The Helm of Midnight by Marina J. Lostetter was one of the most complicated and confusing books that I read in 2021. It was a strange murder mystery in a dystopian bubble world where people could summon the skills of the dead to empower them through masks. The book was so complicated that reading the…
Continue reading ➞ The Cage Of Dark Hours – Taking Off The Shackles
The Scarlett Odyssey, by C.T. Rwizi, has been my ace-in-the-hole recommendation recently. I stumbled onto the first two books last year and as you can tell from my review and the extremely high ranking of Requiem Moon on the Best Of List - I was impressed. I have been using the trilogy as my pocket recommendation…
If I was going to say only one thing about Speaking Bones, the final book in Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty quartet, it would be that it is certainly its own thing. I know all of that sounds inelegant, but I got into a heated Reddit argument about this series earlier today, and arguing on an…
Locklands, the final piece of the Founders trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett, is a story both worthy of discussion and hard to talk about. It is the last step in an increasingly complicated dance that Bennett has been leading and it ends with a beautiful flourish. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about the plot of this…
Continue reading ➞ Locklands – The End Of The World As We Know It
I am going to try and avoid the endless skeleton puns that are rattling my bo-... as I review The Bone Orchard, by Sara A. Mueller. This stand-alone science-fantasy necromantic who-dun-it has a great premise, compelling writing, and a fantastic world. The only thing that kept it from being one of my top picks of…
Continue reading ➞ The Bone Orchard – Ghosts, Ghouls, And Whores
Sometimes a book comes along with such a powerful blurb that you can’t help but be drawn to it. The Starless Crown, by James Rollins, is one such novel. A kind editor at Tor sent me the elevator pitch for this book back in the middle of last year and I was immediately entranced. A…
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Elder Race, as you might have seen in this year's best novellas piece, is fabulous. My favorite type of novella is one that knows how to use its limited space to make a point, explore an idea, or execute a premise efficiently, smoothly, and with fabulous flair. Elder Race checks off all of…
Every so often I stumble across a fantastically wonderful new series that is flying under the radar. These are always my favorite moments as a reviewer because it means I get to stand on my little pedestal and become a town crier for a new series worth your time. Today I will be talking about…
Continue reading ➞ Scarlet Odyssey/Requiem Moon – Once In A Red Moon
The Actual Star, by Monica Byrne, is a massive epic that blends elements of fantasy and science fiction into a story that spans thousands of years. The story takes place over three separate storylines, each one feeding into the next like a beautiful, bizarre blueprint. The first one is set in 1012 and follows a…
In The Watchful City, by S. Qiouyi Lu, calls itself a ‘mosaic novella,’ which is a fitting description. The book is organized into two parts. One follows Anima, an augmented human - one of several who oversees the city of Ora. She acts like a foundation for the second part of the story; a series…
Continue reading ➞ In The Watchful City – Seeing Is Believing
