June 19, 2023 — It has been, as the song says, a long and winding road, but Zilla Novikov‘s remarkable, and remarkably funny, debut novel, Reprise has been published.
Called “a breakneck journey, a loveletter to being a nerd, and a good time” by the Independent Book Review, Novikov’s post-modern gothic is the novel that might have resulted had Jane Austen and Douglas Adams managed to transcend time and space and produce a child.
To quote Cascade‘s Rachel A. Rosen, “If you like your pop culture nerdy, your queers messy, and your time travel criminally clever, this book is for you.”
Electronic versions of Reprise are available from The BumblePuppy Press Store now, and we expect paperback copies to arrive within the week. If you can’t wait, click here to buy from the online vendor of your choice!
Happy reading, and please remember: if you like this, or any of our books, leave a review! Especially for a small press, reviews are the best way convince a writer you like they should create another book!
June 16, 2023 — It’s hard for me to believe, but it has been more than a year since we published Rachel Rosen’s brilliant debut novel, Cascade.
I am embarrassed to admit that I missed the actual anniversary (June 7, 2022), and while I’ll lean a little on my duties as a father, and of getting Zilla Novikov’s equally-brilliant Reprise ready for publication, neither explanation/excuse really lets me off the hook.
But here we are, with a belated celebratory offering.
First, Rachel’s book is on sale, 25% off each version, ebook or print. Please visit our store, if you have somehow not yet bought her book!
Second, if you haven’t read the book and still need convincing, I have collected a lot of reviews here — if these raves don’t convince you, I don’t know what will.
March 17, 2023 — It is with great pleasure that I welcome Paul Adamson to the BumblePuppy Press.
Paul has signed on to launch our — and his — very first foray into audio books, narrating Rachel A. Rosen’s Cascade.
This being our first time working with audio, I’m not ready to provide a precise launch date, but our intention is to publish it in the fall of 2023 (why yes, in time for Christmas). We will also be launching a crowd-sourcing campaign to support it — details to follow soon.
Paul has already made a name for himself as a voice actor in video games and e-learning videos, but Cascade will be his first time working with long-form fiction. I for one have no doubt that this book will be the first of many — I hope, for the BumblePuppy Press, and elsewhere.
Paul Adamson (image provided by Paul)
Below is a very brief excerpt from his audition recording, already very nearly ready for prime time.
Of course, if you prefer to read your fiction with your eyes (or you just can’t wait until the fall), Cascade is now on special at our store, in hard-cover, soft-cover, and all major ebook formats (DRM-free, of course). And if you’re voting in the upcoming Aurora Awards, there is still time to vote for Cascade as this year’s best novel.
Rachel A. Rosen’s Cascade eligible for Aurora Award
Image courtesy of Rachel A. Rosen
As is only right and proper, Rachel A. Rosen’s debut novel, Cascade, is eligible in the Best Novel category for Canada’s premiere English-language science fiction and fantasy awards, the Auroras (https://www.csffa.ca/members-home/nomination/).
To have a chance to be added to the final Aurora Awards ballot, a work must get at least five nominations, and only members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) are eligible to vote. The price of that franchise is a pretty affordable $10.00 for an annual membership, and you must be a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant in order to join.
If you loved Cascade, or even if you’re just a fan of Canadian SF&F, that seems a small price to pay to support the work creators you like. Membership information is here: https://www.csffa.ca/become-a-member/. CSFFA membership allows you to:
nominate your favourite works in any or all of the categories;
download e-versions of almost all of the finalist works for free with our voter package; and
vote for the for the awards themselves.
To celebrate (and yes, to improve Rachel’s chances, I won’t lie), we’ve reduced the price on all versions of Cascade. DRM-free ebooks in all formats are now only $2.00, the paperback is marked down to $15.00, and the hardcover is only $26.00. A little self-serving, maybe, but a great deal for you if you have not yet had the pleasure of reading what I really do think was the best Canadian SF novel of 2022. You can buy all of our books here.
