Do I even read anymore? It feels like I never have any time.

consults spreadsheet

Ah, well then, it seems that I do still read. Maybe only about 70% of normal, but I read. And I post. And I have sci-fi and fantasy recommendations. Let’s take a look:

Short Fiction

May Favorites

As usual, I won’t reprise my Clarkesworld/GigaNotoSaurus review or my Magazine Minis, but I have a pair of favorites in both, so check them out! But there are also favorites from the miscellany:

• The Perpetual Post (2026 short story) by Isabel J. Kim. I’ve been an Iz fan for a while (have you preordered Sublimation yet?), and I tend to expect any new publication to be disorienting and experimental. This one really isn’t, but it demonstrates how much fun it can be watching a talented writer take on traditional tropes. This is a cross between a secret history story and a perfectly-prescient AI story, with the lead traveling for centuries at a time to deliver the right item at the right moment to shift the course of society. It’s a fun concept to play with, and this delivers on both a conceptual and an emotional level. Though I recommend skipping the Reactor description, which gives a bit more information than I’d prefer in a teaser.
• Honey Bear (2012 short story) by Sofia Samatar. Am I a sucker for a sci-fi parenthood story? Perhaps a bit. This is a weird one, set in a changing world becoming increasingly difficult for humanity, focused on a mother shepherding a child into a world very different than the one she knew. It’s more an episode than a glimpse into a moment of major upheaval, but it’s a fascinating and tender episode.

Strong Contenders

• The Ocean Between the Leaves (2019 novelette) by Ray Nayler. An entry in Nayler’s consistently excellent, cyberpunk Istanbul Protectorate universe, with his typical focus on how political and technological shifts affect ordinary people on the ground. Here, a gardener falls dangerously ill, and her brother tries to pay the bills by taking on dangerous work hunting people who have run off with rented bodies. It’s a compelling look into crucial moments in the life of people on the margins, with a hint of romantic subplot to boot.

Others I Enjoyed in May

• The Sparrow Tree (2026 short story) by Alma Alexander. A secondary-world fantasy in which an Emperor who loved nature passes the torch to one fascinated with understanding. As someone who has both read plenty of sci-fi and some classic fantasy, that’s a premise that can be taken in a couple very different directions. There’s no new third way here, but neither is there a one-note tone of either tragedy or triumph, instead showing the world and its people in their many facets.
• Boxwood (2026 short story) by M.E. Bronstein. Another story that can go a couple very different ways, featuring a woman who longs to be an artist seeing herself married to a woodworker of incredible skill. Unsurprisingly, there’s magic behind that skill, and a hunger for that magic draws the lead into an investigation that lays bare the cost her husband pays, presenting her a difficult choice of how to live in light of that knowledge.

Novels and Novellas

Reviews Posted

• Murder by Memory (2025 novella) by Olivia Waite. A cozy mystery on a generation ship, leaning into the faux historical aesthetics rather than fretting the scientific details.
• Covenants (2004 novel) by Lorna Freeman. A chunky fantasy that hits most of the classic tropes with a skill that offers a lot of fun for fans of the subgenre.
• The Language of Liars (2026 novella) by S.L. Huang. An oblique commentary on slavery and imperialism from the perspective of a brilliant but unreliable lead with the rare ability to jump into the minds of the only species with the ability to find and mine the substance on which so much of galactic society relies.
• Radiant Star (2026 novel) by Ann Leckie. A tale of upheaval in a dysfunctional society on the fringes of the Radch, taking place after the events of Ancillary Justice by functionally standing alone.

Other May Reads

• The Republic of Memory (2026 novel) by Mahmud El Sayed. Absolutely outstanding culture-building on a generation ship divided by language at a time where revolution simmers against a government that had overthrown its own leaders a few generations earlier. This opens a duology and doesn’t provide an especially satisfying stopping point, but it certainly makes the next book a must-read. Full review to come.
• Cinder House (2025 novella) by Freya Marske. A quick, entertaining Cinderella retelling that introduces a twist I hadn’t seen before: killing off the lead on the first page. Full review to come.
• Palaces of the Crow (2026 novel) by Ray Nayler. A tale of survival in the forests of Lithuania amidst the horrors of World War II. The titular crows offer something of a first contact subplot, but the heart of the story is mutual aid in a world that unrelentingly threatens both the body and the mind. Full review to come.
• The Last Cuentista (2021 novel) by Donna Barba Higuera. A middle-grade story that sees a would-be storyteller wake up after a generation ship revolution that sees her as the only one who remembers her history. Full review to come.