Get a free Advance Reader Copy of Cold Rising, a Cold Rush Novella

Cold Rush cover

After a job gone wrong, Special Agent Olgo is trapped within the bowels of Mars with no means of escape. The device that imprisons the trauma within them is about to fail, and the past terrors kept hidden by it must be contained for Olgo’s sanity and everyone’s safety.

From the darkness comes a tiny voice, and a tinier hope: “Hello?”

Looking for a novella with all the grit of Golden Age Sci Fi and all the heart of The Expanse? Rohan is looking for readers. Get a free copy in exchange for an honest review by signing up here.

Steamed Mantu with the Kite Runner

Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!

Steamed mantu was one of the scents Amir remembered during the Kite Tournament. The Kite Runner is a beautiful book with a stark reminder of how things can change drastically at any moment.

Steamed mantu is a wonderful Afghan dish, which I have made a bit easier with a few cheats. This is a vegetarian version but you can make a more traditional version by using minced lamb or beef instead of the sweet potato and peas.

Steamed Mantu with the Kite Runner
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Sushi and Sea Lions with homemade sushi

Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!

Dany and Vin Vin share several meals in Sushi and Sea Lions, from accidentally undercooked chicken parmigiana to diner chicken wings to the titular sushi. While under pressure to do a chicken parmigiana, I left that surprise for the book. This is the perfect snack to keep in the fridge and pull out and enjoy with this great read. Enjoy.

Sushi and Sea Lions with Sushi
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Zilla’s Dragonfly Article

A illustration of a person reading in nature.

Zilla Novikov published a blog post about activism, querying, and and her novella Query on the Dragonfly site. Dragonfly.eco is a platform which explores all kinds of eco-fiction. Mary Woodbury introduces Zilla’s article by saying:

“[Zilla’s] novel Query is a unique, witty perspective on an author’s activist-through-art frustrations in getting her book noticed and published. While recognizing these frustrations, I, as a reader, also innately understood the satire, and laughed often while reading, even though I recognized the madness one feels in the constant repetition of our activists’ voices. When chatting with Zilla recently, I was reminded of a quote from a novel I read during college: “We all feel that our generation didn’t get a chance to make any positive political contributions because we were totally occupied with just trying to stop the madness.” The book was Hot Flashes, by Barbara Raskin, published in 1987. Generations later, we are still trying to stop the madness (continued climate, political, economic, and social imbalances), and sometimes we get stuck in this rut of protest when we just want to move forward, past the same-old, same-old. Balancing ecological concern, style, humor, publishing woes, and still telling a solid story, Query is a must-read for this age.”

Read the article on Dragonfly!

Classic Scones with Babel

Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!

After moving from Canton to London, Robin discovers the culinary delight of Mrs Pipers’ Scones (or Bannocks as she prefers to call them).

Obviously, one of the major plot points in the book is whether or not you like sultanas in your scones. While Robin’s benefactor, Professor Lovell, is a big fan of the sultana scone, Robin prefers them plain. Seeing that my wife agrees with Robin, plain scones is what I have made. But feel free to add a handful of sultanas if you are that way inclined.

Babel and scones and a cup of tea
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Book Report Corner

by Dale Stromberg

Cover of Query

This wickedly funny epistolary novella is told in the form of query letters penned by an author who is slowly losing her shit. Query is replete with Easter eggs, allusions, bleed-through with the Night Beats story universe, and self-referentiality. The story-within-a-story of the novel that “Novikov” is querying is itself composed of stories-within-the-story, a matryoshka-nesting that multiplies layers. Novikov’s meta has meta, the way Popeye’s muscles have muscles.

Read the full review on Medium (no paywall).