Besides the upcoming Aurora Awards, the BumblePuppy Press will have more news about Cascade (audiobook!), the upcoming novel Reprise, and a new version of A.A. Milne’s classic children’s book, which we will be calling The InclusiveWoke Winnie-the-Pooh. So please come back soon or, better yet, subscribe to our newsletter!
Why yes, that is a hard-cover version of Cascade. Available exclusively in our shop for only $25.00!
It’s not often one grins while pressing Send on an e-transfer, but this was one of those times. (Not often?!? Come to think of it, I can’t remember ever feeling delighted about paying money for anything.)
But it was with genuine pleasure that I found myself sending Rachel A. Rosen her first royalty payment for her debut novel, Cascade, amounting to more than 60% of her advance! (There was also a second, much smaller cheque, for sales of her related chapbook, So Human As I Am.)
Yes, I think the exclamation point is warranted. While not quite a bestseller, for the publisher behind a very small press, I consider this a real victory. And I’m confident it won’t be the last.* * *
Not only do we have four really good books currently available for sale now, but this year we have plans for at least another four books, two of them slated for the spring.
Next week we will formally launch a Kickstarter campaign for, and reveal the cover of, Zilla Novikov’s first novel, the very twisted, and very funny, science fiction romance, Reprise, and shortly after that, our Inclusive version of A.A. Milne’s children’s classic, Winnie-the-Pooh.
If you want to avoid the mysterious algorithms of social media, please join our mailing list (link below). We won’t sell your info to anyone else, and you’ll then be the first to know when we have actual news.
Our Director of Promotions and Publicity is as happy about the new year as I am.
I think that’s it for the moment. I hope the new year is starting off as well for you as it is for us!
The BumblePuppy Press is pleased to offer a full 20% discount on all of our books, from now until December 25th (though, y’know, if you want them in time to put under the tree for that beloved bookworm in your life, best to order them now)! Click here or on the image below to visit our store.
(And note that we are offering in-person delivery for those of you living within bicycle distance of downtown Ottawa for only $5.00, a considerable saving off of Canada Post’s price. Please email orders@bppress.ca to make arrangements.)
Join us for an in-person author talk and book signing with Rachel A. Rosen. Climate disaster, wizards, precognitives and Canadian politics come crashing together in Cascade, her debut novel. Rosen will discuss her genre-blending work – part techno-thriller, part response to “hopepunk”, part urban fantasy – and the inspiration behind it.
Following her talk, Rosen will do a live question and answer session and book signing.
If you’d prefer to have a pint while you leaf through Rachel A. Rosen’s brilliant debut novel, Cascade, Rachel will be holding court at Toronto’s famous Imperial Pub, 54 Dundas Street East, on Sunday, July 31st, from 4 PM until closing (or we run out of books). (Covid is with us still; mask required!)
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“Rachel A. Rosen is some kind of twisted genius. I wish I had even half her moves.” — Peter Watts, author of Blindsight
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“Shriekgrass grows in the places magic has touched, where no other life can gain a foothold. Pale and spindly, sharp fronds edge its drooping stems. It sways in the wind like the legs of a centipede or a human spine. It screams when cut, groans where it pushes through the dry earth and the cracks in the pavement.
“A boy in school had once told Sujay that all plants feel pain, and the smell of freshly cut grass is actually chemical terror at the lawnmower blade. Plants, she understood—but didn’t quite believe—were constantly communicating, but at a register humans couldn’t perceive. Only the sentience of shriekgrass could be proven, a thin cicada death-rattle heard across the Prairies; only shriekgrass, it seemed, felt horror and pain not only in leaving the world but in entering it.”
Rachel A. Rosen hosts the first book signing for her debut novel, Cascade, Friday, July 29th, 2022, 6:00 PM at Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto. (Covid is with us still; mask required!)
