Reviews

Reviews Short Fiction 

Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Samovar, Strange Horizons, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies

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Samovar 4/22 Strange Horizons 4/18/22, 5/2/22, 5/9/22 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 5/5/22, 5/19/22

April also saw the release of a new issue of Samo­var, the sibling publication to Strange Horizons that specializes in speculative stories and poetry in translation. Among the works in the issue, Azrin Fauzi (translated by Ali Aiman Mazwin) captures a weird and compelling journey of three people on the island of Malaysia in “Panorama People ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Gallant by V.E. Schwab

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Gallant, V.E. Schwab (Greenwillow 978-0-06-283577-2, $18.99, 352pp, hc) March 2022. Cover by David Curtis.

Victoria Schwab’s Gallant is a dark confection, a tale that shares tropes with gothic classics (a curse, ghosts, a house of faded glamour that is shrouded in mystery) and pins its hope for a happy ending on a tortured heroine who is haunted by the secrets of a past she never knew. There is a ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Embroidered Book by Kate Heartfield

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The Embroidered Book, Kate Heartfield (Harp­erVoyager 978-0-00838-059-5, $28.99, 672pp, hc) May 2022.

After reading Kate Heartfield’s thoroughly engrossing The Embroidered Book, with its account of the secret role of magic in European politics around the time of the French Revolution, I made the mistake of checking out what Wikipedia had to say about such topics as ‘‘secret history’’ or ‘‘historical fantasy.’’ Not too surprisingly, the depth and consistency ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Karen Burnham Reviews Short Fiction: Omenana, Samovar, and Analog

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Omenana 4/22 Samovar 4/22 Analog 5-6/22

In its 21st issue, Omenana continues to bring a fascinating mix of fantasy, science fiction, and horror from African writers. “Madam Aisirhiowen’s Greatest Invention” by Amadin Ogbewe is an interesting story of a woman who transformed herself into a cyborg ruler. When we meet her she is deposed and staying with her great-granddaughter, build­ing something with her minions. It’s pretty ominous, but ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Hokuloa Road by Elizabeth Hand

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Hokuloa Road, Elizabeth Hand (Mulholland 978-0316542043, hardcover, 368pp, $28.00) July 2022.

In days of yore, when the actual internet was merely science fiction, curious fans found out scarce biographical tidbits about their favorite authors in whatever manner they could: from fanzines, or dustjacket flaps, or occasional media articles and even the rare autobiographical essay. Heinlein lived on a walled estate in Colorado Springs. Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert and Jack ...Read More

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Gabino Iglesias Reviews Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

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Echo, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor Nightfire 978-1-250-75955-9, $29.99, 416pp, hc) February 2022.

Reviewing the work of Thomas Olde Heuvelt is no easy task, and Echo, his latest, is no different. Translated from the Dutch by Moshe Gilula, this is a complex, creepy, atmospheric, labyrinthine monster that comes in at more than 400 pages.

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt is a novel about many things; grief, trauma, unconditional love, ...Read More

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Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews The Girl Who Outgrew the World by Zoje Stage

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The Girl Who Outgrew the World, Zoje Stage (Lethe 978-1-59021-523-4, $15.00, 180pp, tp) May 2022.

Eleven-year-old Lilly is having a growth spurt. Only this is no ordinary, normal march towards adolescence. In Zoje Stage’s new novella, The Girl Who Outgrew the World, the title itself reveals the scale and pace of Lilly’s development, a mysterious, monstrous, and inexplicable surge that baffles and frightens her father, her friends, her ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews The Doloriad by Missouri Williams

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The Doloriad, Missouri Williams (MCD x FSG Originals 978-0-37460-508-7, $17.00, 240pp, tp) March 2022.

