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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Promise of Space by James Patrick Kelly

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The Promise of Space, James Patrick Kelly (Prime 978-1-607-01495-9, $15.95, 384pp, tp) July 2018.

In his afterword to The Promise of Space, James Patrick Kelly assures us that none of the 16 stories were included in his massive Centipede Press collection from a couple of years ago, the impos­ingly titled Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly – which serves as an indication that his accomplished career as a short ...Read More

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Carolyn Cushman Reviews The Privilege of Peace by Tanya Huff

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Tanya Huff, The Privilege of Peace (DAW 978-0-7564-1153-4, $26.00, 342pp, hc) June 2018. Cover by Paul Youll.

Torin Kerr – and the alien plastic – are back in this lively third novel in the Peacekeeper trilogy, itself a follow-up to the military SF Confederation novels. Torin and her Wardens Strike Team Al­pha continue their work keeping the peace when things get violent, but they’re having continued trouble from the group ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews The Expert System’s Brother by Adrian Tchai­kovsky

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The Expert System’s Brother, Adrian Tchai­kovsky (Tor.com Publishing 978-1-250-19756-6, $14.99, 174pp, tp) July 2018. Cover by Raphael Lacoste.

The Expert System’s Brother is a new novella by Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of Time, Ironclads) from Tor.com Publishing’s well-regarded novella line. Tchaikovsky is developing quite a range when it comes to science fiction, from the near-future grim military story of Ironclads to the deep-time, far-future hard evolutionary ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

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Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Del Rey 978-0-399-18098-9, $28.00, 440pp, hc) July 2018.

One of the highlights of Navah Wolfe & Dominic Parisien’s The Starlit Wood a couple of years ago was Naomi Novik’s “Spinning Silver”, a shrewd deconstruction of the Rumpelstiltskin tale, which highlighted, among other things, the anti-Semitic undertones of the original, a point which Jane Yo­len and others have previously noted. Now Novik has expanded Spinning Silver into ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo reviews Irontown Blues by John Varley

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Irontown Blues, by John Varley (Ace 978-1-101-98937-1, $16, 304pp, trade paperback August 2018

The science fiction and fantasy genres are conducive to long-lived series. Any number of writers who have managed to contrive extensive careers have found fandoms who relish receiving continuing installments of their favorite sagas. Sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes reluctantly, these writers keep the franchises ticking along. Jack Williamson gave us The Legion of Space in 1947–and in ...Read More

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Carolyn Cushman Reviews Red Waters Rising by Laura Anne Gilman

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Laura Anne Gilman, Red Waters Rising (Saga 978-1-4814-2975-7, $16.99, 350pp, tp) June 2018. Cover by Emma Ríos.

The Devil’s West trilogy concludes – sort of – with this novel, which finds Isobel and Gabriel head­ing south for the winter, ending Isobel’s training trip as the Devil’s Hand on the eastern edge of the Devil’s Territory, across the Big Muddy river from what would be New Orleans in our world. Isobel’s ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo reviews A Voice in the Night by Jack McDevitt

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A Voice in the Night, by Jack McDevitt (Subterranean 978-1-59606-880-3, $40.00, 464pp, hardcover) 31 August 2018

With nearly two dozen novels published, Jack McDevitt is one of those writers whose sturdy and engaging presence in the territory of long-form fiction definitely overshadows his stature at shorter lengths. But since his first story sale in 1981–nigh unto forty years ago, impossible as that seems!–he has accumulated, by ISFDB’s catalog, over ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Trem­blay

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The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Trem­blay (William Morrow, 978-0062679109, $26.99, 288pp, hc) June 2018.

I’m not a fan of secluded countryside chalets where the 4G is patchy, there’s no wifi, and the closest neighbor is 20 minutes away. These places fill me with existential dread; every creak and whisper a possible axe-murderer out for an easy kill. Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the ...Read More

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Books Reviews Short Fiction 

Colleen Mondor reviews A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman

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A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman, eds. (Greenwillow 978-0-06-267115-8, $17.99, 336pp, hc) June 2018.