“Rachel A. Rosen is some kind of twisted genius. I wish I had even half her moves.” — Peter Watts, author of Blindsight
____
“Shriekgrass grows in the places magic has touched, where no other life can gain a foothold. Pale and spindly, sharp fronds edge its drooping stems. It sways in the wind like the legs of a centipede or a human spine. It screams when cut, groans where it pushes through the dry earth and the cracks in the pavement.
“A boy in school had once told Sujay that all plants feel pain, and the smell of freshly cut grass is actually chemical terror at the lawnmower blade. Plants, she understood—but didn’t quite believe—were constantly communicating, but at a register humans couldn’t perceive. Only the sentience of shriekgrass could be proven, a thin cicada death-rattle heard across the Prairies; only shriekgrass, it seemed, felt horror and pain not only in leaving the world but in entering it.”
Rachel A. Rosen on writing, and on having writ Cascade
This interview was originally published in the May 1, 2022 edition of the Night Beats Extended Universe monthly newsletter. The interview was conducted by Sabitha Furiosa and Zilla Novikov, who was recently signed by The BumbleBuppy Press. You can subscribe at https://nightbeatseu.ca/newsletter/.
Photo of Rachel A. Rosen by Charlie Lucas
The Kickstarter for Rachel A. Rosen’s debut novel, Cascade, outdid our wildest hopes—fully backed in 24 hours, and doubling the goal in less than a week. This month, we talk to Rachel about her book and her writing process.
Sabitha: What’s the novel about?
Rachel: Climate catastrophe. Institutional failure. Disaster wizards. Cascade is set a generation after the titular event, brought on by climate change, returned magic to the world—for better or worse, but mostly worse. A small number of people are able to channel magical energy, and one of them, Ian Mallory, works for the Canadian government, using his precognitive abilities to keep the ruling minority party in power. But when the disaster he predicts is much larger than the usual sordid affair, expense scandal, or minor terrorist incident that he’s hired to avert, it falls to the magic-loathing photojournalist Tobias, land rights activist Jonah, climate scientist Blythe, and Ian’s emoji-spell wielding intern Sujay, to prevent a future cataclysm bigger than politics or ideology.
Cascade is now available for pre-order via Amazon.
Zilla: I adore Sujay and her relateable millennial lifestyle. What was the inspiration for writing her?
Rachel: Writers, particularly in genre fiction, are often advised to make their characters relatable, which I think is a laudable goal. My problem is that in much of the genre fiction that I read, “relatable” seems to translate to a blank-slate generic character. I keep encountering protagonists whose primary purpose is to serve as a wish-fulfilment stand-in for the reader. I prefer characters who are relatable because they seem like specific, real humans who you might bump into on the bus. I had this image of a girl in her bedroom, scrolling through emoji spells on Tumblr, and surprising herself when it turned out that they worked. She’s at least in part inspired by some of my students in my early days of teaching, who loved nerd culture and seldom saw, at least in North American fiction, a main character who looked like them or came from the kind of places where they lived.
Sujay is in many ways my love letter to Scarborough, an area in Toronto where I worked for years. Much of it, including the neighbourhood where Sujay is from, is an urban planning and architectural afterthought, car-centric, underfunded, and ill-served by municipal infrastructure. And yet beyond that surface appearance, it’s absolutely remarkable: culturally diverse, artistically vibrant, and politically engaged. Sujay’s character is inspired by her neighbourhood and the people I knew there. She’s an awkward, insecure mess, ill-suited to power and politics, and beneath the surface, positively brimming with magic.
Sabitha: The risk of writing political stories is that you can be overtaken by events. Did the election of Trump or the convoy in Ottawa change your writing?
Rachel: [laughter, followed by a lengthy episode of sobbing]. I absolutely had a crisis when the Ottawa convoy happened. I mean, so did the entire country, but my crisis was very personal and self-centred as for about a month there, I was convinced that the novel that I’d spent years writing was going to be made irrelevant by real-life events. Nor was I consoled when someone reminded me that Charles Stross—whose books very much influenced Cascade— had to scrap a plotline under similar circumstances.