Missouri Williams’s debut novel, The Doloriad, comes close to pipping Mónica Ojeda’s Jawbone as the most disturbing book I’ve read this year (note, I said close; Jawbone still holds the crown). It’s a post-apocalyptic story where an unknown cataclysm, possibly environmental (though it’s never made clear) has wiped out humanity. Well, almost. In a ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore

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Lakelore, Anna-Marie McLemore (Feiwel and Friends 978-1-250-62414-7, $18.99, 304pp, hc) March 2022. Cover by Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor.

The delicate contemporary fantasy Lakelore uses author Anna-Marie McLemore’s fa­miliar lush language to describe a strange and beautiful world beneath a lake and the two teenagers who explore it. The magic elements are subtle and largely expressed through the papier-mâché construction of alebrije, Mexican folk art sculptures of imaginary creature which come ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Kaleidotrope, Zooscape, Escape Pod, and Drabblecast

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Kaleidotrope 4/22 Zooscape 4/22 Escape Pod 4/22 Drabblecast 4/22

I’ll start off with the Spring Kaleidotrope, which does a good job keeping to a few the­matic threads throughout the issue. Though the publication often leans into horror, there’s more of a focus on grief and loss with this group of stories and poems, with recurring ideas of alternate dimensions/universes and sacrifices of various kinds. Aimee Ogden opens the issue with ...Read More

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Maya C. James Reviews Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi

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Bitter, Akwaeke Emezi (Knopf Books for Young Readers 978-0593309032, 272pp, $17.99, hc) February 2022. Cover by Shyama Golden.

Content warning: sexual violence, anti-Black racism.

I would be amiss to not begin with the words that Akwaeke Emezi writes in their dedication of Bitter: ‘‘Still and always, for Toyin Salau. You deserved a better world.’’ Toyin was raped and murdered by an older man who assaulted her after offering ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews The Moonday Letters by Emmi Itäranta

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The Moonday Letters, Emmi Itäranta (Titan 978-1803360447, trade paperback, 368pp, $15.95) July 2022.

One of John Campbell’s prescriptions for the kind of science fiction he wanted to see was to say, paraphrased, “Give me a story which could legitimately be presented as contemporary fiction in a magazine of the year 2100.” In other words, a story narrated out of a deep and implicit and shared set of assumptions about ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews The Path of Thorns by A.G. Slatter

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The Path of Thorns, A.G. Slatter (Titan Books 978-1-78909-437-4, $15.95, 384pp, tp) June 2022.

Over the last decade, beginning with the collec­tion Sourdough and Other Stories, A.G. Slatter has steadily built a lush and deeply imagined sec­ondary world inspired by European fairy tales, myths, and legends. Last year she published the first novel set in this universe, the fabulous gothic fantasy, All The Murmuring Bones (one of my ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Ymir by Rich Larson

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Ymir, Rich Larson (Orbit 978-0316416580, trade paperback, 416pp, $17.99) July 2022.

If one tried to engineer a young writer who would embody all the core values, tactics, and ambiance of Classic SF while still conveying ultra-contemporary attitudes, ambiance, and affect, one could hardly produce a better candidate than Rich Larson. Just turned thirty years old, he’s already delivered over a hundred fine stories and now brings us his third ...Read More

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Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews Face by Joma West

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Face, Joma West (Tordotcom 978-1-25081-029-8, $26.99, 272pp, hc) August 2022.

We already live in a world where, for many, looks are currency, identity is performative, and status is a game. There’s no shortage of opinion on the effects of social media on culture, research on how phones have – literally – changed our posture and vision, and speculation on how replacing online communication either enhances or erodes human connection. ...Read More

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Alex Brown Reviews This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron

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This Wicked Fate, Kalynn Bayron (Bloomsbury YA 978-1-54760-920-8, $18.99, 320pp, hc) August 2022.

Kalynn Bayron concludes her riveting This Poison Heart duology with This Wicked Fate. Briseis Greene begins the novel still reeling from the revelation that her family is descended from Greek gods. She is desperate to save her mother from her untimely death. With her family and friends at her back (and with her god-given gifts ...Read More

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Tim Pratt Reviews Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Locklands, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey 978-1-984-82067-9, $28.99, 506pp, hc) June 2022.

