Swan Song graphic novel

SF Canada member Bevan Thomas is one of the board members of Cloudscape Comics, and his organization has recently published its latest anthology: Swan Song. This graphic novel features numerous music-themed stories in a wide variety of genres, from autobiographical explorations to emotional dramas to fantasy stories about songs that produce magic. Not only was Bevan one of the book’s editors, but Swan Song also features a story he wrote retelling the Welsh legend The Tale of Taliesin, where the bard Taliesin summons a furious wind storm with his song. Swan Song includes numerous other comic creators as well, including such prominent local artists as Simon Roy (Prophet, Tiger Lung), Angela Melick (Wasted Talent), Renee Nault (comic adaptation of Handmaid’s Tale), and Jonathon Dalton (Mad Tea Party, Lords of Death & Life). You can get your own copy at the Cloudscape store at https://www.cloudscapecomics.com/product-category/anthology/

Now out! Shades Within Us

SF Canada members, Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law, are pleased to announce their latest anthology, Shades Within Us: Tales of Migrations and Fractured Borders, now available from your bookstore or any online retailer.

This is the fourth anthology in the “social causes” series—Laksa Anthology Series: Speculative Fiction—from Laksa Media. Others in this series are Strangers Among Us, The Sum of Us, and Where the Stars Rise.

From the back cover:  We are called drifters, nomads. We are expatriates, evacuees, and pilgrims. We are colonists, aliens, explorers; strangers, visitors–intruders, conquerors–exiles, asylum seekers, and . . . outsiders.

An American father shields his son from Irish discrimination. A Chinese foreign student wrestles to safeguard her family at the expense of her soul. A college graduate is displaced by technology. A Nigerian high school student chooses between revenge and redemption. A bureaucrat parses the mystery of Taiwanese time travellers. A defeated alien struggles to assimilate into human culture. A Czechoslovakian actress confronts the German WWII invasion. A child crosses an invisible border wall. And many more.

Stories that transcend borders, generations, and cultures. Each is a glimpse into our human need in face of change: to hold fast to home, to tradition, to family; and yet to reach out, to strive for a better life.

PRAISE FOR SHADES WITHIN US

“A few of the stories revisit well-worn tropes, but most take a fresh approach to their subjects and conjure terrifying futures brought on by climate change, greed, and corruption of power. Political and daring, this collection adds to the future imagined by Philip K. Dick, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, and Aldous Huxley.” – Foreword Reviews

Shades Within Us is a timely collection that invites us to ask whether we still do (or still should) live in a space of national borders and national definitions of identity. It invites us to use our speculative imagination to think through new ways of understanding selfhood in relation to the borders, boxes, and categories that are placed around us.” —Speculating Canada (Derek Newman-Stille)

Read Excerpts from Shades Within Us at Laksa Media and at Tor.com

Alice Unbound Released

SF Canada member Colleen Anderson has been busy lately. Recent activities include editing Exile’s Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland, an anthology inspired by Lewis Carroll. Two of the stories are reviewed on the Speculating Canada podcast and the anthology garnered a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.

As well, Colleen served as editor for the July issue of SFPA’s dark-themed Eye to the Telescope online poetry magazine.

Recent publications of her own work include:
“Sir Tor and the River Maiden” in By the Light of Camelot;
“A Taste of Eden” in the Australian Worlds of SF, F and H Vol. III;
as well as these poems:
“How to Cook with Children” in Grievous Angel;
“The Enlightened” in Polar Borealis 5;
“Ode to Andrew Brechin”, placing 3rd in Wax Poetry’s Angela contest;
“Washday Blues” in Polar Borealis 6;
“Mermaid’s Comb” in Future Fire 45;
“Cinderella’s Pumpkin” in Polu Texni;
“The Sand Witch”, placing 2nd in the Balticon Poetry contest;
and “Savor” in the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. V.

And her collection, A Body of Work, will be published this fall by UK publisher Black Shuck Books.

Congratulations on your successes, Colleen!

Ron Friedman novel in Storybundle

SF Canada member Ron Friedman’s novel Typhoon Time is currently available in the 2018 Military SF Bundle from Storybundle.

The bundle of twelve novels is curated by bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and offers “books from the high-tech battlefields right here on our home planet to the farthest reaches of the galaxy.”

Storybundle allows the consumer to set their own price for bundles, and to support charities and independent authors. The 2018 Military SF Bundle offer ends on July 19, 2018.

Launching “Of Tempests and Teacups “

SF Canada member Rebecca Diem recently launched the fourth and final book in her Tales of the Captain Duke series, Of Tempests and Teacups. Rebecca will be attending Ad Astra this coming weekend and celebrating the book’s launch at 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 14, in Room 1086 at the convention hotel, the Sheraton Parkway North.

About the book:

Stop the Tradists. Save the Captain Duke.

When the Captain Duke goes missing, Clara takes the helm to face enemies old and new. Torn between desire and duty, she must use her skills as both pirate and debutante to unite her allies and save the day.

Even if it means facing her greatest fears—and returning to where it all began.

Find out more about the series on Rebecca’s website.