Hayden Trenholm is a produced playwright and published author. His short fiction has appeared in On Spec, TransVersions, Tesseracts6, Neo-Opsis, Challenging Destiny, Talebones, Gaslight Grimoire and on CBC radio. His short fiction has been nominated for and won Aurora Awards. His novels include A Circle of Birds, Defining Diana, Steel Whispers, and Stealing Home. He edited the short fiction anthology Blood and Water, which won the Aurora Award in 2013 for Best Related Work. InDecember 2012, Hayden purchased Bundoran Press and became its managing editor. His latest anthology is Strange Bedfellows: An Anthology of Political Science Fiction. Hayden lives with his wife and fellow writer, Elizabeth, in Ottawa where he provides policy advice to the Senator for the Northwest Territories.

by Hayden Trenholm, editor of Strange Bedfellows: An Anthology of Political Science Fiction

Having spent a lifetime as a political activist (starting at age 14 and ranging from backroom organizer to candidate to public policy analyst) and half a lifetime as a science fiction writer, Strange Bedfellows: An Anthology of Political Science Fiction seemed like a natural next step. My first anthology, Blood and Water, was similarly themed around near-future resource conflicts and had met with good critical success – eventually winning the Prix Aurora Award for Canadian SF – so I felt prepared for a bigger stage.
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Over at Kirkus Reviews this week, I name my picks for the Best Speculative Fiction Reads for the month.

Check it out!

Apologies for the break! I’ve been a bit busy launching my new middle-grade fantasy, which means I haven’t had as much time to watch anime, let alone write about it. But now I’m catching up, which means it’s time to look at what we have on the slate for Spring 2014!

As usual, I’m not going to bother with shows I hated, sequels to things I haven’t written about, or shows with no SFF element. (Though one of my early favorites, Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka, is in the latter category as another “cute girls doing nothing” show.) Also as usual, I’m only one or two eps in to these, so these are only initial impressions!
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Be it stand alone comics or an ongoing storyline, everyone enjoys a good webcomic. But I need some new ones to follow and explore. With that in mind, I asked our panelists this question:

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Via Kaaron Warren (Congrats, Kaaron!), the finalists for the 2014 Ditmar Awards, given by members of the Australian National Science Fiction Convention for professional and fan works by Australians, have been announced:

• Ink Black Magic, Tansy Rayner Roberts (FableCroft Publishing)
• Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead, Robert Hood (Wildside Press)
• The Beckoning, Paul Collins (Damnation Books)
• Trucksong, Andrew Macrae (Twelfth Planet Press)
• The Only Game in the Galaxy (The Maximus Black Files 3), Paul Collins (Ford Street Publishing)

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SF Signal has 10 hardcover copies of the UK Edition of Django Wexler’s The Forbidden Library to give away to 10 lucky readers! Even better — Mr. Wexler will sign and personalize said copies!

Here’s what the book is about:

Do you remember the first time you climbed into the wardrobe with Lucy and emerged in Narnia? Flew on the back of Falkor the Luck Dragon with Bastian? Followed Alice down the rabbit hole? Welcome to your new favourite adventure.

Late one night Alice Creighton hears her father having an argument with a fairy – a snarling, bald beast with warts and needle-like teeth. It is threatening her father, insisting he accept a mysterious offer, or else.

When Alice’s father goes down in a shipwreck, she is sent away to live with distant relative Mr Geryon, owner of a huge, dark library that is off limits to Alice. After meeting a talking cat who is willing to sneak her in, Alice opens a book and suddenly finds herself inside it – and the only way out is by conquering the dangerous creatures within. Alice has stumbled into a world where all of magic is controlled by Readers through books – she must open more books, face increasingly powerful foes, be the lead character in the quest to find a happy ending.

Here’s how you can enter for a chance to win:
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James L. Sutter, author of The Redemption Engine, joins John Anealio and Patrick Hester this week on The Functional Nerds Podcast.

Listen below, or at The Functional Nerds, or subscribe to The Functional Nerds Podcast through iTunes.

