Lisa Goldstein

Lisa Goldstein is the National Book Award-winning fantasy author of The Red Magician. Her stories have appeared in Ms., Asimov’s Science Fiction, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and her novels and short stories have been finalists for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. Her novel The Uncertain Places won the 2012 Mythopoeic Award, and her short story “Paradise Is a Walled Garden” won the 2011 Sidewise Award.

Goldstein's new novel is Weighing Shadows.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie: This is the last book in the Ancillary trilogy. The world Leckie presents is a fascinating place, making this the most original space opera in years.

H Is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald: This is really three books ­­ one an account of Macdonald training her goshawk Mabel; one about T.H. White, the author of The Once and Future King, with emphasis on his own book about goshawks; and one a narrative of the author's mourning after her father died unexpectedly. You wouldn't think these three things would fit together but they do, and amazingly well at times. The author writes with great compassion about White's sad life, his disastrous upbringing, his attempt to deny his homosexuality, his belief that it was only by being perfect that he could win his parents' love. The part I liked best, though, was the section dealing with Macdonald's father.

Three Moments of an Explosion, China Miéville: A collection filled with strange, wonderful, surrealistic stories. Some I loved, some I liked, some I disliked or, worse, didn't get, but all of them exist in a world where, as Miéville says in "The Design," "beautiful, elegantly wrought secrets lie hidden less than an inch from sight."

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, Tom Rachman: The Denver Post said about Rachman's first novel, The Imperfectionists, "He's set the bar so high, one wonders how he can clear it the next time around." Well, writing here from the future (the future of The Imperfectionists, anyway) I can tell you that this second book is even better than the first. Tooly Zylberberg is raised by a series of eccentrics: first Paul, a fussy, nervous man who works for the US State Department in Asia, and who never stays in any one city for more than a year; then Humphrey Ostropoler, a dour, untidy Russian ­­ "My nature abhors the vacuum," he says ­­ who reads Great Thinkers; and Venn, a charming conman. Where did all these people come from, and which of them, if any, is she actually related to? We don't find out until the ending, when everything falls beautifully into place.

Visit Lisa Goldstein's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Lisa Goldstein & Bonnie.

The Page 69 Test: Weighing Shadows.

My Book, The Movie: Weighing Shadows.

--Marshal Zeringue