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Famous model and Kanye West’s former girlfriend, Julia Fox, announced that she now identifies as a lesbian. Fox responded to a person’s TikTok video and responded to the content by posting a video of her own Monday. The woman who posted the initial video shared the content under the username @emgwaciedawgie. She began by saying, […]

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Books All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in July 2024 Visit an enchanted wood, a besieged Camelot, and a department store that sells dreams in this month’s new fantasy titles! By Reactor | Published on July 9, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Here’s the full list of the fantasy titles heading your way in July! Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change. July 2 Rhymer: Hoode (Rhymer Trilogy #2) — Gregory Frost (Baen)It’s been nearly a century since Thomas Rimor last battled Yvag knights. In that time his wife and daughter have grown old and died, and he has discovered that he ages not at all. The elven world believes him long dead. In his grief, he has retreated to the depths of Sherwood and Barnsdale Forests and become a hermit, lost in his memories, his grief. But when a dying outlaw arrives on his doorstep with items stolen from an Yvag skinwalker, it sets in motion events that thrust Thomas back into the world and force him into combat with Queen Nicnevin’s soldiers once again, including this time his late sister’s changeling daughter and the Queen’s own grotesque offspring, Bragrender. As Thomas takes on two sheriffs of Nottingham and a horde of Yvag raiders, he enlists the aid of outlaws Little John and Will Scathelocke, and the Keeper of Sherwood Forest herself, Isabella Birkin, who sets him on a path back to humanity. To keep his true identity hidden from the Yvags, he creates an alter-ego named Robyn Hoode, whose exploits, unbeknown to Thomas, are about to become the stuff of legend. The Gilded Crown — Marianne Gordon (Harper Voyager)Since she was a little girl, Hellevir has been able to raise the dead. Every creature can be saved for a price, a price demanded by the shrouded figure who rules the afterlife, who takes a little more from Hellevir with each soul she resurrects. Such a gift can rarely remain a secret. When Princess Sullivain, sole heir to the kingdom’s throne, is assassinated, the Queen summons Hellevir to demand she bring her granddaughter back to life. But once is not enough; the killers might strike again. The Princess’s death would cause a civil war, so the Queen commands that Hellevir remain by her side. But Sullivain is no easy woman to be bound to, even as Hellevir begins to fall in love with her. With the threat of war looming, Hellevir must trade more and more of herself to keep the Princess alive. But Death will always take what he is owed. The Night Ends with Fire — K. X. Song (Ace)The Three Kingdoms are at war, but Meilin’s father refuses to answer the imperial draft. Trapped by his opium addiction, he plans to sell Meilin for her dowry. But when Meilin discovers her husband-to-be is another violent, ill-tempered man, she realizes that nothing will change for her unless she takes matters into her own hands. The very next day, she disguises herself as a boy and enlists in her father’s place. In the army, Meilin’s relentless hard work brings her recognition, friendship—and a growing closeness with Sky, a prince turned training partner. But has she simply exchanged one prison for another? As her kingdom barrels toward destruction, Meilin begins to have visions of a sea dragon spirit that offers her true power and freedom, but with a deadly price. With the future of the Three Kingdoms hanging in the balance, Meilin will need to decide whom to trust—Sky, who inspires her loyalty and love; the sea dragon spirit, who has his own murky agenda; or an infuriating enemy prince who makes her question everything she once knew—about her kingdom and about her own heart. July 9 Navola — Paolo Bacigalupi (Knopf)In Navola, a bustling city-state dominated by a handful of influential families, business is power, and power is everything. For generations, the di Regulai family—merchant bankers with a vast empire—has nurtured tendrils that stretch to the farthest reaches of the known world. And though they claim not to be political, their staggering wealth has bought cities and toppled kingdoms. Soon, Davico di Regulai will be expected to take the reins of power from his father and demonstrate his mastery of the games of Navolese diplomacy: knowing who to trust and who to doubt, and how to read what lies hidden behind a smile. But in Navola, strange and ancient undercurrents lurk behind the gilt and grandeur—like the fossilized dragon eye in the family’s possession, a potent symbol of their raw power and a talisman that seems to be summoning Davico to act. As tensions rise and the events unfold, Davico will be tested to his limits. His fate depends on the eldritch dragon relic and on what lies buried in the heart of his adopted sister, Celia di Balcosi, whose own family was destroyed by Nalova’s twisted politics.  