Category: books

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Through the Labyrinths of the Mind by Bevan Thomas

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SF Canada member Bevan Thomas has just successfully concluded a Kickstarter campaign for the graphic anthology, Through the Labyrinths of the Mind, from Cloudscape Comics.

Along with writer and artist Hanna Lou Myers, Bevan co-edited this timely project in which a wide range of British Columbia comic creators explore their struggles with mental health issues.

Each of Labyrinths’ stories explores mental health in a unique and personal way. Many are memoirs in which the cartoonists candidly describe their own struggles, while others take inspiration from their creators’ experiences to tell fictional stories in numerous genres, ranging from realistic slice-of-life dramas to tales of magic and fantasy. The stories present mental health issues through a wide variety of symbolism – OCD as a host of whispering gremlins, depression as a suffocating black mass, anxiety a mask to hide your true self. In all cases, the chosen genre and symbolism are the ones that best capture the particular cartoonist’s psychological truth, sharing with the reader their own internal journey.

For a full list of contributors and more detail about this anthology, visit the Kickstarter page.

Bevan is a writer, editor, and creative writing teacher best known for his involvement with Cloudscape Comics, BC’s largest comics collective. His work has also appeared in the anthologies Beyond and Superhero Universe: Tesseracts 19, and the magazine Pulp Literature. Bevan teaches writing for comics and comic book history in Langara College’s Graphic Novel & Comix program.

Learn more about Bevan’s work at www.bevanthomas.ca.

Copies of Through the Labyrinths of the Mind will soon be available through Cloudscape Comics.

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To Push Back the Darkness by Lisa Timpf

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SF Canada member Lisa Timpf has just published her first novella with JMS Books LLC. To Push Back the Darkness is a f/f romance/police procedural with science fiction elements.

When the trail goes cold on a string of robberies, Detective Janet Vertran is forced to call on her ex Fiona for help. When Fiona broke things off between them two years earlier, Janet swore she’d keep her distance. But she also knows from past experience how helpful Fiona’s creation, an android named Pat, can be in ferreting out the little details that make all the difference when solving tough crimes.

 

Though the robberies appear to have been conducted by separate individuals, Pat finds an unexpected connection between them. But as Janet, Fiona, and Pat get closer to unearthing the truth, it becomes clear the case is taking an emotional toll on Fiona.

 

As she works with her ex once again, Janet is reminded of old times and familiar feelings begin to stir. Is it possible they’ll get a second chance to make their relationship work? And will Janet find the courage to do what it takes to find out?

Lisa Timpf is a retired human resources and communications professional who lives in Simcoe, Ontario. Her writing has appeared in a number of venues, including Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Very Good, Very Bad Dog, New Myths, Third Flatiron, and Scifaikuest.

A graduate of McMaster University’s Physical Education program, Ms. Timpf also completed course work toward an MSc in Sport History at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When not writing, Lisa enjoys cycling and bird-watching.

Learn more about Lisa’s writing at lisatimpf.blogspot.com.

Purchase your copy of To Push Back the Darkness on Amazon.

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The Electric Girl by Christine Hart

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SF Canada member Christine Hart just released a new YA novel, The Electric Girl. The story features a dual POV narrative, a rural BC setting circa 1988, and plenty of retro pop culture.

Polly Michaels is trying to forget that her mom has cancer. She keeps busy at school and plods through a normal social life. Until a freak electrical storm and a unicorn appear in the orchard next to her house.

Sy’kai wakes on an orchard floor to the smell of rotting cherries and wet earth. She doesn’t know where she is-or what she is-but she knows something is hunting her.

Polly recruits her friends to find the mysterious creature she saw from her window while Sy’kai, a confused shape-shifting endling from another dimension tries to piece her mind back together. Once the human girls find Sy’kai (whom they nickname Psyche) the mystery unravels and the danger facing all of them comes into focus. 

A gritty struggle ranges throughout the girls’ rural hometown and in the wild terrain around it. All while two questions hang over their heads. Can an alien deliver a miracle for a human mother? Can a group of teens defeat an interdimensional demon?

Christine Hart writes from her suburban home on BC’s beautiful West Coast. She specializes in speculative fiction for young readers. Her stories feature detailed real-world landscapes as a backdrop for the surreal. Her backlist includes YA, NA, and MG titles, including The Variant Conspiracy trilogy and Watching July.

Christine works as a content and communications specialist for a technology studio in Vancouver. And when not writing, she melts metal under the guise of her Etsy alter-ego Sleepless Storyteller.

Learn more about Christine and her books at www.christine-hart.ca.

Order your copy of The Electric Girl from Amazon, Kobo, or Barnes & Noble.

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LEXX Unauthorized by D.G. Valdron

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SF Canada member D.G. Valdron recently released a book series titled LEXX Unauthorized. The individual titles are, Volume 1: Backstage at the Dark Zone, Volume 2: The Light at the End of the Universe, and Volume 3: It’s Light and It’s Cold. Volume 4 is currently in the works.

