March 17, 2009

Blogging Sisterhood Award

Filed under: awards,links,news — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 4:24 pm

I have been given a Blogging Sisterhood Award by Scribble City Central. Lucy Coats writes: “Rhiannon has directed me to all sorts of wonderful places I never would have discovered without her. And she really (no, I mean REALLY) knows her stuff on the book front. A goldmine of interesting information. At least it is for me.”

Thank you, Lucy, for your generous critique!

The Blogging Sisterhood Award was created by Diana of Diana Rambles and is designed to be passed on. When you are gifted with it, you should pass it on. Scribble City Central suggested listing ten names of other bloggers but I’m not actively following enough blogs to nominate that many.

Instead I shall list three blogs, to which I am passing the award on:

  • Hijab Style, a fashion blog for Muslim women
  • Farah Mendlesohn’s Inter-Galactic Playground, a children’s science fiction review blog; the blog is officially defunct now the book has been published but has lots of really interesting recommendations in the field of YA SF
  • Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose, a feminist blog

Thank you to all three blogs for having informed and entertained me.

Note: Some readers of this blog may be wondering about what connection my blog choices have to my life choices. I am a feminist and I believe in the gospel of size-acceptance. I am not a Muslim and I do not wear hijab, but I am interested in Islamic culture and dress. I am a YA SF writer and have been reviewed at the Inter-Galactic Playground but it’s for the recommendations of books other than my own that I am recommending it. I’m assuming that people reading my blog already know about my books!

March 9, 2009

Books of colour

Filed under: recommended reading — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 7:30 am

Events in the blogosphere have inspired me to post another list of recommendations, this is for fiction by or about people of colour.

Authors of colour

  • Octavia Butler, science-fiction author of Wildseed and the Xenogenesis series
  • Steven Barnes, science-fiction author of The Descent of Anansi, Dream Park, The Legacy of Heorot and other titles
  • Rosa Guy, author of young adult fiction including The Friends, Ruby, Edith Jackson and other titles
  • Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day, When We Were Orphans and Never Let Me Go
  • Mildred E. Taylor, author of the Logan family series for young adults which includes Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, and The Road to Memphis

Books with characters of colour

  • Across Realtime, science-fiction by Vernor Vinge
  • Come a Stranger, young adult fiction by Cynthia Voigt
  • Lionboy by Zizou Corder (one half of the Zizou Corder partnership is the biracial British author Isabel Adomakoh Young)
  • The Ear, the Eye and the Arm, young adult science-fiction by Nancy Farmer
  • The Other Side of Truth by Beverly Naidoo

This list is shorter than it ought to be so please add your own recommendations. I hope to expand the list myself later this year. If you’re looking for more works by authors of colour try the following links:

March 3, 2009

Post-apocalyptic fiction

Filed under: recommended reading — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 12:00 pm

Seriously, what is it with Monica Hughes? Why can’t anyone remember what books she wrote? If you haven’t read them already go and find Devil On My Back and The Dreamcatcher. Monica Hughes, people! She deserves to be remembered.

And to bulk out this entry a bit here are some more post-apocalyptic fiction recommendations since both Hughes titles are set after a nuclear holocaust event. I’m keeping myself to ten titles or I’ll be here forever. All are young-adult – or can pass as such. All contain some reference to adult themes. I’d advise these for readers aged 13+.

  • Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells (1984)
  • Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence (1985)
  • Deepwater Black by Ken Catran (1995)
  • Exodus by Julie Bertagna (2002)
  • Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve (2001)
  • Noah’s Castle by John Rowe Townsend (1975)
  • Shade’s Children by Garth Nix (1997)
  • The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (1955)
  • When the Tripods Came by John Christopher (1988)
  • Z for Zachariah by Robert O’Brian (1975)

On LibraryThing (the library cataloguing website) I have some of these and other adult titles saved under the tag post-holocaust.

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