Giving the Game Away | Among Other Things

It's been a quiet couple of weeks here on The Speculative Scotsman, hasn't it?

Sincerely, I'm sorry about that. I've been meaning to blog about any number of things, but I just haven't had the chance till today. I've been sick as a dog, you see, and what little time I've had with my wits about me I've had no choice but to dedicate to deadlines, which of course grow ever more pressing the longer you put them off.

Funny how that happens.

Anyway, as of today, the most desperate of my deadlines are defeated, and I'm officially over the worst of whatever it was that ruined my Easter week, so expect regular service to resume soon.

For the very moment, before we get any further out from the Among Others giveaway so many of you fine folks entered, allow me to announce the lucky winners. They are:

• Darren Goldsmith
• Kristini Wilde
• and Kunal Modi

If you so happen to be one of these three people, expect a brief email from me later today to confirm your details. Then, thanks to the kindness of the fine folks at Constable & Robinson, a copy of the brand new British edition of Jo Walton's wonderful novel will wing its way to wherever you are.

Massive congratulations to the winners—and commiserations, of course, to the less lucky. There's always next time!

Now in advance of a full-fledged post here on TSS, I've blogged a bunch about Iain Banks in the latest edition of the British Genre Fiction Focus, as I said I would last week when the devastating news about his health broke. Later on, there's discussion of a number of other stories—including Joe Abercrombie's comic book and the hundred best novels ever according to a superteam of teachers—but truth be told, today's column is mostly an ode to Iain Banks, whose work has always occupied a special place in my dark heart.

With that, I'll say good day. But there'll be more to look forward to tomorrow, I promise!

Giving the Game Away | We Are Among Others

Hello again, everyone. I'm back!

Only briefly, I'm afraid. Predictably, I've returned home to deadlines aplenty, and as ever, the day job awaits, so I only have a few moments to devote to The Speculative Scotsman this afternoon. Luckily, that' should just long enough for me to blog about one of the very best books I've read in recent years: a multiple award-winner that (for once) deserves all the acclaim that's been heaped upon it. Namely Among Others by Jo Walton.

It's an extraordinary novel, with the most memorable narrator I've encountered in ages: Morwenna Phelps (or Mori to her friends... not that she has terribly many) is always charming and often disarming, but here's what really struck me about this marvellous character: she is undeniably one of us—which is to say an individual as inextricable from the fantastical literature she reads and reflects on throughout Among Others as any die-hard genre fiction fan—and wonderfully, one senses Jo Walton is as well.

If you've gone this long without reading Among Others already, you must know by now that you're missing something magnificent. But perhaps you aren't aware of what this novel is, and equally, what it isn't. Well:

"Think of this as a memoir. Think of it as one of those memoirs that's later discredited to everyone's horror because the writer lied and is revealed to be a different colour, gender, class and creed from the way they'd made everybody think. I have the opposite problem. I have to keep fighting to stop making myself sound more normal. Fiction's nice. Fiction lets you select and simplify. This isn't a nice story, and this isn't an easy story. But it is a story about fairies, so feel free to think of it as a fairy story. It's not like you'd believe it anyway."

The thing of it is... I did. Among Others came alive for me in a way truly few books do when I finally read it this past winter. Sadly, the review I wrote way back when—the review I had been sitting on ever since, waiting for this very day, I dare say—appears to have been eaten by Blogger, so you'll just have to take my word for it: Among Others is bittersweet, beautifully put... quite simply brilliant.

But wait! What am I talking about? You don't have to take my word for it at all, because even if you exclude the innumerable glowing reviews of the book my bloggery colleagues have written already—and why would you?—this post begins a whole week of awesome Among Others coverage.

Tomorrow, Civilian Reader will be chipping in; Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews welcomes Jo Walton on Wednesday; on Thursday, tune in to 2606 Books; then The Book Smugglers are due to do their inimitable thing on Friday. Over the weekend, Jan Edwards and Fantasy Faction will have the book's back, and a week from today, the blog tour concludes courtesy of Curiosity Killed the Bookworm.

Needless to say, it'll be a brilliant week, and all in honour of a good cause. Among Others really does merit such celebration. And to start us off properly, it's with immense pleasure—and many thanks to the fine folks at Constable & Robinson who are publishing the paperback this Thursday—that I say I have three copies of the beautiful new British edition of this book to give away to interested parties based in the UK.

All you need do to stand a chance of winning Among Others is to email me at thespeculativescotsman [at] gmail [dot] com with your name and address. Mark your subject headers 'We Are Among Others' and I'll announce the lucky ones next week, when I'm properly on top of the blog again.

It really is as easy as that.

Seriously, what are you waiting for? :)

We'll talk again shortly, all. In the interim, do stay tuned for a few more Short Story Reviews, including one of the piece I think should win the BSFA's award for the Best Short Story of 2012.