New Books In Literature

The next time you head to the beach or settle in for a long plane ride, you may not want your imagination filling with images of rogue operatives planting traps or terrorist organizations plotting against unsuspecting victims. You wouldn’t want to imagine explosions, assassinations, or .50 caliber rounds ripping through steel. No way. We get enough of those worries from the news. And yet there is an experience where these things go from worrisome to worry-free, where watching men and women fight for their lives is—yes—fraught and nail-biting, but also a lot of fun. And that experience happens when you’re reading a good military thriller. Today I chat with Matthew Quirk, who’s written a great one. It’s entitled Cold Barrel Zero (Mulholland Books, 2016), and I’m afraid I can share with you much of its plot. It’s so full of twists and turns, reversals and surprises, that just about any description of it will result in a spoiler, so I’ll just ask Quirk to take on that

Minsoo Kang‘s new translation of The Story of Hong Gildong (Penguin Classics, 2016) is a wonderful rendering of a text that is arguably the “single most important work of classic…prose fiction of Korea.” Though Hong Gildong is a popular figure in modern Korean culture – a kind of Robin Hood character, “Hong Gildong” is also used as a generic name on instruction forms, in the manner of “John Doe” – the story that made him famous has not been widely read and enjoyed for English-language audiences. Not only will Kang’s book change that, but it’s an absolute pleasure to read as well. In these pages readers will follow along with this trickster figure in a tale that that features storytelling about Joseon society and its illegitimate sons, a realistic portrayal of life in a nobleman’s household, sorcery, physiognomy, lies, love, more sorcery, thievery, politics, monsters, kidnapping, and even more sorcery. In the course of our conversation,

Marguerite Reed‘s Archangel (Arche Press, 2015) introduces a hero not often found at the center of science fiction: a mother, who takes cuddling responsibilities as seriously as she does the fate of her planet. Of course, Vashti Loren plays many roles besides Mom. She’s also a hunter, a scientist, a tour guide and the widow of a revered early settler. But Reed spotlights her relationship with her toddler, offering a protagonist who’s not only good with a gun but manages to get her kid to daycare on time. “So many protagonists, whether in science fiction or fantasy or adventure fiction or film are disconnected or separate or isolated from family ties, and I wanted to see if I could write something where people did have family ties, where they were connected, as we so often are in the real world,” Reed says. When Loren discovers that a genetically-enhanced and potentially dangerous human soldier has been illegally smuggled onto the planet, she must decide whether he is friend or fo

In four thousand years of Chinese history, Empress Wu stands alone as the only woman to rule in her own name. She died in her eighties after decades of successful governance, but her sons could not hold the kingdom she established for them and the dynasty she founded soon fell from power. The Confucian scholars who recorded her history—outraged by the idea of a woman ordering men—depicted a murderous, manipulative harlot that has ever since obscured her achievements. In The Moon in the Palace (Sourcebooks, 2016), Weina Dai Randel  seeks to polish Empress Wu’s tarnished reputation, offering a new look at her and her times, the obstacles she faced and the gifts that enabled her to overcome them. Wu Mei is five years old when a Buddhist monk predicts her future as the mother of emperors and bearer of the mandate of Heaven. By thirteen, she has already entered the Imperial Palace as a Select, one of a small group of maidens chosen to serve the Taizong Emperor. But the palace is a vast and complex hierar

Verge: Studies in Global Asias is an inspiring and path-breaking new journal that explores innovative forms for individual and collaborative scholarly work. I had the privilege of talking with Charlotte Eubanks, Jonathan E. Abel, and Tina Chen about Volume 1, Issue 2: Collecting Asias (Fall 2015), which includes – among several fascinating essays – a portfolio of Akamatsu Toshiko’s sketches of Micronesia, an interview about Mughal collections, an introduction to three wonderful digital projects, and a field trip to collaboratively-curated exhibition. In addition to exploring the particular contributions of this special issue, we talked about some of the features of the journal that really excitingly push the boundaries of what an academic journal can be, considering aspects of the innovative forms that are curated in the Convergence section of Verge and reflected in its essays. Highly recommended, both for reading and for teaching! Carla Nappi is Associate Professor of History at the Univer