The Price of Redemption — Shawn Carpenter (Saga)Despite her powerful magic, Marquese Enid d’Tancreville must flee her homeland to escape death at the hands of the Theocratic Revolution. When a Theocratic warship overtakes the ship bearing her to safety, Enid is spared capture by the timely intervention of the Albion frigate Alarum, under the commend of Commander Rue Nath. These circumstances make for an odd alliance, and Enid finds herself replacing the Alarum’s recently slain sea mage. Now an officer under Nath’s command, Enid is thrust into a strange maritime world full of confusing customs, duties, and language. Worse, as she soon discovers, the threat of revolution is not confined to shore. The Dallergut Dream Department Store — Miye Lee, tr. Sandy Joosun Lee (Hanover Square) In a mysterious town hidden in our collective subconscious there’s a department store that sells dreams. Day and night, visitors both human and animal shuffle in to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor specializes in a specific type of dream: childhood memories, food dreams, ice skating, dreams of stardom. Flying dreams are almost always sold out. Some seek dreams of loved ones who have died. For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at Dallergut is the opportunity of a lifetime. As she uncovers the workings of this whimsical world, she bonds with a cast of unforgettable characters, including Dallergut, the flamboyant and wise owner, Babynap Rockabye, a famous dream designer, Maxim, a nightmare producer, and the many customers who dream to heal, dream to grow, and dream to flourish. These Deathless Shores — P. H. Low (Orbit)Jordan was once a Lost Boy, convinced she would never grow up. Now, she’s twenty-two and exiled to the real world, still suffering withdrawal from the addictive magic Dust of her childhood. With nothing left to lose, Jordan returns to the Island and its stories—of pirates and war and the heartlessness of youth—intent on facing Peter one last time, on her own terms. If that makes her the villain… so be it. The Sky on Fire — Jenn Lyons (Tor Books)Anahrod lives only for survival, forging her own way through the harsh jungles of the Deep with her titan drake by her side. Even when an adventuring party saves her from capture by a local warlord, she is eager to return to her solitary life. But this is no ordinary rescue. It’s Anahrod’s past catching up with her. These cunning misfits―and their frustratingly appealing dragonrider ringleader―intend to spirit her away to the dragon-ruled sky cities, where they need her help to steal from a dragon’s hoard. There’s only one problem: the hoard in question belongs to the current regent, Neveranimas―and she wants Anahrod dead. Shadowstitch (Threadneedle #2) — Cari Thomas (Harper Voyager)Anna survived the attempt to bind her magic, but Anna and her coven aren’t free from danger yet. Haunted by her aunt’s death, living in fear of her curse, and fated to love the one man she can never have, the last thing Anna needs is a witch hunt. Now she must conceal her magic once more or risk losing everything. But when deadly hysteria strikes across the capital, and in her own school, the coven are left dangerously exposed. Delving deeper into the magical underworld of London, Anna and her twin sister Effie must find a way to work together to protect the coven. But as the witch hunt intensifies and the hysteria spirals out of control, can Effie and Anna truly trust each other? July 16 The Bright Sword — Lev Grossman (Viking)A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive. They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance. But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past. The West Passage — Jared Pechaček (Tordotcom Publishing)When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded. Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer, foretelling the coming of the Beast. The too-young Mother of Grey House and the Guardian’s unnamed squire set out to save their people. Their narrow shoulders bear a heavy burden. Before them lies the West Passage, home to horrors and delights that defy imagining. None can say if they’ll reach their destinations, but one thing is for sure: the world is about to change. The Lost Story — Meg Shaffer (Ballantine)As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived. Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy. Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories. Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost. The Spice Gate — Prashanth Srivatsa (Harper Voyager)Relics of a mysterious god, the Spice Gates connect the eight far-flung kingdoms, each separated by a distinct spice and only accessible by those born with a special mark. This is not a caste of distinction, though, but one of subjugation: Spice Carriers suffer the lashes of their masters, the weight of the spices they bear on their backs, and the jolting pain of the Gates themselves. Amir is one such Spice Carrier, and he dreams of escaping his fate of being a mule for the rich who gorge themselves on spices like the addicted gluttons they are. More important than relieving his own pain, though, is saving his family, especially his brother, born like him with the unfortunate spice mark that designates him for a life of servitude. But while Amir makes his plans for freedom, something stirs in the inhospitable spaces between the kingdoms. Fate has designs of its own for Amir, and he soon finds himself drawn into a conspiracy that could disrupt the delicate dynamics of the kingdoms forever. The more Amir discovers truth and myth blurring, the more he realizes that his own schemes are insignificant compared to the machinations going on around him. Forced to chase after shadows with unlikely companions, searching for answers that he never even thought to question, Amir’s simple dream of slipping away transforms into a grand, Spice Gate–hopping adventure. Gods, assassins, throne-keepers, and slaves all have a vested interest in the spice trade, and Amir will have to decide—for the first time in his life—what kind of world he wants to live in…if the world survives at all. Blood Jade (The Phoenix Hoard #2) — Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle (Tor Books)Emiko Soong, newly minted Sentinel of San Francisco, just can’t catch a break. Just after she becomes the guardian for a sentient city, a murder strikes close to home. Called by the city and one of the most powerful clans to investigate, she traces the killer whose scent signature bears a haunting similarity to her mother’s talent. The trail will lead her back to Tokyo where the thread she pulls threatens to unravel her whole world and bring dark family secrets to light. Meanwhile, the General rises in the East and Emiko must fight the hidden enemies of his growing army who are amped up on Blood Jade, while keeping her promises to her brother Tatsuya as he prepares for his tourney. Her duties as Sentinel and her loyalties collide when she must choose between hiding her deepest shame or stopping the General’s relentless march. July 23 The Dissonance — Shaun Hamill (Pantheon)“You can never go home again,” the saying goes—but Hal, Athena, and Erin have to. In high school, the three were students of the eccentric Professor Marsh, trained in a secret system of magic known as the Dissonance, which is built around harnessing negative emotions: alienation, anger, pain. Then, twenty years ago, something happened that shattered their coven, scattering them across the country, stuck in mundane lives, alone. But now, terrifying signs and portents (not to mention a pointed Facebook invite) have summoned them back to Clegg, Texas. There, their paths will collide with that of Owen, a closeted teenager from Alabama whose aborted cemetery seance with his crush summoned something far worse: a murderous entity whose desperate, driving purpose includes kidnapping Owen to serve as its Renfield. As Owen tries to outwit his new master, and Hal, Athena, and Erin reckon with how the choices they made as teens might connect to the apocalyptic event unfurling over the Lone Star State, shocking alliances form, old and new romances brew, and three unsuccessful adults and one frightened teen are all that stand between reality and oblivion. The post All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in July 2024 appeared first on Reactor.

