Your cart is currently empty!
From the BumblePuppy’s nest #008
The Blight is here!
Rachel A. Rosen’s new novel already gathering praise
June 19, 2025 — It’s a hell of a cover, isn’t it? Rachel created it in collaboration with a wonderful artist named Marten Norr.
Even more, it’s a helluva book, a more-than worthy sequel to its predecessor, Cascade. And it is now out! Yes, you can buy your copy now.
But I’m the publisher. Why should you take my biased word for its many qualities? Rather than ramble on, I’ll let others tell you why you should start looking for Blight.
Peter Watts, author of such works as Blindsight, the Rifters Trilogy, and Ecopraxia, not to mention the essay collection, Peter Watts Is an Angry Sentient Tumor: Revenge Fantasies and Essays. He had this to say about Rachel’s new novel:
“A compulsive read: angry, articulate, and lyrical. Somehow, even its horrific fantasy elements only add to the sense that Blight presages tomorrow’s headlines (or it would, if those headlines were written by poets and the newspapers themselves weren’t all owned by billionaires). Rosen is rapidly proving herself to be the twenty-first century’s answer to John Brunner. In fact, this whole trilogy is shaping up to be a minor masterpiece.
“In the unlikely event that we shake off our collective stupidity and cowardice enough to fight against the current trajectory of our society — not to mention that of the whole damn biosphere — I want Rachel Rosen leading the revolution.”
Robert J. Sawyer, author of Hominids, the WWW Trilogy including Wake, Watch, and Wonder, Calculating God, and most recently, The Downloaded, among many other novels and collections:
“Rachel A. Rosen is a superb prose stylist and an incisive social commentator. Her post-apocalyptic Canada will haunt you forever. Predicting the future is supposed to be science fiction’s job, but Rosen shows that urban (and rural!) fantasy can do it, too, with sharp-edged commentary and real-world relevance. Look for this one on the award ballots.”
Dale Stromberg, author of Maej, the collection Melancholic Parables and most recently, the curio fiction novel Gyre:
“Suffused with masterful horror and black humour and compassion for its beleaguered and all-too-human characters, this spellbinding chronicle of leviathanic magic, political intrigue, and righteous insurrection hurls a molotov cocktail at the evil lurking in humanity’s banal appetites for control.”
Rohan O’Duill, author of Cold Blooded and Cold Rising:
“Rosen’s ability to create such a beautifully vivid picture of a vicious world as it slowly chokes to death is simply breathtaking.”
Michelle Browne, author of Meaning Wars, The Loved, the Lost, the Dreaming, and The Underlighters, among others.
“The second book in the series is even better than the first … Deftly showing that collective action, not individual heroism, is the only way to fight fascism, Blight is a book I know I’ll be coming back to. Rosen is a daring voice in Canadian SFF, and she’ll break your heart while making you laugh.”
Ryszard Merey, author of Read and Then Burn This:
“These are hard times and a lot of us are swamped in burn-out and frustration. Blight isn’t the piece of escapism to distract from what is going on right now. It is raw, stained with grief, full of broken bones and buildings, but it is a book to remind us that we have to keep pushing, because what else is there? Maya says: ‘This isn’t the kind of fight we win — it’s the fight we fight.’ Did we ever think the self-proclaimed Princes would give it all up without a fight? No matter how dark it gets, Blight is full of tenacious, acerbic hope.”
Ursula Whitcher, author of North Continent Ribbon:
“This is the book about monsters rising from the deeps (of Ottawa) you need in these times. A weird, bleak, startlingly hilarious story about how to keep on fighting after the end of the world.”
M. Darusha Wehm, author of Hamlet, Prince of Robots:
“‘Any ship can be a submersible if you don’t care about coming back up.’ Dotted with laugh-out-loud gallows humour, Blight is supernatural horror with a distressingly prescient narrative. Its disparate (and desperate) cast of resistors, revolutionaries, and reluctant heroes are pitted against a particularly Canadian fascism which is all too believable, even as it comes to power through a response to the resurgence of magic in the world. Fast-paced and populated with characters to fall in love and hate with, Blight is a compelling, entertaining, timely, and thoughtful read.”
If all that doesn’t make you want this book (and its predecessor), I don’t know what will.
You can also order it directly from the publisher (er, that’s me) via https://bppress.ca/shop.
I should mention, though, that I do not yet have copies of the book in hand. They are supposed to arrive next week, but if you absolutely can’t wait, you can order a copy from the usual online vendors, or from your favourite bookstore (use ISBN #978–1–7387598–8–0).
And of course, if you haven’t read Cascade, the first book in The Sleep of Reason series, that too is available from the usual suspects — and I do have copies of that on-hand.
Speaking of Cascade, the writer Tucker Lieberman has re-read it in preparation for reading Blight, and he had quite a lot to say about it. You can read it on his Medium Page.
Meet Rachel on July 3rd!
Rachel will be launching Blight in Toronto at Glad Day Books on July 3, 2025 at 6:30 PM. Rumour has it there will be cake and post-cards to go along with Rachel herself.
Tickets are free and available from simpli.events. The BumblePuppy Press and Rachel Rosen gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts through The Writers’ Union of Canada, and thank Glad Day Bookstore for hosting this event.
(Did I mention there are rumours of cake? Postcards, too.)
Finally, some house-keeping.
First, a reminder that you can still vote for the 2025 Aurora Awards, for which Rachel’s podcast (with David L. Clink), Wizards and Spaceships, has been nominated under the Best Fan Related Work category.
Second, the most recent episode of that podcast features a discussion about the 4,000 year-old Epic of Gilgamesh, featuring poet, artist, and essayist, Julian Gunn. Click here to give it a listen.
Third, coming up this Friday (June 20th), Rachel will be conducting a virtual class on book cover design for writers. You can learn more about the event, and sign up for it, here.
Geoff
Leave a Reply