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Daily Science Fiction has announced its May line-up of free stories. All stories will appear on the web one week after their email publication.
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Here’s the cover and synopsis for the upcoming novel The Books of Blood by Clive Barker.

Here’s the synopsis:
(Larger covers appear below)
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Interviews & Profiles

• Angry Robot held a panel discussion for the Angry Robot staff (Mike, Wes, Cassie, Madeline, Mez)
• The Functional Nerds interviews James L. Sutter, author of The Redemption Engine.
• Ginger Nuts of Horror interviews Carole Johnstone, a short story author whose work was recently included in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year series.
• Lawrence M. Schoen interviews Joanne Anderton, author of The Bone Chime Song.
• Lightspeed Magazine interviews Darren Aronofsky, director of The Fountain and Pi.
• Lightspeed Magazine interviews Ted Chiang, author of “Exhalation.”
• Lightspeed Magazine interviews Thomas Olde Heuvelt, author of “The Day the World Turned [...].”
• My Bookish Ways interviews Jeff VanderMeer, author of Authority.
• My Bookish Ways interviews Marianne de Pierres, author of Peacemaker.
• The Qwillery interviews Alison Sinclair, author of Breakpoint: Nereis.
• The Qwillery interviews David Ramirez, author of The Forever Watch.
• Sense of Wonder interviews Linda Nagata, author of The Bohr Maker.
• Sense of Wonder interviews Peter Higgins, author of Wolfhound Century.
• SFFWorld interviews Freya Robertson, author of Sunstone (The Elemental Wars).
• Short Story Review interviews Zachary Jernigan, author of At the Bottom of the Sea.
• Suvudu interviews Melanie Rawn, author of Thornlost.
• Tor.com interviews Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, editors of Long Hidden.

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Jeffrey Thomas is the author of such novels as Deadstock, Blue War, Letters from Hades, and The Fall of Hades, and such short story collections as Punktown, Nocturnal Emissions, Thirteen Specimens, and Unholy Dimensions. His stories have appeared in the anthologies The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Year’s Best Horror Stories, Leviathan 3, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, and The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction. Forthcoming from Miskatonic River Press is a role-playing game based upon Thomas’ universe of Punktown. Thomas is also an artist, and lives in Massachusetts. His latest collection is Ghosts of Punktown, published by Dark Regions Press, available for order April 29th

by Jeffrey Thomas

Since 2000, when Jeff VanderMeer’s Ministry of Whimsy Press published my collection Punktown, a string of other books set in my far-future milieu of Punktown have seen print. Until this past March, however, with the release of my novella Red Cells (which features as its protagonist private eye Jeremy Stake, from the novels Deadstock and Blue War), it’s been a number of years since a Punktown book has been released. On the heels of Red Cells, though, comes my short story collection Ghosts of Punktown, from Dark Regions Press.
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Matthew Reilly is the international bestselling author of twelve novels: Ice Station, Temple, Contest, Area 7, Scarecrow, Hover Car Racer, Hell Island, Seven Ancient Wonders, The Six Sacred Stones, The Five Greatest Warriors, Scarecrow, Army of Thieves and The Tournament.

Matthew’s books are published in over 20 languages and he has sold approximately 5 million books worldwide: 3 million in Australia; over a million in the US; and over a million in the UK.

In 2011, Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves was the biggest selling fiction title released in Australia for that year. Three more of Matthew’s books have been the biggest-selling Australian fiction titles of their year of release: The Tournament (2013), Seven Ancient Wonders (2005), The Five Greatest Warriors (2009).

Matthew has also written two novellas: in 2005, he wrote Hell Island for the Australian Government’s Books Alive project and in 2014 he released the epic fantasy-quest ebook Troll Mountain.

Tim Ward: I first discovered your work through a Creative Writing course at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. Gary Crew is also an Australian author and assigned for us to read Temple. I loved the jungle adventure you told in that story. When you think back to that book, what do you love about that story?