I started the first scribblings that became Cascade around 2015, and there was actually a line in the original draft about the US electing a reality TV star as president and, well, we saw how that worked out. It’s always a risk. I don’t write fast enough to keep up with the creeping tide of global fascism, as it turns out. And outside of satire or comedy, you couldn’t get away with writing a villain as one-dimensionally evil and stupid as, say, Trump or Putin. It would just seem cartoonish. And yet.
My only defence against reality overtaking fiction is to keep inserting incredibly bonkers elements into the plot. I suppose if Lovecraftian horrors ever do start to awaken in the Pacific Ocean, I’ll have bigger problems than worrying that my novel is outdated.
Zilla: In many ways, Ian carries the heart of the story, but you choose not to make him a POV character in Cascade. Why did you go with that?
Rachel: The main reason is entirely pragmatic. He’s precognitive. He knows the ending of the story from before the first chapter, so having him as a POV character and knowing his motivations would make it far less of a surprise for the reader. From the outset I wanted to make him an enigma that the reader comes to know through how other characters view him.
And he takes up a lot of space. Left to his own devices, he would take over the whole story the way he takes over the country before the novel begins.
That said, his POV is incredibly fun to write, and I’ve written a short story where we get to see it. (You can get your hands on it through the Kickstarter.)
Sabitha: The labyrinth is such a cool way to cast magic, and something I don’t think I’ve seen in fiction before. What does the labyrinth mean to you?
Rachel: The entire magic system formed organically, where the story needed it. Aesthetically, I wanted a magic system that was rooted in the mundane. There are no wands or crystal balls in the Sleep of Reason universe. There are cell phones, fidget spinners, and spreadsheets that channel the feral magic of the world. Ian’s magic focus was drawing, and he needed something to draw. The labyrinth was a symbol that appeared a few times in my life—I had a friend years ago who was a street artist and would spray paint them in the middle of roads or build them out of stone, and at one point I used a meditation labyrinth to get back into writing when I was going through a rough patch—so that became one of the facets through which magic gets revealed.
Zilla: This story could have been told as a political thriller or political satire. What drew you to write it as fantasy?
Rachel:Cascade actually did start out as a near-future political thriller, and it resisted being written as such until I relented and let it have wizards in it. As I said before, I write too slowly for my commentary on specific political events to be relevant, and a fantasy element allows for a degree of separation, particularly in magic realism where social commentary is expected to be oblique.
But I also just love fantasy as a genre, even if it’s a prickly, combative sort of love. Speculative fiction offers a space for imaginative possibilities that realistic settings cannot. Political thrillers and satire can identify social ills and perhaps suggest solutions, but they don’t allow for the transformation of the world as we know it. Sleep of Reason explores grim territory—colonialism, climate catastrophe, fascism—but it contains within it the potential for a radical reimagining of our relationship with the world and each other.
There’s a joke right at the beginning about how magic is necessary for Ian’s vision of politics to be realized. Perhaps the most fantastical element of Cascade is a well-meaning, socialist-leaning government actually getting elected in Canada. But this is why I write fiction and not policy documents.
Sabitha: There are a lot of writers in our audience. Do you have any advice on telling stories?
Rachel: Get yourself a community of other writers. That’s it, that’s my big piece of advice.
Most of us, at least in western countries, have this toxic notion of storytelling as an individual pursuit, the lone creative genius weaving stories out of their imagination. I tried this myself and stalled out numerous times before I started writing with other people either in the room or online. Having communities to encourage, commiserate, vent, criticize, brainstorm, and crowdsource ideas not just keeps me motivated but also adds depth and authenticity to my work. The Night Beats News’ slogan is “it takes a village to write a novel,” and Cascade absolutely took a village to write. If I’d known this one cool trick when I started out, I’d have a bookshelf full of work by now.
Publisher’s note: There is still time to support the Cascade Kickstarter. Click the link below to learn more.
The BumblePuppy Press is a small house with big ambitions. Or at least, a small press that aims to publish good work and to keep it available over the long term.