Locklands is the third and final volume in the Founders trilogy by Robert Jack­son Bennett, begun with Shorefall and Foundryside. It’s hard to talk about the last book in a trilogy without spoiling the first two, so consider yourself warned.

The central magical conceit of the series is scriving, inscribing objects with a magical script that ...Read More

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Russell Letson Reviews Needle by Linda Nagata

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Needle, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island 978-1-937197-40-7, $19.00, 356pp, tp) July 2022. Cover by Sarah Anne Langton.

Decades ago, my imagination of the far, far future of humankind was formed by Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men and Star Maker: melancholy, long-lens scenarios that lack individual characters and conventional plot-lines but whose visions of the possible range of thinking beings and civilizations and deep time were simultaneously breathtaking and ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The City Inside by Samit Basu

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Chosen Spirits, Samit Basu (Simon & Schuster India 978-9386797810, ₹499.00, 243pp, hc) April 2020. (Self-published, $3.99, eb) April 2020. As The City Inside, Samit Basu (Tordotcom 978-1-25082-748-7, $25.99, 256pp, hc) June 2022.

Samit Basu’s The City Inside appeared in India a couple of years ago under the title Chosen Spir­its, and was reviewed in this magazine (August 2020) by Ian Mond, who, while noting parallels between Basu’s ...Read More

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Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky

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January Fifteenth, Rachel Swirsky (Tordotcom 978-1-25019-894-5, $15.99, 240pp, tp) June 2022.

If you’ve ever read any of Rachel Swirsky’s short fiction, then you’re familiar with her signature elegant prose and her very literary deconstruction of traditional plot. Swirsky’s style is instantly recognizable and widely appreciated, earning her multiple Nebulas, and, at the very least, enthusiastic nods from nearly all the award committees in genre.

Swirsky’s latest novella, January Fifteenth ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

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Lapvona, Ottessa Moshfegh (Jonathan Cape 978-0-59330-026-8, $27.00, 272pp, hc) June 2022.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been tracking Ottessa Moshfegh’s career that her fourth novel, Lapvona, takes place in a me­dieval fiefdom. Beginning with the publication of McGlue – an experimental novella following the dark and violent exploits of a 19th-century sailor – and then her debut (and break-out) novel, the Man Booker-shortlisted Eileen – a claustrophobic ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Book of Night by Holly Black

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Book of Night, Holly Black (Tor 978-1-250-81219-3, $27.99, hc, 320pp) May 2022.

Bestselling YA author Holly Black makes her long-awaited adult debut with the dark fantasy Book of Night. Set in ‘‘the Silicon Valley of shadow magic’’ (aka Western Massachusetts), with reformed thief and conwoman Charlie Hall at its center, Book of Night introduces a world where shadows can be re­moved, enhanced, or manipulated. This is unpredict­able magic ...Read More

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Russell Letson Reviews Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Eyes of the Void, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit 978-0316705875, $28.00, 608 pp, hc) May 2022. Cover by Steve Stone.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Eyes of the Void is the sequel to Shards of Earth, second in a sprawling, gaudy space opera series featuring a menagerie of space-traveling life­forms, a galactic history of warfare and ruined civilizations, and entire species on the run from inscrutable, invulnerable planet-killers. Human­kind is a latecomer to ...Read More

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Maya C. James Reviews The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

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The Hacienda, Isabel Cañas (Berkley 978-0593436691, 352pp, $27.00, hc) May 2022. Cover by Vi-An Nguyen.

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas is a gothic hor­ror set in the recent aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence. After her father was murdered and their house burned down, Beatriz marries the wealthy Rodolfo to inherit his estate, and move her mother away from their cruel aunt and uncle. Upon her arrival, it ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky

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January Fifteenth, Rachel Swirsky (Tordotcom 978-1-25019-894-5, $15.99, 240pp, tp) June 2022.

