This will be my second year nominating and voting for the Hugo Awards, and while I have a ton of reading to get to in the couple of months before nominations are due, I thought it was a good time to go ahead and share the works on my radar for potential nomination. This can… Continue reading Way Too Early 2022 Hugo Nomination Draft
I’ve read a lot of amazing books in 2021, and I may have some new additions to my all-time favorites list. But the list of all-timers is a lot shorter than the list of authors who have me really excited for their next projects. So let me take a moment to share some sci-fi/fantasy authors… Continue reading SFF Authors I’m Even More Excited to Read in 2022
I’ve had a great reading year, and there have been plenty of works of sci-fi/fantasy that I’ve rated at five stars (17+ on my 20-point scale). But it takes something truly special–something that’s worthy of my all-time favorites list–to register a score of 19 or 20. So let me share my absolute favorites of the… Continue reading Sci-fi/Fantasy Works I Rated 19 or 20 in 2021.
I read Ender’s Game about ten years ago and thought that it was absolutely fantastic—it nailed the academy setting, had fictional competition that actually made sense (infamously no guarantee in sci-fi/fantasy), and had a whole lot of depth to boot. But I felt it ended so well that I didn’t want to risk spoiling it… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
S. Qiouyi Lu’s debut novella, In the Watchful City, came across my radar in late summer and immediately caught my attention with the unusual combination of (1) a few glowing reviews from other readers who significantly overlap my tastes, (2) a perfect fit for a bingo square I hadn’t hit (2021 debut), and (3) easily… Continue reading Fantasy Novella Review: In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu
If you’re not on the fantasy subreddit, or if you’re not a follower of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, you may not know the story of Senlin Ascends, a book that languished in obscurity for years before a last-ditch entry in SPFBO sparked a chain of events that turned it into something of a cult classic… Continue reading Fantasy Series Review: The Books of Babel by Josiah Bancroft
My read of Lobizona is another triumph of fantasy Bingo. Although I had a blogger friend raving about Romina Garber’s new YA series, I saw little buzz elsewhere in my fantasy spaces, and it would’ve likely passed me by entirely if I hadn’t been seeking options for the Latin American Author square. And, as the… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Lobizona by Romina Garber
Our journey through the 2021 Hugo Awards ballot finishes with the most prestigious of categories: Best Novel. A final six consisting of five Hugo winning-authors and a sequel to a Hugo finalist might’ve disappointed those hoping for some new blood, but it’s hard to complain too much about a category with this kind of quality… Continue reading 2021 Hugo Ballot: Best Novel
We continue the journey through the Hugo Award ballot with the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Unlike the other categories, these nominations do not rely on any one particular work (a debut novel, for instance) but rather an author’s body of work in the first year or two of their career. Because I have… Continue reading 2021 Hugo Ballot: Astounding Award for Best New Writer
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reader Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Elder Race will be released on November 16, 2021. I knew absolutely nothing about Elder Race when I saw it come available on NetGalley, but I liked Children of Time enough to give… Continue reading Sci-fi/Fantasy Novella Review: Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky
