AN ASTONISHING, HARROWING, BEAUTIFUL novel mixes the everyday horrors of racism with the terrors of the supernatural in a tale of a brutal Florida reformatory haunted by the boys who died there. SOLID A
A SURREAL POST-APOCALYPTIC SETTING lends power to this dreamlike retelling of Macbeth. Hallucinatory, atmospheric prose captures the point of view of a man pushed to his limits with no options but to fight. B PLUS
The seventeenth chapter of my hard sci-fi space opera is released! The crew escapes the glubb-enn crossfire, and enters a system property of the Yectkogg corporate empire. The consequences of seeking help from rabid capitalists ensue.
This really is the last of this spurt of releases. We are going back to weekly releases (on Saturdays). The spam is over. Sorry yall for hammering the hashtags.
MURDERBOT’S BACK, BUT not better than ever. In fact, the semi-human fighting machine is feeling vulnerable—at the worst possible time, as it and the humans it protects are dealing with multiple interplanetary threats. Fast-paced, thoughtful. A MINUS
HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD? The characters in Naomi Alderman’s crisp near-future technothriller have a lot of ideas—some of them on a collision course with others. Action and deft satire blend in this high-energy yet thoughtful read. A MINUS
Today in Labor History December 6, 1889: The trial of the Chicago Haymarket anarchists began amidst national and international outrage and protest. None of the men on trial had even been at Haymarket Square when the bomb was set off. They were on trial because of their anarchist political affiliations and their labor organizing for the 8-hour work-day. 4 were ultimately executed, including Alber Parsons, husband of future IWW founding member Lucy Parsons. One, Louis Ling, cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell. The Haymarket Affairs is considered the origin of International Workers Day, May 1st, celebrated in virtually every country in the world, except for the U.S., where the atrocity occurred. Historically, it was also considered the culmination of the Great Upheaval, which a series of strike waves and labor unrest that began in Martinsburg, West Virginia, 1877, and spread throughout the U.S., including the Saint Louis Commune, when communists took over and controlled the city for several days. Over 100 workers were killed across the U.S. in the weeks of strikes and protests. Communists and anarchists also organized strikes in Chicago, where police killed 20 men and boys. Albert and Lucy Parsons participated and were influenced by these events. I write about this historical period in my Great Upheaval Trilogy. The first book in this series, Anywhere But Schuylkill, came out in September, 2023, from Historium Press. Check it out here: https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/it/michael-dunn and https://michaeldunnauthor.com/
Today in Labor History December 5, 1928: The Colombian military slaughtered up to 2,000 people in the Banana Massacre. Workers had been on strike against United Fruit Company since November 12. They were participating in a peaceful demonstration, with their wives and children. The Columbian troops set up machine guns on the rooftops near the demonstration and closed off the access streets so no one could escape. The soldiers threw the dead into mass graves or dumped them in the sea. U.S. officials in Colombia had portrayed the workers as communists and subversives and even threatened to invade if the Colombian government didn’t protect United Fruit’s interests. Gabriel García Márquez depicted the massacre in his novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” as did Álvaro Cepeda Samudio in his “La Casa Grande.”
United Fruit, which is now called Chiquita, controlled vast quantities of territory in Central America, and the Caribbean, maintained a near monopoly in many of the banana republics in which it operated (e.g., Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica). By 1930, it was the largest employer in Central America and the largest land owner. In 1952, the government of Jacobo Arbenz, in Guatemala, began giving away unused land, owned by United Fruit, to landless peasants. In 1954, the CIA deposed the Arbenz government, leading to decades of brutal dictatorship and genocide of Guatemala’s indigenous population. The head of the CIA at that time was former board member of United Fruit, Allen Dulles, who also oversaw the over throw of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the MK Ultra LSD mind control experiments.
There was a drug store in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania that plays prominently in my novel, ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL. It was run by a Polish immigrant known as Doc Luks. He was sympathetic to the miners and would often provide medicine and treatment for free during strikes, when the workers had no money to pay him.
