Fantasy Book Swap

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.