The Fake Muse, Max Besora (Open Letter 978-1-96038-533-8, $16.95, 176pp, tp) February 2025.
It will be a bizarre (but wonderful) year if I encounter another novel as chaotic, obscene, and metatextual as Max Besora’s The Fake Muse (translated by Mara Faye Lethem). It’s a work that doesn’t so much defy description as feel pity (and a modicum of sympathy) toward the sort of people (like me) who are obligated ...Read More
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The Black Orb, Ewhan Kim (Serpent’s Tail 978-1-80081-572-8, £14.99, 368pp, tp) August 2024. (Mira 978-0-77838-734-8, $28.99, 304pp, tp) February 2025.
There’s little written in English about South Korean science fiction author and critic Ewhan Kim. A brief profile of Kim written by the author on the ‘‘Science Fiction Writers Union of the Republic of Korea’’ tells us he became ‘‘a writer after reading Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles’’ and ...Read More
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The Crimson Road, A.G. Slatter (Titan 978-1-80336-456-8, $18.99, 368pp, tp) February 2025.
Every time I review a new novel by A.G. Slatter set in the Sourdough Universe, I suggest you go back and read the other books – whether it’s the collections Sourdough and Other Stories and The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings or the novels All the Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns, and The Briar ...Read More
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Waterblack, Alex Pheby (Tor 978-1-250-81729-7, $32.00, 640pp, hc) January 2025.
Toward the end of Waterblack, in the middle of one of several appendices, the omniscient narrator, who has held our hand across three novels, tells us that the “violent intentions” of one of the novel’s key antagonists, intentions that are to “fuel a series of later events,” intentions that “would end in… success… in the matter of killing ...Read More
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Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids, Leyna Krow (Penguin 978-0-59329-965-4, $19.00, 304pp, tp) January 2025.
Leyna Krow’s terrific second collection, Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids, assembles 16 stories that take an askew, sometimes surreal, frequently funny attitude to the physical and emotional bonds that bind us (and octopuses) together.
“Sinkhole” is the collection’s title piece and has been optioned for a Hollywood adaptation, care of Jordan Peele and Issa ...Read More
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Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix (Berkley 978-0-59354-898-1, $30.00, 496pp, hc) January 2025.
What better way to start the year than reading a novel by my favourite horror author, Grady Hendrix. If you’ve been following Hendrix’s work, you’ll know he’s been putting his unique spin on the tropes of horror fiction. He’s tackled exorcisms (My Best Friend’s Exorcism), demonic rock ’n’ roll (We Sold Our Souls ...Read More
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She’s Always Hungry, Eliza Clark (Harper Perennial 978-0-06339-326-4, $17.99, 240pp, tp) November 2024.
Eliza Clark has been on my radar for several years since her debut novel, Boy Parts, was released by Influx Press in 2020, followed by her best-selling second novel, Penance. (You won’t be surprised to learn that I own both but have read neither.) Her eclectic first collection, She’s Always Hungry, which gathers ...Read More
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After the slam dunk that was 2023, I had high hopes for 2024 – too high, as it turns out. 2023 was a rare vintage, the 1999 of films in book form (okay, maybe not that good). To expect that 2024 would scale those same heady heights was asking too much of the year, especially one already burdened by a world-shaping American election. Not that genre fiction schedules are influenced ...Read More
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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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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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Interstellar MegaChef, Lavanya Lakshminarayan (Solaris 978-1-83786-233-7, $16.99, 400pp, tp) November 2024.
I’ve always loved a good cooking show. Back in the day, it was Top Chef (where a contestant always undercooked the chicken) and Great British Menu (where every pudding had to include rhubarb). Now, I’m obsessed with Uncle Roger’s YouTube channel. His takedown of Jamie Oliver’s Egg Fried Rice, with 28 million views and over one million likes, ...Read More
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Remember You Will Die, Eden Robins (Sourcebooks Landmark 978-1-72825-603-0, $16.99, 336pp, tp) October 2024.
It has been another excellent year for unconventional narratives. There’s Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, which I called “a full-frontal deconstruction of narrative and genre”; there’s Rita Bullwinkel’s magnificent Headshot, a story structured around the intense, chaotic and balletic bouts of a junior girl’s boxing tournament; and there are the 1,281 F-bombs that punctuate the ...Read More
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The Bog Wife, Kay Chronister (Counterpoint 978-1-64009-662-2, $28.00, 336pp, hc) October 2024. Cover by Nicole Caputo.