Books book review It’s About the Journey, Not the Destination: The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks A review of Sarah Brooks’s new historical fantasy novel. By Mahvesh Murad | Published on July 9, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share 1899, Beijing.  The shortest way to cross the Siberian tundra from China to Russia is via the Trans-Siberian Express, which makes a three thousand mile, fifteen day journey to Moscow, traversing the Great Siberian Wastelands, “spaces so vast and unkind and stories so inimical to our sense of all that is decent and human and good.” The train is a “monument to the ingenuity of man and to his ceaseless striving for mastery over the earth.” At twenty carriages long, and as tall as the gates of a cathedral, it is “‘”a moving fortress of iron and armour… a miracle of engineering that lets us traverse once more these barely imaginable distances.”  The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks is set almost entirely on this train as it makes a journey that has “turned into a story before it has even begun”. Told from the perspective of three major characters, this is an intelligent, sensitive historical fantasy with elements of steampunk and eco-fiction.  A woman who goes by the assumed identity of Marya Petrovna is aboard the train under false pretenses, alone and hiding who she really is so that she can gain insight into her father’s death. “Nothing outside can get in, nothing inside can harm us,” Marya tells herself, though it was her father’s glasswork that was blamed for a potential breach in the train’s last journey, when something strange happened—something that no one on the train remembers. Every passenger has a blank space in their minds, an emptiness that bears no memory of a portion of the trip. Marya’s father, the train’s official glassmaker, came back a changed man, and now Marya is determined to find out who is really to blame for her father’s strange death. Also on the train is Henry Grey, a disgraced naturalist wanting to prove himself, adamant that he find and catalogue as much of the strange Wastelands life as possible—even if it means breaking the train’s strictest rules. He imagines the Wastelands to be a “New Eden,” but his desire to study the fantastical, surreal Siberian tundra landscape stems not from a true love for nature, but a hunger to have ownership of new findings, of previously uncharted territory. Buy the Book The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands Sarah Brooks Buy Book The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands Sarah Brooks Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Brooks’ third POV character is Zhang Weiwei, a child of the train, born to a passenger who died in childbirth sixteen years ago. Weiwei has been raised by the train staff; they are the only family she has ever known. The train is her entire world. She’s made this trip across Siberia dozens of times in her young life, and knows all the train’s secrets, but she has never before encountered a stowaway like Elena, a “not quite girl” who has an unexpected connection to the Wastelands.  You’d think Elena was the wild card here, but each of the novel’s main characters turn out to be exactly that—crucial, secretive, a little unpredictable yet able to pivot and thrust the narrative further.  The Wastelands themselves are as much of a character as any person in the book. The landscape has become unfit for human habitation and walls have been built at either end to keep the Wastelands separate from Russia and China. There are longer, safer ways to get between Moscow and Beijing, but the Company (a corporation created by both China and Russia) has dedicated itself to providing the safest shortest route via the Trans-Siberian Express. While the train has been built to withstand all the strangeness of the Wastelands, it also provides luxury and adventure to its elite first class clientele, but just basic safety to its third class passengers. That there is no second class at all reminds us of the economic disparities that existed in society—then and now.  The train too is a character, an ecosystem of its own. A purpose built armoured vehicle, the likes of which has never been seen before and developed to travel over specially laid tracks that many lost their lives putting down, it is an insular complete microcosm of its own. Water, air, food—everything is managed onboard. It is only under extreme duress that the train may stop along its journey—something the Captain will do anything to avoid, if she can. The Cautious Traveller’s Guide has the atmospheric tension of a locked room mystery, since most of the story takes place in the sealed off train. We see the Wastelands as the passengers do—via the windows, via the stories read in guide books and via the experience of the train’s staff, especially Weiwei, who knows no other life or world. But something has changed—or has perhaps been changing slowly—as the train has made its repeated journeys through the Wastelands. The iron and glass of the train aren’t as impenetrable as they once seemed: Where previously the passengers were kept mostly safe from the “Wasteland sickness,” which can cause hallucinations, depression, or temporary madness, it now seems that the outside is capable of creeping in. Weiwei can see a “metallic sheen forming, iridescent greens and silvers, as if part of the metal of the wall, but growing pulsing in time with the roar of the engine, with the rhythm of the rails,” just as much as she can “‘”feel the train and the earth and the earth and the train, all connected. She can feel the humming in her bones becoming a roar.” Brooks is able to maintain both mystery and magic, with deftly woven strands connecting the main characters’s stories, and that of the train itself. This isn’t just a story about a trip from one city to another, not just about a trip across dangerous physical territories, but a journey within: These characters must figure out who they are, what they want and what they would give up for a greater cause… and what that cause may be.  