With WorldCon and NetGalley memberships pushing my reading more and more toward new releases, I knew that the Published in the 90s square of 2024 r/Fantasy Bingo would require me to reshuffle the TBR. Fortunately, I had plenty of options sitting on my bookcase unread, I just had to pick one. And that one was… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman
Another month, another review of Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus. April was a great month, with a lot to recommend and no real misses, so let’s get started. Clarkesworld The April 2025 issue of Clarkesworld follows their recent pattern of seven stories with slightly heftier average length than in past years. Both novelettes are around 10,000 words,… Continue reading Tar Vol Reads a Magazine (or Two): Reviews of Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus (April 2025)
Ancillary Justice got a ton of hype upon its release in 2013, racking up a dizzying number of genre awards and garnering praise for its inventive handling of gender and nonhuman intelligence, in addition to being an excellent space opera. But I was on hiatus from genre reading in 2013, and so while I’d been… Continue reading Sci-fi Book Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Saint Death’s Herald will be released on April 22, 2025. Saint Death’s Daughter was my favorite novel of 2022, so there was really no question about whether I’d read the sequel. The only question… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Saint Death’s Herald by C.S.E. Cooney
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Where the Axe is Buried was released on April 1, 2025. I started reading Ray Nayler a couple years ago, and I’ve been consistently impressed with his quiet explorations of how big political and… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Psychopomp was released on March 25, 2025. Maria Dong’s “Braid Me a Howling Tongue” was one of my favorite stories of 2023, so when I saw she had a new novel coming out, I… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Psychopomp by Maria Dong
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
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)
