aka Indra Das, author of THE DEVOURERS (Penguin India / Del Rey), Lambda Lit Award winner, Crawford & Shirley Jackson Award winner, he/they
My latest Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Short Fiction Roundup features work by Elena Pavlova, Brian Evenson, Epiphany Ferrell @pqwrites Ben Murphy @Indradas Audrey Obuobisa-Darko, Dale Smith, Anne E.G. Nydam @josh_rountree @AndrewDanaHudson Kai Ashante Wilson @malonlouis @sarahpinsker Gabriel Mara @Fran_Wilde Theodora Ward @FoxesandRoses @elismontgomery Kwame Sound Daniels, Margaret Ronald & Chris Willrich.
https://maria-is-reading.blogspot.com/2023/06/my-sci-fi-fantasy-horror-short-fiction.html
Glad to see a kind review of my novella from Gary K. Wolfe at Locus Magazine: 'Indra Das’s The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar is a gorgeously written novella which is part coming-of-age tale, part love letter to fantasy, part family mystery, and part elegantly understated fable of identity...a reflection on both memory and magic that implies a much larger, more fantastical tale, but one that never loses its grounding in character.' https://locusmag.com/2023/06/gary-k-wolfe-reviews-the-last-dragoners-of-bowbazar-by-indra-das/
@themiddleshelf Thank you for the kind review!
Congratulations to all the nominees for the Shirley Jackson Awards, and to my co-contributors and our unstoppable editor Ellen Datlow for SCREAMS FROM THE DARK getting a nomination in the Anthology category: https://shirleyjacksonawards.org
Congratulations to all the winners & finalists of the Bram Stoker Awards, and especially to our wonderful editor Ellen Datlow on her win for SCREAMS FROM THE DARK (Tor Nightfire) in the Anthology category, in which I'm grateful to have a story ('Here Comes Your Man') alongside so many brilliant writers: https://file770.com/2022-bram-stoker-awards/
I've not actually read that many Cormac McCarthy novels, but he's still among my favourite writers because of how much BLOOD MERIDIAN has meant to me. Time to explore more of the art he left behind. A great loss. RIP.
@Thene Thank you for ordering the book. I'm sorry for the long wait--it is indeed supply chain issues. I hope it arrives soon, and doesn't prove disappointing!
Glad to see my new novella THE LAST DRAGONERS OF BOWBAZAR (Subterranean Press) on this Literary Hub line-up.
'Indra Das’ standalone fantasy novella opens with the arresting image of a baby dragon plucked from a living tree, a memory that narrator Ru convinces himself must have been nothing more than a dream.'
https://lithub.com/8-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books-you-need-to-read-in-june/
You can also get the much more affordable ebook of THE LAST DRAGONERS OF BOWBAZAR here: https://subterraneanpress.com/the-last-dragoners-of-bowbazar-ebook/
It's also available on Amazon India and other online retailers: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0C6YGKFVT/
@themiddleshelf However and whenever you read it, I'm grateful! I hope you like it : )
Out today: my novella THE LAST DRAGONERS OF BOWBAZAR (Subterranean Press), about Ru, a Calcuttan 'boy from nowhere' coming of age in a family who may be migrants from another reality, & Alice, a neighbour from Chinatown he longs to share their secrets with.
You can buy the signed, limited, numbered hardcover edition of THE LAST DRAGONERS OF BOWBAZAR, with a gorgeous cover painting by Tran Nguyen, here. Ghibli-inflected mythic realism, for adults: https://subterraneanpress.com/tldob/
When I watch movies that my uncle Aveek loved, I can almost see the way he'd absorbed some of the mannerisms & flourishes of theatrical characters like Petra (who's a queer divorcee from a het marriage, like Aveek was). He knew life to be performance. Hated boring others.
My uncle also left me the entirety of Fassbinder's BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ on my hard drive before he died, which I haven't watched yet, probably for reasons similar to Bobby never eating his late wife's last zitti in THE SOPRANOS, but I really should, and will.
On Fassbinder's birthday, watched THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (1972), which my uncle oft urged me to watch in the year before he died. Simultaneously restrained & deeply kinky, a portrait of love, cruelty, & power as sibling serpents entwined, their venom a potent intoxicant.
@OrionKidder I am very aware of all these things and am also talking about them on Twitter etc. I didn't say I'm not alarmed and horrified and concerned, I said I'm not just shrugging my shoulders and assuming I'm obsolete because corporations & techbros want me to be.
I was lucky enough to read Jared Pechaček's upcoming debut novel THE WEST PASSAGE (Tordotcom); for anyone looking for fantasy that feels like a miracle, like looking at awful bone-vibrating angels, like living in the dream of a medieval illuminator unmoored from time, *read* this book when it comes out.
And I read it sans the author's stunning illustrations--this will be an awe-inspiring book, in every way. Just look at this (the prose and narrative lives up to the art in every way):
In Merry & Pippin's heartbroken farewell & reunion, when Pippin tells Merry he'll 'take care of him', in Aragorn's kiss to Boromir, Frodo's farewell kiss to Sam, their tearful embraces and unabashed affection, was reminded of Gretchen Felker-Martin's lovely piece on masculine love and devotion in LOTR: https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-would-have-you-45486233
No regrets watching it all again across three days. Filled with the ache of memory, of friendships distant now that were strong when I watched these movies in theatres back when, of inexorable change. The grandeur of the filmmaking, flaws and all, hasn't faded whatsoever, nor its capacity to find gentle intimacy and sincerity amidst the spectacle.
Capped off rewatching the LOTR trilogy theatrical re-release with RETURN OF THE KING today, and this was me during Frodo's farewell to Sam and his friends and departure to the Undying Lands😭
New Author Interview - today on the blog the excellent Helen Marshall kindly talked to me about their new short fiction collection The Good Leaf Executions https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/interviews/2023/5/7/interviewing-helen-marshall
