Liz Bourke Reviews The Fractured Dark by Megan E. O’Keefe

The Fractured Dark, Megan E. O’Keefe (Orbit US 978-0-316-29113-2, $18.99, 544pp, tp.) Sep­tember 2023.

The Fractured Dark is the second novel in Megan E. O’Keefe’s Devoured Worlds trilogy. The first book, The Blighted Stars, is a fast-paced and viciously readable planetary opera adventure with intelligent fungus, AI descending into dysfunc­tion, ecological critique, explosions, banter, and a touch of inadvisable romance to make the whole cocktail go down more ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller by Maureen Kincaid Speller

A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller, Maureen Kincaid Speller (Luna Press 978-1-91555-620-2, £16.99, 308pp, tp) September 2023.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Maureen Kincaid Speller in person, but we correspond­ed on email and social media. Talking virtu­ally with Maureen was always a delight, moreso when she approached me to review Rod Duncan’s Unseemly Science for Strange Horizons. The deep sadness I felt ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

A Study in Drowning, Ava Reid (Harper Teen 978-0-06-321150-6, $19.99, hc 384 pp) Septem­ber 2023.

Ava Reid’s beguiling fantasy A Study in Drown­ing is set in the country of Llyr, which is reeling from the latest in a long-running series of border disputes with its neighbor Argant. Somewhat reminiscent of Wales, Llyr possesses a strong national identity which is heavily dependent upon the legacies of the seven ‘‘Storytellers’’, creators ...Read More

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Jake Casella Brookins Reviews The Museum of Human History by Rebekah Bergman

The Museum of Human History, Rebekah Berg­man (Tin House 978-1-95353-491-0, $17.95, 256pp, tp) August 2023. Cover by Beth Steidle & Yang Cao.

Told in chapters that jump between disparate characters and across years, Rebekah Bergman’s The Museum of Human History is very loosely centered on twin sisters, Evangeline and Maeve Wilhelm. Following an initially unexplained accident, Maeve falls into an uninterrupted and ageless sleep. As the narrative loops around ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews A Sword of Bronze and Ashes by Anna Smith Spark

A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, Anna Smith Spark (Flame Tree Press 978-1-78758-839-4, $16.95, 336pp, tp) September 2023.

I haven’t read Anna Smith Spark’s work before, though I understand her debut, The Court of Broken Knives (2018), received some critical attention. Her latest, A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, is a peculiar, ambitious novel. It delib­erately sets out, with its use of language, its use of repetition and ...Read More

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Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Flash Fiction Online, Diabolical Plots, and Lightspeed

Flash Fiction Online 7/23 Diabolical Plots 7/23 Lightspeed 9/23

September’s Flash Fiction Online features an inter­esting take on obsession and artificial intelligence with Sylvia Heike’s “Quantum Love”, where a sentient computer called Queenie finds themself in love with their primary handler, Natalie, who is increasingly stressed and distant because her marriage is falling apart. Queenie has a solution, though, and the subtlety to pull it off – ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Monstrous Alterations by Christopher Barzak

Monstrous Alterations, Christopher Barzak (Lethe 978-1-59021-761-0, $20.00, 206pp, tp) September 2023.

Fiction which deliberately sets itself in dialogue with specific works of earlier fiction is an ancient tradition, but it often seems like catnip for SFF writers. Just in the last few years we’ve seen Nghi Vo on F. Scott Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Hand on Shirley Jackson, Kij Johnson on Kenneth Gra­hame and H.P. Lovecraft, John Kessel on Austen and ...Read More

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Gabino Iglesias Reviews The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

The Deep Sky, Yume Kitasei (Flatiron 978-1-25087-533-4, $29.99, 416pp, hc) July 2023.

