After absolutely adoring Kindred, I decided to read Octavia E. Butler’s Patternist series. I read in publication order, starting with Patternmaster and Mind of My Mind, both of which were good reads, if not mind-blowing ones. But when I moved on to the consensus best book of the series (Wild Seed), it was depressing enough… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Clay’s Ark by Octavia E. Butler
GigaNotoSaurus is back on hiatus for the remainder of the year, and my best wishes go to LaShawn Wanak and her team in closing a difficult year and trying to shore up the foundation for 2026. I’ve been pretty impressed with their published fiction this year, but I know the finished product is only the… Continue reading Tar Vol Reads a Magazine: Review of Clarkesworld (November 2025)
One of my newest book club friends has been a longstanding evangelist for the self-published novella The Fire-Moon by Isabel Pelech. With a little gap in my reading schedule, I finally found the time to give it a try. The Fire-Moon is a short and easy read, coming in well under 100 pages, with a… Continue reading Fantasy Novella Review: The Fire-Moon by Isabel Pelech
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. There Is No Antimemetics Division will be released on November 11, 2025. For the last few years, I’ve been seeing glowing commentary about There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, particularly on the… Continue reading Sci-fi/Horror Novel Review: There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The Merge will be released on November 11, 2025. Over the last couple years of reading, it’s become very clear to me that I enjoy stories that play with memory in unusual ways.… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: The Merge by Grace Walker
While Tuyo by Rachel Neumeier is pretty far under the radar in the fantasy world, there are a couple Redditors who seem to regularly like the same kinds of books I like and who have been evangelizing it for a while now. I had a pretty good idea that it would fit my Bingo theme… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Tuyo by Rachel Neumeier
Somebody on the Internet told me that October was Black Speculative Fiction Month. I figured that was cause for a little bit of TBR shuffling, and I found some true gems mixed in with my usual new release reading schedule. As always, let’s start with short fiction before moving on to the longer works. Short… Continue reading October 2025 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany
The Nine by Tracy Townsend incorporates plenty of tropes that were popular in 2010s fantasy—the grimy secondary world setting, the thieving lead, the proliferation of factions—but passed wildly under the radar after its 2017 release. I’m not sure I’d have heard of it if not for one Redditor consistently singing its praises and actually buying… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Nine by Tracy Townsend
It’s been a bit of an unusual reading month, with a little bit less novel-shaped reading time than usual but quite a bit more places to carve out some short fiction. Between that and my attempt to free up the holiday season posting schedule, this month’s Magazine Minis is my biggest ever, with a blitz… Continue reading Tar Vol’s Magazine Minis: Five-Zine Blitz (October 2025)
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
