Reviews

blue with orange rectangle, cover for The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Books Reviews 

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami (Pantheon 978-0593317600, $29.00, 336pp, hc) March 2025.

This may sound like an odd question, but are algorithms starting to take over the narrative func­tion that psi powers once served in SF? The idea of preventing crimes by pre-emptively arresting supposed perpetrators has been around at least since Orwell’s notion of ‘‘thoughtcrimes,’’ and in the 1950s this became the province of psioni­cally gifted folks like ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Augur: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

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Augur 7.3

Augur 7.3 starts off on a high note with A.D. Sui’s “One Becomes Two”, a gor­geous and subtly eerie story. A couple married for 15 years travels to Greenland to study a mysterious sludge causing the local wildlife population to act like a single-cell organism, sharing thoughts and knowledge. The narrator is tired of existing in their spouse’s shadow and feeling their own life and ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Combat Monsters: Untold Tales of World War II, edited by Henry Herz: Review by Paul Di Filippo

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Combat Monsters: Untold Tales of World War II, edited by Henry Herz (Blackstone 979-8874748432, trade paperback, 384pp, $18.99) February 2025

Henry Herz, we learn from the ancillary matter in the new original anthology Combat Monsters, has assembled six other anthologies, and yet I found myself unfamiliar with his name. The answer to my lamentable ignorance is that his prior books are intended for the Young Adult market — ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

GigaNotoSaurus, Lightspeed, and Small Wonders: Reviews by Charles Payseur

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GigaNotoSaurus 12/24 Lightspeed 12/24 Small Wonders 12/24

December’s GigaNotoSaurus is Sabrina Vourvou­lias’s “Dead reckoning in 6/8 time”, a story that finds Adriana remembering her mother’s stories about being a bailadora in Mexico and losing a contest to the devil himself. Which means that, now that her mother has passed, her soul is the devil’s, and that doesn’t sit well with Adriana, who determines that she will succeed ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Waterblack by Alex Pheby: Review by Ian Mond

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Waterblack, Alex Pheby (Tor 978-1-250-81729-7, $32.00, 640pp, hc) January 2025.

Toward the end of Waterblack, in the middle of one of several appendices, the omniscient narrator, who has held our hand across three novels, tells us that the “violent intentions” of one of the novel’s key antagonists, intentions that are to “fuel a series of later events,” intentions that “would end in… success… in the matter of killing ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Legacy of Arniston House by T.L. Huchu: Review by Colleen Mondor

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The Legacy of Arniston House, T.L. Huchu (Tor 978-1-250-88309-4, $29.99, 400pp, hc) November 2024. Cover by Leo Nickolls.

When I sat down the week before Christ­mas to review The Legacy of Arniston House, the latest in T.L. Huchu’s Ed­inburgh Nights series, I had all four of his books stacked up beside my computer. I began reading the series just after Thanksgiving and quickly blew through the adventures of ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

We Lived on the Horizon by Erika Swyler: Review by Jake Casella Brookins

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We Lived on the Horizon, Erika Swyler (Atria 9781668049594, $28.99, 336pp, hc) January 2025. Cover design by Laywan Kwan.

The ingredients of Erika Swyler’s We Lived On the Horizon are familiar enough: embodied AI, a highly stratified society, a postapocalyptic city os­sifying from techno-utopia to classist nightmare. But Swyler’s combination feels fresh; the main characters here move almost, though not entirely, outside the “real” plot, the revolution planners and ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Year’s Best Science Fiction on Earth 2, edited by Allan Kaster: Review by Alexandra Pierce

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The Year’s Best Science Fiction on Earth 2, Allan Kaster, ed. (Infinivox 978-1-88461-276-3, $19.99, 275pp, tp) December 2024. Cover by Maurizio Manzieri.

