Reviews

Reviews Short Fiction 

Nightmare, Uncanny, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Reactor: Short Fiction Reviews by Paula Guran

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Nightmare 10/24 Uncanny 11/12-24 Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 9/24 Reactor (10/2/24 – 11/20/24)

Both of the full-length original stories from Night­mare #146 are very dark fantasy. The narrator of Raven Jakubowski ’s “She Sheds Her Skin” is in love with an immortal shapeshifter who must mur­der to gain a new skin. The narrator has “shifted” herself: She’s “more reliable, becoming a rock [her lover] could lean on, a ...Read More

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Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio: Review by Gabino Iglesias

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Graveyard Shift, M.L. Rio (Flatiron 978-1-250-35679-6, $16.99, 144pp, tp) September 2024. Cover by Teagan White.

Novellas sometimes feel like tasty morsels you devour in one sitting, and M.L. Rio’s Graveyard Shift demands to be read quickly. In fact, the story takes place in a single night. Between the great pacing, the brief chapters, and the growing mystery at the core of the narrative, this little book is hard to ...Read More

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The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G. Parry: Review by Colleen Mondor

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The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, H.G. Par­ry (Redhook 978-0-316-38390-5, $19.99, 464pp, tp) October 2024. Cover by Lisa Marie Pompilio.

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G. Parry ostensibly opens in a secret col­lege magically located between Cambridge and Oxford (aka Camford, “the Cambridge-Oxford University of Magical Scholarship”). But the foreshadowing for a far larger story is set in the first pages, when protagonist Clover Hill ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Escape Pod, Worlds of Possibility, and Samovar: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur

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Escape Pod 10/31/24 Worlds of Possibility 10/24 Samovar 10/28/24

Escape Pod celebrated Halloween with Ad­dison Smith’s “Mother Death Learns a Trick”, which finds the narrator passing by an old AI robot named Mother Death, who normally predicts the demise of anyone she sees. She becomes part of the background, at least until she starts predicting her own death, which knocks the narrator out of their cycle of ...Read More

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Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami: Review by Niall Harrison

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Under the Eye of the Big Bird, Hiromi Kawakami (Soft Skull 978-1-59376-611-5, $27.00, 278pp, hc) September 2024.

Hiromi Kawakami is one of those authors whose long and decorated career has, thanks to the vagaries of translation and market dynamics, appeared in English in a slightly scrambled form. Almost certainly her best-known novel in English is Sensei no kaban (2001), first released as The Briefcase in 2012, and then re-edited ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Augur: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

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Augur 7.2

“Telling the Soul of Mars” by Alina Pete starts Augur 7.2 on a strong note. It’s a lovely story that explores the power and limits of language and narrative, and how the traditions of storytelling might change and evolve with space travel. A storyteller born on Mars visits Earth for the first time and struggles with how to express the es­sence of her home to those ...Read More

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Remedy by J.S. Breukelaar: Review by Gabino Iglesias

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Remedy, J.S. Breukelaar (PS Publishing 978-1-80394-485-2, £25.00, 208pp, hc) August 2024. Cover by Jeffrey Alan Love.

Imagine suddenly being attacked by a creature that comes down from the sky. The thing, which you can’t see well, has big teeth and powerful, sharp talons that dig into your flesh. Now imag­ine this: That horror isn’t the worst thing in J.S. Breukelaar’s Remedy, a curious horror novel that explores the ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

The Sunday Morning Transport, The Deadlands, and The Dark: Short Fiction Reviews by Paula Guran

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The Sunday Morning Transport (9/22/24 – 12/01/24) The Deadlands Fall ’24 The Dark 12/24

The Sunday Morning Transport publishes out­standing fiction weekly. All the stories are commendable, but here are my favorites of their fall offerings. If, as I did, you felt sympathy for Hermione’s muggle parents, “F*** These Wizards” by Alex London (9/22) is a story you will enjoy. And even if you aren’t a Harry Potter ...Read More

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SHORT TAKE: Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity through Magic by Stefan Ekman: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity through Magic, Stefan Ekman (Lever Press 978-1643150642, $26.99, 351pp, tp) August 2024.

Stefan Ekman opens his engrossing new study Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity through Magic by admitting that ‘‘I began reading urban fantasy in the 1990s, not quite knowing that I did so.’’ He’s not the only one. Over the past few decades, the term seems to have evolved into a sort of catchall, defined ...Read More

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Edge of the Known World by Sheri T. Joseph: Review by Alexandra Pierce

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Edge of the Known World, Sheri T. Joseph (SparkPress 978-1-68463-262-6, $18.99, 328pp, pb) September 2024. Cover by Kathleen Lynch.

In her debut novel, Sheri T. Joseph mixes frus­tratingly messy politics with painfully messy personal affairs to create a riveting novel of the not-far-enough-away future. It’s a future of familiar challenges – displaced people, xenophobia, tech­nologies that threaten individual privacy. Joseph uses three key characters, and their love triangle, to ...Read More

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The Book of Gold by Ruth Frances Long: Review by Liz Bourke

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The Book of Gold, Ruth Frances Long (Hod­derscape 978-1-399-73157-7, £15.99, 340pp, tp) November 2024.

Irish writer Ruth Frances Long has been publishing quite prolifically in recent years, though primarily YA and romantic fantasy under her BOURKE

pen-name Jessica Thorne. The Book of Gold is a historically inspired fantasy caper set in a version of Renaissance Europe that is strikingly different from our own. Magic and hidden gods lurk in ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

khōréo: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

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khōréo 4.2

Madeleine Vigneron’s “Human Trials” in khōréo 4.2 is a painful story full of lovely imagery about holding on to hope in a hopeless situation. The last ships have left Earth, and a plague ravages the abandoned population left behind. Rowan is part of a team of three scientists trying to remove mass from living things so they can travel at the speed of light and ...Read More

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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