Like all conscientious and well-meaning readers, I strive to bring an open mind unsullied by prejudice and bias to any fiction work. However, based solely on the title and cover of Kay Chronister’s new novel, The Bog Wife, I assumed it was a revisionist fairytale based on Celtic mythology that takes place ...Read More
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Good Night, Sleep Tight, Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press 978-1-56689-709-9, $19.00, 256pp, tp) September 2024.
The best horror fiction is about dislocation, the growing feeling that something is askew or lopsided with the world and only you, no one else, is aware. Brian Evenson gets this. In a recent article for Lit Hub, he points out that:
Writing Horror is about tapping into something that resonates for you, something ...Read More
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City of Dancing Gargoyles, Tara Campbell (Santa Fe Writers Project 978-1-95163-139-0, $16.95, 280pp, tp) September 2024.
What struck me about Tara Campbell’s 2019 collection, Midnight at the Organporium, was the breadth of her imagination and the way she switched between surrealism, revisionist fairytales, and horror. Her story ‘‘Speculum Crede’’ about a very odd work picnic (an understatement) still makes me smile. Campbell’s second novel, City of Dancing Gargoyles ...Read More
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Absolution, Jeff VanderMeer (MCD 978-0-37461-659-6, $30.00, 464pp, hc) October 2024.
While I try not to pick favourites, I have been looking forward to this month’s column (and not just because October is my birth month). Jeff VanderMeer, Laura van den Berg, and Jesse Ball are three authors who have made an art form of the weird, and, as you already know, I love my fiction seasoned with a generous ...Read More
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The Repeat Room, Jesse Ball (Catapult 978-1-64622-140-0, 256pp, $27.00, hc) Cover by Sara Wood. September 2024.
I first came across Jesse Ball back in 2007 when his debut, Samedi the Deafness, was shortlisted for the Believer Book Award (a terrific prize that introduced me to authors as varied as Bennett Sims, Keith Ridgway, Valeria Luiselli, and Danielle Dutton. I miss it… and the magazine). I bought the novel ...Read More
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State of Paradise, Laura van den Berg (Farrar, Straus, Giroux 978-0-37461-220-7, $27.00, 224pp, hc) July 2024.
I move from one instance of weird Florida (Area X is a distorted version of North Florida) to another: Laura van den Berg’s State of Paradise. I’d say that reading VanderMeer and van den Berg back-to-back (alliterative surnames aside) is a remarkable coincidence, except that Florida, to outsiders such as myself, has ...Read More
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Ultra 85, Logic (Simon & Schuster 978-1-98215-827-9, $18.99, 304pp, tp) September 2024.
I’d never heard of the rapper Logic (AKA Sir Robert Bryson Hall II) or his work (both musical and literary) until I was sent a copy of Ultra 85. That’s not an indictment of Logic but instead speaks to my narrow, stunted musical tastes. Ultra 85 is Logic’s sophomore effort, the follow-up to his debut Supermarket ...Read More
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Napalm in the Heart, Pol Guasch (Faber & Faber UK 978-0571375257, £6.99, 256pp, hc) July 2024. (FSG Originals 978-0-37461-295-5, $18.00, 256pp, tp) August 2024.
Reading Pol Guasch’s debut, Napalm in the Heart, right after Helen Phillips’ Hum is a disorientating experience. Both authors present us with dystopias, but while Phillips cleaves to our reality, Guasch gives us something more symbolic and experimental, a dystopia unmoored from time and ...Read More
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Hum, Helen Phillips (Marysue Rucci Books 978-1-66800-883-6, $27.99, 272pp, hc) August 2024.
The novels I review for this column are not chosen with a theme in mind. If one does pop up, it’s purely coincidental. That goes for this month. I had no idea Hum, Napalm in the Heart, and Ultra 85 would all be dystopian novels. The good news is that they’re very different in tone, ...Read More
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Track Changes, Abigail Nussbaum (Briardene 978-1-73856-170-4, £15.00, 448pp, tp) August 2024.
In March, Abigail Nussbaum, on her blog Asking the Wrong Questions, reviewed Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz, one of my favourite novels of 2024. It’s a review that encapsulates everything magnificent about Nussbaum, a well-deserved Hugo winner. First, there’s the sheer artistry, the way the review is crafted like a mystery (fitting for a noirish novel), raising questions ...Read More
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Mouth, Puloma Ghosh (Astra House 978-1-66260-247-4, $26.00, 224pp, hc) June 2024.
