A Memory Called Empire won the Hugo Award for Best Novel shortly after I had gotten back into speculative fiction but before I started following genre awards. But with its sequel nominated for Best Novel this year, I figured it was high time to circle back and read Arkady Martine’s debut. A Memory Called Empire… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
For the last couple years, the list of recent speculative fiction that everyone else seems to have read but that I hadn’t started with Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. But when the most recent book in her Wayfarers series was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, I finally… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Into the Broken Lands will be released on August 23, 2022. Tanya Huff is an author I’ve heard a lot about from her work in subgenres I don’t often read. So when the… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Into the Broken Lands by Tanya Huff
My final read in the finals of the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC) had perhaps the best combination of consistent praise (90% of individual ratings coming in at 7.5/10 or higher) and high ceiling (20% of individual ratings coming in at 9/10) in the first two rounds. The blurb pitching an action-heavy space opera didn’t… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Captain Wu by Patrice Fitzgerald and Jack Lyster
I’m closing the inaugural Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC) with two finalists that had extremely high ratings floors in the first two rounds. Today, I’ll be looking at A Star Named Vega by Benjamin J. Roberts, a novel that received a score of at least 8/10 from nine of the ten judges that rated it… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: A Star Named Vega by Benjamin J. Roberts
After being read by its first three judging teams, Steel Guardian entered the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC) finals with the top score in the competition. Between one of my teammates raving about it and it fitting the friendly AI niche that I always have so much fun with, I was very excited for Cameron… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Steel Guardian by Cameron Coral
I saw quite a bit of hype last year for Ryka Aoki’s debut novel Light From Uncommon Stars, but not enough to convince me it was up my alley—the flying donut shop and Douglas Adams namecheck made me expect a zany romp that would inevitably fall short of Douglas Adams. But its nomination for the… Continue reading Sci-fi/Fantasy Novel Review: Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Monster of the Dark consistently garnered some of the highest scores of the first two rounds of the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), with ratings of at least 8.5/10 from more than half of the judges who read it. And given its billing as a deeply psychological character study of a powerful clairvoyant taken from… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Monster of the Dark by K.T. Belt
I don’t tend to read much comic sci-fi—though I certainly loved Douglas Adams back when I first read him—and I’m not totally sure how well my tastes in the subgenre line up with other readers. But when a comedy made the finals of the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), I was curious to see how… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review–Duckett & Dyer: Dicks for Hire by G.M. Nair
We have arrived at the finals of the first annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), with every book vetted by three separate judging teams in order to get to this point. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be reading the six finalists that did not go through my own judging team, starting with a truly… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Iron Truth by S.A. Tholin
