One of my favorite books from 2019 was Sarah Pinsker’s debut novel, A Song for a New Day. She so perfectly captured the search for hope within a fairly boring and mundane dystopia. When I read the description for her new book, I knew I wanted to get my hands on it. While it certainly…
Continue reading ➞ We Are Satellites – An Object in Motion, Stays in Motion
As I dive deeper and deeper into science fiction as a genre, I’ve felt a much more intense need to read short stories. Much like the novella, there is so much more room to be sharper, snappier, and fulfill a theme in novel ways. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to review short stories. Collections help sometimes,…
Continue reading ➞ I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories — Patience is a Virtue
I don’t know what’s in the water that some of these newer authors have been drinking, but boy am I jealous. Almost every sequel I’ve read in recent memory has been an absolute treat. Sometimes they just completely blow the debut out of the water, and others continue the legacy of the first, making no…
Continue reading ➞ Memoria — Once Again, With Even More Feeling
If there is something we always wish there was more of, it is the role of religion within science fiction stories. Neither of us is at all religious, but religion is nigh inescapable within the human experience. For it to just disappear, or not have a meaningful place within a world that is far beyond…
Continue reading ➞ We Shall Sing a Song Into the Deep – Glory, Partially Submerged
Friends, folks, however you consider yourselves, I have to admit a wrongdoing of untold selfish proportions. I have read this book twice, once upon its release, once quite recently, and I have yet to praise it’s glory to you. However, with Megan O’Keefe wrapping up her trilogy later this year, I figured I’d revisit the…
A Memory Called Empire is easily one of my favorite debut novels of the last several years. Not a lot of other books captivated me with the levels of palace intrigue Arkady Martine was able to stuff inside it. Not only that, but the book massaged my big brained ego with its exploration of identity…
Continue reading ➞ A Desolation Called Peace — A Sequel Deemed Magnificent
Yeah yeah, the subtitle is easy pickings, but sometimes it’s the simple things in life that are the best. It’s very hard to come up with a pun that combines the act of echoing and the myriad themes Sarah Gailey has packed into this book. There are questions about the debate of nature vs nurture,…
Continue reading ➞ The Echo Wife — Echo, Echooo, Echoooooooooo
Last year I had the pleasure of reading Karen Osborne’s debut, Architects of Memory. Over time I feel I may have been a little tougher on it than necessary, especially since it was smack dab in the middle of other wonderful books on my TBR. I also buried the lead on Osborne’s rich world of…
Continue reading ➞ Engines of Oblivion — Perpetual Motion in Action
Over the past few years I've moved away from the idea that science fiction is the genre of “big ideas.” It can be a good descriptor, but unless a specific topic is discussed within a specific book, I find it unhelpful. “It’s a book about big ideas” has become a meaningless phrase to me, and…
Continue reading ➞ Amid The Crowd of Stars – Bright, but Less Crowded Than I Hoped
If you’re not familiar with me, you’ll first need to understand that I have a bad habit of reading things I hate, and reading too much into those things that I hate. I imagine everyone does it on some small level. There is that quick hit of rage dopamine you get whenever the thing you…
Continue reading ➞ The Bobiverse – Or Why We Should Kill God
