The Quill to Live favorite author, Sebastian de Castell, has a weird little project going on that I am a big fan of. de Castell is the author of many books at this point, but his original major series was the fantastic Greatcoats Quartet. Now, many years later, de Castell is writing a sequel series…
The Franchise, by Thomas Elrod, is a standalone book that pulls elements from fantasy, science fiction, and dystopian horror to create a strange amalgamation of a book with a lot to say. It is a philosophical story about breaching the line between fiction and reality, a commentary on our relation as audiences to the characters…
Continue reading ➞ The Franchise – Tolkien Cinematic Universe
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
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…
Tchaikovsky is out of control this year. We have had to divvy up his Q1 releases (Q1, not the full year) in order to try and cover them all. I ended up with the latest entry in the Children of Time series, Children of Strife, and I couldn’t be happier. If you are unfamiliar with…
Continue reading ➞ Children Of Strife – What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger
I enjoy comics and graphic novels, but I have always found the big DC and Marvel comics to be very unapproachable. Their comic universes are so complicated and sprawling at this point that I have never seen what felt like a good jumping-in point, despite liking many characters from both universes. So, when I saw…
“We still can’t reach the speed of light. But people are acting like we’ve conquered the universe. When all we’ve conquered is what the universe allows us.” This quote from Kim Choyeop’s If We Cannot Go At The Speed of Light perfectly captures the vibe and themes of this seven-story short collection. Translated from Korean…
Continue reading ➞ If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light – Seven Punches To The Heart
While reading and writing for The Quill is one of my passions, I also have two young daughters who are the joy of my life. Each week, we go to the library and pick out 5-10 new picture books from their incredible selection and make our way through them (purchasing those that we find outstanding).…
Continue reading ➞ QTL – Picture Book Recommendations Vol. 1
You might think from today's title that we have put together a composite list of our top books by site favorite author Adrian Tchaikovsky, which is a great idea for a post we should do. However, today I am reviewing a new short story collection from Subterranean Press, all by the weird and magical author…
Continue reading ➞ The Best Of Adrian Tchaikovsky – Fantastical, Scientific, And Weird
