Fantasy Book Swap

Annie’s choice:The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts  Ali’s choice: The Lie Tree by Frances HardingeA short piece by Willo Davis Roberts on writing mysteries for young people Annie has just got back from Finncon where her husband, multiple  award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky was a guest of honour. Rosebud is an excellent bookshop. If you’re ever in Helsinki you should definitely visit. Annie talks about Xan Van Roojen, a South African writer who lives in Finland, and their use of music while writing. My vote for a new National Anthem: Disco Inferno I listen to a lot of Philip Glass music when writing. It calms my brain. This is the beginning of his opera Akhnaten, which I was lucky enough to see staged in Leeds in the mid-90s. The Girl with the Silver Eyes reminds me of Escape to Witch Mountain, a Disney live-action film. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin Shockingly I misremembered the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice. I will retire my English Literature degree. In  my defence, I'm a Victorianist. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.  My earworm this week: Mean Green Mother From Outer Space from Little Shop of Horrors Alnwick Castle Poison GardenMaelstrom LARPThe Coral Bones by EJ Swift has been on my TBR list for an embarrassingly long time. You can find out more about Annie and her research here and hear some of her music on Adrian Tchaikovsky and Emma Newman’s Starship Alexandria podcast, where Adrian and Emma take it in turns to select a favourite piece of speculative fiction and discuss it.  Fantasy Book Swap has recently been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Society award!  Thanks so much to anyone who nominated. 

Elen’s choice: A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley Ali’s choice: The Haunting of Aveline Jones by Phil Hickes Elen’s recently-published text book: Writing for Young People: Critical Readings and Discussion on Craft Alison Uttley’s diaries were published in 2009The history of the Babington plot Books mentioned in this episode: Charlotte Sometimes, Tom’s Midnight Garden, The Borrowers, Tyger. The book by Joan Aiken that I couldn’t remember is In Thunder’s Pocket. We didn’t talk about the awful adaptation from 1978. You have been warned. Elen’s book The Short Knife won the Tir na n’Og award in 2021. Hear her reading the chapter and talking to Nikki Gamble here. Elen teaches at Lancaster and Bath Spa universities. She is one of the managing editors of Leaf Journal on writing for children. You can follow her on Bluesky and Instagram. Fantasy Book Swap has recently been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Society award!  Thanks so much to anyone who nominated.    

Hello friends! Fantasy Book Swap has been nominated for a British Fantasy Society Award for Best Audio- Non-Fiction. The others in the shortlist are: Breaking the Glass Slipper, a previous winner and Hugos nominee The Folklore Podcast, hosted by folklorist and author Mark NormanUncanny, a BBC podcast hosted by comedy writer and performer Danny Robins, investigating supernatural happenings.  It is an honour to be on the shortlist with such amazing creators, some of whom I hope to meet at the awards at FantasyCon in October!

Chris’s choice: Mossflower by Brian Jacques Ali’s choice: The Spick and the Span by Pil Van Martin, longlisted for the Carnegie awardMossflower cover art for the 1989 Red Lion edition by Pete LyonCastaways of the Flying Dutchman by Brian JacquesRobin Hood and Maid MarionWarrior Cats by Erin Hunter. I met Cherith Baldry, one of the Erin Hunter writers, at Glasgow WorldCon. Alex Rider by Anthony Horowitz; Young James Bond by Charlie HigsonI made a recipe from the Redwall cookbookA journal article by Christopher Quah Wai Kheong and Anita Harris Satkunananthan on othering in Outcast of RedwallProfessor Dimitra Fimi ‘Was Tolkien really racist?’Cluny the Scourge.   The first two episodes of the Redwall cartoon series feature Cluny.Spindle’s End by Robin McKinleyMarvel: Damage Control was a limited series of comics, a TV show was in development but never made. The Superhero Clean Up Squad was a comedy series from 2015.The Rest Of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness is the story of the other students of the high school infested by zombies and vampires, not the chosen ones; the ones who just want to graduate before school blows up again. Check out Bona Books Follow Chris on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/chrismccartney.bsky.social

Stewart Hotston is the chair of the BSFA. Stewart’s choice: Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams (First in the Dragonbone Chair trilogy. It is 5 1/2 cm deep.You can see the original cover on Tad Williams’s website Ali’s choice: Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa. It is considerably less thick.   The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey. A novel about a child, but not a children’s book. Aliette de Bodard’s essay On Motherhood and Erasure. Anna Smith Spark’s  A Sword of Bronze and Ashes is one of the few fantasy books where a mother is the protagonist. Catherynne M. Valente’s excellent The Refrigerator Monologues addresses the phenomenon of fridging women characters as a plot device and motivation for male superheroes. Stewart recommends Richard Swan, David Wragg and Neal Stephenson’s Baroque cycle for interesting takes on mythology and folklore. Wuxia such as Monkey adapted from Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en. Zen Cho’s novelette The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water. Historical C-dramas are very big on yearning glances. Stewart is currently watching Veil of Shadows. Stewart recently read The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson. The most challenged books. The CLPE’s Reflecting Realities report demonstrates that the number of children’s books with protagonists of colour published in 2025 was lower than in previous years. Stewart wrote a blog about representation and the Clarke Awards. EasterCon is the British SFF fan-run con that travels around the UK. Next year it is in Glasgow! Find Stewart online! Website, Bluesky, Nerds of a Feather. Read Project Hanuman.