Oh, Murderbot. Truly you are the avatar of our age, unwilling though you may be to serve as a representative of anything human. Less an antihero than an anti-everything-up-to-and-including-heroes, Murderbot is once again in fine form for this seventh installation of its* anti-corporate adventures. Only this time, in Martha Wells’ System Collapse, the corporate system …
Freya Marske’s A Power Unbound is impressive. This is Marske’s third queer historical fantasy romance set in a secret magical society in early 1900s England. Each book has had its own flavor of romance and sex scenes—this time that plot delivers kinky gay erotica. As in her previous entries in the trilogy, Marske delivers a …
Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo is, as is usual for any entry in the Singing Hills Cycle, a lot of stories in one story. Usually the interwoven tales are the result of Cleric Chih’s journeys as they collect tales for their abbey, but for this fourth installment, Chih has finally returned home to …
It’s no secret that I love Sailor Moon; it’s pretty much become my personal brand around here. So when I see a book pitched as Sailor Moon meets Cinder(ella) you KNOW I’m going to be onboard. I was incredibly delighted to find that while S. Jae-Jones’ Guardians of Dawn: Zhara is a little bit of …
City of Bones is a slowly accelerating adventure story with a hefty chunk of archaeological puzzle, a big dash of political intrigue, a few bits of theft and murder, and some complicated personal feelings to taste. Khat, a second (or maybe third) class member of Charisat society, is an expert in identifying and acquiring relics …
Based purely on growing up in the Disney era of fairy tales, at one point I would have said that Sleeping Beauty is the lamest of heroines. Problematic, of course, but also just boring. Clearly just a tale invented by a parent who really, really wanted to go to bed! But I’m so glad that …
Can the deliberate, repeated, and visceral slaughter of intimate partners be charming? I don’t think I’m allowed to say that, but after reading Walking Practice, I can’t help it. Perhaps better to say I’m charmed, safely in the past tense, by the wacky, brutal, and ultimately highly relatable tale of an alien trying to survive …
There were some pandemic novels about the pandemic itself, produced with a startling alacrity and provided by an industry eager to contend with the trauma if only so it could get back to business as normal. And so we got The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, Joan is Okay by Weike Wang, Companion Piece by Ali …
If you only take one thing from my review, it’s this: I love this book so much. So much. It is so good. It’s going to have a permanent place on my top shelf, only I’m sure it will actually live in a small pile of beloved books much closer to hand, getting its pages …
Martha Wells has been a lowkey legend for more than a decade now, and she just keeps pumping out the hits. Witch King is another solid entry to her canon, a standalone with sequel potential that quietly incorporates current discourse into her classic high fantasy style. This book reminded me of reading 90’s fantasy in …