I say, as I dip my toe again and again into horror, that I’m not much of a horror guy. And there’s a lot of truth to it. But I’ve liked everything I’ve read from Victor LaValle, whose Lone Women was one of my favorite books of 2023. And so I’m going to keep reading… Continue reading Fantasy/Horror Novel Review: The Changeling by Victor LaValle
While my return to genre reading over the last few years has been dominated by new releases, it has also involved a fair bit of digging into obscure-but-well-reviewed fantasy from the 2000s—most of it written by women. Such dives have brought me several favorites, like The Lighthouse Duet, The Inda Quartet, and The Long Price… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce
At some point in the year or two between my return to genre reading and my decision to start blogging, The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang became an r/Fantasy darling. It won the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO, the elder sister to SPSFC), matching the highest score in the history of the competition, and there… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang
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
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Starling House was released on October 3, 2023. Alix E. Harrow burst onto the scene in the late 2010s with a blend of beautiful imagery, bingeable prose, and fabulist plots featuring sharp moral divides… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
After merely enjoying Mexican Gothic while so many of my bookish friends were totally enamored, I figured it’d take a bigger push for me to pick up Silvia Moreno-Garcia again. That push came in the form of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau appearing on the shortlist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and I’m… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. He Who Drowned the World will be released August 22, 2023. She Who Became the Sun, Shelley Parker-Chan’s fantastical retelling of the rise of the Ming dynasty in China, was one of the buzziest… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
Tigerman is a book that had come highly recommended by a blogging friend, and I’d certainly heard a fair bit of praise of Nick Harkaway. But it’s nearly a decade old and isn’t the sort of book that gets recommended all too often in the wild, leaving it to languish on the fringes of my… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Tigerman by Nick Harkaway
This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Blade of Dream will be released July 18, 2023. After The Long Price Quartet soared up my all-time favorites list, Daniel Abraham became a must-read author. And I sure wasn’t disappointed with Age… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Blade of Dream by Daniel Abraham
