Reviews

Books Reviews 

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

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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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Books Reviews 

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

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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

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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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Reviews Short Fiction 

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

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Flash Fiction Online 8/23 GigaNotoSaurus 8/23 Diabolical Plots 8/23

The August Flash Fiction Online features stories about families, longing, and cycles. Not always in a positive way, as Phoenix Alexander shows in ‘‘Nancy Shreds the Clouds’’, which explores the complexities of agency, rage, and corruption. Nancy is a girl with a lot of anger, punished for her mistakes while others are not – unrewarded for her virtues while ...Read More

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

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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

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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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Reviews Short Fiction 

Paula Guran Reviews Black Static, The Deadlands, The Sunday Morning Transport and Uncanny

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Black Static 7/23 The Deadlands 7/23 The Sunday Morning Transport 8/13/23, 8/6/23, 7/30/23, 7/16/23, 7/2/23, 6/25/23 Uncanny 7-8/23

Established by Andy Cox in December 1993, British SF/fantasy/slipstream/horror magazine The 3rd Alternative ran for 42 issues. It re-emerged in 2007 as Black Static with a tighter focus on weird fiction and horror. The magazine has always been an at­tractive publication with good black-and-white art, standout non-fiction, and consistently first-rate fiction. Combined ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews The Navigating Fox by Christopher Rowe

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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

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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

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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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Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews Knife Witch by Susan diRende

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Knife Witch, Susan diRende (Aqueduct Press 978-1-61976-238-1, $18.00, 252 pp, tp), May 2023.

When K– (I won’t spoil the satisfying reveal of her true name) is faced with a horde of ma­rauding, seafaring invaders, the kitchen girl’s infallible luck takes over. Instead of cowering, she, quite accidentally, stabs one of the leaders through the heart with a filet knife. This earns her an abduction by the inavders as a ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Russell Letson Reviews War Bodies by Neal Asher

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War Bodies, Neal Asher (Tor UK 978-1-5290-5008-0, £20.00, 563pp, hc) July 2023. Cover by Steve Stone.

I have been trying to get a line on Neal Asher since first encountering his Polity universe two decades ago. My first thought was, here is a writer taking on many of the features, themes, and tropes that give, say, Iain M. Banks’s Culture books their New Space Opera appeal: a star-spanning, postscarcity ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Archita Mittra Reviews The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson and The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten

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The First Bright Thing, J.R. Dawson (Tor 978-1-25080-554-6, 352pp, $27.99, hc) June 2023.

The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson is crafted on an enchanting premise – a magical circus that can move through space as well as time, powered by people with special abilities called “Sparks.” The chief players are Rin, the Ringmaster who can bend time and space to her will; her wife, Odette, a healer; ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Gabino Iglesias Reviews Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle and Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica

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Camp Damascus, Chuck Tingle (Tor Nightfire 978-1-25087-462-7, $25.99, 256pp, hc) July 2023.

The mysterious Chuck Tingle built a career out of making all the right people angry. His work has always been out there, inclu­sive, and wildly entertaining; constantly pushing the boundaries while inhabiting a space between internet sensation and obscure indie writer. How­ever, despite being a two-time finalist for the Hugo Award, many people looked at Tingle’s titles – ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

A.C. Wise Reviews Short Fiction: Augur and khōréō

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Augur 6.1 khōréō 3.1

Augur issue 6.1 is packed with a mix of fic­tion and poetry and includes Bailey Ma­cabre‘s “âniskac”, a comic which features lovely art and is set in a world recovering from environmental collapse looking back on the follies and failures of the past. Several of the stories and poems in the issue reflect on similar themes of climate change, regret over the past, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Paul Di Filippo Reviews This Island Earth by Dale Bailey

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This Island Earth: 8 Features from the Drive-In, Dale Bailey (PS Publishing 978-1786368973, hardcover, 266pp, $36.00) April 2023

When I first became lucky enough to find a publisher for my early story collections—the much-missed Four Walls Eight Windows, under John Oakes—I decided to make each volume a thematic assemblage. I had by then accumulated enough stories with prior magazine appearances to make such picking and choosing possible. The Steampunk ...Read More

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Karen Haber Reviews The Keeper, by Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes and Marco Finnegan; Spectrum Fantastic Art Quarterly: Volume Two edited by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner; The Corset and The Jellyfish: A Conundrum of Drabbles by Nick Bantock

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The Keeper, Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes & Marco Finnegan (Abrams Comic Art Megascope 978-1-4197-5155-4, $24.99, 150pp, hc) September 2022. Cover by Marco Finnegan.