LEXX was a subversive Canadian space opera television show that ran between 1997 and 2002, comprising four movies and fifty-eight episodes. The LEXX itself was a ten mile long bio-mechanical dragonfly designed by an evil theocratic space empire to blow up planets. It was stolen by its crew – a cowardly security guard, a frustrated love slave, an undead assassin and a lovestruck robot head.

The LEXX Unauthorized books chronicle the television show which was known for haunting surrealist imagery and dreamlike structure. The LEXX TV series was created by Salter Street films and shot principally in Halifax, employing Canadian actors and writers. Some notable international actors included Rutger Hauer, Malcolm McDowell, Tim Curry, and Barry Bostwick.

D.G. Valdron is a wayward Maritimer, born on the north shore of New Brunswick. His father was a mechanic, his grandfather a carpenter, which provided Valdron with an arsenal of skills, a work ethic, and a practical approach to life. D.G. is currently a lawyer working in the field of aboriginal rights, but has also worked as a mechanic, carpenter, projectionist, cook, waiter, woodcutter ditch-digger, journalist and school teacher.

The LEXX Unauthorized books are available through Amazon.

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Recognition for A Diary in the Age of Water

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*UPDATED*

A Diary in the Age of Water (Inanna Publications) by SF Canada member Nina Munteanu has received recognition from two sources now.

On World Water Day (March 22, 2021) it was announced that A Diary in the Age of Water became a finalist in the 2020 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award in the science fiction category.

Lyrical and dystopian, A Diary in the Age of Water is as much an ode to water as it is a cautionary tale about the dire implications of climate change. 

The Foreword Indies Book of The Year Awards are hosted by Foreword Reviews as part of its mission to discover, review, and share the best books from university and independent publishers.

In December 2020, Nina’s book was also featured on the Yale Climate Connections list of twelve climate / environmental books for the holidays.
A Diary in the Age of Water chronicles the journeys of four generations of women, each carrying a unique relationship with water over a time of catastrophic change. Told in the form of a diary by a limnologist, the story explores a Canada mined for its water by United States, which, in turn, is owned by China.

The list also includes Kim Stanley Robinson’s recent climate fiction Ministry for the Future (Orbit) and James Lawrence Powell’s The 2084 Report. Anthologies and works on non-fiction by the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis are also included in the recommended holiday reading list by Yale University’s Climate Connections.   

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and award-winning novelist and short story writer. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Nina has coached writers to publication for several decades using her Alien Guidebook Series writing guides.  Nina’s non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada.

Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books, short stories and essays. For more about Nina’s coaching and writing workshops, visit www.ninamunteanu.me. You can also find Nina on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.

A Diary in the Age of Water can be purchased through Amazon,Chapters-Indigo,Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Inanna Publications.

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Zee by Su J. Sokol

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SF Canada member Su J. Sokol is launching Zee, xyr third novel. This title is being released jointly in French (December 3, 2020) and English (December 6, 2020) by New Brunswick publisher Mouton noir Acadie, an imprint of Bouton d’or Acadie.

Zee can hear what you’re thinking and feel what you’re feeling. She sees herself through your eyes and what she sees changes who she is. Sometimes Zee is the precocious daughter of her four grown-ups. Other times, she’s a rough boy from Brooklyn, New York, playing basketball and getting into trouble. Zee’s grown-ups are worried. They test Zee’s special powers and conspire to keep them secret. Zee figures out what they’re up to and fights back. Zee just wants to fit in, to meet the confusing expectations coming at her from all directions, but will losing sight of who she is put Zee in even greater danger?

Learn more about Zee at an online launch in either French or English.

  • French Event: Thursday, December 3 at 7pm EST on either Facebook or Zoom.
  • English Event: Sunday, December 6 at 7pm EST on either Facebook or Zoom.

Su J. Sokol is a social rights activist and a writer of speculative, liminal and interstitial fiction. Originally from Brooklyn, xe now makes Montréal xyr home. Xyr short fiction has appeared or is upcoming in The Future Fire, Spark: A Creative Anthology, TFFX 10th Anniversary Anthology, Glittership: an LGBTQ Science Fiction and Fantasy Podcast, Glittership: Year One anthology, After the Orange: Ruin and Recovery, and Amazing Stories.

Su’s debut novel, Cycling to Asylum, was longlisted for the Sunburst for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, and has been optioned for a feature-length film. Xyr second novel, Run J Run, was published by Renaissance Press in May of 2019.

Learn more about Su and explore xyr other titles at sujsokol.com

Order your copy of Zee from your favourite local bookshop (a great way to support independent booksellers during the pandemic), from Bouton d’or Acadie in French or English, on Amazon, or via Kobo.