Locus Online

Mechanize My Hands to War, Erin K. Wagner (DAW 978-0-7564-1934-9, $28.99, 309pp, hc) December 2024. Cover by Faceout Studio, Tim Green.

From a novel in which voice overmasters genre we move to one in which genre more or less overmasters voice. Erin K. Wagner’s debut novel, Mechanize My Hands to War, isn’t badly told or badly imagined per se, but most of what is imagined is familiar and, ...Read More

The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar (Tor­dotcom 978-1-250-34108-2, $24.99, 144pp, hc) March 2025.

Amal El-Mohtar is perhaps most famous as the co-author (with Max Gladstone) of the justly lauded bestselling novella This Is How You Lose the Time War. Her independent talents, however, are numerous, and in her new solo novella The River Has Roots, several of them are on display.

The River Has Roots is intertwined ...Read More

The Orb of Cairado, Katherine Addison (Subterranean 978-1-64524-213-0, 120pp, $45.00, hc) January 2025. Cover by Tom Canty.

A similar question arises for the protagonist of the standalone novella The Orb of Cairado. Like the Cemeteries of Amalo books, it is an offshoot of Addison’s Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-nominated novel The Goblin Emperor (2014) – more directly, perhaps, as their actions kick off from the same event, ...Read More

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Brian Evenson (Cof­fee House Press 978-1-56689-709-9, $19.00, 229pp, hc) September 2024. Cover by Jeffrey Alan Love.

When it comes to inhabiting and traversing the interstitial spaces between genres, no one does it better than Brian Evenson. Science fiction, hor­ror, and literary fiction are the main three genres Evenson writes, but the bridges he builds between those genres – and the brilliant way in which he ...Read More

Asimov’s 11-12/24

The November/December issue of Asimov’s opens with “Death Benefits”, a novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A series of vignettes highlight various casualties of war, interspersed with the story of Davidson Turo, a private investigator who is approached by a client who has seen foot­age of her lover’s death, but is convinced it’s fake and that he’s still alive. Rusch does a lovely job of exploring ...Read More

Locus is back with another exciting, if not a bit shorter than usual, new books video! Come by our YouTube channel to check out our picks for the top new releases of the week! An fantastic array of SF, Fantasy, Horror, and YA books are just a click away! You can also support what we do and keep up-to-date on every weeks top new releases by subscribing to the channel! ...Read More

Fusion Fragment 11/24 GigaNotoSaurus 11/24 Diabolical Plots 11/24

November’s Fusion Fragment starts strong with Emry Jordal’s novelette “The Little Black Wand for Every Occasion”, in which a technology known as Serendipity is growing in popularity, though not without some controversy. It allows people a redo, erasing six minutes or so of time so that people can undo any “mistakes” they just made. In practice, it allows people ...Read More

The Way Up Is Death, Dan Hanks (Angry Robot ‎978-1915202949, trade paperback, 368pp, $18.99) January 2025

Dan Hanks’s third novel (I remain sheepishly ignorant of his first two: Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire [2020] and Swashbucklers [2021]) is built around a very familiar concept: the physical, mental, and moral testing, by unknown agents, of a pack of aspirants or seekers or, as in this case, kidnapped ...Read More

Hot Singles in Your Area, Jordan Shiveley (Unbound 978-1-80018-341-4, $18.00, 208pp, tp) February 2025. Cover by Jack Smyth.

Some books are hard to categorize. Jordan Shiveley’s Hot Singles in Your Area is one of those books. Strangely funny and danc­ing to the strange sound of its own drum, this novel has one foot in body horror and one foot in something akin to bizarro fiction (think authors like Carlton ...Read More

Hammajang Luck, Makana Yamamoto (Gollancz 978-1-39961-679-9, £20.00, 336pp, hc) December 2024. Cover by Jordan Wolfe. (Harper Voyager 978-0-06343-082-2, $19.99, 368pp, tp). January 2025. Cover by Janelle Barone.

I love a heist story. Getting the conspirators together, finding out the plan, overcoming obstacles, finding out the real plan, watch­ing it all unravel and then neatly come back together… I know the beats of the story, and that’s part of what ...Read More

Finalists have been announced for the 2025 Prix Bob Morane, recognizing French-language works in the science fiction, fantasy, espionage, and thriller genres.