One of the blurbs on the back of A Borrowed Man describes the book as “Wolfean.” Meaning, that it was written by and is quintessentially representative of Gene Wolfe, one of our modern SFF masters. This is simultaneously a very silly and very true thing to say, because of course what he writes ought to be …
The Clean Room #1 is a tantalizing first step into a world that is altogether a little too familiar. Everything is overexposed–in graphic detail–but somehow still full of hidden agendas. Each character’s story immediately dramatically unfair, and madness is in ample supply. It’s a comic very much for and about this suspicious generation, weaned on corporate marketing …
The first and only thing you need to know about this book is that it’s magnificently, enthrallingly, undeniably brilliant and you should read it. Immediately. Well, what are you waiting for? Go, go! Unconvinced? Sigh. Fine. Simon Snow is the Chosen One, but he’s a bit shaky on what exactly he’s been chosen for. After all, …
There’s a story about the punk movement that goes like this: Someone asked me “what is punk?” so I kicked over a garbage can. He kicked over another garbage can and asked, “so that’s punk?” “No,” I said. “That’s just trendy.” That’s pretty much what you need to know to start reading The Unnoticeables by …
Apparently it’s music week here at Geekly, because after the punk-rock showdown that was The Unnoticeables, we now have Last Song Before Night, a decidedly different take on what happens when you mix magic and musicians. Ilana C. Myer’s debut—coming out today!—introduces us to a world of uneasy peace between the vast network of musician-poets …
I’m a sucker for fairy tales. A large part of that probably comes from growing up in the golden age of Disney animation. Another large part of that comes from the fact that fairy tales–the real, original ones–acknowledge the horrors of life as well as the adventure and romance. For Sarah Pinborough, the terrors are the …
Oh, Nnedi Okorafor. You make the unknown familiar and the familiar delectably strange. You make magic more than just mathematical formulae, and you make math into magic. You turn earth into history, history in to myth, and myth back into reality. And you have really awesome hair. What can you not do? If there is …
The Library at Mount Char is one of my favorite books of 2015, and I sat down with author Scott Hawkins to discuss languages, dogs, and homicidal librarians. Christina Ladd: What had you picking languages as the focus of your book? Scott Hawkins: Part of it was my academic background in computer science, so I …
You know the adage “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”? Of course you do. No matter how much you might want to take issue with that, just don’t judge this book by this cover. I’m not sure what happened, but the text and the image don’t match at all. The jaunty, over-bright colors, the …
Angels are tricky. They’re not like vampires or werewolves (obviously): their motivations are opaque, and their weaknesses are practically nonexistent. They make poor monsters as a result, and even poorer heroes, prone to perfection as they are. Even worse, they’re often portrayed as extensions of a greater force; it’s not even clear if they have …