Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom 978-1250881786, $18.99, 160pp, tp) February 2024.

I’m pretty sure that tales of forests that are haunted (or enchanted or forbidden or cursed or simply hallucinogenic) predate haunted-house tales by several centuries – in fact, they prob­ably predate houses – and they’ve long provided powerful templates for fantasy (William Morris, George MacDonald, Tolkien, Robert Holdstock), horror (Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood) and even ...Read More

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Jake Casella Brookins Reviews Other Minds and Other Stories by Bennett Sims

Other Minds and Other Stories, Bennett Sims (Two Dollar Radio 978-1-9533-8735-6, $18.95. 202pp, tp) November 2023. Cover by Eric Obe­nauf.

Other Minds and Other Stories, the new col­lection from Bennett Sims, is a must-read: a startling, insightful blend of horror and humor, thoughtful and unpredictable. Many of the sto­ries here are about the psychologies of writing, and of reading, the very strangeness of trying to record thoughts or ...Read More

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Alexandra Pierce Reviews Wicked Problems by Max Gladstone

Wicked Problems, Max Gladstone (Tordotcom 978-0-76539-593-1 $19.99, 464pp, tp) April 2024. Cover by Goñi Montes.

Max Gladstone’s new Craft Wars novel Wicked Problems feels like the sort of book that should have a relatively clear-cut binary of heroes and villains. Maybe the heroes would be tarnished, maybe the villains have some redeeming features; but the overall story – terrible things from beyond the void are coming and maybe the ...Read More

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Russell Letson Reviews House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky

House of Open Wounds, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Head of Zeus, 978-1035901388, $27.99, 585 pp, hc) December 2023. Cover by Joe Wilson.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Open Wounds is a follow-on to The City of Last Chances that repeats many of the structural features of its predecessor: a large cast of viewpoint characters; ‘‘mosaic’’ chapters that provide authorial overviews and comments; a rambling story line that nevertheless draws the reader through ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

The Woods All Black, Lee Mandelo (Tordotcom 978-1-250-79031-6, $19.99, 160pp, hc) March 2024.

If Wasserstein describes the challenges of be­ing a trans woman in a near-future Kansas City, Lee Mandelo focuses on the hazardous experi­ences of a trans man in 1929 rural Kentucky in The Woods All Black. Like Wasserstein, Mandelo opens with a classic narrative hook: a stranger arrives in a small town on a new as­signment, ...Read More

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Adrienne Martini Reviews Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

Bookshops & Bonedust, Travis Baldree (Tor 978-1-250-88610-1, $17.99, 288 pp, tp) November 2023. Cover by Carson Lowmiller.

Don’t get me wrong; I love a book that chal­lenges my idea of what a story is or how language can work or both. But the last few years have given me a new appreciation for a story where the biggest hurdle is which character can be the most humane, even if ...Read More

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Jake Casella Brookins Reviews House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky

House of Open Wounds, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Head of Zeus 978-1-0359-0138-8, $27.99. 608pp, hc) December 2023. Cover by Joe Wilson.

Although it is set in the same world as City of Last Chances, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Open Wounds is very much a standalone sequel. The previous novel introduced us to a large cast of characters in Telmark, a formerly independent nation conquered by the aggres­sively expanding Palleseen Sway. ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Tomorrow’s Children by Daniel Polansky

Tomorrow’s Children, Daniel Polansky (Angry Robot 978-1915202857, trade paperback, 384pp, $18.99) February 2024

Postapocalypse tales don’t get any grimmer or funnier, more slambang or more nuanced, more hopeful or more despairing, than Daniel Polansky’s Tomorrow’s Children. If that catalog of virtues sounds oxymoronic, please restrain your doubts. Polansky’s accomplished novel is large and contains multitudes, and foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind.

This is my ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury

Tender Beasts, Liselle Sambury (McElderry Books 978-1-665-90352-3, $19.99, 404pp, hc) February 2024. Cover by Elena Masci.

I strongly advise you block out a weekend for reading Liselle Sambury’s Tender Beasts, because once you start down this multi-layered family drama, murder mystery, possible deal-with-a-demon cautionary tale, you are not going to be able to set it aside. At the center of the propulsive narrative are a lot (A LOT) of ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere by Anastacia Reneé

Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere, Anastacia Reneé (Amistad 978-0-06322-168-0, $17.99, 144pp, tp) March 2024.

I’ve never really seen eye to eye with poetry. As a kid, all that word-play, metaphor, and allu­sion seemed like hard work, especially when my literary diet consisted mainly of Terrance Dicks Doctor Who novelisations and Stephen King. But in the last decade I’ve made a concerted effort to read outside my comfort zone ...Read More

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Alex Brown Reviews The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, Shubnum Khan (Viking 9780593653456, $28.00. 320pp, hc) January 2024.

When I started Shubnum Khan’s first novel to be published in the US, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, I had no idea what to expect. I haven’t read much South African speculative fiction, and nothing that delves into Indian culture transplanted to Africa. It’s not a history or culture I’m familiar with, ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Convergence Problems by Wole Talabi

Convergence Problems, Wole Talabi (DAW 978-0756418830, $27.00, 320pp, hc), February 2024.