His son, George Luks, became a successful artist, of the Ashcan School, a politically rebellious art movement that was influenced by Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” and which portrayed the everyday lives of working class people and immigrants. Luks’s art, in particular, was influenced by the poverty and oppression suffered by the miners he grew up with.
Today in Labor History December 2, 1867: British author Charles Dickens gave his first public reading in the United States at Tremont Temple in Boston. He described his impressions of the U.S. in a travelogue, “American Notes for General Circulation.” In Notes, he condemned slavery and correlated the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad. Despite his abolitionist sentiments, some modern commentators have criticized him for not condemning Britain’s harsh crackdown during the 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica. During his American visit, he also spent a month in New York, giving lectures, and arguing for international copyright laws and against the pirating of his work in America. The press ridiculed him, saying he should be grateful for his popularity here.
Today in Labor History December 2, 1859: The authorities hanged abolitionist John Brown in Charleston, Virginia for his leadership of a plot to incite a slave rebellion. Victor Hugo, who was living in exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain a pardon for him. His open letter was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. His plea failed, of course. On the day of his execution, John Brown rode in a furniture wagon, on top of his own coffin, through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers, to the gallows. The soldiers included future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth. Walt Whitman described the execution in his poem “Year of Meteors.”
Hey, if you're seeing this and you are a published author (indie self-published or otherwise, doesn't matter, so long as you're on fedi) or a writer in general please reply with a link to your work and maybe a gist of what kinda stuff you write.
I'm gonna get some money for the holidays, and since I'm gonna be treating myself to books I don't really need anyway why not support some fedi friends? (consider doing the same too this holiday season) :ablobcatheartsqueeze:
SHIMMERING, GORGEOUS, WISTFUL meditation on life, love, art, and loss set against the surreal cityscape of New York in the 2020 COVID lockdown. Everything is vivid, everything feels deeply true. A MINUS
"Catherine Newman sees the heartbreak and comedy of life with wisdom and unflinching compassion. The way she finds the extraordinary in the everyday is nothing short of poetry. She's a writer's writer—and a human's human."
"We All Want Impossible Things is a riotously funny and fiercely loyal love letter to female friendship. The story of Edi and Ash proves that a best friend is a gift from the gods."
The Challenges of Being Me comes out tomorrow! This is a coming of age #novel dealing with the challenges of not knowing who you are, yet still supposed to project confidence about yourself to those around you.
I’m excited about this book coming out and would love for you to join me on this journey
A LONG-FORGOTTEN LITERARY GEM from 1938, reissued in a sumptuous new edition. Beautifully stark modernist novel traces the gradual diminution of a woman’s life with pitiless clarity. A MINUS
THE FAMILY THAT SLEUTHS TOGETHER…finds out more about themselves and each other in this charming, engrossing California murder mystery starring three generations of smart, sharp women solving a complicated crime. B PLUS
THE PERIPHERAL (William Gibson, 2014; Spanish edition 2017).
First novel of the trilogy (not yet finished) the Jackpot. In 2020 the second novel, "Agency" was published (I am reading it now). I haven't seen the Amazon Prime version and I'm not sure I'm going to see it. The reason is that I don't think it can live up to the novel. Perhaps one of the best novels translating today's complex reality (past, present, fact, fiction, economics, politics...).
The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon - all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity.
A SPIRITUALIST’S WIFE STRUGGLES to come to terms with her husband’s new world of séances and “readings”—and fears he’ll find out some of her own secrets. Lush evocation of post-World War I Scotland and the frenzies of Jazz Age society. B PLUS
This story has reached a fork moment, with each fork promising to take my writing going forward in a diverging direction. Now to decide which fork is more in line with my long term vision as a writer.
I have read Nnedi Okorafor's novella, Binti, and I found it wonderful (as well as very entertaining). Also, with a witty reflection on the decolonization of museums.
This dazzling and ambitious literary debut follows three generations of beekeepers from the past, present, and future, weaving a spellbinding story of their relationship to the bees—and to their children and one another—against the backdrop of an urgent, global crisis.