SF has long had a somewhat fraught relationship with economic policy. On the one hand, it would seem to be an inescapable part of any future society; on the other, it doesn’t easily lend itself to high drama. ‘‘Epic economics’’ isn’t really a thing, despite what Asimov may have thought decades ago. As a result, economics is often ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye

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Blood Scion, Deborah Falaye (Harper Teen 978-0-06-295404-4, $18.99, hc, 432pp) March 2022. Cover by Taj Francis.

Deborah Falaye’s Blood Scion is an intense and sometimes brutal immersion into the horrors of colonialism, war, and oppression that is undeni­ably one of the season’s most powerful reads. Take this warning to heart: There is a lot of violence depicted and discussed in this novel, including rape, beating, and the horrors inflicted ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Diabolical Plots, Lightspeed, Fantasy and F&SF

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Diabolical Plots 3/22, 4/22 Lightspeed 5/22 Fantasy 5/22 F&SF 5-6/22

April Fool’s Day brought a special extra story to Diabolical Plots, and fans of the Teenage Mu­tant Ninja Turtles might want to check out Josh Strnad’s “Food of the Turtle Gods”. Then, in “She Dreams In Digital” by Katie Grace Carpenter, an intelligent starship tries to keep a garden alive following the loss of ...Read More

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Adrienne Martini Reviews Rosebud by Paul Cornell, The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler, and And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed

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Rosebud, Paul Cornell (Tordotcom 978-1-25076-539-0, $14.99, 110pp, tp). April 2022.

Just to get it out of the way, the Rosebud in Paul Cornell’s Rosebud is a survey ship, not a sled. Said Rosebud has happened upon a mysterious black sphere out in space, and its digital inhabitants “a balloon, a goth, some sort of science aristocrat possibly, a ball of hands, and a swarm of insects” decide to investigate ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Rouge Street: Three Novellas by Shuang Xuetao

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Rouge Street: Three Novellas, Shuang Xuetao (Metropolitan Books 978-1-25083-587-1, $26.99, 240pp, hc) April 2022.

Rouge Street: Three Novellas is the first Eng­lish-language publication of Shuang Xuetao’s fic­tion, translated by Jeremy Tiang, who worked on Yan Ge’s Strange Beasts of China last year. Like Yan Ge, Xuetao’s short stories and novels have long been celebrated in China. He’s taken home several awards, including the Blossoms Literary Prize, the Wang Zengqi ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Comeuppance Served Cold by Marion Deeds

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Comeuppance Served Cold, Marion Deeds (Tor­dotcom 978-1-250-81108-0, $16.99, tp, 192pp) March 2022. Cover by Helen Crawford-White.

The prize for most original book I’ve read in a while goes to Comeuppance Served Cold, a magical caper yarn by Marion Deeds. Set in an alternate 1929 Seattle, where Prohibition has spurred a black market full of speakeasys and bootleggers, Comeuppance Served Cold is the story of Dolly White, who appears ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Baffling, Fireside, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies

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Baffling Spring ’22 Fireside Spring ’22 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 4/7/22, 4/21/22

Baffling released a new issue in April, with seven flash-length works of queer speculative fiction. Ruth Joffre’s “A Girl Predicts the Future” kicked things off by offering Xochitl a choice, a menu of sorts for seeing into the future. The mercenary nature of the offerings is an interest­ing complication, something that prevents the aid offered from ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Paula Guran Reviews Short Fiction: The Dark and Nightmare

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The Dark 3/22, 4/22 Nightmare 3/22, 4/22, 5/22

There’s quite a variety in the four originals of The Dark #83. In “Knotlings” by Aliya Whiteley, the narrator accepts her pain as a good thing. She rejoices when her son experiences the same affliction and, like her, vomits up “knotlings.” The mother teaches her son how to cope, but as he matures, he develops his own way of ...Read More

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