With anthology series that focus on robots and AI, and on space and time, I was surprised to come across Infinivox and Allan Kaster doing a series about science fiction on Earth itself; it seemed too mundane. Kaster addresses this in the first line of his introduction, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Garden, by Nick Newman: Review by Paul Di Filippo

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The Garden, Nick Newman (Putnam’s 978-0593717738, hardcover, 400pp, $29.00) February 2025

Any SF reader worthy of the name must be conversant with The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, helmed by John Clute, et al. An online treasure house of knowledge, continuously updated and freely accessible, it’s a reference work I have relied on and quoted from innumerable times.

Less well-known is that team’s Encyclopedia of Fantasy. This mammoth ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Cast of Wonders, Strange Horizons and Hexagon Winter: Reviews by Charles Payseur

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Cast of Wonders 12/3/24 Strange Horizons 11/18/24, 12/9/24 Hexagon Winter ’24

Alexander Hewitt defies genre horror expecta­tions in “Emily” from the December Cast of Wonders. In it, a queer couple who are trying to adopt buy an old doll in anticipation of their new family member, only for the doll to begin to exhibit some… alarming behaviors. The narrator at first attributes these spooky goings-on to her partner ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Galaxy Raiders: Abyss, by Ian Douglas: Review by Paul Di Filippo

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Galaxy Raiders: Abyss, Ian Douglas (Harper Voyager 978-0063205741, trade paperback, 400pp, $18.99) February 2025

I think most folks are well aware of how SF/F/H concepts trickle out into the public domain, and percolate through the minds of citizenry who might never have read a relevant book or even experienced a relevant media presentation. Take “teleportation,” for instance. Once an abstruse notion that meant nothing to the average citizen of ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Analog: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

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Analog 11-12/24

“That Far, Uncharted Ocean” by Auston Haber­shaw in the November/December issue of Analog features recurring characters and a world appear­ing in previous Analog stories by the author. Amos Tambly is recruited by the Thraad, snaillike aliens, who want to win a sailing regatta but have no knowledge of boats and are afraid of the ocean. Amos agrees, but ultimately learns that the Thraad intend to wipe ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Zodiac Rising by Katie Zhao: Review by Colleen Mondor

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Zodiac Rising, Katie Zhao (Random House 978-0-593-64641-0, $19.99, 416pp, hc) October 2024. Cover by Deb JJ Lee.

Author Katie Zhao opens her young adult fantasy thriller Zodiac Rising with a brief prologue ex­plaining the history behind 12 Chinese warriors, based on the zodiac calendar, who were sum­moned centuries ago in response to a royal plea to battle monsters known as Wrathlings. Their lineage brought peace to the land until ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

SHORT TAKE: Keith Roberts’s Pavane: A Critical Companion by Paul Kincaid: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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Keith Roberts’s Pavane: A Critical Compan­ion, Paul Kincaid (Palgrave Macmillan 978-3031715662, $37.99, 86pp, hc) November 2024.

For the past couple of years, Palgrave has been publishing a series of short “critical companion” monographs each focusing on a single title of what it calls the “new canon”; books covered so far include The Last Unicorn, Dune, The Hobbit, Neuromancer, Neverwhere, The Stars My Desti­nation, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Flash Fiction Online, Goblins & Greatcoats by Travis Baldree, and Unquiet on the Eastern Front by Wole Talabi: Reviews by Charles Payseur

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Goblins & Greatcoats, Travis Baldree (Subter­ranean) June 2024. Unquiet on the Eastern Front, Wole Talabi (Subterranean) October 2024. Flash Fiction Online 11/24

Subterranean Press has recently been of­fering short fiction online for free, and I’m catching up with June’s “Goblins & Greatcoats” by Travis Baldree, which follows Zyll, a goblin escaping the rain and road at a small inn which just happens to be at ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Juice by Tim Winton: Review by Alexandra Pierce

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Juice, Tim Winton (Picador 978-1-76134-489-3, AUD$45.00, 528pp, hc) October 2024. Cover by Adam Laszczuk.

