Welcome back to your favorite recap on the web, the Weekly Roundup! As always, I’m coming to you live from Japan as I write this, and things have been continually slowing down as we deal with containment of COVID-19. This time last year, I was scrambling to sew cosplay for Anime Japan, and it was pretty much the same this year until February 27 when they announced the con’s cancellation. Costumes and materials were ordered and assembled over a period of months; hotels booked; airfare bought; admission purchased…all for naught. I totally understand why, but I can’t help but be disappointed. *Sigh.* I hope the event will be back for 2021! And in the meantime, I hope all of you are staying healthy and happy. I know the rest of the world is following suit with event cancellations, so if you’re missing out on something near and dear to your heart, here’s hoping for all of us that things will resume once more next year. Now, let’s check what happened this week!
Monday
Our special guest for this week’s My Favorite Things is Marc L. Abbott, and we’re excited for his novel Hell at the Way Station, cowritten with Steven Van Patten, and available now from Laughing Black Vampire Productions! What do you have to look forward to this week? How about a Hitchock classic of psychological horror; terrifying creatures that dwell in the sea; a long-established game franchise that’s an assassin’s delight; and a modern sci fi classic film from Luc Besson. There’s lot’s to love here, so dive in for a closer look!
Tuesday
Join Merrin for a review of Year One, from the incomparable Nora Roberts. A genre giant in the world of romance, there’s a departure here from from what you’d expect: this is a dystopian fiction novel that blends sci fi and fantasy in a world where sickness has decimated the population. After technology and science has fallen by the wayside, magic and witchcraft has risen from its ashes. This quite different from Roberts’s usual ouevre, so how does she pull off this change-up? What can you expect from this story of life amid apocolypse? Merrin’s got the dish here.
Wednesday
Looking for a one-shot tabletop RPG that’s whimsical and fun? Andrea‘s got you covered with RNW’s The Fey Fayre, where your team plays as a group of explorers who visit a festival featuring otherworldy stalls, games, and attractions. The highlight of the Fayre is the talent show, featuring a grand prize that goes missing…and your party is accused of the theft. Can you solve the crime, or do you risk being transformed launched into the Feywild? Check out Andrea’s review here.
Thursday
Nicole reviews the second book in Crystal Cestari‘s the Windy City Magic series, The Sweetest Kind of Fate (check out her review of the first book here). This YA romance centers on matchmaking possibly gone wrong; archenemies coming together; dangerous magic that threatens to irrevocably change lives; and true love on the verge of demise. Return to the wilds of Chicago for an urban fantasy filled with sassy heroines, quirky characters, and hidden magic — your ticket’s here.
Friday
Join us for heartbreak and tears as our contributors discuss the saddest moments in the speculative genre for this month’s Roundtable topic! We’ve got faithful dogs, drowning ponies, crying chimeras…not to mention the final film in an epic fantasy trilogy that brought the waterworks in a myriad of ways. Add a dose of the Doctor and more tragic deaths, and you’ve got a cornucopia of sadness waiting for you. Come commiserate with us here!
Book Club
We draw ever closer to this month’s discussion of Cate Glass‘s An Illusion of Thieves, selected and hosted by Kendra. If you’re interested in a team of magical misfits pulling off a heist to save their world from war, join us on March 27 for the big talk! And here’s what else you can look forward to in the upcoming months for the Speculative Chic Book Club:
- April — Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger, hosted by Nancy O’Toole Meservier
- May — The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso, hosted by Lane Robins
- June — Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber, hosted by Kelly McCarty
If you want to know more about the book choices above, read here and here, and we’ll see you towards the end of the month for our discussion!
Things may seem apocolyptic now. Heck, we’ve been in a literary apocolypse for years in terms of the genre, with numerous SF works envisioning the end of the world (the environment, zombies, pandemics, war, bad governments, etc.). Instead, I’d like to be optimistic about our future. If we’re going to embrace science fiction as an indicator of where we’re headed, then I’m here to say: BRING ON THE FASHION — the weirder the better (hello, Hunger Games and Fifth Element). Take it away, Ruby Rhod (and we’ll see you again next week)!
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