PJ Manney‘s fast-action novel (R)evolution (47North, 2015) has all the ingredients of a Hollywood thriller: a terrorist attack using nanotechnology, a military-industrial conspiracy, a scientist who augments his brain – plus, of course, romance, betrayal, and rapid-fire plot twists. The movie-style storytelling comes naturally for Manney, who spent most of her career in Hollywood, developing films and writing for television. “I don’t see myself as a literary stylist or as a great wordsmith. I see myself as a Hollywood-influenced storyteller,” she says. A first-time novelist, Manney says she was “flabbergasted” when she was nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick Award. “I ended up melding genres and ignoring people’s advice,” she explains. “It doesn’t really fit neatly into any boxes and people who like boxes have a hard time with it…I thought it was just me and my editor who liked it.” (R)evolution explores transformat

After I read Patrick Madden‘s fascinating new collection of essays, entitled Sublime Physick: Essays (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), I found myself struggling with the best way to describe it. Madden’s subjects range from the nature of time to spitting—yes, spitting, as when you spit on the ground or, worse, at someone—to the almost inevitable way that artists and writers, even as they attempt to be original, end up repeating, reusing, and rearranging the work of other artists and writers. Madden studied physics before coming to the essay, so he tries to grapple with fundamental principles and questions, not quite seeking any grand unified theory (he doesn’t really believe one exists, nor would he want one), but always dimly aware of it right outside the periphery. Though his essays are personal, there are plenty of externalities. There are even some mathematics. But there aren’t any equations. The essays all derive, in some way, from the physical world, and all reach toward

The Wild West of Zane Grey and John Wayne movies, with its clear divisions between good guys and bad guys, cowboys and Indians (never called Native Americans in this narrative), bears little resemblance to the brawling, boozy refuge for every Civil War-displaced vagabond, seeker of gold (copper, tin, silver, oil), and would-be financier that once constituted the US frontier. In two novels about Doc Holliday and his friends the Earps, Mary Doria Russell pulls back the curtain to reveal the social, economic, and political divides that in the 1870s and 1880s kept the land beyond the Mississippi a hotbed of lawlessness and vice mixed with occasional acts of heroism. Doc begins the story in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1878. Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral (Ecco Books, 2015) continues it a few years later in the Arizona Territory, focusing on the events leading up to and the aftermath of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Tombstone, Arizona, is an example of everything right and wrong on the frontier. The silver mines

Romance. Crime. Mathematics. These things do not go together. Or do they? James D. Stein thinks they do, and he admirably shows us how in his wonderful collection of stories L.A. Math: Romance, Crime, and Mathematics in the City of Angels (Princeton University Press, 2016). Jim’s a mathematician, but don’t let that put you off: he’s the author of several popular books and an excellent writer at that. In this interview we talk about writing “clean”, math-phobia, and what everyone should really know, math-wise. Listen in.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will Buckingham‘s new book is a wonderful cycle of stories that are inspired by and speak back to the Chinese Yijing, the Classic of Changes. Sixty-Four Chance Pieces: A Book of Changes (Earnshaw Books, 2015) collects 64 stories, one for each hexagram in the Yijing. Each story is introduced by a brief commentary that frames it, and these commentaries offer fascinating insights into the significance and genesis of the stories: they relate to aspects of the hexagrams that inspired them, Buckingham’s own travels and experience, research into Yijing scholarship and other aspects of Chinese studies, a broader universe of storytellers and their stories, and more. The pages of Sixty-Four Chance Pieces: A Book of Changes (Earnshaw Books, 2015) are full of amazing characters – emperors! Leibniz! windowsill gods! a bear on a bicycle! a smile artist! Fu Xi! – and it is difficult to put down once you start reading. The stories themselves are wonderful to read on their own, and Will generously read