After the exuberant fantasy/heist caper that was his debut novel Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, it might be easy to overlook Wole Talabi’s background as an engineer and SF writer. His new collection, Convergence Problems, serves as a rewarding reminder of his connections to more-or-less traditional SF themes and techniques. A story like ‘‘Blowout’’, ...Read More

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Adrienne Martini Reviews Paladin’s Faith by T. Kingfisher

Paladin’s Faith, T. Kingfisher (Argyll Productions 978-1614506096, $6.99, 422pp, eb) December 2023.

T. Kingfisher (AKA Ursula Vernon) ventures back into her Saint of Steel universe with Paladin’s Faith. Each book in the planned seven-book series is nominally about one of the paladins whose spirits were broken when their animating saint died. But Kingfisher expands what we know about these paladins, their god, and his demise with each volume. ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Equimedian by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

Equimedian, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro (Hex 979-8988082712, hardcover, 326pp, $31.99) February 2024

I would venture to guess that most SF fans know Alvaro Zinos-Amaro as one of our best critics and interviewers. Case in point is his recent volume, Being Michael Swanwick, which I reviewed on this platform just a short time ago. But like Green Arrow or Hawkeye, the man has more than one arrow in his quiver. (I ...Read More

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Jake Casella Brookins Reviews Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park

Same Bed Different Dreams, Ed Park (Random House 978-0-8129-9897-9, $30.00. 544pp, hc) November 2023. Cover by Will Staehle.

Framed from the perspective of Soon Sheen, a writer-turned-tech worker, Ed Park’s Same Bed Different Dreams is an intri­cate and entertaining puzzlebox of a novel, an expansive and allusive meditation on Korean history and much else. Soon works for GLOAT, a giant and quietly dystopian tech company in the mold of ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Beggar’s Sky by Wil McCarthy

Beggar’s Sky, Wil McCarthy (Baen 978-1982193188, hardcover, 320pp, $28.00) February 2024

Wil McCarthy has had an atypical career that is almost neatly bifurcated. He came out of the gate strong with a duology, Aggressor Six, from 1994-1996. With the dawn of a new century, he delivered an even better, more mature and inventive series, Queendom of Sol (2000-2005). But then, for whatever reason, he fell more or less ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: GigaNotoSaurus, Diabolical Plots, Lightspeed and Rosalind’s Siblings

GigaNotoSaurus 12/23 Diabolical Plots 12/23 Lightspeed 12/23, 1/24 Rosalind’s Siblings, Bogi Takács, ed. (Atthis Arts) September 2023

The December GigaNotoSaurus mixes two of my favorite things in Sara Norja’s “Reconciliation Dumplings and Other Recipes”: Sspeculative fiction and food! The piece is framed as parts of a book of family recipes collated and annotated by Ember, who is writing them down to save them for future generations. ...Read More

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Jake Casella Brookins Reviews Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham

Swim Home to the Vanished, Brendan Shay Basham (Harper 978-0-0632-4108-4, $30.00. 240pp, hc) August 2023. Cover by Elina Cohen.

Brendan Shay Basham’s debut novel Swim Home to the Vanished is a gorgeously writ­ten story of magical transformations, and of grief. Following a Diné man cast adrift by loss, it’s a novel both fluid and sharp, full of shapeshifters and enchanted landscapes, rich in dialog and insight.

After the death ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Again and Again by Jonathan Evison

Again and Again, Jonathan Evison (Dutton 978-0-59318-415-8, $28.00, 336pp, hc) November 2023.

I’ve been a massive fan of Jonathan Evison’s fiction since encountering his 2012 novel The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. Not only does Evison have a cracking sense of humour, but he can see beauty and humanity in the darkest and most challenging of situations. I never thought, though, that I’d be reviewing one of Evison’s books ...Read More

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Alexandra Pierce Reviews 2022 Best of Utopian Speculative Fiction edited by Justine Norton-Kertson

2022 Best of Utopian Speculative Fiction, Justine Norton-Kertson, ed. (Android Press 978-1-95812-166-5, $21.99, 240pp, tp) December 2023.

In their follow-up to Bioluminescent: A Lu­narpunk Anthology, Justine Norton-Kertson has assembled a range of stories that suggest different ways of thinking about “utopia.” Going into this anthology I had clear expectations of what “utopia” meant and what these stories would probably look like: societies would be shown as having figured ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan

Fathomfolk, Eliza Chan (Orbit US 978-0-316-56492-2, $19.99, 448pp, tp) February 2024. Cover by Kelly Chang.

Eliza Chan has racked up several short fiction pub­lications in recent years, but Fathomfolk represents her debut novel. And it is an interesting debut, albeit one that, on the whole, didn’t come together as I might have hoped.

