self Promotion
Saturday, May 16 @ 12:30 pm: In the Vendors Room
Sunday, May 17th @ 11 am: Reading
Show Cat
LINE FROM A WIP
“The fate of the revolution can’t hang on a butt dial.”
Book Report Corner
By Rachel A. Rosen
I am only adding to the chorus of praise for this book, but it deserves all the hype it’s been getting and all of the awards that it’s bound to win. This is a banger of a vampire novel. The taut dance of confession and revenge between the Lutheran minister Arthur and the Pikuni vampire Good Stab is brutal, visceral, and steeped in a history that America (and Canada, for that matter) would much rather forget.
The vampire, traditionally a stand-in for repressed sexuality or the decadent and parasitic ruling class, here becomes a symbol of the unquiet, unburied dead, a figure out of hauntology. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter has shades of Cormac McCarthy in the violence of colonialism and the bloodsoaked prose, with the slow burn creeping horror that Jones is known for. It’s a relentless read from a brilliant author.
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!
Rachel: Nick Mamatas and I go way back on the internet, but it was only last summer that we finally met in real life. He was launching the first issue of a new zine, Billions Vs. Billionaires, which is so my jam it’s not even funny (unlike the zine, which is hilarious). The second issue is out now, and Nick is here to talk about it!
Tell us a little bit about the project. Why use a zine to fight back against the fascist billionaire class?
Nick: Well, there are forces at work. Forces inspired by DOGE and the weird nerds who enthusiastically signed up as Elon Musk’s anti-spending budget-cutting squad. While DOGE actually didn’t cut much out of the federal budget despite expansive claims about millions of dead people on Social Security rolls etc, plenty of damage was done. USAid for example, was all but destroyed–all the good stuff the program did was cut, but the imperial interventions (spying, funding dirty little wars etc.) were just integrated into the State Department without the public-facing vaccination programs or cultural programs.
The idea, from a former acquaintance of Musk, was to try to make Elon seem less cool to the sort of very online audience that he had cultivated. And the acquaintance had a little bit of money. So zines via itch.io, YouTube shorts, RPGs, bumper stickers and badges to be handed out at science fiction cons and the like.
Read the rest of the interview here.