AILSA CHANG, HOST:
One of the best things about a good book is that it can transport you to a different world, right? I don't mean that in a cheesy way. What I mean is sometimes a good book can take you literally to a different planet. NPR's Andrew Limbong is here to tell us about some of NPR's favorite sci-fi, fantasy and speculative fiction. He hosts NPR's Book of the Day podcast and joins us now. Hey, Andrew.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa. What's up? What's going on?
CHANG: Oh, not much, except Books We Love.
LIMBONG: (Laughter) Oh, let's do it, yeah.
CHANG: Let's do it. You've been talking us through so many selections from NPR's Books We Love. That is our big year-end compilation, of course. OK, so when it comes to sci-fi, let's start from the top and work our way back down to Earth.
LIMBONG: (Laughter).
CHANG: What do you got that takes place in space?
LIMBONG: All right, so there's this novel called "The Startdust Grail," by Yume Kitasei. It's like a heist novel. And it takes place, like you said, in space. It's about this woman who steals artifacts from museums and returns them to alien civilizations.
CHANG: (Laughter).
LIMBONG: Cool job, cool job, but she's since retired and teaches at Princeton. Less cool, right?
CHANG: I guess so.
LIMBONG: Like all the great heist stories - right? - she's got to go back for just one more job. And without spoiling it too much, this last heist job has ramifications for other alien species, as well as Earth. Now, there's some, like, social commentary here about, like, cultural theft and colonialism and museums. And, you know, you can get all that if you want it. But every review I've read of this book just talks about how much fun it is.
CHANG: I love it. Even when it comes to space, we've got the same problems of imperialism...
LIMBONG: (Laughter) Yeah.
CHANG: And manifest destiny and colonization.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
CHANG: OK, what about something a little closer to home? What if I don't want to deal with aliens in my book?
LIMBONG: Yeah, closer to home. You're in California, right?
CHANG: Yeah.
LIMBONG: OK. So there's this book by Venita Blackburn, and it's called "Dead In Long Beach, California."
CHANG: Oh.
LIMBONG: Now, the premise of this novel is actually pretty grounded. It's about a woman who finds her brother's body after his suicide. And instead of sort of coming to terms with his death and her grief, she decides to, like, keep him alive in a way by answering his phone and responding to people who don't know that he's dead. Now, where it gets sort of weird and sci-fi-y or, you know, speculative fiction-y is that it's narrated from this mysterious we voice that's made up of machines that are studying humanity, because humanity has since been wiped out due to some sort of big catastrophic event. And so it's this really interesting balance that blends, like, the intimacy of a family story, but the sort of coldness of science and study.
CHANG: Wow, OK. Well, how about the fantasy stuff? Like, what have we got there? And by fantasy, well, what kind of fantasies are we talking about here, Andrew?
LIMBONG: (Laughter) Let's start on the more, like, magical realism side, right?
CHANG: OK. Darn.
LIMBONG: We'll get to it. Come on, don't worry.
CHANG: (Laughter).
LIMBONG: One book I want to shout out is Kelly Link's "Book Of Love." Link is an acclaimed short story writer. That's where she gets most of her props. You know, that's how she got a MacArthur genius grant and a nod as a Pulitzer finalist. This is her debut novel. It's the opposite of a short story, if you know what I mean. I think my copy is, like, more than 600 pages.
CHANG: Whoa.
LIMBONG: And it's about these three teenagers plus one extra person who are brought back from the dead by their teacher...
CHANG: (Laughter).
LIMBONG: ...Who has magical powers. And they've got to do all these, like, tasks and trials to stay alive. It's pretty ambitious. And I'm interested to see where Link's career goes from here.
CHANG: OK, well, if we are going to be talking about fantasy, we cannot end without talking about romantasy, right? By the way, I had no idea this word even existed...
LIMBONG: What?
CHANG: ...Until I saw your notes. Yeah.
LIMBONG: Really? Wow, OK.
CHANG: The way I see it, all romance is fantasy. Come on, romance is dead, people.
LIMBONG: (Laughter) Listen, listen, true love is out there.
CHANG: We shall see.
LIMBONG: You can find it.
CHANG: I don't know (laughter).
LIMBONG: Maybe you can find it in a Sarah J. Maas book. She's the top dog of the romantasy genre. You never read "A Court Of Thorns And Roses"?
CHANG: No.
LIMBONG: Come on, Ailsa. OK. All right, this is huge, this is huge. You got a lot of reading to do. You got a lot of catch-up to do.
CHANG: Clearly.
LIMBONG: "House Of Flame And Shadow" is her latest in her Crescent City series. Like I said, she's huge, so if you're a fan of hers, you probably don't need me to recommend it. But the sales pitch is it's just an epic fantasy with a bunch of ensemble characters. There's sex, there's violence. In this book, there's a fair bit of world jumping. And so, you know, what more could you want?
CHANG: Everything. Everything I could possibly want is inside this book.
LIMBONG: Yeah (laughter).
CHANG: Clearly. That is NPR's Andrew Limbong. Thank you so much, Andrew.
LIMBONG: Thanks, Ailsa.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