Fathomfolk takes place in a world dominated by water, apparently in the aftermath of a process ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

The Tusks of Extinction, Ray Nayler (Tordotcom 978-1-25085-552-7, $26.99, 112pp, hc) January 2024.

Just over a year ago, Ray Nayler offered us a brilliantly original glimpse into the minds of octopuses in The Mountain in the Sea, making a convincing case that this was about as close as we’ve come to encountering a genuine alien intelligence. With The Tusks of Extinction, he turns his attention to the ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Womb City, Tlotlo Tsamaase (Erewhon Books 978-1-64566-056-9, $27.00, 416pp, hc) January 2024.

Tlotlo Tsamaase’s debut novel, Womb City, ini­tially presents as science fiction. In an evocative opening, our protagonist Nelah tells us that ‘‘in our city, everyone lives forever. But murder hangs in the air like mist.’’ The city is Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. The mist is a ‘‘puff of human corpse-detecting chemicals’’ that can locate where a ...Read More

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Alexandra Pierce Reviews The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

The Parliament, Aimee Pokwatka (Tordotcom 978-1-25082-097-6, 320pp, $28.99, hc) Cover by Jaya Miceli. January 2024.

Aimee Pokwatka leans into the absurdist, and refuses explanations in her fiction. Her debut, Self-Portrait with Nothing (2022), has an artist with the ability to bring variants of her portrait subjects into this world; how this works is never explained. Rather, the focus is on relationships: between the artist’s own variants, between the artist and ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom 978-1-250-88178-6, $18.99, 160pp, tp) February 2024. Cover by Andrew Davis.

It seems to me that I’ve read more books that have to do with weird forests over the last couple of years (some kind of Otherness, other land, or strange and inimical powers deep within the woods) than I have in a long while: Hannah Whitten’s fantasy-romance For the Wolf comes ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Deluge by Stephen Markley

The Deluge, Stephen Markley (Simon & Schuster 978-1-98212-309-3, $32.50, 896pp, hc) January 2023.

I won’t lie. I balked at reading Stephen Mark­ley’s second novel, The Deluge. At nearly 900 pages, I knew it would take me two weeks to read, time I could spend working through a back­log of 2023 books that I’ve been meaning to pick up (including new novels from Francis Spufford, Daniel Mason, Emily Habeck, ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

The Parliament, Aimee Pokwatka (Tordotcom 978-1-250-82097-6, $27.99, 320pp, hc) January 2024.

Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film The Birds was based, a bit, on a Daphne du Maurier short story of the same name which itself was inspired by du Maurier’s experience seeing a farmer attacked by a flock of seagulls. (If you never saw The Birds, head to YouTube for the phone booth scene.) Author Aimee Pokwatka takes the ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Kinning by Nisi Shawl

Kinning, Nisi Shawl (Tor 978-1-25021-269-6, $28.99, 432pp, hc) January 2024.

Nisi Shawl’s 2016 Everfair was one of the more provocative alternate histories of the past de­cade, with its steampunk Africa giving birth to a safe-haven country called Everfair, carved out of the oppressively brutal Belgian Congo of King Leopold and financed in part by British social­ists and African-American missionaries. It was a sprawling, ambitious narrative, covering some 30 years ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Exordia by Seth Dickinson

Exordia, Seth Dickinson (Tordotcom 978-1250233011, hardcover, 544pp, $29.99) January 2024

Seth Dickinson’s Baru Cormorant trilogy, known collectively as The Masquerade, was a splashy debut, earning him many accolades and fans. So when his next book, “a gonzo space opera and alien techno-thriller” titled Exordia, was announced in 2018, excitement grew. Six years later, after some public wistful wondering as to when the book would actually appear, Exordia finally ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known, Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom 978-1-250-84850-5, $22.99, 160pp, hc) January 2024. Cover by Robert Hunt.

Seanan McGuire’s latest entry in her Wayward Children series includes several old favorites who come together and relearn the meaning of the word ‘‘home.’’ Mislaid in Parts Half-Known opens in Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Chil­dren and includes a foray through some doors that lead into the fairyland of Prism, a visit ...Read More

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Gabino Iglesias Reviews Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison

Black Sheep, Rachel Harrison (Berkley 978-0-59354-585-0, $27.00, 304pp, hc) September 2023. Cover by Katie Anderson.

Horror, perhaps the best dancing partner when it comes to genre because it gets along very well with everyone else, can be a lot of things, and that includes hilarious. Rachel Harrison’s Black Sheep contains all the elements you’d expect from a horror novel – a creepy presence, dread, emotional turmoil, bloody sacrifices, Satan. However, ...Read More

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Alex Brown Reviews A Feast for Flies by Leigh Harlen

A Feast for Flies, Leigh Harlen (Dancing Star Press 978-1-73214-186-5, $11.99. 163pp, pb) November 2023. Cover by Vitalii Ostaschenko.

Leigh Harlen has only published a collection and one novella, but I loved the latter so much that they immediately became one of my auto-buy authors. Queens of Noise is a riot of a novella, a fierce, funny story about were-punks trying to stop a corporate takeover of their favorite ...Read More

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