I read Alexandra Rowland’s guest post over at The Fantasy Hive about “small magic,” and just knew I had to pick up A Taste of Gold and Iron. The post teased a plot about counterfeiting and money manipulation diving into the idea of magic users as an ecological niche that had my heart brimming with…
Continue reading ➞ A Taste of Gold and Iron – Smelts My Heart
I make it no secret that I love Tade Thompson’s work. Ever since the Rosewater Trilogy I’ve been hooked and eagerly anticipate any new releases with his name on them. However, I waited until The Legacy of Molly Southbourne was released before diving into his trilogy of horror novellas. I make it no secret that…
Continue reading ➞ Molly Southbourne – Life After Death After Death After Death
Revelation Space is a big series. Sure, it’s a trilogy, but it also has two related novels and a treasure trove of short stories. I’ve only scratched the surface on the shorter fiction by Alastair Reynolds, but the little I have read has been just as exciting as the sprawling epics. Now I’m writing this…
Continue reading ➞ Chasm City – Not Splitting Hairs On This One
Catching up on the year’s previous releases is a double edged sword. It feels good to read something that so many people have already weighed in on, but said novel carries the baggage of having to live up to expectations. While I didn’t read any reviews of this next book until after I had finished…
Continue reading ➞ How High We Go In The Dark – Treading Water in a Cave
I have been spending the better part of this summer catching up on Alastair Reynolds’ intimidating library. I have nearly finished the Revelation Space series (Looking at you, Inhibitor Phase) and have been having an absolute blast. Lo’ and behold Andrew shows up at my door with an ARC of Eversion, I couldn’t have been…
Last year, J. T. Greathouse delivered a pleasant surprise with his debut fantasy novel, The Hand of the Sun King. Alder Wen was a particularly entertaining protagonist, despite his many follies. The book featured philosophical musings on the nature of power and Wen’s determined search for a third way between empire and rebellion that fomented…
Continue reading ➞ The Garden of Empire – Lush, But Lightly Untended
Record heat waves are starting to rear their ugly heads. Food shortages, through a combination of war, finance and climate change are featured news on the daily. It’s easy to retreat from a world on the brink and cozy up with a book…about climate change. But rarely does our climate science fiction feel more than…
Continue reading ➞ A Half-Built Garden – Forget The Pesticides
The Fall of the House of Usher has occupied some space in my brain since the halcyon days of high school English class. Not only did I read it several times, but I never wrote the assigned paper, a fact that literally haunts my dreams. There is just something unnerving about Poe’s story that I’m…
Continue reading ➞ What Moves The Dead – But Apparently Not The Living
In “normal” conditions, it would be hard to avoid a title as striking as Ion Curtain. It is profoundly simple, yet it carries decades of baggage. Such a mild change carries the possibility of re-negotiating the phrase for a new crop of science fiction readers and writers. Whether or not this was what the author…
Long has Alastair Reynolds taunted me from my bookshelf. I purchased his debut novel, Revelation Space, years ago as a gift to myself. But since I purchased it when I didn’t understand how to handle my to-read list, my paperback copy languished on my shelf, hidden behind the other books I had accrued over the…
