With some travel on the docket and Cozy SFF on the Bingo board, I was looking for a lighter fantasy to serve as airplane reading. Having enjoyed Auston Habershaw’s short fiction in the past, If Wishes Were Retail caught my eye and seemed to fit the bill perfectly. And as it turned out, the book… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: If Wishes Were Retail by Auston Habershaw
GigaNotoSaurus is back, and my monthly magazine reading is once again at two. So let’s take a look at the October issues of it and Clarkesworld! Clarkesworld It’s always exciting to see a Table of Contents with a bunch of authors you’ve five-starred in the past, and so as much as I appreciate Clarkesworld platforming… Continue reading Tar Vol Reads a Magazine (or Two): Reviews of Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus (October 2025)
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon was released on August 26, 2025. My first exposure to Mizuki Tsujimura was a couple years ago when I read the tremendous Lonely Castle in the… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is one of those acclaimed works of juvenile fantasy that I’d missed when I was a kid and have spent years meaning to circle back to. And as this year’s fantasy Bingo board felt like a two-handed shove in its direction, I finally pulled it off the shelf… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
R.F. Kuang seems to be a divisive author, but while I understand and agree with many of the criticisms, her engaging prose style and hard-hitting thematic work has consistently drawn me in enough to leave me with overwhelmingly positive impressions. So while a quest into Hell is a little bit outside my wheelhouse as a… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
I’m not much of a horror person, but I do have a soft spot for “people are the real horror” historical pieces, with Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory and Victor LaValle’s Lone Women among my favorites of the last few years. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter seemed another entry along those lines, and given some glowing reviews… Continue reading Horror Novel Review: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
I’m a big fan of almost all of Lois McMaster Bujold’s work, and the combination of romance, fantasy adventure, and cross-cultural connection-building in The Sharing Knife made the series a highly enjoyable read. Despite all that, I’d never gotten around to the short sequel novel taking place a couple decades after the first four books.… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Knife Children by Lois McMaster Bujold
Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed The Underground Railroad has been on my TBR for quite some time, and when it got picked up by one of my book clubs, I was excited to finally give it a try. Anyone who’s the least bit familiar with the book will probably know the central conceit: the historical Underground Railroad… Continue reading Alternate History Novel Review: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
It’s been a bit of a topsy-turvy month in real life, but I’ve managed to get a lot of reading done, albeit in a different order than usual. And when you read enough in any given month, you’re bound to find amazing things that you want to share with the world. So let’s do that,… Continue reading September 2025 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany
House of the Rain King by Will Greatwich is one of the few self-published novels that I’ve actually picked up in its publication year. A glowing review from someone who likes a lot of my favorites and a selection for an online book club was enough for me to take the plunge and see what… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: House of the Rain King by Will Greatwich