This episode features author and futurist Brenda Cooper and is the second of my conversations with nominees for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Award. Cooper’s novel Edge of Dark (Pyr, 2015) is set in a solar system where human are forced to confront a civilization they’d long ago banished: a race of super-beings who evolved from humans into cyborgs. The idea of implanting human intelligence into an artificial body is not new. But Cooper gives it a fresh twist by making the ethics of human-robot blending the central theme of her book. The super-beings (called variously ice pirates and the Next) are returning uninvited from their banishment and, in addition to seeking access to natural resources, are offering immortality to anyone who wants it. Cooper sees Edge of Dark as part of a conversation about the evolution of the human race. “I’m fascinated by transhumanism – what we’re going to become,” Cooper says. “I do think that we’re becoming something different…

Tina Escaja‘s, Free Fall/Caida libre, translated by Mark Eisner (Fomite Press, 2015), is an exceptional example of poetry in translation as artistic collaboration. Poetry exists outside of the margins, and this often creates an insurmountable task for those seeking to relay emotion, realization, and epiphany across language barriers. The nuances and inflections of colloquialism and historical, cultural understandings can be lost. We, as readers of translation often wonder, what is kept of the music and what is kept of the intent? Translations can only bring us to the precipice–language allows us to take the plunge. We must trust our translators to be lovers of verse. Escaja works in an experimental form that is most likened to the cycle inherent in life, death, and rebirth. Even throughout the lines and stanzas, there is a stopping and starting again, a dropping off and returning. Recuperarnos quiero. Aprender a nacerme de otra en ti. Sin vuelta posible. Sin colchon salvavidas, sin suturas. Caidal

In 1530, Babur the Tiger, the self-proclaimed ruler of Afghanistan, moved south and conquered the northwest section of what was then known as Hindustan. Babur, although accepted as padishah and emperor, never much cared for India, but his descendants flourished there until the British moved in more than three centuries later. Faint Promise of Rain (She Writes Press, 2014) explores the early part of this transition. Two years before the death of Babur’s son Humayun, a girl child is born to the temple dance master near Jaisalmer, a citadel in present-day Rajasthan. Adhira’s birth is considered auspicious, because it takes place during one of this desert area’s rare rainstorms. To Adhira’s father, the divine blessing placed on his child means that she will finally be the one to carry on the kathak dance tradition that has defined his life. Adhira’s mother worries that no little girl should carry the burden of such great expectations. And Adhira’s older brother Mahendra cannot

In today’s episode, I talk with Douglas Lain, one of six authors whose works were nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick Award. Lain’s novel, After the Saucers Landed (Night Shade Books, 2015) is set in the early 1990s, when aliens, with the theatrical sense of B-movie directors, land flying saucers on the White House lawn. At first, the visitors seem fit for a Las Vegas chorus line; they’re tall, attractive and never leave their spaceships without donning sequined jumpsuits. Even the name of their leader–Ralph Reality–is marquee-ready. But is Reality as real as he seems? That’s the question that Lain poses for readers and his first-person narrator, Brian Johnson, who confronts the alien invasion head-on when one of the interstellar travelers assumes the identity of his wife. This propels Johnson into an examination of reality through various prisms: popular culture, science, philosophy, art, and even fiction. A kaleidoscope of personalities, artists and thinkers ar

Long before Genghis Khan set off to conquer the known world, the pattern of steppe warriors attacking–and often defeating–settled empires was well established. Only a few names of those who led these effective but mostly short-lived campaigns have become cultural references familiar to a general audience, but Attila the Hun looms large in that group–almost as large as Genghis himself. In the fifth century, the period covered by The Last Wife of Attila the Hun (Booktrope Editions, 2015), Attila kept both the eastern and the western Roman empires on their figurative toes, despite their vastly greater military and economic resources. Into this charged atmosphere comes Gudrun, a young Burgundian noblewoman determined to exact vengeance for the destruction of her people at Attila’s hands. She offers him a golden sword of magical power that, according to legend, inflicts a curse on its owner. She hopes Attila will become its next victim. But as the days turn into weeks and Gudrun becomes fir

