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
I’ve heard a lot about Christopher Buehlman over the last couple years from both fans of horror and epic fantasy, but I’m not a big horror fan, and The Blacktongue Thief featured a snarky rogue lead that I wasn’t quite in the mood for, so his work stayed mostly on the fringes of my awareness.… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Daughters’ War by Christopher Buehlman
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the author in exchange for an honest review. The Mountain Crown will be released on October 8, 2024. Karin Lowachee had been hanging around the middle of the TBR for what seemed like forever before I finally pulled Warchild off the stack this… Continue reading Fantasy Novella Review: The Mountain Crown by Karin Lowachee
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The City in Glass will be released on October 1, 2024. I first read Nghi Vo back in 2021 when The Empress of Salt and Fortune took home a well-deserved Hugo Award for Best… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The City in Glass by Nghi Vo
