Five-Twelfths of Heaven, by Melissa Scott

Five-Twelfths of Heaven by Melissa Scott My rating: 3 of 5 stars I have so many mixed feelings on this novel. So... context first. I picked it at random off the shelves, and decided to read it because I liked the title. If you look at the cover, note that it shows a blond woman …

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Keys to the Kingdom – Elliott Downing

The Keys to the Kingdom by Elliott Downing My rating: 5 of 5 stars Surprising and fantastic story Pretty much everything I look for in weird fiction. First person present tense always gets a thumbs up from me. If you are one of those readers who are dubious about FPPT, give this a try; it …

You Should Come With Me Now, by M. John Harrison

You Should Come With Me Now: Stories of Ghosts by M. John Harrison My rating: 4 of 5 stars Swinging back to leave a review for this book, although I finished it a few months back. I think this is a must-have for fans of genre-bending literary short fiction. The writing is stunning, in a …

The Brief History of the Dead, by Kevin Brockmeier

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier My rating: 5 of 5 stars I seem to be having an AMAZING reading month. I can't remember the last time I read so many 4+ star stories in a short time frame (we'll give 'Consider Phlebas' a pass, and roll it into the Culture books …

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks My rating: 5 of 5 stars Late to the party, but this was excellent. I stayed up far later than I should have done to finish it; the kind of story that reminds me why I love scifi so much. This is what I mean about Banks …

Review: Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

Ehhhhhh. It's Banks, so I was never *not* entertained, but overall the book fell short for me.

Review: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer

The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation / Authority / Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fascinating NB: Review is for the trilogy overall. On an individual basis, I'd probably give Annihilation 5 stars, Authority 4 stars, and Acceptance 4.5 stars. ### Short review: As fascinating as it was frustrating; as triumphant as …

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer

Yet There Are Statues

When Strange Horizons asked me to contribute to their 2016 Best of the Year wrap-up, I immediately knew my entry would have to discuss Too Like the Lightning, my favorite novel not only of 2016 but of the last decade. The natural question to ask me, then, one I certainly asked myself, is if it’s so great, why haven’t I actually written a review of it? Well, for a variety of reasons I haven’t reviewed much of anything in a while, so with the sequel arriving today it seemed like a great time to both reread Too Like the Lightning and actually write about it this time.

The novel takes place in a future where humanity has flying cars, a moon base, and robots that make full time jobs strictly optional. Humanity is also enjoying lasting world peace, having given up geographic nation states, organized religion, and even gendered…

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Metronome, by Olive Langmead

Metronome by Oliver Langmead My rating: 4 of 5 stars Relative to the wider population of fantasy books available, literary fantasy is in short supply. Partly this is down to readership; most readers prefer a touch of literary at most, but many more don't seek that sort of discussion within their novels (which is, of …

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro My rating: 3 of 5 stars I originally started this novel awhile back, and gave up about a third of the way in because I wasn't enjoying it. However, I restarted it once more on the recommendation of a friend. My overall experience of the novel was one …

Too Like the Lightning – Ada Palmer

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer My rating: 5 of 5 stars If I could define Too Like the Lightning in a word, it would probably be "overwhelming". That perhaps seems at odds given my rating, but it is fully immersive, carefully thought out and planned, densely written, complex, layered, intelligent, powerful. There aren't …

The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton

The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton My rating: 4 of 5 stars Clever and detailed, not to mention elegantly written, but ultimately the narrative is constrained by the very strictures it sets out to explore and (I felt) a little lacking in emotional depth, despite being in first person. I have a pretty high tolerance …

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky My rating: 4 of 5 stars I found this surprisingly good. Surprising because I tend towards the soft and literary end of SFF, and also because I bloody hate spiders. So much hate. I looked up the author and was not at all surprised to see his roleplay interests. …

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins My rating: 5 of 5 stars Ambitious and dramatic--a riveting story of how a group of people are changed by their traumatic childhood, told through the filter of a speculative fiction novel about a woman who is trying to become God. To understand my review, let me …

Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb

Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb My rating: 2 of 5 stars Some good dialogue between the characters, but seriously poor overall. The narrative was feebly constructed, and events seemed to occur mostly as a vehicle for fitting in as many series cameos as possible even though it made little sense for those people to be …

The Etched City by K J Bishop

The Etched City by K.J. Bishop My rating: 5 of 5 stars Simply brilliant. It does require a lot of patience, this novel, since around 60% of it is setup for a series of events which, at the beginning, seem to bear no relation to anything else that is going on. My advice is to …

On Blue’s Waters – Gene Wolfe

On Blue's Waters by Gene Wolfe My rating: 5 of 5 stars Retro Thursday, you cry? Well, I've studiously avoided anything to do with Blue/Green/Whorl for years, out of a deep-seated but legitimate terror that I'd discover Patera Silk had actually died, either at the end of Long Sun or in the intervening time. He …

The Name of The Wind review

Everytime I think about deconstructing why I dislike Name of the Wind so much, I end up just coming back to re-read this post. It says everything better than I could do, anyway.

Doing In The Wizard

The Ballad of Dirk Oxenhammer: An Origin Story in Three Parts

Dirk Oxenhammer, veteran literary editor, sat back in his zebra-skin armchair and surveyed the pile of manila envelopes on his desk, each one adorned with a large red REJECTED! stamp.  The exclamation mark wasn’t strictly necessary, but Dirk though it made the job a bit more fun. Sometimes he liked to imagine a loud buzzer went off every time he sentenced a manuscript to the trash pile. He’d have to see about getting one installed.

But for now, it was bourbon time.

Dirk opened the bottom drawer of his desk and selected a 92′ New Jersey Amber. He poured it into one of those round glasses with the flat bottoms that he’d seen on Mad Men and lit a cigar, letting the smoke curl around the glass in a way that seemed particularly gritty and hard-boiled. It was at…

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The Power – by Naomi Alderman

The Power by Naomi Alderman My rating: 3 of 5 stars I'd give 3.5 but Goodreads doesn't really do half stars for individual reviews. Generally speaking, I prefer subtle meta discussions and clear plots. The Power is part of a trend/subgenre of slightly dystopian spec fic that likes to have those things the other way …

Dark Eden, by Chris Beckett

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett My rating: 4 of 5 stars Like a lot of reviewers, I'm not sure how I feel about Dark Eden. It didn't bore me, which is always a good thing - the question is whether the total sum reactions are positive or negative. In the end I came down with …

Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey My rating: 5 of 5 stars I would describe this book as "masochist woman with slightly magical vagina conquers the world". Note - this is not a criticism. It's well written, amusing, intricate, interesting. It's nice to read a book where people don't have sexual hangups, which is straight faced …

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Uprooted by Naomi Novik My rating: 5 of 5 stars Much like the heroine herself, this book should not work. It has all the ingredients for something foppish and cliche and yet it is a very good fantasy novel. Confidently written, well paced, enjoyable (even funny in many places), with refreshingly angst-free protagonists. View all …

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin My rating: 4 of 5 stars Like many LeGuin books I wasn't sold on the beginning; the psychiatrist stuff is quite dated and poorly done. However the book is excellent conceptually and many of the "dated" concepts can be explained away by the narrative functions existing …

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand My rating: 1 of 5 stars I can't say enough how much I disliked this book. It's so bad I felt physically ill after finishing it (and yes I did choose to finish it anyway, because how else could I form a comprehensive opinion, especially if I don't at least …

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is valuable, not only for introduction it provides into philosophy, but for the compassion and integrity with which it is presented. Bertrand Russell writes, "When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should …

Wings of a Falcon by Cynthia Voigt

The Wings of a Falcon by Cynthia Voigt My rating: 5 of 5 stars Fantasy books get a lot of flack from "established" literature. Children or young adult fantasy books get ignored by adult fantasy readers. So between the two, I guess it's not surprising to find that this book is an undiscovered gem. But …