There is something alluring about military science fiction. It takes the massive volume of space and narrows it to a single point: conflict. Often, this specific genre ignores a lot of the more nuanced questions that sci-fi often proposes in favor of a single query: what would humanity do in order to survive? Normally, I…
Continue reading ➞ The Cruel Stars – Vicious, Yet Dubious Fun
Ever since I read Luna: New Moon, by Ian MacDonald I knew I was in for a ride. You can read my review here. I’ve been wary to talk about the next books for fear of ruining its astounding ending, even though it’s hard to write about a second book in a series without discussing…
I would not say that The Last Astronaut by David Wellington is a bad book. It just didn't quite hit the marks that it set out to hit. The story itself was okay on its own; it did not feel entirely new to me, but it was not stale either. The possibility of extraterrestrial life…
Continue reading ➞ The Last Astronaut – One Small Step Into… Eh, You Should Figure It Out
I recently decided to treat myself by purchasing Broken Stars, a collection of contemporary Chinese speculative fiction curated and translated by Ken Liu. The collection had been showing up a lot on my Amazon queue, and while I was out at the store I decided “why not?” I had never really read a collection of…
Hot off the heels of Gunpowder Moon, I just couldn’t help myself when it came to reading another book about the moon. There is something so fascinating about that big, grey, dusty rock as it hangs in the sky. It captures me whenever I see it, so I will always look for a book to…
I have never really felt comfortable talking about visual art. While I took art classes in high school, I was never particularly adept at being creative in a visual sense. Up until recently, I could not tell you how I felt about a piece beyond “I like it” or “what is happening here.” With that…
Continue reading ➞ The Electric State – The Lonesome Empty West
Climate change is an issue that has plagued me ever since I walked out of the theater after seeing An Inconvenient Truth. I was always a bit of an environmentalist, having been exposed to Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest as a small child, but this felt bigger than my seventeen-year-old brain could comprehend. The documentary…
Continue reading ➞ Perihelion Summer – Maybe Some Will Like It Hot
I have not engaged with a lot of horror on the written page. I enjoy watching horror movies, good or bad, and sometimes play survival-horror games, but I rarely read it. I have Edgar Allan Poe’s collected works and got turned onto Laird Barron by our resident horror reader Will, but beyond that, I am…
Continue reading ➞ The Luminous Dead – Dark, Bleak And Lively
