Tyler Hayes’ debut has run under the radar, but the few reviews I’ve seen have been glowing, and the concept of The Imaginary Corpse was eye-catching enough to immediately put this one on my list. The Imaginary Corpse takes place in the Stillreal, where figments of imagination go when they are too real to disappear… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Imaginary Corpse by Tyler Hayes
Back in March, a blogger friend advised me to read Sarah Gailey’s STET, which immediately became one of the best short stories I’d ever read. Ever since then, I’ve been looking for an excuse to read more of their work, and while a queerphobic dystopia styled after the Old West probably wouldn’t have been my… Continue reading Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novella Review: Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
After reading and loving A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, I resolved to read more of T. Kingfisher (an alias of Ursula Vernon), a remarkably versatile writer with acclaimed children’s books, horror novels, fantasy romances, and fairy tale retellings. The Hollow Places may mark the first time I’ve ever read a novel primarily marketed as… Continue reading Fantasy/Horror Novel Review: The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
The Vanished Birds is another book that I didn’t know much about before award nominations came out, but Simon Jimenez was nominated for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer on the strength of this debut, so I thought it was well worth a shot. Before starting, I had heard that The Vanished Birds was… Continue reading Science Fiction Novel Review: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
Nominations for both Hugo and Nebula Awards certainly put Finna on my radar, but I knew next-to nothing about Nino Cipri’s debut novella before reading it—in fact, I mistakenly thought that the title was a reference to the African American slang for “going to” (by way of the Southern US idiom “fixing to”) rather than… Continue reading Sci-fi/Fantasy Novella Review: Finna by Nino Cipri
Maggie Stiefvater has a pair of series that have made her a name in YA fantasy, but in my circles, I’ve heard as much or more about her 2011 stand-alone featuring high-stakes races on the backs of murderous water horses. And with the two first-person narrators fitting perfectly into one of the trickiest of bingo… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Once again, Book Bingo does its job, albeit not in the way I expected. Way back before I ramped up my reading to current levels and started writing about books, I read and loved The Ballad of Black Tom. It put Victor LaValle on my mental list of intriguing authors, but with mixed reviews for… Continue reading Psychological Novel Review: The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle
The title is great, the cover is gorgeous, and Benedict Patrick’s novelette “And They Were Never Heard From Again” was one of the best stories I read all of last year. So dipping back into Yarnsworld for the first full-length novel was a no-brainer. They Mostly Come Out at Night is a dark fairy tale, with… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: They Mostly Come Out at Night by Benedict Patrick
I didn’t see too much hype for Micaiah Johnson’s debut–although it was enough to push my library hold to five months–but what it lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality. Every single review I saw for The Space Between Worlds raves about it. I was hoping to read it before award nomination season ended, but… Continue reading Science Fiction Novel Review: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
In my corners of book social media, it’s impossible not to be aware of Katherine Addison’s breakout hit, The Goblin Emperor, which is either a delightfully wholesome comfort read or a dull political fantasy where nothing happens, depending on who you ask. It had been on my list for a long time, and after finally… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
