Marianne Edwards Fire Boy is the first book of a duology by Sami Shah. Shah is a comedian, broadcaster, writer, speaker, and newshound. He has the breadth of perspective you’d expect from someone with so many strings to his bow. The story shows how a baby of extraordinary origins becomesContinue Reading
Issue 18 of Apex Magazine, the “Arab/Muslim” issue of November 2010, will no doubt go down as one of the most memorable installments of the magazine, and an emblem of Catherynne M. Valente’s brief but influential term as editor. If nothing else, the issue will be remembered as Valente’s responseContinue Reading
The first blurb on the back of Saladin Ahmed’s debut novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon, comes from Nebula winner Walter Jon Williams. Williams writes: “Readers yearning for the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser will delight in the arrival of Adoulla and Raseed.” The comparison accurately places ThroneContinue Reading
The Mirage, Matt Ruff’s new novel, is based on a striking reversal of history. Set in the Islamic and democratic United Arab States, it opens with the traumatic events of November 9, 2001, the day a group of radical Christian terrorists hijacked four planes. The terrorists flew two planes intoContinue Reading
Abdourahman Waberi’s Aux États-Unis d’Afrique was published in 2006, and the English translation, In the United States of Africa, came out in 2009. It’s a brief, lyrical and pointed satire that imagines our world in reverse: Africa is a region of stability and prosperity, united by a single government, withContinue Reading