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Don't be shady about Fanny Price!

As much as I love the Mr & Mrs Darcy Mysteries, I have to wonder why Carrie Bebris left Fanny and Catherine Morland out of The Matters at Mansfield and North by Northanger, respectively. Both women are mentioned, but never seen. We see their husbands and cousins and in-laws and such--why leave them out? 

I feel like Fanny Price doesn't get as much love as she should. I know some see her as a weak, moralizing character. That characterization irks me because Fanny is a victim of severe emotional abuse, and what she does all comes out of foundation. She can't be a vivacious Lizzie or even a stoic but gentle and steadfast Anne. It would have been nice to see Bebris try to paint her character post-marriage and take on what has changed about her as well as what's the same.

Other than that I like these books very much. Still though! No shade on Fanny :/

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My three favorite books in the Mr & Mrs Darcy Mystery series:

North by Northanger, The Deception at Lyme, and Suspense and Sensibility

In part because the books they're based on are my favorite Austen books. I also love what Bebris did with the characters.

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What do Carrie Bebris' Mr & Mrs Darcy Mysteries have in common with  @maryrobinette 's Glamourist Histories (besides Jane Austen)? A married couple that doesn't spend each subsequent book bickering over nonsense and delving into pointless relationship drama. Their love grows as they grow to know one another and it's something I don't see often enough in fiction. Yay Bebris and Kowal!

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The Mr and Mrs Darcy Mysteries by Carrie Bebris

Despite my misgivings about Austen pastiche, I actually enjoyed these books...

In each book there's a mystery (usually involving murder) that Lizzy and Darcy work out together. The early books involved supernatural goings on (such as an evil, soul-sucking mirror), but that element goes away later on, leaving just the mystery portions. Bebris does a good job of capturing the essence of all the Austen characters, and I must admit that I enjoy seeing them interacting with the Darcy clan, including Georgiana. Plus, there are some happy endings for minor P&P characters.

Pride and Prescience (Powell's|Amazon)

Suspense and Sensibility (Powell's|Amazon)

North By Northanger (Powell's|Amazon)

The Matters at Mansfield (Powell's|Amazon)

The Intrigue at Highbury (Powell's|Amazon)

The Deception at Lyme (Powell's|Amazon)

The Suspicion at Sanditon (Powell's|Amazon)

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Tears in the Rain by Rosa Montero

Submitted by Kristy:

Hi Tempest! Your student Kristy here. :)

I love this novel so much, in the original Spanish and in English. In a near-future Madrid populated by humans, alien refugees, and replicants (artificially created humans), Bruna is a private investigator and a replicant. She struggles with issues of identity and equality while trying to solve a series of gruesome deaths that are far more complicated than the acts of terrorism they appear to be.

Rosa Montero is an award winning journalist and novelist from Spain.

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New Vid: Tempest Challenge #26: The Mr & Mrs Darcy Mysteries by Carrie Bebris

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Kate Elliott's first young adult novel, Court of Fives

Jessamy's life is a balance between acting like an upper-class Patron and dreaming of the freedom of the Commoners. But away from her family she can be whoever she wants when she sneaks out to train for The Fives, an intricate, multilevel athletic competition that offers a chance for glory to the kingdom's best contenders. Then Jes meets Kalliarkos, and an unlikely friendship between two Fives competitors--one of mixed race and the other a Patron boy--causes heads to turn. When Kal's powerful, scheming uncle tears Jes's family apart, she'll have to test her new friend's loyalty and risk the vengeance of a royal clan to save her mother and sisters from certain death.

Already read it? Excellent! Book Two is out in August. To hold you over until then....

Night Flower: A Court of Fives Novella

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Submitted by Nisi Shawl:

You must read all the C.J. Cherryh Foreigner books! All 17 of them! I’m up to number 12. This is my favorite cover so far. Space opera about aliens who are actually alien, and the hero is a linguist and a world-class negotiator. And he’s white and surrounded by all these huge black people–what’s not to love?

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Have you read Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker series? The Beatriceid is a prequel, and you don't have to have read the other books to enjoy it. Once you do read it, you should go get Cold Magic and get even more hooked.

Cold Magic  Cold Fire  Cold Steel 

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The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia (2015)

Edited by Jaymee Goh, Joyce Chng

“The stories in this collection merge technological wonder with the everyday. Children upgrade their fighting spiders with armor, and toymakers create punchcard-driven marionettes. Large fish lumber across the skies, while boat people find a new home on the edge of a different dimension. 

