Gary K. Wolfe

The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom, Volume Three: 1941, David Ritter, Daniel Rit­ter, Sam McDonald, & John L. Coker III (First Fandom Experience 978-1-73665-965-6, $149.00, 504pp, hc) April 2024.

If someone were to tell me that a lavish 500-page coffee-table book selling for $149 is basically a microhistory describing what a bunch of people I’ve mostly never heard of were doing in 1941, I’d quite reasonably be skeptical; ...Read More

The Bezzle, Cory Doctorow (Tor 9781250865878, $27.99, 240pp, hc) February 2024.

There are a handful of SF writers so sharply attuned to the arcane systems that underlie contemporary culture that it sometimes becomes a challenge to figure out what’s SF and what’s not; William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson come to mind, as does Cory Doctorow. The Bezzle, Doctorow’s second novel in a new series featuring forensic accountant ...Read More

Lost Ark Dreaming, Suyi Davies Okungbowa (Tordotcom 978-1250890757, $19.99, 192pp, hc) May 2024.

The idea of social stratification enforced through architecture – in other words, high-rises with the rich living at the top – has been a staple of SF imagery at least since Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and it’s been extraordinarily useful as a way of exploring everything from overpopulation to Ballardian alienation to urban dystopia to – more ...Read More

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, Sofia Samatar (Tordotcom 978-1-2508-8180-9, $18.99, 128pp, tp) April 2024.

Generation starship stories tend to come in a few distinct flavors, with distinct character types. There are the refugees, trying to keep humanity alive while escaping a dying or overpopulated Earth (the sort of wishful fantasy that Kim Stanley Robinson set out to demolish in Aurora a few years ago). There are the ...Read More

Logical Fantasy: The Many Worlds of John Wyndham, John Wyndham (Subterranean 978-1-64524-143-0, $50.00, 424pp, hc) April 2024.

So many impressive writers of short fiction have shown up over the past few decades that it’s worth wondering how the writers of earlier generations seem to be holding up. A couple of new collections from two very different figures, Harlan Ellison and John Wyndham, might offer some clues. There was a ...Read More

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

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

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