Africa Risen is a sizable collection of stories from Africa and the African Diaspora edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight. The featured stories are a mixture of science fiction, fantasy and even some horror. Though a few fell flat for me, the majority of the pieces grabbed my attention and…
You will find sixteen short stories of time-crossed romance in Someone in Time. Editor Jonathan Strahan collected 14 original stories from notable authors to be featured alongside two existing tales that he favors. The anthology has a little bit of everything, and the collection’s diversity of storytelling, characters, and depiction of love is exquisite. Roadside…
Many years ago, before I joined the site, Andrew reviewed a little book called The Last Wish. After watching the Netflix adaptation last year, pressure from a couple of friends, and a series of YouTube videos (by the wonderful Eric Sophia at their channel Curio) about the franchise, I decided to dive headlong into the…
I’m only one volume into Monstress by Marjorie Liu, but I enjoyed my experience with the graphic novel enough to know I wanted to pick up her new short story collection: The Tangleroot Palace. It wasn’t hard to buy into: Sana Takeda’s gorgeous art is gracing the cover and it promises tales of dangerous women.…
Continue reading ➞ The Tangleroot Palace – Caught Up In Twisted Tales
Everyone should read this book. Last year I decided to watch the movie Arrival on a whim. It was already late, I just wanted something on in the background while I did work in bed, and I thought it looked like a fun movie I might enjoy half watching. Two hours later, I woke my…
Continue reading ➞ Exhalation – Brilliance With Every Breath It Takes
I bought a jacket this past spring and have been looking at it occasionally with a longing that can only be matched by temporarily separated lovers. As such, you can only imagine my joy when the temperature here in Chicago finally dropped to numbers starting with “4,” and I could put it on. Because this…
After reading Broken Stars earlier this year, I became somewhat enamored by the idea of short story collections. I love that they can be incredibly focused while allowing the reader some room to explore outside the story. So when offered the chance to read Future Tense Fiction, a collection of works from well known contemporary…
Continue reading ➞ Future Tense Fiction – A Variety of Hope and Anxiety
I am not a religious man. Despite my Catholic upbringing and coming of age in the American midwest, the world of the spiritual has never called out to me. I’ve never felt the rapture of religion or the whisper of the divine. As such, I find myself sorely lacking in vocabulary to describe my experience…
Continue reading ➞ A Lush And Seething Hell – If This Is Hell I’ll pass On Heaven
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…
Hi Folks! With the 40th Anniversary of the release of Star Wars: A New Hope, Penguin Random House has released a Star Wars short story collection titled From A Certain Point of View. To coincide with this, Unbound Worlds has published stories from a group of authors, who are all Star Wars fans, about how…
Continue reading ➞ Unbound Worlds: A Long Time Ago – Boundless Love for Star Wars
