Reviews

Books Reviews 

A Vile Season by David Ferraro: Review by Alex Brown

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A Vile Season, David Ferraro (Page Street YA 979-8-89003-072-6, $18.99, 400pp, hc) October 2024.

David Ferraro’s new young adult fantasy romance A Vile Season is comped as Bridgerton meets The Bachelor but with vampires. That’s exactly the vibe. Everything from the pacing, the intentionally and flamboyantly anachronistic diversity in the upper classes, the garish wardrobe, the playful disregard for historical accuracy, the overly dramatic rela­tionship conflicts, the marriage competition, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

At the Fount of Creation by Tobi Ogundiran: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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At the Fount of Creation, Tobi Ogundiran (Tordotcom 978-1-250-90803-2, $21.99, 224pp, hc) January 2025.

Writers of duologies aren’t doing any favors for book reviewers. With a trilogy, we can blather on about middle-book syndrome and three-act structures; with an ongoing series, we can spec­ulate about metanarratives or simply rate each new volume as though it were the latest album from a familiar band, but a duology somehow seems to ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Fortress Sol by Stephen Baxter: Review by Alexandra Pierce

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Fortress Sol, Stephen Baxter (Gollancz 978-1-39961-461-0, £25.00, 480pp, hc). October 2024.

Fortress Sol is classic Stephen Baxter. It’s driven by big ideas: Humanity’s response to a perceived existential threat includes both dispersing to the stars and mind-boggling engineering projects. Like 2021’s Galaxias, the focus is not so much on the alien threat as on humanity’s response. There’s a relatively small cast of characters, who are engag­ing enough but ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Shutouts by Gabrielle Korn: Review by Abigail Nussbaum

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The Shutouts, Gabrielle Korn (St. Martin’s 978-1-2503-2348-4, $29.00, 304pp, hc) December 2024.

As climate change has become an ever-growing and more insistent presence in our lives, it has also begun inflecting and informing works of fiction, whose authors imag­ine how the remainder of the 21st century will play out. Interestingly, it is writers coming from outside the traditional venues of SFF writing and publishing who have most readily embraced this ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Days of Shattered Faith by Adrian Tchaikovsky: Review by Russell Letson

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Days of Shattered Faith, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Head of Zeus 978-1-03590-152-4, £22.00, 544pp, hc) December 2024. Cover by Joe Wilson.

Days of Shattered Faith, the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Tyrant Philoso­phers sequence, continues to examine the effects of the long-running, world-conquering program of the nation of Pallesand, a resolutely rationalist, religion-detesting nation determined to bring its notion of secular perfection to a world that is filled with supernatural ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Ludluda by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard: Review by Paul Di Filippo

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Ludluda, Jeff Noon and Steve Beard (Angry Robot 978-1915998316, trade paperback, 400pp, $18.99) December 2024

I am happy to bring readers this exciting news: the genre known as New Weird is currently alive and kicking, despite any rumors of its moribund state, or lack of recent exemplars. The evidence? The fascinating and thrilling duology set before us, Gogmagog and Ludluda.

New Weird—with undeniably deeper roots, not to be ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Crows and Silences by Lucius Shepard: Review by Ian Mond

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Crows and Silences, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean 978-1-64524-217-8, $60.00, 520pp, hc) December 2024.

When discussing Lucius Shepard, it’s inevitable to bemoan that despite his abundant talent, his work received little mainstream recognition. I observed this when I reviewed The Best of Lucius Shepard: Volume 2, quoting an obituary of Shepard penned by Christopher Priest for The Guardian. Priest felt that Shepard’s preference for the novella and his association with ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

And the Mighty Will Fall by K.B. Wagers: Review by Liz Bourke

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And the Mighty Will Fall, K.B. Wagers (Harper Voyager 978-0-06-311524-8, $19.99, 464pp, tp) November 2024.