In the introduction to A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, editors Elsie Chapman & Ellen Oh write of their deep love for myth and leg­end, something many readers will likely identify with. However, for Chapman and Oh, immersion in tales of Greek and Norse gods, while exciting, was always a bit disappointing. The ...Read More

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Carolyn Cushman Reviews The Rose Legacy by Jessica Day George

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Jessica Day George, The Rose Legacy (Blooms­bury USA 978-1-59990-647-8, $18.99, 259pp, hc) May 2018. Cover by Kevin Keele.

Kids who dream of having horses should love this middle-grade fantasy novel about an unwanted orphan girl who ends up with an uncle she didn’t know she had, who raises forbidden animals: horses. This has an interesting setting in a king­dom vaguely reminiscent of an early-20th-century Great Britain, with trains and early ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews 84K by Claire North

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84K, Claire North (Orbit 978-0316316804, $15.99, 480pp, tp) May 2018.

Since 2014 Claire North has tapped into a rich vein of high concept speculative thrillers. Starting with The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, each stand-alone novel has been framed around a straightforward “what if.” For example, what if there were people who, when they died, cycled back to the day they were born, but with all their memories intact? ...Read More

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Locus Science Fiction Book Review Charlie Jane Anders
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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Rock Manning Goes for Broke by Charlie Jane Anders

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Rock Manning Goes for Broke, Charlie Jane Anders (Subterranean 978-1-59606-878-0, $40.00, 128pp, hc) September 2018.

When Kingsley Amis coined the very useful term “comic inferno” back in 1959, he wasn’t thinking of Harold Lloyd comedies, and certainly couldn’t have imagined the sort of Jackass-style homemade movie stunts that are at the heart of Charlie Jane Anders’s novella Rock Manning Goes for Broke. But the term is a pretty useful description ...Read More

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Lila Garrott Reviews The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

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The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager 978-0-06-266256-9, $26.99, 544 pp, hc.) May 2018.

Rebecca Kuang’s first novel is the start of an epic fantasy trilogy set in an alternate-universe China, the Nikara Empire, in which human beings access the magical powers of the gods by taking psychedelic drugs – which, in practice, means that it’s about people fighting wars while high. These shamanic practices are something of an open ...Read More

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Carolyn Cushman Reviews King of Ashes by Raymond E. Feist

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Raymond E. Feist, King of Ashes (Harper Voyag­er 978-0-00-726485-8, £20.00, 545PP, hc) April 2018. (Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-146845-2, $29.99, 466pp, hc) May 2018.

Feist returns with the first volume in the new Firemane fantasy series, centered on a land that was once five kingdoms, until the Betrayal, which saw the king of Ithrace, known as Firemane, betrayed by some allies in a war with a neighbor­ing kingdom. One of the ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk

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Adjustment Day, Chuck Palahniuk (Norton 978-0393652598, $26.95, 316pp, hc) May 2018.

Before Reddit, 4chan, Pepe, Men’s Rights Activists, and Incels, Chuck Palahniuk’s debut novel, Fight Club, explored how consumerism and the touchy-feely attitudes of the ’90s created a generation of disaffected, frustrated, angry men. Twenty-two years later and Palahniuk revisits this subject with his latest book, Adjust­ment Day, substituting capitalism and self-help groups with Social Justice Warriors and cultural Marxism. ...Read More

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Locus science fiction book review Point of Sighs by Melissa Scott
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Liz Bourke Reviews Point of Sighs by Melissa Scott

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Point of Sighs, Melissa Scott (Lethe Press 978-1-59021-645-3, $18.00, 276pp, tp) May 2018. Cover by Ben Baldwin.

Melissa Scott’s Astreiant is a city to conjure with. It shares some commonalities with Ellen Kush­ner’s Riverside, though the first book, Point of Hopes (co-written with the late Lisa A. Barnett) was initially published in 1995 to Kushner’s Swordspoint‘s 1987. (And it involves a little less duelling.) Astreiant is a rich, complex setting, ...Read More

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Locus science fiction review Born to the Blade
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Amy Goldschlager Reviews Born to the Blade, Season 1

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Born to the Blade, Season 1, Episodes 1–6 (of 11), Michael R. Underwood, Marie Brennan, Cassandra Khaw & Malka Older; Xe Sands, narrator (Serial Box, $1.59 per episode, digital download, 1-1/5 hr. per episode), April–May 2018.

