There were a pair of novels in 2023 with eerily similar—and discouraging—hype cycles. Both Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh and Witch King by Martha Wells were hailed as the next big thing, with as much pre-release buzz as anything I saw last year, and then completely fell off a cliff post-release, with a few… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
We’ve made it to the finals of the third annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition. My team has whittled down a slush pile to two semifinalists, and then joined up with two more teams to cut our combined six semifinalists to just two finalists. Now everybody is reading the same books, as only six remain. And… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Memoirs of a Synth–Gold Record by Leigh Saunders
Usually I manage to finish a pair of Bingo cards with a bit of time to spare, but this year, March saw me still hunting for a couple more books to fill some tricky squares. One of those tricky squares was Set in the Middle East, and I decided to circle back to an acclaimed… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
If I’m looking for excellent sci-fi from the 2000s that has been largely forgotten, the first stop has to be the recommendations of Janny Wurts. Our tastes aren’t exactly the same, but she is a tremendous champion of character-driven speculative fiction—and a pretty good writer in her own right—and her recommendations have taken more than… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Warchild by Karin Lowachee
I loved M V Melcer’s 2021 short story “The Falling,” so it didn’t take too many positive reviews to convince me to shell out the four dollars for her new space opera: Refractions. Refractions is a story of sabotage in space, with a pilot fleeing her past thrust into an unfamiliar leadership role with no… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Refractions by M V Melcer
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons will be released on May 14, 2024. I read The Last Unicorn years ago and didn’t necessarily have the adoring response that seems typical in the fantasy world—it probably… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Small Gods of Calamity was released on March 4, 2024. I read my first Sam Kyung Yoo story this winter, and it was good enough to immediately find and read a second, which was… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Small Gods of Calamity by Sam Kyung Yoo
My judging team in the third annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC3) has turned in our two semifinalists, and in return, we’ve received two semifinalists each from a pair of other teams. Our task over the months of February and March is to read these four new semifinalists, and together with the other two teams,… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Kenai by Dave Dobson
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The Siege of the Burning Grass will be released on March 12, 2024. I’ve been hearing a whole lot about Premee Mohamed for a few years now, and while I’ve tried a handful of… Continue reading Sci-fi Fantasy Novel Review: The Siege of the Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed
February is always a great month for catching up on stories—especially relatively short ones—from other people’s favorites lists, and while I had heard almost no buzz about Nothing But the Rain by Naomi Salman, a book club friend had it atop their 2023 novella list, so I thought I’d give it a try. Guess what?… Continue reading Sci-fi Novella Review: Nothing But the Rain by Naomi Salman
