What's next at the Otherland Bookshop?

The Otherland is on FIRE... metaphorically speaking of course! We're thrilled to bring you one or two special guest(s) each month from now until the end of the year.

Here a short overview of the incredible events coming up, so mark your calendars:

Monday September 10th, 8 pm; SF author Charles Stross at the Otherland Bookshop
Thursday September 20th, 8 pm; SF author Alastair Reynolds at the DTK Wasserturm (Kopischstr. 7)
Wednesday October 17th, 8 pm; SF author Cixin Liu at the Kreuzkirche-Church (Zossener Str. 65) (This event isn't free unfortunately; please reserve tickets at service@otherland-berlin.de)
Friday October 19th, 8 pm; horror author Tobias O. Meißner at the Otherland Bookshop
Monday November 5th, 8 pm; SF author and activist Cory Doctorow at the DTK Wasserturm (Kopischstr. 7)
Thursday November 29th, 8 pm; Le Guin-translator Karen Nölle at the Otherland Bookshop
Thursday December 13th, 8pm;  horror/SFF author and aquaphile Nate Crowley at the Otherland Bookshop

Whew! On top of that we have our regular meetings - Book club, Gatherland and role playing evenings - going as usual (except for Gatherlands in September and October - those are cancelled).

As to our book club, here are the titles and dates for the next few months:

Friday September 14th, 7.30 pm; Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward
Friday October  12th, 7.30 pm;    The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
Friday November 9th, 7.30 pm;   La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
Friday November 23th, 7.30 pm;   HORROR SPECIAL - A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

The fall and early winter will be insane at the Otherland!!! See you there, I guess.

The Zombie Novel You Never Knew You're Desperate to Read

Inci German on Nate Crowley's The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack

 

Nate Crowley will be visiting the Otherland on December 13th for a reading and QA event! Don't miss it!

 

This Friday we're breaking new ground with the “Otherland Speculative Fiction Book Club Horror Special”! We're not jumping in at the deep end by starting off with the heavy stuff though, like hardcore sadistic short stories or extreme horror that will give you nightmares. For starters we chose a horror comedy about a Zombie uprising; The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack by Nate Crowley. Exciting!

I didn't really know what to expect when we voted it, had never heard of Nate Crowley before and Zombies aren't exactly my kind of horror. But the premise sounded super interesting and the cover is very very cool (yes, sometimes I do judge a book by its cover). And yes, this book won me over at the drop of a hat.

True, this isn't your typical horror story that makes you piss your pants and leaves you all paranoid and shit scared for days after – but Crowley uses a traditional horror trope in an exceptionally creative way in order to tell a morbidly funny, fairly disgusting, partly horrifying, insanely absurd and yes, towards the end even surprisingly deep and heartwarming tale.

Spoilers from here on

Otherland Book Club - Fantasy is back baby!

We're finally back at reading fantasy in our book club after a l-o-o-o-ng long time and we'll pick up from where we left with Fonda Lee's kick-ass adult debut Jade City (Green Bone Saga #1).

In a universe where the warrior Green Bones' performance is enhanced by the ever so precious and magical jade, the city of Janloon is divided between two rival clans; No Peak and Mountain. Nothing stays as it is though; not only is the hard earned peace in danger because of increasing unrests between the two groups but also a new drug that allows everyone -not only green bone warriors- to carry the powerful jade stirs up the balance!

It's all here, people: Asian martial art meets high fantasy meets mafia!