Holly Black knows how to write an interesting urban fantasy with a magic system intertwined with a healthy dose of crime. You’ll find this same dark and gritty fun in The Charlatan duology, and having loved that, I decided it was time to read White Cat, one of Black’s earlier works that had a similar…
I read The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang in one sitting, fearing I would miss a word if I set it down. And words are what’s important in this story because language is a portal to the stars, quite literally in Ro’s case. Star Eaters are the only alien species that can locate…
Admitting that I have been experimenting with Litrpg feels like a controversial statement to me. It isn’t that all Litrpg is bad. Today’s review is actually explicitly about how that isn’t the case, as A Parade Of Horribles, by Matt Dinniman, is fantastic. However, I do feel that as a genre, Litrpg has some serious…
Continue reading ➞ A Parade Of Horribles – Taking The Power Out Of Power Fantasies
King-a-ding-dong-freakin’-DING! The Stephen King bell tolls yet again, this time for the residents of Castle Rock, Maine. Hoo boy, folks, they’re in for it! When a new shop opens on their main (or Maine) road, the town’s secrets snowball into a monstrous, nigh-unstoppable boulder that threatens to wreck the lives of anyone in its path.…
Tesia Tsai’s young adult fantasy novel, Deathly Fates, tells a story you’ve likely encountered before: a serious young woman is inconveniently thrust into an adventure with a frivolous male counterpart that makes her situation more difficult. It’s a comfortable read with its formulaic and predictable plot. It won’t make you work very hard, but it…
When James S. A. Corey, the pseudonym for the combined brilliance of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck of Expanse fame, announced a new space opera in 2024, I couldn’t have been more excited. The Expanse was an incredible monument to science fiction greatness, with nine books, all of them fantastic. So, when I read Mercy…
I have a weird one today. The Voidverse is the proclaimed first novel set in an entire Voidverse extended universe. The series aims to tell a collection of stories about a strange society trapped in a strange bubble with rules and norms very different from our own. The origin of this voidverse is left very…
Adam Roberts is quickly becoming one of my favorite science fiction writers working today. I know I’ve only reviewed one of his novels, Purgatory Mount, but I’ve read two others, and as your about to find out, three of his novellas. I’m trying something a little different as I try to talk about three thematically…
Continue reading ➞ Adam Roberts – Stealing My Heart, One Novella at a Time
Recently, I have expressed a lot of frustration with some novels set in the midst of climate change, if not fully tackling the subject head-on. I am not surprised by these feelings, though it concerns me that at this late hour, it still feels like we are floundering on cohesive narratives that extend beyond “humans…
Continue reading ➞ The Forest On The Edge of Time – Mud Into Gods
In my mid-20s, I smoked a helluva lot of weed. One night, my buddy Mike and I were six or seven bong rips deep on my couch, and we threw on Netflix’s Altered Carbon. I had neither seen nor heard anything about the show. And when I tell you that I recall exactly zero percent…
