Do I always say it’s been a busy month? Perhaps I do. But this one has had a mix of deadlines, illness, overscheduling–oh right, and also sports–and the long and short is that it ended up being a relatively light reading month. But when short fiction is involved, a light reading month usually still means… Continue reading March 2025 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. A Drop of Corruption will be released on April 1, 2025. Though Robert Jackson Bennett isn’t exactly a new face in the fantasy scene, my first experience with his work came last year, when… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
We’ve made it to the quarterfinals of the fourth annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition. Team Tar Vol On has sifted through 32 randomly assigned books and selected a top four. That number has since dropped to two, so we’ll be evaluating a pair of our own and a third-place book from one other team in… Continue reading SPSFC Semifinalist Review: Time of the Cat by Tansy Rayner Roberts
Because my judging team for the fourth annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC4) had an unusually light group of quarterfinalists, I spent the end of the stage catching up on some quarterfinalists from other teams. And one that particularly caught my eye was the supernatural sci-fi Our Lady of the Artilects by Andrew Gillsmith. Our… Continue reading Supernatural Sci-fi Novel Review: Our Lady of the Artilects by Andrew Gillsmith
Apparently, the Danish Groundhog Day-style litfic series On the Calculation of Volume has gotten enough hype for English translations. And while I can be hit-or-miss on litfic, I enjoy weird time shenanigans and meditative stories enough to check out the fairly short first installment in the planned seven-part series, translated by Barbara J. Haveland. On… Continue reading Speculative Novel Review: On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle
With Hugo nominations in the books, I’ve more or less wrapped up my 2024 reading, so it’s on to 2025 short fiction. As always, that starts with my monthly reviews of Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus. Clarkesworld The March 2025 issue of Clarkesworld features a novella-length centerpiece, with three stories under 8,000 words on either side. And—unusually—for… Continue reading Tar Vol Reads a Magazine (or Two): Reviews of Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus (March 2025)
We’ve made it to the quarterfinals of the fourth annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition. Team Tar Vol On has sifted through 32 randomly assigned books and selected a top four. That number has since dropped to two, so we’ll be evaluating a pair of our own and a third-place book from one other team in… Continue reading SPSFC Semifinalist Review: A Swift and Sudden Exit by Nico Vincenty
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The Map of Lost Places will be released on April 22, 2025. I don’t read very much horror, but I really enjoy liminal space stories. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, so… Continue reading Fantasy/Horror Anthology Review: The Map of Lost Places
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan wasn’t on my radar at all to start 2024, as I’m not particularly enthralled by Gothic stylings, but an extremely strong review from someone who loved my favorite books of the year and the intrigue of a split timeline got my attention and convinced me to… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The Martian Contingency will be released on March 18, 2025. I haven’t read the entirety of Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series, but I was impressed by The Calculating Stars and even more impressed… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal
