Susanna Clarke’s new novel, Piranesi, is an absorbing, beautiful, and beguiling novel, with the power of telling a story so involving to the emotions and intellect that you may wish to plunge right back once you reach the end.
It is set in a world consisting entirely of vast and numerous stone Halls, lined with tiers of marble statues, some gigantic, others human-sized. The Halls are connected by doorways, many have staircases, and there are at least three Levels of Halls. (The profusion of capital Letters in this Account is due to the Influence of the novel’s narrator, a charming Child of the Halls called Piranesi, who writes like this in his journals, entries from which we are reading.)
Fiction submissions will close for November-December 2020. This means that the last window for general fiction submissions in 2020 will be October 26-27. Get your stories ready or hold them until January 2021. Fiction submissions for the Palestinian Special issue will open in November 2020!
The dominant impression left behind upon completing this collection is that these stories have thoroughly read me to filth, both in terms of technical prowess and the emotional gutpunch that comes from being forcibly reminded that none of us are singular in our joys or miseries.
The Doors of Eden is an unambiguous celebration of difference. The collective of interspecies heroes is suitably woke in its approach to saving the world and the many-worlds set-up promotes multiplicity and co-operation.
This round table marks twenty years of Strange Horizons reviews. The Reviews editors gathered together a group of reviewers past and present and asked them to discuss what reviewing is, why it matters—and why they bother with it.
It would be wrong to say we were surprised when this discussion eventually stretched across twenty-seven pages—and also untrue to say we edited proceedings with anything but a heavy heart. What follows, though, is as lightly edited as possible while keeping it within the confines of the magazine.
We may eventually publish a coffee table book, who knows.
Rachel Cordasco has a PhD in literary studies and currently works as a developmental editor.
The Wall's characters represent a multi-faceted resistance to societal conformity and make its utopia different from its antecedents. What makes the novel a better story, though, is that it understands the possibilities inherent in a messy world of rules designed to achieve dogmatic perfection.
The unofficial theme for this Short Fiction Treasures column is “arts, crafts, and work.” Whether the art, craft, or work is the main theme of the story, or whether it’s there as background and setting, it can add a level of immersion and satisfying texture to speculative fiction that I find irresistible.