Yume Kitasei’s The Deep Sky is three books wrapped into one. At once a locked-room (locked ship, in this case) whodunit, an interstellar adven­ture that discusses a very plausible future, and a story that explores mother-daughter relationships as well as friendship, The Deep Sky is a very timely science fiction narrative that looks at some of the dark ...Read More

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Archita Mittra Reviews Thief Liar Lady by D.L. Soria

Thief Liar Lady, D.L. Soria (Del Rey 978-0-59335-805-4, $28.00, 416pp, hc) June 2023.

Fairytale retellings have been perennially popular, offering readers the chance to relive the magic and mayhem of a familiar world while also discovering something new about it. Take for instance the tale of Cinderella, where the main character’s escape from a dreary and deeply unjust reality isn’t just temporary (as secretly at­tending a royal ball might ...Read More

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Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews A Power Unbound by Freya Marske

A Power Unbound, Freya Marske (Tordotcom 978-1-25078-895-5, $28.00, 432 pp, hc), Novem­ber 2023.

‘‘Elsie Alston’s running feet hit the grass like pale secrets.’’ So begins the lyrical third and final installment in Freya Marske’s Last Bind­ing trilogy, A Power Unbound. And like the previous entries, A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth, Marske’s deft and elegant use of language holds as much power and sway as her ...Read More

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Paul Kincaid Reviews The Big Book of Cyberpunk edited by Jared Shurin

The Big Book of Cyberpunk, Jared Shurin, ed. (Vintage 978-0-59346-723-7, $32.50, 1,136pp, tp) September 2023.

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the pre-War experiment of tele­vision was reintroduced. For a time, there was unease that the abyssal screen into which we stared might also be staring into us – “Big Brother is watching you” as George Orwell put it. Events such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth ...Read More

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Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan

The Pomegranate Gate, Ariel Kaplan (Rebellion 978-1786188243, £18.99, 512pp, hc) July 2023. (Erewhon 978-1645660576, $27.00, 576pp, hc) September 2023.

Young-adult author Ariel Kaplan’s first adult novel, The Pomegranate Gate, is a sprawling fantasy epic that brings Jew­ish Kabbalistic mysticism into an immersive, alternative-Earth version of the Inquisición española. Toba Peres and Naftaly Cresques, two twenty-somethings, are the unlikely seeming heroes of the novel and, at first meeting, seem ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews A Multitude of Dreams by Mara Rutherford

A Multitude of Dreams, Mara Rutherford (Inkyard Press 978-1335457967, $19.99, 394pp, hc.) August 2023.

If you don’t think too deeply about Mara Ruther­ford’s A Multitude of Dreams, it’s a smooth and readable young-adult novel borrowing strongly from the gothic and romantic traditions: a sealed castle, a masquerading princess-who-is-not-a-princess, a mad king, a plucky young gentleman, a terrible disease, a monster wearing the face of a benevolent master, secret ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Death Valley by Melissa Broder

Death Valley, Melissa Broder (Scribner 978-1-66802-484-3, $27.00, 240pp, hc) October 2023.

Melissa Broder has been on my need-to-get-around-to-reading radar since I picked up her 2018 debut, The Pisces, about a woman who falls in love with a merman. To this day, the book remains unopened on my Kindle. So does Broder’s second novel, Milk Fed, about a lapsed Jewish woman on a strict, calorie-controlled diet who engages ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Who Haunts You by Mark Wheaton

Who Haunts You, Mark Wheaton (Off Limits Press 978-8-9879250-1-0, $13.00, 170pp, tp) Sep­tember 2023.

Mark Wheaton’s Who Haunts You is a thriller featuring a determined teen detective who cannot be sure of anything she uncovers. Rebecca ‘‘Bex’’ Koeltl is a high school senior in a school that is suddenly suffering an alarming number of student deaths. Yunwen Lei runs off a cliff, Darrell Anolik drives into a delivery van, ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird edited by Jonathan Maberry

Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, edited by Jonathan Maberry (Blackstone 979-8200687992, hardcover, 200pp, $27.99) October 2023

I have yet to read any individual issue of the revived Weird Tales magazine, piloted by editor Jonathan Maberry. But I already know that this new periodical incarnation must be a class act, fully worthy of bearing forward into the future the celebrated name and lineage. My appraisal comes from enjoying this ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews A Stranger in the Citadel by Tobias S. Buckell

A Stranger in the Citadel, Tobias S. Buckell (Audible Originals 978-1713646228, $24.99, CD, 7 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) September 2021. (Tachyon 978-1-61696-398-9, $17.98, 256pp, tp) October 2023.