This new shared-universe effort created by Michael R. Underwood is a fun little exercise in political fantasy that boasts several sorts of magic. A some­what contentious alliance of floating island nations practice diplomacy on ...Read More

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Books Reviews Short Fiction 

Rachel Swirsky Reviews The Underwater Ballroom Society Edited by Tiffany Trent & Stephanie Burgis

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The Underwater Ballroom Society, Tiffany Trent & Stephanie Burgis, eds. (Five Fathoms Press, $4.99, 330pp, eb) April 2018.

Around the turn of the last century, speculator and con man Whitaker Wright built an underwater aquarium and smoking room beneath one of the lakes stippling his mansion’s grounds. Due to its shape, the room came to be referred to as a ballroom. A description from a 1903 article in The West ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo reviews The End of All Our Exploring by F. Brett Cox

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The End of All Our Exploring, by F. Brett Cox (Fairwood Press 978-1933846712, $17.99, 306pp, trade paperback) August 2018

Like a fine vintage wine, Brett Cox’s career has been slowly ripening, almost subliminally, for some time now, a vault-ensconced treasure that we handle and inspect at intervals, as if turning a precious stored bottle to prevent sedimentation, always anticipating the day when the long season’s whole batch is ready ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews Fire Dance by Ilana C. Myer

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Fire Dance, Ilana C. Myer (Tor 978-0-7653- 7832-3, $27.99, 368pp, hc) April 2018. Cover by Stephan Martinière.

I’m still not sure how I feel about Ilana C. Myer’s Fire Dance. Myer’s first novel, Last Song Before Night, left me feeling a little distant and disengaged from its action and characters. Fire Dance is its sequel, set a handful of months later. It has a few changes among its viewpoint characters ...Read More

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Amy Goldschlager Reviews Blackfish City Audiobook by Sam J. Miller

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Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller; Vikas Adam, narrator (Harper Audio and Blackstone Audio 978- 1538497173, $39.99, CD, 10.5 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) April 2018.

After a variety of political and environmental disasters, most of the great nations of the world are either gone or on the verge of collapse. One of the few refuges remaining is Qaanaaq, a city floating on the waters of the Arctic ...Read More

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Katharine Coldiron Reviews The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp

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The City of Lost Fortunes, Bryan Camp (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 978-1-328-81079-3 $24.00, 367pp, hc) April 2018.

If Neil Gaiman wrote a post-Katrina novel about New Orleans, it just might be The City of Lost Fortunes. It’s stuffed with more-than-meets-the-mortal-eye cityscapes (Neverwhere), immortal schemes and meddling (American Gods), and historical myth and meaning (Norse Mythology). Although many of the novel’s fantasy elements are relatively familiar, the gumbo made from them by ...Read More

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Carolyn Cushman Reviews The Defiant Heir by Melissa Caruso

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Melissa Caruso, The Defiant Heir (Orbit US 978-0-316-46690-5, $15.99, 515pp, tp) April 2018. Cover by Crystal Ben.

The second volume in the Swords & Fire fantasy trilogy finds Lady Amalia scrambling to stop a war with the Witch Lords of Vaskandar. Meanwhile, someone is killing Falconers and the magic-wielding Falcons they control, and reluctant Falconer Amalia and her powerful fire warlock Zaira are probable targets. Then Amalia meets a Witch ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Tide of Stone by Kaaron Warren

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Tide of Stone, Kaaron Warren (Omnium Gatherum 9780615827995, $14.99, 374pp, tp) May 2018.

