Docile – It Will Bring You To Your Knees

If you have read a lot of my reviews in particular, you might have noticed that I enjoy reading books from the perspective of an individual’s relationship to society. So when offered the chance to read a book with the tagline “there is no consent under capitalism,” you can imagine the inhuman sounds of excitement…

Beneath The Rising – On Top of Its Game

I have always been enticed by cosmic horror and other Lovecraft adjacent stories, but I never really dove into the genre. It’s always lurking in the background, taunting me with its perceptions of madness. Luckily for me, Premee Mohamed’s Beneath The Rising is a Lovecraftian story filled to the brim with horror, adventure, a dash…

The Wolf Of Oren-Yaro – Fantasy Divorce Simulator

The Wolf Of Oren-Yaro, by K.S. Villoso, is equal parts compelling, refreshing, engrossing, and frustrating. The novel has a problem-- it has an extremely rough start in the service of setting up a brilliant finale. Before I dive in and start lauding the book’s many positive qualities, I want to say this upfront: if you…

Upright Women Wanted – Standing Tall

Upright Women Wanted By Sarah Gailey starts off strong with its main character, Esther, stowed away in a librarian’s book wagon. She’s a runaway in a future dystopian American southwest. Esther is running away from a marriage arranged by her father. The man she was set to marry, was originally going to marry her best…

Steel Crow Saga – Everybody’s Got Problems

Well let’s get this out of the way early: Steel Crow Saga, by Paul Krueger, feels like someone sat down and tried to combine the best parts of Pokemon and Avatar: The Last Airbender, and did an admirable job. A lot of how you will feel about this book is how you react to the…

The Puzzler’s War – A Satisfying Next Step

I am not a prolific post-apocalypse reader, but I have read enough of them to realize there is a cyclical nature to their stories. Many trilogies within the genre follow the following format: book one shows you a ruined world and explores the question of “what happened?” Book two provides a window into the past…