Far-future societies which have forgotten or mythologized their history have been a staple of SF at least since H.G. Wells’s Eloi. If you shift the point of view from that of a visiting time traveler to an inhabitant ...Read More

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Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go by Cleo Qian

Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go, Cleo Qian (Tin House 978-1-95353-492-7, $18.00, 256 pp, tp), August 2023.

Everyone – and everything – in Cleo Qian’s debut short story collection, Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go – feels deliberately, surpisingly out of focus, at least, to me. Edges are indistinct, images muddy and untrustworthy. It’s dizzying, disorienting, and, at times, heart-stoppingly effective.

The collection itself is difficult to describe. Neither ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews Where Peace Is Lost by Valerie Valdes

Where Peace Is Lost, Valerie Valdes (Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-3085930, $19.99, 392pp, tp) August 2023. Cover art by Serena Malyon. Cover by Owen Corrigan.

Valerie Valdes’s Where Peace is Lost is her fourth novel, after a well-received debut space opera trilogy. Where Peace is Lost sets itself in a different science fiction continuity, with differ­ent characters, and spends most of its time on a single planet: It feels like ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Menewood by Nicola Griffith

Menewood, Nicola Griffith (MCD/Farrar, Straus, Giroux 978-0-37420-808-0, $35.00, 720pp, hc) October 2023.

When her novel Hild was published back in 2013, Nicola Griffith wrote a short essay for Tor.com addressing reviews which described her as a distinguished SF/F writer who had somehow jumped ship into historical fiction, or which asked whether the novel itself could be read as some sort of fantasy. I even saw it described as ‘‘speculative ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward (Scribner 978-1-98210-449-8, $28.00, 320pp, hc) October 2023.

2017 was a terrific year for ghost stories that spoke to America’s two-hundred-and-forty-year history of racism against people of colour. There’s the astonishing soliloquy from Litzie Wright, one of the numerous ghosts from George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo, detailing her experiences as an enslaved per­son. There’s the spirit of a Black musician from Hari Kunzru’s ...Read More

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Adrienne Martini Reviews The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei, Starter Villain by John Scalzi, and Winter’s Gifts by Ben Aaronovitch

The Deep Sky, Yume Kitasei (Flatiron Books 978-1-250-88553-1, $29.99, 416pp, hc) July 2023.

In Yume Kitasei’s The Deep Sky, a billionaire offers humanity hope after an overwhelming number of environmental calamities have come home to roost. She’ll provide starter funding for a one-way mission to Planet X. Each govern­ment that provides additional cash will get to place its citizens on board in proportion to the donation. That scheme ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Being Michael Swanwick by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

Being Michael Swanwick, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro (Fairwood Press 978-1958880142, trade paperback, 328pp, $20.95) November 2023

Consider the case of author Fran Leibowitz. Essentially the creator of a one- or two-book oeuvre, and featuring an absence of new publications over several decades, she is still sought-after for frequent interviews, and even had a recent documentary made about her by none other than Martin Scorsese: Pretend It’s a City (2020). Justifiably or ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Privilege of the Happy Ending by Kij Johnson

The Privilege of the Happy Ending, Kij Johnson (Small Beer 978-1-61873-211-8, $18.00, 302pp, tp) October 2023.

