Welcome to an experiment: This week we’re doing a link round-up for reviews found online, rather than a link round-up of news items found online which, quite frankly, does not seem to have been doing it for our readers for a while now. Maybe this formulation will garner a little more attention.
If you write reviews and would like a link to them to appear here, get in touch, let us know and we’ll be happy to oblige.
The Book That Broke the World by Mark Lawrence: “The story is unique in its approach to romance and time; it spans years for Livira but only days for Evar. Their storylines revolve around each other but focus on many things. Maybe even too many? Anyway, the central theme of knowledge and its power to shape reality impressed me.”
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett: “Robert Jackson Bennett has done it again. A Drop of Corruption takes everything that made The Tainted Cup great (impossible murders, weird biology, razor-sharp wit) and somehow makes it even better. There’s a new impossible crime, more unsettling biology, and, most importantly, more Ana Dolabra – the world’s strangest mind.”
rekt by Alex Hernandez: Here comes another startling debut novel to give us all hope for the future of the field in the hands of a new generation of writers. But unlike Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory, another recent standout premiere, this book is not conducted in a “civilized,” literary, cultured manner. Its domain is not the corridors of state, nor the drawing room, but life’s gutters.
The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi: Philip Fracassi has achieved similar frissons in his sixth novel, The Third Rule of Time Travel. But unlike London, he has done so through pure science fiction, rather than wish-fulfilling fantasy. True, he manages to insert some quasi-supernatural scares, but they are all eventually justified as outcomes of the original scientific postulates in action.
WHEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE by John Scalzi: Scalzi manages to take a very, very silly idea – namely that the moon is actually made of cheese – and run with it. There’s as much science as the idea can sustain (clue: not that much) but the premise is there really to describe, with some humour, the effects on the citizens of America. There also just happens to be an egotistical billionaire (wonder who Scalzi could be thinking of?) and a President who needs things kept simple. (who’d a thought it?)
On the Calculation of Volume I & II by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland: A woman travels to Paris from her small town of Clairon-sous-Bois in the north of France; she is an antiquarian bookseller on a normal business trip. It is the eighteenth of November. She purchases books, sees a friend who deals in rare coins, buys a Roman sestertius, burns her hand on a radiator, returns to her hotel, calls her husband, and goes to sleep. She wakes up in the morning. It is the eighteenth of November.
So begins the strange journey of Tara Selter, narrator of On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle, a novel in seven parts.
Under the Eye of The Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda: Kawakami’s world is in a distant future, long after the beginning of the decline of humankind, in which “the knowledge of how to enter space has been lost. Even the ability to fly the stratosphere is now only a matter of historical record” (p. 109). Here, the people live in isolated sectors designed by a couple of men, Jakob and Ian. These sectors are managed by mothers and watchers. “The communities [as observed by a traveller] were varied, and there was no overt communication between them at all. Each one already had its own history, a past, a culture” (p. 108). They are dramatically different from each other. “It’s commonplace for what is correct in one community to have precisely the opposite significance in another” (p. 108).
Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, edited by Lee Mandelo: What is particularly enjoyable about this book is that it offers a range of perspectives and experiences from a spectrum of authors, including newer folks, multi-award winners, and everyone in-between. I appreciate deeply that this isn’t exclusively “bestselling authors;” at the same time, the quality of the work will not disappoint readers.
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson: The second thing I enjoyed about The Raven Scholar was the people. While Hodgson focuses primarily on Neema as the protagonist of the book, there are plenty of asides and opportunities to get to know the rest of the cast—and what a cast it is. There is the trickster friend, the brooding warrior, the tyrannical emperor, the mercurial narrator . . . and the amazing feat that Hodgson pulls is that those initial descriptions both sum up the characters and barely scratch the surface.
We Are Not Anonymous by Stephen Oram: ‘We Are Not Anonymous’ bubbles with ideas of what changes we might see in society. Crucially, it runs with themes of what can happen when oligarchs do not use their power for the benefit of society, the effects and consequences of adapting to climate change, and the increasing pervasiveness of AI and their control over human lives. Not all the consequences tend towards dystopia; too many do.
A Canticle For Leibowitz: still radiating genius?: For those uninitiated, Canticle isn’t your average irradiated-rubble-and-mutant-zombie fest. Miller instead gives us monks in desert monasteries painstakingly preserving scraps of scientific knowledge, blissfully unaware they’re probably safeguarding the next apocalypse’s instruction manual. Think of it as the ultimate recycling project—history repeats itself, though admittedly with fewer eco-friendly points and more glowing mushrooms.
The Where, the Who & the What: A Gnostic Science Fiction Novel by J.R. Mabry: One of the highest points in the novel is the final breaking of the seal for the gnostic initiates, which is an orgy the likes of which rivals that depicted in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. The reader is led to see this as a positive breakthrough for Seth, who has had difficulty with his sexual relationship to Becky, and as it is described, it appears to be a spiritual experience as well. However, nothing is as it appears to be.
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose: While it has dragons and an academy, it really is mostly a story about colonisation, racism and the way western society tends to destroy cultures wherever it goes, while actually believing they are doing those “savages” a favour.
A Deliberate Act of Violence by Steve McHugh: This series is one of the best things to happen in years! Finally, a vampire book that isn’t about romance, nor just another horror novel. It firmly belongs in the urban fantasy category, and I really wish there were more like it.
So, aside from vampires, who are too busy with political scheming, committing terrible acts, killing people, selling weapons, or trying to stop each other, to think about sex all day, what makes this series so good?
Quite a few things:
1) McHugh excels at writing diverse, well-rounded characters with healthy relationships.
Quicksilver by Callie Hart: Quicksilver by Callie Hart is action-packed with new worlds, a unique magic system, and an enemies-to-lovers romance, including a shadow daddy.
The Sirens by Emilia Hart: Last year, Weyward kept me spellbound as I read Emilia Hart’s debut novel about magic being passed down through generations and the three women who are connected by it. The Sirens being Hart’s second standalone release equally enchanted and enthralled me much like the titular mythical creatures. Told through dual timelines, The Sirens is a tale of sisterhood at the very core.
Michael Whelan: But this series poses many problems for illustrators, because Burroughs always portrayed Barsoom as being or having more than Earth. For example, there are nine colors in the Barsoomian spectrum—that alone is a challenge for an Earthly artist!
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