Technology and tradition meld as the people adapt to the changing forces of their world. The Sea Is Ours is an exciting new anthology that features stories infused with the spirits of Southeast Asia’s diverse peoples, legends, and geography.”

Get it  now here

[ Follow SuperheroesInColor on facebook / instagram / twitter / tumblr ]

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Though I loved The Grace of Kings, I’m a bigger fan of Ken Liu’s short fiction, now out in a new collection.

This mesmerizing collection features all of Ken’s award-winning and award-finalist stories, including: “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” (Finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards), “Mono No Aware” (Hugo Award winner), “The Waves” (Nebula Award finalist), “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species” (Nebula and Sturgeon award finalists), “All the Flavors” (Nebula award finalist), “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King” (Nebula Award finalist), and the most awarded story in the genre’s history, “The Paper Menagerie” (The only story to win the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards).  A must-have for every science fiction and fantasy fan, this beautiful book is an anthology to savor.

Powell’s | Amazon

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Missing some fantasy and sci-fi featuring POC leads in your life? Check out some of the comics and anthologies from Rosarium Publishing!

The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria: “Assimilation is founded on surrender and being broken; this collection of short stories features people who have assimilated, but are actively trying to reclaim their lives. A collection of sci-fi and fantasy Latino short stories about losing and reclaiming cultural identity.”

Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany: “From surrealistic visions of bucolic road trips to erotic transgressions to mind-expanding analyses of Samuel R. Delany’s influence on the genre—as an out gay man, an African American, and possessor of a startlingly acute intellect—this book conveys the scope of the subject’s sometimes troubling, always rewarding genius.“

The SEA is Ours: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia: “The stories in this collection merge technological wonder with the everyday. Children upgrade their fighting spiders with armor, and toymakers create punchcard-driven marionettes. Large fish lumber across the skies, while boat people find a new home on the edge of a different dimension. Technology and tradition meld as the people adapt to the changing forces of their world.“

Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism: This anthology focuses on fantasy and sci-fi through a non-white and postcolonial lens, with stories including folklore and narratives from a varieties of cultures - Haitian, Japanese, African-American, Mexican, Native American, and so many more.

DayBlack: “Beneath the polluted clouds of DayBlack, Georgia, a man exists. After hundreds of years of killing to survive, he no longer wants to simply exist…he wants to live. DayBlack is the story of Merce, a former slave who was bitten by a vampire in the cotton fields. “

Chadhiyana - In the Company of Shadows:  “Chadhiyana, the Tal-Ifatiir order’s first female member, holds a horrible secret from her past and is plagued by troubles she’s afraid to reveal. As the company journeys to Aghal-Paraag’s prison, one misfortune after another befalls them. What can be the source of their troubles? The witch? The demon lord himself? Perhaps it is Chadhiyana or the secret she has sealed behind her closed lips.“

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This beautiful cover by Julie Dillon is just one reason to grab this book right now. 

Watch the latest Tempest Challenge episode to find out why I love it.

If you’ve ever yelled AENEAS IS A PUNK in your Western Civ class or at the opera, then The Beatriceid by Kate Elliott is for you.

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The Grace of Kings is everything Epic Fantasy ought to be--giant page count, cast of thousands, world-changing high stakes, complex protagonists, intervention by the gods--without the McEurope setting, dudes-only cast, sexist nonsense, and uninformed Asian fetishization.

Powell’s | Amazon

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"The sentences are going to kill you, they’re so good." --Maria Dahvana Headley about Kathryn Davis’ writing.

Find all of Davis’ books here.

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The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin

Judging by the covers, N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy might seem like a standard epic fantasy. But Jemisin defies almost every convention of the genre, starting with the characters. The heroine of the first book is a mixed race, brown-skinned woman raised in her father's homeland but called back to the world her mother came from. Yeine is a member of the most powerful family in the world, and the conflict between the values her parents instilled in her and the way she's expected to act when thrust into the midst of deadly family politics are only part of what makes the drama so juicy.

That other part? The gods, who are not mythological beings but manifest in the world. The Inheritance books deal with the complex relationships the humans have with their gods, bonds of which slavery is only the beginning. Conspiracies, mysteries, long-buried secrets, and, yes, a few steamy love scenes — perfect for premium cable.

The thing you'll miss out on if you wait for a TV series is Jemisin's engaging voice and commanding prose, the characters so rich that the way you feel about them changes from book to book, and the chance to imagine the ruling Arameri family's stronghold of Sky for yourself.

More book series that should be made into HBO dramas on NPR.

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New Vid: Tempest Challenge #25: The Beatriceid by Kate Elliott