Author Archives: Michael

V. Castro – Excerpts From Las Posadas & Hairspray and Switchblades

Hello and welcome to Track of Words, where today I have something a little different – kindly provided by horror author V. Castro, I’m delighted to present a pair of excerpts giving you a taste of what to expect from two of her stories. The first one is very much appropriate to the time at which I’m publishing this, being a Christmas (horror) story, while the second gives a glimpse of a family of jaguar shapeshifters – how cool is that? With a great-sounding IP fiction novel recently released – Aliens: Vasquez, exploring the character of badass Marine Jenette Vasquez – and a whole host of fantastic horror stories available, from short stories to full-length novels, if you’re after some Latinx horror then V. Castro has got you covered!

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TBR: SFF Books Coming in 2023

Last year I put together a TBR list of science fiction and fantasy books I was particularly looking forward to reading in 2022, and yep…I thought I’d do the same this year! It’s always fun to look ahead and think about what looks particularly exciting, and it’s useful to have a list like this to refer back to as the year progresses. From last year’s list, only nine of the ten books have actually been published yet, so I’ve cheated a bit and included the unpublished one from 2022 on this list too. Of those nine though, I did read seven (and a half)…which is pretty good going I think, and I’d say that they mostly (if not entirely) lived up to expectations.

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Lavie Tidhar – Paradigm Shift

Hello and welcome to Track of Words, where today I’m absolutely delighted to welcome the fantastic Lavie Tidhar with a guest post taking a broad view over the science fiction genre as a whole – a sort of sci-fi state of the nation. A genre-spanning author of so many fantastic books, and editor of the wonderful The Best of World SF anthologies (both of which are available now from Head of Zeus), I can’t think of anyone better placed than Lavie to speak about current trends in SF fiction and publishing. If you’re at all interested in science fiction, whether as a reader or a writer, there’s bound to be food for thought in this excellent post.

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SFF Community Spotlight: Sarah Deeming from The British Fantasy Society

Hello and welcome to Track of Words for this SFF Community Spotlight interview, where I’m thrilled to be chatting to Sarah Deeming, Reviews Editor for the British Fantasy Society! In this ongoing series of interviews I’m celebrating and promoting the work of the bloggers and reviewers who put so much time and effort into making the science fiction and fantasy book community such a great place, and I was really keen to talk to Sarah as both a reviewer herself and the person in charge of reviews at the BFS. If you’re not already following the BFS reviews, head over to the website and check it out – there’s loads of good stuff there.

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David Towsey – One David To Another: Three Films That Influenced Equinox

Welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where today I’m joined by the fantastic author David Towsey who’s going to talk about three films by a single director that had an impact on his brilliant novel Equinox. Published by Head of Zeus, Equinox first came out in May 2022, and the paperback edition is due in February 2023 so it feels like a good moment to look back at this fantastic fantasy novel! I haven’t read anything quite like it, with its fascinating central concept of day and night siblings – each body inhabited by two distinct personalities, one present during the day and the other at night – and I loved its blend of fantasy and horror, and the attention to detail in its setting. It’s always interesting to get an author’s thoughts on some of the inspirations behind their work, and in this post David takes an unusual but really cool approach to talking about what inspired his novel.

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Showtime – Original Fiction by J.S. Collyer

Hello and welcome to this original short story here on Track of Words – Showtime, kindly contributed by the fantastic J.C. Collyer. Author of the Orbit trilogy and several excellent Black Library short stories (in particular, look out for In the Name of Victory in the Inferno! Presents: The Emperor’s Finest anthology), I’m a real fan of J.S. Collyer’s writing, so I couldn’t be happier to be publishing one of her original short stories. This is a deceptively dark science fiction story, set in a circus, with no creepy clowns but a decidedly sinister ringmistress and a very, very dangerous act. Enjoy!

“There is no audience like a Metropiline audience. They’re the best. And deserve the best.”

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Aliette de Bodard – Favourite Media in a Pandemic Year

Hello and welcome to this guest post on Track of Words where I’m thrilled to welcome the fantastic Aliette de Bodard – author of The Red Scholar’s Wake and so much more – to the site, to talk about the games and TV shows that she’s been turning to over the last year. I recently read (and reviewed) The Red Scholar’s Wake and was blown away by its rich setting, brilliant characters and totally engrossing central romance; it’s space opera in a way I’ve not come across before, and I loved it! I was delighted when Aliette agreed to write this article – it’s always great to get an insight into what your favourite authors are enjoying, and I always appreciate some new recommendations for media to consume, love and be comforted by!

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Author Spotlight: David Goodman

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Author Spotlight interview, where today I’m joined by the brilliant David Goodman to talk about Clarkesworld-published short stories, turning cool concepts into full, engaging stories, the different challenges of writing short fiction and novels, the realities of submitting novels, and loads more! I’ve read and loved both of Dave’s short stories in Clarkesworld Magazine, and I was hugely impressed by their depth of world building, great (and unusual) characters and smart themes, and how they remained very human and relatable despite their sci-fi nature. I can’t wait to read more of Dave’s writing, and I jumped at the chance to chat to him for what turned out to be an in-depth and (I think) incredibly interesting interview!

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Gav Thorpe – Coming Up For Air

Hello and welcome to this guest post here on Track of Words where I’m delighted to be joined by veteran Black Library (and Angry Robot) author Gav Thorpe, who’s written a fascinating article looking back at how things have changed over the course of his career, and how he’s approaching writing Warhammer fiction now in order to avoid burning out. For anyone with even a faint interest in Black Library and Warhammer, Gav really needs no introduction, having written so much and been involved from the very beginning! I can’t think of anyone better placed to write about the changing realities of life for a Black Library author over the years, and I think this article is going to be of interest to a lot of BL (and SFF in general) fans, and to other writers too.

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Best SFF Books of 2022

Every year I put together an article talking about the best science fiction and fantasy novels I’ve read over the last twelve months (here’s 2021’s article), and this year is no different – welcome to my Best SFF Books of 2022 article! Over the years I’ve tweaked how I approach this task, and this year I’ve decided to keep it nice and simple. No honourable mentions, no exhaustive top 20, just the 10 books that I’ve enjoyed reading the most in 2022. As usual, I’ve restricted myself in this to books published in 2022, so you won’t find any old classics here (or even books published only a year or two ago) – just great books that were released this year. The only criteria I went by were that they had to be SFF books (or SFF/horror crossover) – whether aimed at adults or a YA audience – and they had to be books that I enjoyed so much I would wholeheartedly recommend them.

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