Here’s an admission that would elicit a gasp from the Australian literary elite: I have never read a Tim Winton novel. Worse, I read the opening of one of his most famous novels and I hated it. But then I read Juice. And if all his novels hit like that for people who like realism… ...Read More

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Books Reviews Short Fiction 

Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids by Leyna Krow: Review by Jake Casella Brookins

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Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids, Leyna Krow (Penguin 9780593299654, $19.00, 304pp, tp) January 2025. Cover design by Nerylsa Dijol.

Leyna Krow’s Sinkhole, and Other Inexpli­cable Voids is a dazzling, vivid collection. Throughout its 16 stories, Krow expertly threads together a handful of elements: magical or absurd developments, incisive snapshots of familial loves and fears, and haunting reflections on climate change disasters. Shared thematic con­cerns and a handful of connected ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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One Level Down, Mary G. Thompson (Tachyon 978-1-61696-430-6, $16.95, 176pp, tp) April 2025.

Mary G. Thompson is another middle-grade and young-adult author now venturing into adult SF with One Level Down, an efficient VR thriller with some fairly familiar elements skillfully handled and given additional punch by a memorable narrator, a megalomaniacal villain who echoes the ‘‘mad scientists’’ of yore, and a persistent undertone of psychological horror. While ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram: Review by Gabino Iglesias

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Coup de Grâce, Sofia Ajram (Titan Books 978-1-80336-962-4, $19.99, 144pp, hc) October 2024.

Sofia Ajram’s Coup de Grâce is a relentlessly dark and visceral novel about a man on his way to commit suicide who somehow becomes trapped in the endless liminal space of an empty subway station. Beautifully written and claustrophobic in the way only empty liminal spaces can be, this short novel delivers breathtaking lines along with ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison: Review by Liz Bourke

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The Tomb of Dragons, Katherine Addison (Tor 978-1-250-81619-1, $28.99, 352pp, hc) March 2025. Cover by Chris Gibbs.

It is impossible for me to overstate how much I enjoy the novels of Katherine Addison set in the world of The Goblin Emperor. Their only real competition, for me, is the ‘‘World of the Five Gods’’ continuity of Lois McMaster Bujold: the sense of being in the hands of a ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar (Tordotcom 978-1-250-34108-2, $24.99, 144pp, hc) March 2025.

Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots is an absolutely lovely take on classic murder ballads, with distinct echoes of the Tam Lin story and a soundtrack that might as well be wall-to-wall Steeleye Span. It might come as a bit of a surprise to readers who know El-Mohtar’s work only from the popular and multiple award-winning ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Mechanize My Hands to War by Erin K. Wagner.: Review by Niall Harrison

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Mechanize My Hands to War, Erin K. Wagner (DAW 978-0-7564-1934-9, $28.99, 309pp, hc) December 2024. Cover by Faceout Studio, Tim Green.

From a novel in which voice overmasters genre we move to one in which genre more or less overmasters voice. Erin K. Wagner’s debut novel, Mechanize My Hands to War, isn’t badly told or badly imagined per se, but most of what is imagined is familiar and, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar: Review by Liz Bourke

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The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar (Tor­dotcom 978-1-250-34108-2, $24.99, 144pp, hc) March 2025.

Amal El-Mohtar is perhaps most famous as the co-author (with Max Gladstone) of the justly lauded bestselling novella This Is How You Lose the Time War. Her independent talents, however, are numerous, and in her new solo novella The River Has Roots, several of them are on display.

The River Has Roots is intertwined ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Orb of Cairado by Katherine Addison: Review by Abigail Nussbaum

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The Orb of Cairado, Katherine Addison (Subterranean 978-1-64524-213-0, 120pp, $45.00, hc) January 2025. Cover by Tom Canty.

A similar question arises for the protagonist of the standalone novella The Orb of Cairado. Like the Cemeteries of Amalo books, it is an offshoot of Addison’s Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-nominated novel The Goblin Emperor (2014) – more directly, perhaps, as their actions kick off from the same event, ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson: Review by Gabino Iglesias

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Good Night, Sleep Tight, Brian Evenson (Cof­fee House Press 978-1-56689-709-9, $19.00, 229pp, hc) September 2024. Cover by Jeffrey Alan Love.