And the Mighty Will Fall is K.B. Wagers’s tenth and latest space opera novel, the fourth book in the NeoG continuity after 2023’s The Ghosts of Trappist. And the Mighty Will Fall brings the action back to our solar system and the long-running conflict between advocates for an independent Mars and the central ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Rest in Peaches by Alex Brown: Review by Alex Brown

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Rest in Peaches, Alex Brown (Page Street YA 979-8-89003-070-2, $18.99, 336pp, hc) October 2024.

Get ready for another great young adult horror comedy with Rest in Peaches by Alex Brown (not me!). Quinn is about to do the biggest, most important thing she’s ever done in her whole 17 years of life. At this year’s Homecoming game, she will don a brand new Peaches the Parrot mascot costume and ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Lies We Conjure by Sarah Henning: Review by Colleen Mondor

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The Lies We Conjure, Sarah Henning (Tor Teen 978-1-259-84106-3, $19.99, 400pp, hc) September 2024.

As The Lies We Conjure opens, sisters Ruby and Wren are finishing up a summer stint working at a local Renaissance Fair when they get an offer that impetuous Wren cannot pass up. A customer offers them each $2,000 to attend a family dinner at the local landmark mansion and pretend to be her grandchildren. ...Read More

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Cover of Breath of Oblivion. A futuristic city with gleaming towers
Books Reviews 

Breath of Oblivion by Maurice Broaddus: Review by Nedine Moonsamy

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Breath of Oblivion, Maurice Broaddus (Tor 978-1-25026-512-8, $30.99, 400pp, hc) Novem­ber 2024.

Breath of Oblivion is the second instal­ment in Maurice Broaddus’s highly anticipated Astra Black trilogy. The first book in the series, Sweep of Stars, was a Locus Award finalist in 2023 and garnered favourable reviews for his Afrofuturist space adventure. Sweep of Stars clearly displays Broaddus’s ad­mirable worldbuilding, as he imagines the year 2121, long after ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Model Home by Rivers Solomon: Review by Gabino Iglesias

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Model Home, Rivers Solomon (MCD 978-0-37460-713-5, $28.00, 304pp, hc) October 2024. Cover by Abby Kagan.

Rivers Solomon’s Model Home is a novel about a haunted house in which said house sits in the background while haunted people take center stage. Stunningly written and full of the kind of trauma that can only come from family, this novel takes the haunted house trope and turns it into something that feels entirely ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Escher Man by T.R. Napper: Review by Alexandra Pierce

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The Escher Man, T.R. Napper (Titan 978-1-80336-815-3, $17.99, 368pp, pb) September 2024. Cover by Julia Lloyd.

It’s 2101. Macau is filled with casinos and run by gangsters; Endel (aka Endgame), an Australian, is an enforcer for the main cartel, sent to kill traitors and anyone else who threatens the gang’s livelihood. Endel is a drunk and a gambler, and separated from his wife and child because of his behaviour. ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Clarkesworld: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

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Clarkesworld 10/24

“Space O/pera” by Abby Nicole Lee in the October issue of Clarkesworld centers on Clara, whose family dog, Daki, is sent into space. When footage of Daki’s shuttle exploding is released, Clara is certain a cover-up is afoot and sets out to investigate. “The Children of the Flame” by Fiona Moore is another of the author’s stories featuring Morag as a recurring central character. ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Depth Charge, edited by Hank Davis & Jamie Ibson: Review by Paul Di Filippo

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Depth Charge, edited by Hank Davis & Jamie Ibson (Baen 978-1982193829, trade paperback, 288pp, $18.00) December 2024

Not so very long ago, the fantastika publishing ecology held open a niche for a species known as the “reprint anthology.” These creatures flourished under the expert hands of such caretakers as Damon Knight, Groff Conklin, Isaac Asimov, Richard Lupoff, Judith Merril and scores of other expert compilers. Their reason for living ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Lightspeed, Baffling, GigaNotoSaurus, and Small Wonders: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur

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Lightspeed 10/24 Baffling 10/24 GigaNotoSaurus 10/24 Small Wonders 10/24

Philip Gelatt and JT Petty anchor the October Lightspeed with “Sully the God”, which imagines Sully as the Elon Musk of magic, the man who stole the discovery from a dead colleague and turned it into the most successful business the world has ever known. He’s become so rich that money has sort of lost meaning, and yet for ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Spells to Forget Us by Aislinn Brophy: Review by Alex Brown

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Spells to Forget Us, Aislinn Brophy (Putnam 978-15586-1331-7, $20.99, 432pp, hc) September 2024.

