If Charles Dickens had been locked in a room, given only 20th century fantasy to read for five years, and then told to produce a novel, he would have produced Mordew. Alex Pheby is only ostensibly the author; I’m still not entirely convinced that it isn’t an elaborate misdirect, and that Dickens isn’t really scribing …

In the Watchful City is an amazing novella, a stories-within-a-story narrative that unfolds and expands in bright fractals. We were lucky enough to be able to grab some of S. Qiouyi Lu’s time in advance of the book’s release on August 31 and ask her some questions about her work and philosophy What inspired this …

I am not a Hemmingway fan but I have to appreciate his comment on sleep: “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” This feels extremely true sometimes, but in fiction, sleep isn’t always safe from disaster either. Here are 15 stories that feature strange relationships with …

A Psalm for the Wild-Built, the new novella from Becky Chambers, though obviously brief, is a complete meal: it has the rich depth of philosophical reflection, the acid brightness of humor, and the unfamiliar spices of a whole new planet. (Well, moon.) Most of all it is satisfying. This is the kind of book that …

I was on page 27 when I realized I didn’t want this book to end. That’s early even for a particularly great book, and this is truly a particularly great book. From the very first pages to its last, its greatness shines. Elfreda is a low-ranking sister in the ruling theocracy of Aytrium, a small …

Is it weird to call a horror novel charming? Because Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is definitely charming. Disturbing, upsetting, and frightening yes, but it just starts out so endearingly, with a quirky little exchange about an antique apple peeler via emails. Agnes, a young woman trying to sell her family’s kitchen …

How important is a story to you? Important enough to hear? What about important enough to learn, so that you can tell it again? Is it important enough to preserve—important enough to write down, if you know how to write, important enough to recite if you can’t? Important enough to die for, to kill for? …

Zychtykas Three—Kas—is a broke mecha scholar from offworld. Zhi is a broke mecha fighter and also a broken mech fighter, using whatever she can scrape together to enhance an antique model for modern pit fights. When their lives collide, all manner of sparks start flying, although they have to risk everything to keep those sparks …

The WyldBoyZ aren’t your average boyband. Sure, they have “the smart one,” “the cute one,” “the shy one” and so on, but “the smart one” really does have an elephant’s memory, and “the cute one” really is kittenish. That’s because the boyz are genetic hybrids, each with the features of a specific animal: Matt the …

You might have known one. You might have been one. Or you might only have heard about them as yet another mythic creature on the internet: the girls (and boys, and nonbinary folks) who were obsessed with all things equine. Highly imaginative and yet necessarily down to earth, these special individuals might have been a …