I admit that I’m not a big fan of short story collections. I’m thrown off by the wild jumps in setting, narrative voice, and theme, so I tend to only read three or four stories before getting distracted by a novel. My exception is for collections of interlocking stories, set in the same world, dealing …

Sylvain Neuvel really doesn’t like conventional narrative formats. His debut trilogy, the Themis Files (Sleeping Giants, Waking Gods, and Only Human) was written entirely as “found” documents, everything from transcribed interrogations to diary entries. Now he’s back with a Tor.com novella, which is told in the form of a 25-question test. But of course, even …

Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions for Geekly, Inc.! I loved The City in the Middle of the Night, and I know that our readers are eager to learn more about January and your processes in creating it. To start with, let’s talk about January, a planet locked between boiling sun …

“‘We measure the freedom of human beings by their ability to change with their environment. The only truly alien influence is the dead grasping fingers of our own past.’” (296) Charlie Jane Anders wrote the cypher for her own The City in the Middle of the Night, an inventive work of science fiction interested in …

This book begins with a young man in a prison cell, chatting with his torturer. It also begins with a young man being sold as a slave at auction. And then it begins a third time with a young man casing an empty house, finding far more than a simple burglar should find. They’re all …

I’ve been a fan of Django Wexler since his first book, Memories of Empire, came out in 2005. He impressed me then with his atypical characters and understated wit, and that has remained a reassuring constant in this cruel, chaotic world. Isoka, our heroine for Ship of Smoke and Steel, is another great leading lady …

Please note that this review contains spoilers for the His Fair Assassin trilogy by Robin LaFevers. Courting Darkness is an immediate followup to the trilogy, beginning only a few days after the end of Mortal Heart. Sybella was my favorite of the three protagonists from the His Fair Assassin trilogy, and I’m thrilled to see …

Wicked King – Jude, mortal schemer in the high court of Faerie, is back with a vengeance in this second book of a planned trilogy. Actually, she’s back with several vengeances. Although she controls the High King, she still has enemies to thwart, tormentors to punish, and people she needs to protect. This is, ironically, …

As opening scenes go, Paraic O’Donnell’s The House on Vesper Sands has the spirit of Portrait of a Lady or Pride and Prejudice. I’ve seldom read something so perfectly formed in tone, characterization, prose, and mood. Each word is in its right place, elaborating the setting and deepening our understanding of the characters with the kind …

Ancient Greeks really liked snakes. So did most cultures of the Mediterranean and Ancient Near Eastern world; it was only later that snakes got a devilish reputation. Living their lives hugged so closely to the earth, they were thought to have deep wisdom, and because they shed their skin, they were symbols of longevity and …