That’s a Stephen King quote, by the way. The fuller quote is, “Fiction is a lie. Good fiction is the truth inside the lie.” It’s a statement that makes a complicated thing seem simple, which is another litmus test for good writing. Moses Ose Utomi succeeds on both accounts with The Lies of the Ajungo, …
Ever since conspiracies exploded into the mainstream in America and started ruining lives and families, I have been leery of them in fiction. As with our collective disinterest in dystopia, it’s hard to escape to a world that isn’t, well, much of an escape. And that’s a shame, because high-stakes espionage and the thrill of …
Technically, these are just my picks for the first half of 2023. There are too many good books, what can I say? Well, I can say: clear your calendars and get your favorite cozy chair ready, because here are 15 of the most awesome books coming out between January and July. The Saint of Bright …
In the world of Rebecca Schaeffer’s new City of Nightmares, a hundred years ago, people started having Nightmares. Unlike dreams that came before, and for reasons no one has yet been able to figure out, people who dreamed about their worst fears would become that which terrified them. A century of monstrousness followed, and the …
Cozy Fantasy is having a moment right now and for good reason: things are terrible. Not as terrible as they have been, mind you, but that’s a pretty low bar to trip over. The Mimicking of Known Successes however is the first Cozy Sci-Fi book I’ve read so far. You wouldn’t think the cold dark …
Fantasy has always had a gift for being malleable to incorporate other genres of fiction from horror, historical, mystery, folklore, fairy tale, humor, romance, suspense, and westerns, so why not slice of life? It has been a staple for anime for years and has become quite popular as a video game genre, so it’s about …
Jólabókaflóðið may look like a pretty stabby word, but it’s actually a delightful compound that literally means “Yule book flood.” It refers to an Icelandic tradition that makes books a traditional gift around the December holidays, and we’re all for instituting it more widely. Here are the books we read that we’re recommending for giving this year, …
I’m late to the party on The Helm of Midnight, published last year alongside so many other pandemic-delayed books. But please don’t let my tardiness imply anything negative about Marina Lostetter’s dark fantasy debut, a sleek mystery that rushes through a wildly inventive setting at a breathless—but remarkably sustained—pace. The Helm of Midnight could have …
I’ve always felt that visual art should make you feel something first, and secondarily aspire to teach, satirize, or otherwise comment on life. Where that feeling falls on the aesthetic spectrum doesn’t bother me as much—disgust can be a fascinating emotion, just as awe or beauty can—but we have to care before we want to …
The days of The Lord Ruler and his Final Empire are long behind the Wax and Wayne gang and us as readers. Yet, the rippling effect of Brandon Sanderson’s original Mistborn trilogy echoes all the way to the final book in Mistborn’s second era, The Lost Metal. Before now, the series stood alone in the …