In Aislinn Brophy’s new young adult romantic fan­tasy Spells to Forget Us, two Black teen girls have to balance falling in love with neglectful parents and harsh community expectations. Luna Gold and Aoife Walsh meet-cute at a high school football game. They flirt, they go out, they get together, they break up. Turns out, this ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Disavowed by John E. Stith: Review by Paul Di Filippo

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Disavowed, John E. Stith (Experimenter Publishing Company 979-8888315439, trade paperback, 510pp, $16.99) December 2024

I am extremely happy to see that John Stith’s career is experiencing something like a renaissance. His novel, Reckoning Infinity, the last in a continuous flow of fine books, appeared from Tor in 1997. We did not see another until Pushback in 2018—and that one was non-SF. Twenty-one years constituted a long gap for ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Way by Cary Groner: Review by Ian Mond

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The Way, Cary Groner (Spiegel & Grau 978-1-95411-842-3, $29.00, 304pp, hc) December 2024.

In Cary Groner’s second novel, The Way, a heavily mutated and infectious avian flu wipes out 80 per­cent of humanity. The event, dubbed ‘‘Mayhem’’ by the survivors, leads to the expected break­down of civilisation – ‘‘starvation; migration; a brief, limited nuclear exchange; then finally the return of endemic diseases like TB, diphtheria, typhoid, cholera, malaria, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber: Review by Colleen Mondor

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Castle of the Cursed, Romina Garber (Wednesday Books 978-1-250-86389-8, $21.00, 304pp, hc) July 2024.

The cover of Romina Garber’s Castle of the Cursed includes the line “The House is Always Hungry,” and readers should consider that a fair comment on the story within. As soon as recently orphaned Estela arrives at what she has only recently learned is her family’s “ancestral Spanish castle,” the house plays a huge part ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Vilest Things by Chloe Gong: Review by Alexandra Pierce

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Vilest Things, Chloe Gong (Saga Press 978-1-66800-026-7, $28.99, 384pp, hc). September 2024. Cover by Will Staehle.

Vilest Things picks up about ten minutes before the end of Immortal Longings. This review contains significant spoilers for that first book so interested readers should see my review in the August 2023 issue of Locus.

Vilest Things opens with Anton Makusa hav­ing just jumped his qi to crown prince August Shenzhi’s ...Read More

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we lived on the horizon cover - desert window
Books Reviews 

We Lived on the Horizon by Erika Swyler: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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We Lived on the Horizon, Erika Swyler (Atria 978-6680-4959-4, $28.99, 336pp, hc) January 2025.

Despite what Robert Frost may have thought, a lot of SFF writers really do love a wall. Walled and isolated cities, redoubts, or keeps (to use the term favored by The Science Fiction Encyclopedia) have proved useful to SFF for exploring everything from overpopulation to alien invasions to environmental catastrophe to those pesky tech ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Mechanize My Hands to War by Erin K. Wagner : Review by Paul Di Filippo

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Mechanize My Hands to War, Erin K. Wagner (DAW 978-0756419349, hardcover, 320pp, $28.00) December 2024

Erin Wagner’s debut novel is a highly sophisticated tale, constructed in clever fashion, which revolves around the classic motif of human versus nonhuman, specifically man against android. It does not necessarily expand the frontiers of this theme—Wagner’s sociological and technological speculations about androids and their uses hew pretty closely to the standard SF textbook, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

SHORT TAKES: Voyaging, Volume One: The Plague Star by George R.R. Martin and Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s by Adam Rowe: Review by Karen Haber

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Voyaging, Volume One: The Plague Star, George R.R. Martin, art and adaptation by Raya Golden (Ten Speed Graphic, 978-1-98486-10-8-5, $19.99, 192pp. tp) October 2023. Cover by Raya Golden.