The Keeper is a gripping tale of family love and the supernatural, guaranteed to grab anyone interested in urban horror served with a slice of poignancy and social realism. According to the afterword, it began life as a script that had a hopeful journey through Hollywood ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Paul Di Filippo Reviews The Wolfe at the Door by Gene Wolfe

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The Wolfe at the Door, Gene Wolfe (Tor 978-1250846204, hardcover, 480pp, $29.99) October 2023

Arriving just a few months after the publication of The Dead Man and Other Stories (my Locus Online review here), this mammoth compilation from Tor Books also helps to ensure—by its high-quality catholic selection (pun entirely intentional)—that Gene Wolfe’s reputation will continue to be justifiably burnished for future generations. There can be no legacy without ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Three-Lobed Burning Eye, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Strange Horizons

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Three-Lobed Burning Eye 7/23 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 7/27/23, 8/10/23,  8/24/23 Strange Horizons 7/24/23, 7/31/23, 8/7/23,  8/14/23

July saw a new issue from Three-Lobed Burning Eye, with a strange new story by J.L. Jones, ‘‘The Sticky-Sweet Path’’. The dreamlike nar­rative follows T’quan, a young man who chafes at the expectations and responsibilities of his life. People depend on him, and in the face of that he tries to ...Read More

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Alexandra Pierce Reviews Medusa’s Sisters by Lauren J.A. Bear, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older, and The Year’s Top Tales of Space and Time 3 edited by Allan Kaster

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Medusa’s Sisters, Lauren J.A. Bear (Ace 978-0-59354-776-2, $28.00, 368pp, hc) August 2023.

Medusa may be one of the most familiar monsters from Greek mythology: snakes for hair, turns anyone who looks in her eyes to stone, eventually killed by Perseus because he looks only at her reflection. You can find carved images of her everywhere from the Roman baths in Bath to the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul. Recently her ...Read More

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Russell Letson Reviews Lockdown Tales II by Neal Asher

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Lockdown Tales II, Neal Asher (NewCon 978-1-914953-43-9, £13.99, tp; £29.99, hc, 372 pp) July 2023. Cover by Vincent Sammy.

Lockdown Tales II is Asher’s second collection of shorter pieces written since COVID prompted the titular restrictions. Of the nine stories (pro­duced between 2020 and 2023), four are new to this volume; three are of novella length; and seven are set in the Polity future history. (Note: These categories overlap.) ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Karen Haber Reviews Creature: Paintings, Drawings, and Reflections by Shaun Tan and Chivalry by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

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Creature: Paintings, Drawings, and Reflections, Shaun Tan (Levine Querido 978-1-64614-200-2, $35.00, 223pp, hc) November 2022. Cover by Shaun Tan.

Artists can make profound emotional state­ments through visual magic and show you things you’ve never seen before. Shaun Tan excels at this and has spent a career making unique emotional and artistic connections using various media. Creature, a handsome, full-color, self-curated survey of his work in picture books, comics, ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

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Starling House, Alix E. Harrow (Tor 978-1-25079-905-0, $28.99, 320pp, hc) October 2023.

Alix E. Harrow is also acutely aware of the traditions behind Starling House, as evidenced by her epigraph from Wuthering Heights and a few passages – including the opening line – that sound like they might have come from du Maurier’s Rebecca. But Harrow’s narrator, a 26-year-old dropout named Opal, has a tough, witty, hardscrabble ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews South by Babak Lakghomi

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South, Babak Lakghomi (Rare Machines 978-1-45975-081-4, $21.99, 200pp, tp) September 2023.

