A couple years ago, Cole gifted me Adam Roberts' The Thing Itself. I enjoyed the book greatly, and it lives in a special place within my heart, but I also felt inadequate to the task of reviewing it. It is a dense 350 page book that mixes philosophy with cyberpunk movie action, asking: what is…
Folks, we love a strong science fiction debut, and I’m here to tell you These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs is that very thing. It’s a dark space opera filled with intrigue, deception, villainy, violence, and good old-fashioned chase scenes. It also takes its subject matter seriously and digs into its own world with an…
Continue reading ➞ These Burning Stars – Bombastic, Beautiful, and Blasphemous
Furious Heaven, by Kate Elliott, is everything I wanted from a sequel and more. It is a brutal marathon of space conquest, populated by fun and deep characters that burn brighter than a blade in the forge. The worldbuilding is top-notch and just gorgeous to steep in. If you read my Unconquerable Sun review, expect…
Continue reading ➞ Furious Heaven – It’s All About Intergalactic Family
Adrian Tchaikovsky is certainly on fire this year with three books, in three separate series, all coming out in a short period. How one man can have so many disparate interesting thoughts in the course of a single year is astounding. He even has a fourth book coming out in December, and we have multiple…
A war has just ended. The Emperor of the Holy Vaalbaran Empire surrendered to the Ominirish Republic after the death of their daughter. Enitan, a scribe from the imperial territory of Koriko, is hoping to grow her own tea business when disaster strikes. Her sibling is abducted by Vaalbaran forces, and her lover, the Vaalbaran…
Continue reading ➞ The Splinter In The Sky – Stuck In My Craw
Right off the bat, I would love to take a moment to recognize how good Alex White is at naming things. Everything in their books has such fantastic and memorable names; whether that's the long evocative titles, the cool nomenclature of the magic system, character names/nicknames, or the locations/settings. Everything White touches comes away with…
Continue reading ➞ August Kitko And The Mechas From Space – Punching, Feelings, And Robots
I am left with a lot of questions after finishing Neon Yang’s The Genesis of Misery. The primary one being, “so what?” Described as a combination of Neon Genesis Evangelion meets retelling of Joan of Arc, I would say that Misery lives up to its promises. Yet, while I think this is an imaginative and…
Revelation Space is a big series. Sure, it’s a trilogy, but it also has two related novels and a treasure trove of short stories. I’ve only scratched the surface on the shorter fiction by Alastair Reynolds, but the little I have read has been just as exciting as the sprawling epics. Now I’m writing this…
Continue reading ➞ Chasm City – Not Splitting Hairs On This One
Long has Alastair Reynolds taunted me from my bookshelf. I purchased his debut novel, Revelation Space, years ago as a gift to myself. But since I purchased it when I didn’t understand how to handle my to-read list, my paperback copy languished on my shelf, hidden behind the other books I had accrued over the…
In many ways, Eyes of the Void is simply a continuation of the story started by Adrian Tchaikovsky in one of our top books of 2021, Shards of Earth. Because of this, this review is really going to just boil down to “yea, it's still great, and you should still read it” with some additional…