David B. Coe just finished a busy year in which he published three novels, two of which we discuss in this episode of New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy. His Father’s Eyes (Baen, 2015) is the second book (the first, Spell Blind, was also published in 2015) to follow the adventures of P.I. Justis Fearsson, a weremyste whose investigations are interrupted once a month during the full moon when he slips into psychosis. Dead Man’s Reach (Tor, 2015) written under the pen name D.B. Jackson, is the fourth book in the The Thieftaker Chronicles and focuses on Ethan Kaille, an 18th century version of a private detective (known poetically as a thieftaker) who also happens to be a conjurer. While both protagonists share a number of traits (they’re both crime-solvers and both have magic powers) the series are quite different. The Thieftaker books are partly historical novel, ones in which Coe (aka Jackson) interweaves real people (e.g., Samuel Adams) and events of pre-Revolutionary Boston (e.g., th

Every poet has their obsessions and for James Franco they are childhood, gender, sex, innocence, and the work place he knows best: the film industry. Within these poetic frames we’re introduced to various voices, landscapes nearly worn out with elegy, and a repertoire of imagery that is both tender and violent. Franco is our poet of earnest grotesquerie, favoring clarity to vagueness as he depicts the bizarre zones of early experience that crash against poems of adulthood that occupy spaces most readers do not have access to: film and celebrity. However, Franco’s poems seem to argue that a kinship exists between the world of the adolescent and the world of a movie set. In his poems, we see the intersection of both and the distinctions between sincerity and artifice are blurred and complicated by a speaker who seems simultaneously anchored in both of these perceptual districts. In addition to Franco’s fidelity to the bramble of childhood memory and glittering industrial complex of show busine

J. Robert Lennon is a novelist, actually–better known for his longer work (Mailman, Familiar, Happyland). His most recent book, though, collects his short stories from the past 15 years: See You In Paradise (Graywolf Press, 2014): shorter glimpses into smaller headspaces, offshoots: sundries and etcetera from over a decade of writing fiction. This is sort of a long time, if you think about it. In point of fact, the oldest story in this collection was written circa ’99, maybe 2000. It was typed in amber text on a machine running DOS, in the art museum where its author had been working his first job out of grad school. (It’s “The Accursed Items,” by the way, if you were wondering, like I was.) Of course, Lennon is a slightly different person from the person he was then. At the museum, he had been rethinking himself as a writer (and a student of writing) outside his big graduate workshop; he’d have to assign his own assignments (in “a school of one”). At the time o

In Lady of the Moon (Headmistress Press, 2015), the reader is graced not only with the poetry of Amy Lowell, but with sonnets in response and a scholarly essay on the poet’s life, love, and work. Amy Lowell lived and wrote in a time when she could not be entirely herself, could not fully claim her rightful space among the great writers of love poetry and celebrations of the beloved. She had to reveal her truths by hiding them. As much as she cloaked her work, shifted genders of speaker and beloved, the truth of the poems resonate now as unabashed declarations of love and desire for her partner, Ada Russel. This collection places the relationship with Russel at the forefront in such a way that it honors what could not be honored before. But this is true of most of the work published by Headmistress Press: necessary voices are given the mic before it is too late, a safe space is offered for rumination on gender, sexuality, and all spectrums of identification, and the work of poets like Amy Lowell is given

The reverberations of Henry VIII’s tumultuous reign continued to echo long after the monarch’s death. England teetered into Protestantism, then veered back into Catholicism before settling into an uneasy peace with the ascension of Elizabeth I. But for the survivors of the first two shifts, the approaching death of Mary Tudor in 1558 created great anxiety. No one knew, then, that Elizabeth would choose a path of compromise and (relative) tolerance. And Mary’s public burnings of Protestants gave much cause for concern that her sister might follow the same path with any Catholics who refused to recant. Cade Badgley has served Mary well, even enduring imprisonment abroad for her sake. When he returns to England to discover his queen seriously ill and his own future changed by the death of his father and older brother, he has little choice but to manage the earldom dumped on his shoulders. But maintaining a crumbling estate without staff or money to hire them demands more resources than Cade can