In a brief introduction to South, Babak Lakghomi tells us that he began writing his debut in 2018 during the Trump Presidency and the anti-Government riots in his birth country of Iran. The book, he says, ‘‘was born out of such vital concerns of our time—the meaning of truth, environmental perils, surveillance, and censorship.’’ What’s im­pressive about ...Read More

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Jake Casella Brookins Reviews Prophet by Sin Blaché & Helen Macdonald

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Prophet, Sin Blaché & Helen Macdonald (Grove Press 978-0-8021-6202-1, 480pp, hc) August 2023.

Seeing Helen Macdonald’s name show up on a speculative fiction list immediately fixated my attention. H is for Hawk is, without a doubt, the most mesmerizing combination of memoir, nature writing, and mini-T.H. White biography out there, and so I knew Prophet was not one to skip. Written together with Sin Blaché, the novel is a ...Read More

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Liz Bourke Reviews System Collapse by Martha Wells

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System Collapse, Martha Wells (Tordotcom 978-125082-697-8, $21.99, 256pp, hc) November 2023. Cover by Jaime Jones.

The seventh of Martha Wells’s Murderbot long-form stories, System Collapse is a novel-length sequel to Network Effect, picking up within days of that novel’s conclusion. Murderbot fans are unlikely to be disappointed here: Wells is on form with the series’ trademark black humour, razor-sharp tension, Murderbot’s all-too-relatable interpersonal interactions, action, and high stakes. ...Read More

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Paul Di Filippo Reviews Jewel Box: Stories by E. Lily Yu

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Jewel Box: Stories, E. Lily Yu (Erewhon 978-1645660484, hardcover, 336pp, $27.00) October 2023

Recently I had the good fortune to acquaint myself for the first time with a classic of fabulism: Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki. Witty, elegant, timeless yet timely, these stories aim straight at the human heart, mind and soul, and lodge therein like arrows variously tipped with balm and bane. And now, encountering ...Read More

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Gary K. Wolfe Reviews A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

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A Haunting on the Hill, Elizabeth Hand (Mul­holland 978-0-31652-732-3, $30.00, 336pp, hc) October 2023.

Angry architecture of one sort or another has been a fixture of Gothic fiction since Walpole and Radcliffe – long before it evolved into the haunted house story as we know it today–and it shows no sign of loosening its grip on our imagination (even Disney was at it again this summer). Only a few ...Read More

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Alvaro Zinos-Amaro Reviews The Spice Must Flow: The Story of Dune, from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies by Ryan Britt

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The Spice Must Flow: The Story of Dune, from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies, Ryan Britt (Plume 978-0593472996, $18.00, 288pp, pb) September 2023.

In 13 breezy chapters, Ryan Britt traces Dune from its original conception as a non-fiction piece by Frank Herbert titled ‘‘They Stopped the Moving Sands’’ to its latest multi-installment cinematic adaptation at the hands of director De­nis Villeneuve. ‘‘What I hope lifelong fans get from ...Read More

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Ian Mond Reviews The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar

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The Circumference of the World, Lavie Tid­har (Tachyon Publications 978-1-61696-362-0, $17.95, 256pp, tp) September 2023. Cover by Elizabeth Story.

If you’re a fan of Lavie Tidhar’s work (and you really should be), you’ll know he has a deep and abiding fascination with the history of science fiction. Tidhar’s short stories and novels are peppered with nods, winks, and hat tips to luminaries who have shaped the field, whether it ...Read More

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Gabino Iglesias Reviews The Legend of Charlie Fish by Josh Rountree

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The Legend of Charlie Fish, Josh Rountree (Tachyon Publications 978-1-61696-394-1, $16.95, 192pp, hc) July 2023. Cover by John Coulthart.

One of the best things about reading and editing anthologies is that you’re exposed to the work of many talented writers who are new to you or new to writing in general. I remember reading Josh Rountree’s work here and there and then publishing his work in an anthology. Every ...Read More

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Colleen Mondor Reviews Rook by William Ritter

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Rook, William Ritter (Algonquin 978-1-64375-240-2, $17.99, hc, 368pp) August 2023.

William Ritter returns to his successful Jackaby series with Rook, a new, somewhat standalone entry that will delight fans. Focussed on Jacka­by’s sidekick, Abigail Rook, the title follows the near-catastrophic events of The Dire King, the book where everything changed for the citizens of New Fiddleham, and most especially for Abigail. Now the one who wields a ...Read More

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