Hugo Award-nominated artist Raya Golden (Meathouse Man, Starport) brings her acclaimed expressive drawing skills, imagination, and sense of humor to Voyaging, Volume 1: The Plague Star, the winding tale of Haviland Tuf, tall, bald, eccentric space merchant ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Fiyah, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Diabolical Plots: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur

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Fiyah 10/24 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 10/3/24 Diabolical Plots 10/24

The October Fiyah is themed around spacefaring aunties, and it opens with a bang with Tatiana Obey’s “Fuck Them Kids”, which finds Jaz visit­ing her mom and sister (and her sister’s kids) for the spacer holiday celebrating the settlement of Europa. It’s something Jaz’s mom participated in personally as a botanist on the first settlement ship, and under ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst: Review by Colleen Mondor

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The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst (Bramble 978-1-250-33397-1, $29.88, 384pp, hc) July 2024.

Author Sarah Beth Durst notes in her Acknowl­edgements to The Spellshop that writing her novel was sparked by hot chocolate and raspberry jam and a desire for “a book that felt like a warm hug.” (I get that sentiment because boy howdy, 2024 has been some kind of tough for a lot of us.) Plenty of pastries ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Interstellar MegaChef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan: Review by Ian Mond

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Interstellar MegaChef, Lavanya Lakshminarayan (Solaris 978-1-83786-233-7, $16.99, 400pp, tp) November 2024.

I’ve always loved a good cooking show. Back in the day, it was Top Chef (where a contestant always undercooked the chicken) and Great British Menu (where every pudding had to include rhubarb). Now, I’m obsessed with Uncle Roger’s YouTube channel. His takedown of Jamie Oliver’s Egg Fried Rice, with 28 million views and over one million likes, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White: Review by Alex Brown

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Compound Fracture, Andrew Joseph White (Peachtree Teen 978-1-68263-612-1, $19.99, 384pp, hc) September 2024.

Teens fighting against the forces of empire or capitalism is a common theme in young adult fiction. Oftentimes, the teen protago­nist has a couple sidekicks and a love interest or two who help them wage battle, but it’s up to our hero to defeat the Big Bad and save the day. The empire or corporation is ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman: Review by Gabino Iglesias

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Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman (Dandy House 979-8-6885-9150-7, $13.99, 400pp, tp) September 2020. (Ace 978-0-59382-024-7, $30.00, 464pp, hc) August 2024. Cover by George Towne.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is not really a book; it’s a long joke, a gimmick, a video game turned into fiction. The thing is, it works. It has spots where it is juvenile or a little slow, but author Matt Dinniman clearly had a blast writing ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Countess by Suzan Palumbo: Review by Liz Bourke

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Countess, Suzan Palumbo (ECW Press 978-1770417571, $16.95, 168pp, tp) September 2024

Trinidadian-Canadian author Suzan Palumbo draws on Caribbean history, culture, and experi­ence in her space opera novella Countess. Pa­lumbo has been previously best known for short fiction: Her collection Skin Thief was published by Neon Hemlock Press in 2023.

As a novella, Countess is a mixed bag. Its first half is genuinely compelling, while its second feelts to me ...Read More

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Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor (Morrow 978-0-06-344578-9, $30.00, 448pp, hc) January 2025.

For a certain generation of academics, ‘‘the death of the author’’ is the title of an influential 1967 essay by Roland Barthes arguing against interpreting literature in terms of the author’s identity or psychology. Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author makes a brief and oblique reference to this in an early chapter in which the protagonist, ...Read More

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The Kwaidan Collection by Lafcadio Hearn: Review by Karen Haber

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The Kwaidan Collection, Lafcadio Hearn, il­lustrated by Kent Williams (Beehive Books 978-1-948886-32-1) $100.00, 144+pp, hc) April 2023. Cover by Kent Williams.

The Kwaidan Collection is not only a fascinating illustrated volume of vintage supernatural Japanese folk tales, brilliantly interpreted by acclaimed multimedia artist Kent Williams, it’s historically significant. These stories were literally rescued by the eccentric multilingual world traveler Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) in the early 20th century when the ...Read More

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