New Times picks the best things to do in the Valley from Friday, June 10, through Sunday, June 12. For more events, see our curated online calendar. Avenue Q It’s Q time again! Avenue Q has become Phoenix Theatre’s equivalent of A Christmas Carol. The musical’s a wonderful twofer of giving…

New Times picks the best things to do in the Valley of the Sun this weekend, including opportunities to nerd out, watch an original opera debut, and visit Italy (well, sorta). For more events, see our curated online calendar.  Phoenix Comicon The annual entertainment explosion that is Phoenix Comicon has star…

The Poisoned Pen becomes geek central on Wednesday, June 1, as the biggest names in science fiction and fantasy this side of George R.R. Martin converge for Elevengeddon, a massive, pre-Comicon book signing. The event, which started last year, is the brainchild of former Valley schoolteacher and urban fantasy author…

New Times picks the best things to do in metro Phoenix from Monday, May 30, through Thursday, June 2. For more events, see our curated online calendar.  Memorial Day Divas Show Consider it a throwback canteen concert à la The Andrews Sisters — if the World War II-era swing singers…

When the apocalypse comes, it will be accompanied by Mark Knopfler’s guitar.  At least according to Joe Hill. The horror and comic-book author’s latest novel, The Fireman, is a fresh take on the end times mixed with 1980s nostalgia and a spoonful of sugar. The novel follows Harper, a Mary…

Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander isn’t just a bestseller. The time-travelling fantasy about a World War II nurse and an 18th-century Highland warrior has become a cultural phenomenon, thanks to a sexy TV series, which started its second season in April. And not only has it spawned spin-offs from Gabaldon, and plenty…

Comic shops and record stores aren’t the only local businesses that need love. Independent bookstores have plenty to offer in the age of online shopping. And on Saturday, April 30, you can show your local indie book shop some love.  Founded in 2015 after a 2014 campaign in California, Independent…

Many Arizonans know Suzanne Young  for causing a social media firestorm when she tweeted a picture of the pro-abstinence sticker from her son’s biology textbook. The Gilbert author was driven off social media by harassment and worse. But Young doesn’t want to be remembered for that incident. Or even for…

Between Stephenie Meyer and Diana Gabaldon, Phoenix has produced a pair of writing superstars who dominate the charts with everything they release. You may not like sparkly vampires or kilted Scottish lovers, but there is no denying the impact these two authors have had on speculative fiction. But Phoenix also…

Sometimes in fantasy novels, less is more. Sure, there’s nothing like getting lost in a series of 10 or 20 books filled with magic and wonder. But it’s also nice not devoting the better part of a year to finishing them. Which makes Brian Staveley’s “Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne”…

You’ve been patient. The fifth book in George R.R. Martin’s bloody “Song of Ice and Fire,” A Dance with Dragons, hit bookstores shortly after the Game of Thrones TV series started in 2011. Surely, you thought, there’s no way the show will catch up to the books. It couldn’t take Martin…

It’s spring break in Tucson, and while students are off to exotic locales for a week of drunken debauchery, bookworms from across the country are descending on the  University of Arizona for a different kind of party. The annual Tucson Festival of Books runs Saturday and Sunday, March 12 and…

The book tour is starting, and  Victoria “V.E.” Schwab is nervous. “I’m in a daze. I’ve been counting down for about 50 or 60 days,” the Nashville-based fantasy author says. “I’ve had signings at local bookstores and done convention appearances, where I picked the places I’d go, but this is the first time…