Reading Puloma Ghosh’s debut collection, Mouth, brought me back to the pandemic and the months spent in lockdown. To be clear, not one of the eleven stories in the book takes place during or refers to COVID, but isolation and loneliness are so central to Ghosh’s work, her protagonist’s aching for intimacy, that my thoughts were cast ...Read More
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Gogmagog, Jeff Noon & Steve Beard (Angry Robot 978-1-91520-282-6, $18.99, 353pp, tp) February 2024.
Gogmagog is the first novel I’ve read by Jeff Noon since the publication of Nyphomation in 1997. The books he wrote immediately after his Vurt phase – Needle in the Groove and Falling Out of Cars – didn’t appeal to twenty-something Ian (though Falling Out of Cars looks right up the alley of fifty-something Ian). ...Read More
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The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need, Adam Marek (Comma Press 978-1-91269-775-5, £9.99, 244pp, tp) March 2024.
A large chunk of the 21 stories in Adam Marek’s new collection, The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need – a magnificent title that’s sadly not shared by a single piece in the book – plays on similar concerns raised by Joel Dane in The Ragpicker: that technology is putting a ...Read More
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The Ragpicker, Joel Dane (Meerkat 978-1-94615-459-0, $17.95, 290pp, p) July 2024.
If you believe the advertising campaigns from Meta and Apple (especially Apple’s slick ads for its Vision Pro), virtual and physical realities will harmoniously exist together. It’s a utopian attitude that conflicts with the often dystopian vision presented by the genre, where VR, with its immersive pods and body suits, is a means of escaping the harsh realities ...Read More
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The Underhistory, Kaaron Warren (Viper 978-1-80081-202-4, £16.99, 383pp, hc) April 2024.
The publication of a new novel from Kaaron Warren is an event worthy of fanfare. She’s one of the rare few – Kirstyn McDermott is another – who can blend literary and horror fiction without undermining the strengths of either. It makes for a reading experience that’s both deep and textured, but also taut and brutal. The Underhistory ...Read More
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The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman (Viking 978-0-73522-404-9, $35.00, 688pp, hc) June 2024.
In a “Historical Note” to his new novel The Bright Sword (his first adult novel since wrapping up The Magicians trilogy), Lev Grossman remarks that people have been re-working and re-inventing King Arthur’s story for nearly 1,400 years. As he poetically puts it, the legend has “never been told quite the same way twice. Every age and ...Read More
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The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to The Wastelands, Sarah Brooks (Flatiron Books 978-1-25087-861-8, $28.99, 336pp, hc) June 2024.
I was surprised to discover that there are few novels, vintage or contemporary, set on the Trans-Siberian Express. There are plenty of memoirs and travel guides, but, unlike the Orient Express, with its Agatha Christies and Graham Greenes, very little fiction. The irony is that Sarah Brook’s eerie debut novel, The Cautious ...Read More
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Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom 978-1-25084-768-3, $27.99, 304pp, hc) June 2024.
To quote Tom Clancy (or was it Jeff Bezos?), it takes ten years to become an overnight success. I suspect Vajra Chandrasekera can relate. He spent a decade working on his craft, with short fiction published in various genre magazines and anthologies. Then, last year, Chandrasekera published his first novel, The Saint of Bright Doors, which immediately caught ...Read More
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Takaoka’s Travels, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (Stone Bridge/Monkey 979-8-98868-870-9, $18.95, 178pp, tp) May 2024.
In 865, at the age of 65, Imperial Japanese Prince Takaoka, the third son of Emperor Heizeil, a Buddhist monk who also went by the monastic name Shinyo, set forth from Canton with three aides to Hindustan (India). Sadly, Takaoka never completed the journey, reportedly mauled and eaten by a tiger somewhere near the Malay peninsula. In ...Read More
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Mood Swings, Frankie Barnet (Astra House, 978-1-66260-259-7, $26.00, 304pp, hc) May 2024.
The Ministry of Time wears its time travel on its literary sleeve. Frankie Barnet’s debut novel, Mood Swings, isn’t nearly as overt. In fact, it begins with the world in lockdown – not because of the pandemic (though I did get flashbacks) but because animals have turned on humanity. “Wasps targeted small children and the elderly; ...Read More
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