In honour of Alice Munro winning the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Canadian to do so and the 13th women to receive such an honour, I will be taking part in Canvember!
Canvember is a theme of my own creation where for the month of November, I will be reviewing nothing but books written by Canadian authors!! I want to celebrate the works of Canadian authors, especially those that write fantasy, science fiction, and young adult.
I have a couple of books planned already for the month.
MetalMagic by Derek Donais
Assured Destruction by Michael F. Stewart
Above by Leah Bobet
The Silvered by Tanya Huff
If you have any suggestions for me, put them in the comments below. Feel free too if you want to join in on Canvember 2013! The only requirements are that it has to be fiction and the book has to be written by a Canadian author. Easy as pie.
I’d love it if people wanted to join in my special little insanity project 😀
Cookie's Tasty Reviews 
mdickeson
October 18, 2013 at 10:38 AM
This is a cool idea. Since you’re focusing especially on Canadian authors who write sf, fantasy, and young adult, when you say above that suggestions should be non-fiction, do you, um, actually mean that they should be fiction? If you’re looking for non-fiction I’m afraid I can’t help much and I’m sorry for ignoring your instructions with all that follows, but so far as Canadian sf and fantasy…:
— You might want to look into Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina. It’s a young adult fantasy focused on a young woman who’s half-dragon in a world where humans and dragons fought a long war and are now at peace but still very prejudiced. The emphasis is on slowly building intricate characters and their psychologies and relationships with one another, so it doesn’t move like a speeding bullet or anything, but I’m about half-way through [have not been able to read it for several weeks now, due to busyness and the need to devote limited available reading time to Stephen King] and it’s growing into something very powerful. All the character interiority in a fantasy court is reminding me of Robin Hobb [right down to there being a couple initially off-putting stupid names.] If the second half keeps going the way it has been this could become essential stuff for people who really like young adult fiction. Hartman’s from the States originally, it sounds like, but lives in Vancouver now.
— Nalo Hopkinson’s a Caribbean writer of both sf and fantasy who’s based partially in Toronto and sets some of her stuff there. Her sf novel Midnight Robber is pretty great; I’m writing my thesis about it and I still like it. Think the colonization of Avatar, only all the inhabitants of the planet being colonized are drawn from various Caribbean traditions, and the main character is a teenage girl instead of a square-jawed marine dude. The Chaos, her only ya novel to date, is a crazy vision of a journey through Toronto during a magical catastrophe.
— In terms of science fiction directed at adults, I’d say Robert Charles Wilson and Julie E. Czerneda might both be worth looking into. I’ve only read one Czerneda novel, In the Company of Others, which I recall containing some really sketchy writing — especially when it tries to get sappy — but is about this really fascinating well-thought-out alien lifeform and an equally solidly-imagined claustrophobic spacestation culture. [Czerneda also just published this big fantasy novel brick I might get to one of these days, but I have not heard awesome things.] Wilson’s published quite a bit and I’ve just read three. I’d mention Spin in particular, which is about what happens when the entire Earth gets covered by an amped-up version of Stephen King’s dome on steroids as told through the life of one man and his relationship with the brilliant twins who are crucial to the world’s adaptation to life post-spin. It has a very wobbly sequel, but works well on its own [at least if you don’t need all the answers].
I’ve got The Silvered on my long list of stuff I need to get to. I should bump it up the list.
Leah Bobet’s Canadian? I did not know this.
Long comment; sorry.
Cookie
October 23, 2013 at 11:32 AM
Stupid brain getting confused with stuff ~_~ Yes it should be fiction not non-fiction. Fixed the post!
Yeah Leah is Canadian. Another Toronto writer 🙂
Thanks for all the suggestions Max and don’t feel bad about the long comment!!