When the Time Ball Tower is first mentioned in Kaaron Warren’s terrific new novel Tide of Stone, I thought it was an invention of the author. I had no idea they existed and that I’d been liv­ing near one my entire life. For those, like me, ignorant of this ancient time-keeping device, a Time Ball is an ...Read More

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Russell Letson Reviews One Way by S.J. Morden

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One Way, S.J. Morden (Orbit 978-0316522182, $15.99, 391pp, tp) April 2018.

One Way is the first novel under the byline S.J. Morden, but not the first novel by the writer behind it, Simon Morden, producer of The Samuil Petrovitch Trilogy (winner of the 2012 Philip K. Dick Award) and a fistful of other SF and fantasy volumes. I’m not sure why the change in byline, since the tone and attitude ...Read More

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Amy Goldschlager Reviews The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

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The Queens of Innis Lear, Tessa Gratton; Kate Reading, narrator (Macmillan Audio, $39.99, digital, 26.5 hr., unabridged) March 2018.

This magic-infused retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear aims to add backstory and depth to the tragedy, and even rewrite the fates of some of the favorite characters. When Queen Dalat died, her two elder daughters blamed their father King Lear for her demise, and King Lear intensified his study in star ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton

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The Price Guide to the Occult, Leslye Walton (Candlewick Press 978-0-7636-9110-3, $18.99, 288pp, hc) March 2018.

The Price Guide to the Occult begins with the story of an island in the Pacific Northwest and the small group of mostly male settlers who arrived there in the mid-1840s. In this prologue, author Leslye Walton sets up the long dark tale of the Blackburn women and the generational burdens inflicted upon them ...Read More

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Amy Goldschlager Reviews The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum

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The Coincidence Makers, Yoav Blum; Ira Moskowitz, translator; Fred Berman, narrator (Macmillan Audio, $20.99, digital download, 8 hr., unabridged) March 2018.

Guy, Emily, and Eric are Coincidence Makers; they receive assignments in sealed envelopes to set up chains of seemingly accidental events with profound effects. A synching of traffic lights here, a spilled coffee there, can irrevocably lead to two people “unexpectedly” encountering each other, or a buttoned-up number cruncher ...Read More

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Carolyn Cushman Reviews The Case of the Deadly Doppelgänger by Lucy Banks

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Lucy Banks, The Case of the Deadly Doppelgänger (Amberjack 978-1-944995-47-8, $14.99, 328pp, tp) February 2018.

A woman wakes in the night to see a copy of herself and die – and all her husband vaguely remembers in the morning is “She’s been fetched.” Turns out she’s not the only victim and, even as the officials publicly play down any supernatural elements, they’re looking for help. This is the second book ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo reviews Annex by Rich Larson

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Annex, by Rich Larson (Orbit 978-0-316-41654-2, $15.99, 368pp, trade paperback) July 2018

I’ve been enjoying the stories of Rich Larson for a couple of years now, amazed at his rate of production and polished skills. (Over a hundred tales sold since his debut in 2011, with several taken for best-of compilations.) So his first novel is a book greatly anticipated, and, happily, it lives up to the measure and ...Read More

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Damien Broderick: Declassifying Psi Research

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The Star Gate Archives, Volume 1 (of 4): Remote Viewing, 1972-1984 Reports of the United States Government Sponsored Psi Program, 1972-1995, compiled and edited by Edwin C. May and Sonali Bhatt Marwaha (McFarland 978-1-4766-6752-2, $95, 546pp, hardcover) 2018

For a time—especially in the 1950s—ESP or psi was the hottest trope in the broad fields of science fiction, promoted especially by John W. Campbell, the iconic, quirky editor of Astounding. ...Read More

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Katharine Coldiron Reviews Echoes of Understorey by Thoraiya Dyer

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Echoes of Understorey, Thoraiya Dyer (Tor 978-0-7653-8595-6, $16.99, 350pp, pb) February 2018.

Readers who enjoyed the first book in Thoraiya Dyer’s Titan’s Forest series will probably enjoy the sequel, Echoes of Understorey. The two books have in common a breathtakingly complex world, magic and ability tied to animal and natural realms, a powerful and self-sabotaging female protagonist, and potent political and racial allegories. Readers who found Crossroads of Canopy a ...Read More

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