Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty was often discussed among the exciting new fantasy epics back in the late 2010s when I returned to genre reading. But it’s also very long, and the first book has a reputation (arguably undeserved) for being a difficult read. So I kept putting it off, even as I read more and… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
My judging team in the third annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC3) has been given 24 books to whittle down to two semifinalists. In the first two months of the competition, each book in our allocation was read by at least two of us, and we have cut nearly three-quarters of them. Some of those… Continue reading Introducing Team Tar Vol On’s SPSFC3 Quarterfinalists
Team Tar Vol On has one more batch of eliminations in the first stage of the third annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC3). We’ve already made two sets of unanimous cuts, and now it’s time to visit the split decisions. Every book eliminated today, like every quarterfinalist, had a full read and recommendation from at… Continue reading SPSFC First Round Eliminations, Batch Three
Every once in a while, I read so much fantastic work in a short period of time that I begin to wonder whether I’m losing my standards. October was such a month. Five stars in my novels, five stars in my magazines, five stars in anthologies and in miscellaneous short fiction. It was a great… Continue reading October 2023 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany
A welcome quieter month—with only two of my regular magazines releasing new issues—allowed me to get to an ARC of an exciting new short fiction anthology, leading yet again to a magazine round-up coming at the very end of the month. But I thought it was a very good reading month, and I have a… Continue reading Tar Vol Reads a Magazine (or Two): Reviews of Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus (October 2023)
I was a bit late to the party on the Wayward Children novella series, but since I’ve started voting in the Hugo Awards, I’ve made an annual event of reading last year’s entry. This year is no different, with Seanan McGuire’s seventh entry in the series, Where the Drowned Girls Go, earning her seventh consecutive… Continue reading Fantasy Novella Review: Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The Digital Aesthete will be released on November 14, 2023. I haven’t read much of Alex Shvartsman’s work as an editor, but I’ve enjoyed a bit of his translated short fiction, and I’ve been… Continue reading Sci-fi Anthology Review: The Digital Aesthete, edited by Alex Shvartsman
I heard so many rave reviews about Spear by Nicola Griffith that I decided to put it off until its inevitable Hugo nomination. Tordotcom novellas seemed unstoppable, and it was getting nothing but praise. And then it ended up not making the list—perhaps due to category confusion, as the word count puts it in that… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Spear by Nicola Griffith
Team Tar Vol On is back with our second batch of SPSFC3 first-round eliminations. This finishes up our consensus cuts–which very much does not mean that they were all easy decisions–but we’ll be back with another round of split-decision cuts before announcing our quarterfinalists. If you’re new to the competition or need a refresher, I… Continue reading SPSFC First-Round Eliminations, Batch Two
I read T. Kingfisher for the first time a couple years ago when a friend highly recommended A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, and since then I’ve added a fair few others, from the excellent children’s book Harriet the Invincible (as Ursula Vernon) to adult fairy tale retellings and even horror. But Nettle & Bone… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
