Grappling with the philosophical reality of clones is a trope as old as sci-fi. Teaming up with them comes up a lot. Killing them, too. But outsourcing killing your clones to another clone is a new one, and with a book a fun as Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by Maud Woolf, I’m. Here. …
Anji Kills a King wastes absolutely no time. With a title like that there’s no reason to beat around the bush, but Evan Leikam doesn’t even bother with setting the scene before we’re watching Anji coping with cleanup and escape. It’s bold, it’s striking, and it makes for a pulse-pounding introduction to the land of …
If you’re reading this right now I’m guessing you could use a break from the horrors of our current reality, might I suggest the horrors of not-so-different one? Stay with me here, because Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes is a spooky sci-fi thriller that says “Fuck Billionaire and AI…in spaaaaace!” It’s a little bit Alien, …
Every time a new Robert Jackson Bennett book comes out, I read it way too fast and then feel something I mostly otherwise feel after eating an entire bag of Cadbury mini-eggs: not regret—never!—but longing to return to the start, to experience the whole thing over again. I want to have both the anticipation and …
It’s not really the done thing, but in talking about The River Has Roots, the first offering from Amal El-Mohtar since she co-authored This Is How You Lose the Time War with Max Gladstone, I have to first at least mention Margaret Atwood. Or really, I have to mention Atwood’s famous “Spelling” poem, which so …
You know the drill. You drew your weird cousin in the family Secret Santa, but all you know is she likes books, and now it’s too late and/or awkward to ask her for specific titles, because shouldn’t you know more about your own cousin? (No. She is full of secrets on purpose.) As a high-ranking …
By now I hope you’ve read the nuanced and eloquent reviews of The Sky on Fire by Christina and Josh. This is not going to be one of those reviews, because everything they said I agree with and they said it better than I will. No, I’m here to give you a review of The …
Imagine you’ve lived in the same house for the past 20 years. You know where the creaky floorboard is and how to pull that door just right so it closes properly. You know every room intimately, and you have treasured memories in each from different stages of your life. Now imagine one day in this …
Mild spoiler warning: if you’re worried about spoilers for the first book, I recommend both books and I recommend reading them in order! If you’re not worried about mild spoilers for the first book, read on. – Usually, I can give some sense of the story’s shape by naming a genre or two, some simple …
When gods go to war, it is no small thing. The Shadows of Gods by John Gwynne is a Scandanavian-inspired grim and dark book that nevertheless avoids the common pitfalls that come with the label of grimdark fantasy. It is not grim for grim’s sake, as in, it is not without hope and light moments. …