It’s been more than a decade since Kij John­son’s second story collection, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, and while no one is likely to accuse her of reckless profligacy since then (she’s been busy with academia, among other things), no one is likely to accuse her of playing it ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews The Whole Mess and Other Stories by Jack Skillingstead

The Whole Mess and Other Stories, Jack Skillingstead (Fairwood Press 978-1958880128, trade paperback, 334pp, $20.95) November 2023

Reading Jack Skillingstead’s second story collection drives home two things:

One: short stories remain the essential mode whereby fantastika can experiment and develop, while delivering exquisitely compact and powerful aesthetic experiences, much more so than the vast majority of novels, however competent and enjoyable the longer, baggier works might be. (If one ...Read More

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Archita Mittra Reviews Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine and Guardians of Dawn: Zhara by S. Jae-Jones

Maddalena and the Dark, Julia Fine (Flatiron Books 978-1-25086-787-2, 304pp, $28.99, hc) June 2023.

Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine is an exquisite and lyrical imagining of the lives of two girls, Maddalena and Luisa, who meet at a prestigious music school and whose devotion to each other slowly and carefully builds up to a devastating crescendo that unfolds against the decadence of 18th-century Venice. Fine’s prose, delicate ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Witch of Wild Things, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland (Berkley 978-0-593-54857-8, $17.00, 336pp, tp) September 2023.

Witch of Wild Things is exactly the sort of magi­cal romance that pairs perfectly with a dreary fall evening. It’s all about making sweet conversation while tramping through the woods, cooking some amazing meals, and negotiating a ton of family drama. There is also a romance rooted in a years-past teen crush that carries its ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews House of Roots and Ruin by Erin A. Craig

House of Roots and Ruin, Erin A. Craig (Dela­corte Press 978-0-593-48254-4, $19.99, 544pp, hc) July 2023.

Erin A. Craig follows up House of Salt and Sorrows, her reimagining of the fairy tale ‘‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’’, with a new novel focused on the youngest of the sisters introduced in that title. House of Roots and Ruins is all about Verity Thaumas, who has lived with her older sister Camille ...Read More

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Niall Harrison Reviews You Are My Sunshine by Octavia Cade

You Are My Sunshine, Octavia Cade (Stelliform 978-1-77809-264-0, 206pp, $19.99, tp) September 2023. Cover by Rachel Yu Lobbenberg.

Octavia Cade’s new collection You Are My Sunshine begins with ecological fury. ‘‘Look at what we woke’’ is both the first line of and a repeated refrain throughout the first story, ‘‘We Feed the Bears of Fire and Ice’’, in which heatwaves and famines are imagined by the narrator as the ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Navigating Fox by Christopher Rowe

The Navigating Fox, Christopher Rowe (Tor­dotcom 978-1-250-80450-1, $18.99, 160pp, tp) September 2023.

Given what we think we know about foxes from just about every animal fable everywhere, the very title of Christopher Rowe’s The Navigating Fox seems to suggest treachery. Foxes, after all, are inveterate tricksters, and the idea of hiring one to lead you on a quest of any sort would seem to be a recipe for disaster. ...Read More

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Karen Haber Reviews Visions of Beauty by Kinuko Y. Craft and Found Worlds: Todd Lockwood by Todd Lockwood

Visions of Beauty, Kinuko Y. Craft (Borsini-Burr Inc/Imaginary Realism 978-9-0784600-0-8, $225.00, 294pp, hc) January 2022. Cover by Kinuko Y. Craft

Kinuko Y. Craft: Visions of Beauty is massive with a capital M. You could use it for weight train­ing. This coffee table volume has enormous visual impact and impressive production value. It’s a statement-making career summation for a giant of fantasy art. From the dust jacket to the gilt-edged ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews Daughter of Winter and Twilight by Helen Corcoran

Daughter of Winter and Twilight, Helen Corcoran (O’Brien Press 978-1-788493703, €14.99/£13.99, 566pp, tp) September 2023. Cover by Emma Byrne.

Helen Corcoran’s Daughter of Winter and Twilight is both like and un­like her debut novel, Queen of Coin and Whispers. Like, in that it is a compelling coming-of-age narrative with strongly drawn characters and a vivid world. Unlike, in that where Queen of Coin and Whispers focused heavily on ...Read More

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