Matthew Reilly: Temple, for me, was about writing a story that was part modern techno-thriller and part swashbuckling adventure. It is the only novel I have written with a dual storyline — that was a challenge I set myself: to see if I could hold the reader’s interest while switching between two stories which are ultimately on a collision course.

I love the pacing of the novel — it is a difficult thing to do, stopping and restarting different storylines, and I like to think Temple succeeds at this.
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NOTE: This installment of Special Needs In Strange Worlds features a guest post from author Alex Hughes! – Sarah Chorn

Alex Hughes has written since early childhood, and loves great stories in any form including scifi, fantasy, and mystery. Over the years, Alex has lived in many neighborhoods of the sprawling metro Atlanta area. Decatur, the neighborhood on which Clean is centered, was Alex’s college home.

On any given week you can find Alex in the kitchen cooking gourmet Italian food, watching hours of police procedural dramas, and typing madly. The latest book in Mindspace Investigations, Marked, was released on April 1, 2014.

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Crowd funding is the in thing for obtaining money to fund a variety of projects, with Kickstarter being the most prominent of these sites. With new projects going live daily, it’s a chore to keep up with, let alone find, interesting genre projects. The Crowd Funding Roundup will be our effort to bring projects we think are interesting to your attention so you can, if you so choose, decide to help out. These posts are a collaborative effort between James Aquilone and JP Frantz.

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Here’s the impressive table of contents for the upcoming young adult anthology Futuredaze 2: Reprise edited by Erin Underwood and Nancy Holder.

Here’s the book description:

Futuredaze 2: Reprise: fifteen of the best and most brilliant young adult science fiction stories, written by the hottest SF and YA authors, are gathered for the first time in one anthology. Wild-west steampunk, true love with the alien next door, a confab with Mr. Darcy’s avatar, musical fluted girls, and Dorothy in alt-China—this is not your mom and dad’s science fiction. Grab a friend and go for launch to worlds of wonder that reveal who we are and what we want to become through our decisions, relationships, and the chances we take on our futures—across all universes!

Here’s the table of contents…
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Here’s a cool sf-nal video for the song “The Lava” by Equateur…

(Another great find by PipedreamerGrey at Geek Art Gallery)

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What’s Special About Today’s Free Fiction?

1. Dark Futures has a dark science fiction story from Paul D. Hayes
2. Fantasy Scroll Mag #1 - April 2014
3. Toasted Cake #104 - “Foxwoman”

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Interviews & Profiles

• BullSpec interviews Alena Graedon, author of The Word Exchange.
• The FanBrosShow interviews Junot Diaz, author of This Is How You Lose Her.
• Hero Complex interviews Zack Whedon, Christos Gage, authors of the “Serenity” and “Buffy”
• I Blame the Dice! interviews James L. Sutter, author of Death’s Heretic.
• Hollywood Reporter interviews Peter Outerbridge, who portrays Hank Johannson on Orphan Black.
• Lawrence M. Schoen interviews Joanne Anderton, author of The Bone Chime Song.
• My Bookish Ways interviews Jeff VanderMeer, author of Anniihilation.
• The Qwillery interviews Dru Pagliassotti, author of Clockwork Lies: Iron Wind.
• The Qwillery interviews Will Storr, author of The Hunter and the Howling of Killian Lone.
• The Raw Story interviews Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation.
• Rolling Stone interviews George R.R. Martin, author of … what did he write again?
• Scifichick interviews Emmy Laybourne, author of Savage Drift.
• SFFWorld interviews Freya Robertson, author of Sunstone (The Elemental Wars).
• Suvudu interviews Mark Lawrence, author of Prince of Fools.
• The Zeno Agency interviews Ian McDonald, author of the YA Sci-Fi series Everness.

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The winners of our giveaway for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eight edited by Jonathan Strahan have been chosen and notified.

Congratulations to:

• James L.
• Matt B.
• P.F.N.

You will be receiving your prize soon!

Thanks to everyone who entered.