Everfair by Nisi Shawl is an alternative history set in the Belgian Congo during King Leopold II’s reign. Instead of years of slavery, racism, and genocide a congregation of Fabian Socialist from Great Britain and African-Americans form their own nation called Everfair and resist Leopald’s subjugation and return to slavery. Though alternative history is not …
Spellbook of the Lost and Found – Moïra Fowley-Doyle’s debut, The Accident Season, was a quiet roar of a book that used suspenseful magic to get at some extremely heavy issues, and her second book is no different, except that it’s even better. It follows three groups of teenagers who collide after a party where …
The Penny Arcade Expo is, by design, a grind. Noise and sound and free things and kids and adults and cosplay and super-bad-for-you food. After two days, you feel it in your legs. After three days, your back. After four days, your soul. But if you wait in just the right lines and chug just …
One of the most unexpectedly enjoyable elements of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the cooking system. Link, during his journeys through Hyrule, can collect all manner of ingredients that he can combine over a cookfire. The results are innumerable meals and potions that can restore health, restore stamina or grant all sorts …
Annapurna Interactive is responsible for publishing what may well be one of the most visually beautiful and emotionally stirring video games of the last decade in What Remains of Edith Finch. They’re also the publisher for Gorogoa, a visually beautiful and emotionally stirring grid-based puzzle game. And they’re preparing to publish Kentucky Route Zero, a …
How do you top Nevernight, a book that’s basically Harry Potter for assassins, complete with magical, stairway-shifting school accessible only by diving through something that really shouldn’t be dived though? Well, actually the second installment does involve a diary and a giant snake, but that’s where the similarities end. Mia Corvere murders people to further her …
Assassins are popular these days. His Fair Assassin trilogy, which I thought was going to be stupid but which was a dazzlingly well-researched historical and religious drama, and Godsgrave, which was a crazy-cool assassin rock concert at full blast. Hit is about corporate assassins, and Throne of Glass is a competition for the best assassin. …
Since 2007, Steven King’s The Dark Tower has been in development hell shifting hands from J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Ron Howard before ultimately landing in the grasps of Akiva Goldman, Jeff Pinker, and Nikolai Arcel. With Idris Elba as Roland Deschain, Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers, and Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black, …
There’s a quote from Angela Carter’s “The Tiger’s Bride” that I particularly like: “The tiger will never lie down with the lamb; he acknowledges no pact that is not reciprocal. The lamb must learn to run with the tigers.” This is, of course, a riff on Isaiah’s oft-misquoted poetry about—not the lion and the lamb—but …
We’ve survived half a year beyond 2016! What an accomplishment, and what better way to celebrate than to look yet further forward. Deliberately without an order of preference and in order of release, here are my most anticipated titles of the coming six months. Wicked Like a Wildfire – Since magic is so often utilitarian …