When it comes to inhabiting and traversing the interstitial spaces between genres, no one does it better than Brian Evenson. Science fiction, hor­ror, and literary fiction are the main three genres Evenson writes, but the bridges he builds between those genres – and the brilliant way in which he ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Asimov’s: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

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Asimov’s 11-12/24

The November/December issue of Asimov’s opens with “Death Benefits”, a novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A series of vignettes highlight various casualties of war, interspersed with the story of Davidson Turo, a private investigator who is approached by a client who has seen foot­age of her lover’s death, but is convinced it’s fake and that he’s still alive. Rusch does a lovely job of exploring ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Fusion Fragment, GigaNotoSaurus and Diabolical Plots 11/24: Short Fiction Reviews by Charles Payseur

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Fusion Fragment 11/24 GigaNotoSaurus 11/24 Diabolical Plots 11/24

November’s Fusion Fragment starts strong with Emry Jordal’s novelette “The Little Black Wand for Every Occasion”, in which a technology known as Serendipity is growing in popularity, though not without some controversy. It allows people a redo, erasing six minutes or so of time so that people can undo any “mistakes” they just made. In practice, it allows people ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Way Up Is Death by Dan Hanks: Review by Paul Di Filippo

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The Way Up Is Death, Dan Hanks (Angry Robot ‎978-1915202949, trade paperback, 368pp, $18.99) January 2025

Dan Hanks’s third novel (I remain sheepishly ignorant of his first two: Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire [2020] and Swashbucklers [2021]) is built around a very familiar concept: the physical, mental, and moral testing, by unknown agents, of a pack of aspirants or seekers or, as in this case, kidnapped ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Hot Singles in Your Area by Jordan Shiveley: Review by Gabino Iglesias

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Hot Singles in Your Area, Jordan Shiveley (Unbound 978-1-80018-341-4, $18.00, 208pp, tp) February 2025. Cover by Jack Smyth.

Some books are hard to categorize. Jordan Shiveley’s Hot Singles in Your Area is one of those books. Strangely funny and danc­ing to the strange sound of its own drum, this novel has one foot in body horror and one foot in something akin to bizarro fiction (think authors like Carlton ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto: Review by Alexandra Pierce

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Hammajang Luck, Makana Yamamoto (Gollancz 978-1-39961-679-9, £20.00, 336pp, hc) December 2024. Cover by Jordan Wolfe. (Harper Voyager 978-0-06343-082-2, $19.99, 368pp, tp). January 2025. Cover by Janelle Barone.

I love a heist story. Getting the conspirators together, finding out the plan, overcoming obstacles, finding out the real plan, watch­ing it all unravel and then neatly come back together… I know the beats of the story, and that’s part of what ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids by Leyna Krow: Review by Ian Mond

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Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids, Leyna Krow (Penguin 978-0-59329-965-4, $19.00, 304pp, tp) January 2025.

Leyna Krow’s terrific second collection, Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids, assembles 16 stories that take an askew, sometimes surreal, frequently funny attitude to the physical and emotional bonds that bind us (and octopuses) together.

“Sinkhole” is the collection’s title piece and has been optioned for a Hollywood adaptation, care of Jordan Peele and Issa ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Private Rites by Julia Armfield: Review by Niall Harrison

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Private Rites, Julia Armfield (Fourth Estate 978-0-00-860803-3, £16.99, 208pp, hc) June 2024. (Flatiron 978-1-250-59376-611-5, $27.99, 304pp, hc) December 2024.

I don’t know what the weather has been like this year where you live, but in the UK it has been wet. As I write in October, I think we are just about to exceed the 1991-2020 average for annual rainfall; in September, Southern Eng­land saw 233% of that average. ...Read More

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