In the 17th Century, Greater Siberia was colonised by Tsarist Russia, with much of its natural resources and indigenous people exploited for modern capitalism. Even now, the exploitation of Siberia continues by both Russia and China, whether it be the felling of forests, or the existence of closed secret cities set up to continuously mine and process uranium and plutonium. Brooks is sensitive to the historical exploitation of Siberia, and of the long term consequences of environmental damage that came with this; the Wastelands in the novel have become what they are because of the changes humans have caused, and they continue to change because of the train that travels through them again and again, because the Company keeps doing what it must to succeed financially, at any cost to the environment.  Capitalism is at the root cause of all this, as well as greed and the human desire to know and own and take from nature what was never theirs to take. The horror in The Cautious Traveller’s Guide is more than what may threaten the train from the outside: It is what has been done to the outside, what continues to be done as the Company plunders and places profit over people. Brooks examines capitalist society’s impact on the environment, the industrial revolution’s impact on both society and nature, the potential of sustainable travel as a way for humans to exist in harmony with their surroundings, as well as the impact that true friendship and empathy can have on us as a community.  The writing itself is melodious; poetic without being purple. It is fairly heavy on the descriptions, but never feels like an info dump, which is an achievement in itself, especially for a novel concerned with multiple large ideas. The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands feels very immersive; we are on that train and in that world fully, constantly, empathetically. As much as Brooks is able to remind us that human civilization and nature are permanently intertwined, always evolving together in both good ways and bad, she is also able to leave us with a sense of hope that perhaps we will be able to find a symbiotic way forward.[end-mark] The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands is published by Flatiron Books. The post It’s About the Journey, Not the Destination: <i>The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands</i> by Sarah Brooks appeared first on Reactor.

Three Republican senators spoke Tuesday about the weaponization of government and related problems in Congress on a panel at the National Conservatism Conference in the nation’s capital. The panel, hosted by former Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., featured Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Texas; Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Rick Scott, R-Fla. DeMint began the discussion by saying that the weaponization of government against political opponents has reached an “unprecedented level during the Biden administration.” The former South Carolina senator said the issue has percolated for a long time as the federal bureaucracy has been “taking more power,” but that President Joe Biden’s administration has brought the problem to the level of a Third World country. The Left tries to couch its use of weaponized government as upholding the “rule of law,” Lee said. “But what they mean by the ‘rule of law’ is that they are the rule of law,” Lee said. “And if you run contrary to them, you’re going to find yourself at the opposite end of the rule of law.” The Utah Republican said that in the cases of former President Donald Trump and his advisers who have been prosecuted, their crime was that they opposed Democrats. “They found themselves at the receiving end of this lawfare campaign,” Lee said of Trump and his advisers. But when lawfare campaigns go sideways and are invalidated by courts, he added, they simply denounce the opposition as “against the rule of law.” Lee pointed to the Left’s demand that the Supreme Court be packed with additional liberal justices. What makes the lawfare problem particularly acute, Lee said, is that there are now so many federal laws that can be used against Americans. He cited the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance Act, or FACE Act, as an example of how laws can become weaponized. The FACE Act “allows the government to prosecute you if you protest at, or engage in violence at, or otherwise disrupt the proceedings of an abortion clinic, a pregnancy center, or a church,” Lee said. But the Biden administration prosecutes only those who engage in pro-life protests outside abortion clinics, not protesters at pro-life pregnancy resource centers, or churches, he said. “That’s how you end up with guys like Mark Houck, this father of young children, who was prosecuted under the FACE Act for praying at an abortion clinic [and] was pulled out by a SWAT team in the middle of the night in front of his young children,” Lee said. The Utah senator said that weaponization of government won’t stop with Trump and his advisers because the Left will go after all opponents. The Senate must be a bulwark against this abuse, he said. Johnson argued that the Senate needs to start doing a better job of being that bulwark against weaponized government. “Conservatives have to recognize what is happening to our country. We have to open our eyes [to see] that the radical Left, the progressive Democrats, are literally destroying this country. So our first task is to fight and defeat them,” Johnson said. The issue for the Senate, Scott said, is that “two dictatorships” exist. On one side is Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and on the other is Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Fla., Scott said. The Senate is structured in a way that gives leadership too much power, the Florida Republican said. Bills simply are presented to senators and they are asked to vote “yes” or “no” without input or the ability to propose amendments, he said. “This has got to change,” Scott said. The post 3 Republican Senators Talk Weaponization of Government appeared first on The Daily Signal.