I didn’t know that Mechanize My Hands to War even existed until author Erin K. Wagner was interviewed in Clarkesworld in December 2024. But as so often happens with Clarkesworld interviews, she talked about it in a way that caught my attention and sent it flying up my TBR. And I’m glad it did. Mechanize… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Mechanize My Hands to War by Erin K. Wagner
I was previously unfamiliar with Jedediah Berry, and despite a striking cover, I would have let The Naming Song pass me by without a strong recommendation from a book club friend who loved the language element. So I decided to give it a try after all. The Naming Song takes place after an underdescribed apocalypse—when… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry
I had heard almost nothing about The Ministry of Time in genre circles in the early part of this year, but it seems to have hit big enough in general fiction circles to have bled back into genre, and I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about with Kaliane Bradley’s debut. The Ministry… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
It’s time for my favorite post of the year, where I share all the best sci-fi and fantasy I read from 2024. I write two versions of this post each year. The second comes out in late February, once I’ve had a chance to read works from everyone else’s Best of the Year lists. And… Continue reading Tar Vol’s 2024 Recommended Reading List (Holiday Edition)
I’ve read quite a few quest novellas this year and generally haven’t fallen in love with any of them—not surprising, as I’m just not a huge fan of the quest plot structure—but after a few friends highly recommended Premee Mohamed’s novella The Butcher of the Forest, I decided to try another one, and I’m very… Continue reading Fantasy Novella Review: The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
I don’t often dip into speculative literary fiction, and my success rate is low enough that even when I saw an intriguing review of Scott Alexander Howard’s debut novel The Other Valley—and I don’t even recall where—I approached with some trepidation. But I do like time travel stories, and my library had a copy, so… Continue reading Speculative Novel Review: The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard
I am not especially fond of zombies or especially deep into literary fiction, but I have been really enjoying stories about grief this year—notably “Death Benefits” and The Warm Hands of Ghosts—and so when a book club friend highly recommended Ursula K. Le Guin Prize-winning It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de… Continue reading Speculative Novella Review: It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken
I hadn’t previously read any Nathan Tavares, but I’m always curious about books that provoke especially strong reactions, and a Redditor hyping up Welcome to Forever as the book of the year nudged me to look further into it. And between a premise that included plenty of weird memory stuff and an extremely messy interpersonal… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Welcome to Forever by Nathan Tavares
Ever since reading the tremendous “Strange Waters” a few years back, I’ve been eager to get to more of Samantha Mills. So when seemingly half of my Short Fiction Book Club friends were recommending her debut novel The Wings Upon Her Back, it was not a matter of if I would read it, but when. … Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. We Are All Ghosts in the Forest will be released on November 7, 2024. I had never heard of Lorraine Wilson before seeing We Are All Ghosts in the Forest pop up on NetGalley,… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: We Are All Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson
