I know it’s traditional to close December with a post about the best books you read this year, and I will recap my five-star reads sometime next week, but I thought I’d start with something a little bit different. These books weren’t all on my five-star list, but they all had a special element that… Continue reading 2020 Superlatives
The Murderbot Diaries don’t need much introduction, and it’s no accident that it’s the only ongoing series where I’ve caught up on new releases. Martha Wells has been writing speculative fiction with strong characters for years (my introduction to her work came in The Books of the Raksura, which I would also recommend), but she’s… Continue reading Sci-fi Series Review: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing is certainly not my standard fare, but I picked it up as a change of pace between heavier fantasy epics, and it served the purpose quite well. Raymond St. Elmo is heavily influenced by magical realism, which makes it a little more difficult for me to… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing by Raymond St. Elmo
Fantasy Regency novels were so far off my radar that I had to Google “Regency novel” (basically, a novel set in early 1800s England with a lot of concern about social standing), but I knew about Krista D. Ball from some excellent work on social media addressing the gender imbalance in genre publishing and fandom… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: A Magical Inheritance by Krista D. Ball
Code of the Communer only had four ratings on Goodreads when I got to it, but it was a semifinalist in this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, and a couple of the folks at The Fantasy Hive gave absolutely glowing reviews before eventually naming it the runner-up of their batch. So I gave Kai Greenwood’s debut… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Code of the Communer by Kai Greenwood
I’d heard enough glowing reviews—not to mention the Locus Award win and Nebula and Hugo nominations—to have pretty high expectations for Ninefox Gambit, and it certainly lived up to them. Yoon Ha Lee’s debut space fantasy delivers some fascinating psychological warfare on both a grand and a personal scale, interspersed with moments of levity to… Continue reading Sci-fi/Fantasy Novel Review: Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
Not gonna lie, the cover and the glowing reviews from grimdark aficionados put me off trying out Chasing Graves for quite a while—bleak and shocking isn’t really my game. But I had four days left on a Kindle Unlimited subscription, and of the KU books on my radar, it had the most gripping opening, so… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Chasing Graves by Ben Galley
Daniel Abraham has co-written a hit science fiction series and written two fantasy series that seem to have small but dedicated followings. The Long Price Quartet is widely considered to be the slowest of the bunch, but, citing high-quality character work and an epic, generational plot that rewards the patient, the positive reviews tend to… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham
The Path of Flames has had solid enough reviews, but I had to give it a read to learn just what manner of book knocked Senlin Ascends out of the 2016 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the SPFBO is a really fun annual competition that shines a light on some… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Path of Flames by Phil Tucker
I usually let others do some vetting before I jump in with a new author, so a self-published debut with only 13 ratings on Goodreads was a bit out of my comfort zone. But an Own Voices fantasy epic in a Caribbean-inspired setting (and with a beautiful cover) was enough to intrigue me, and the… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Cradle of Sea and Soil by Bernie Anés Paz
