Reviewed over at Tor.com:
Craddock weaves a tangled web of intrigue leavened with swashbuckling acts of daring. It’s easy to care about Craddock’s characters, and to feel for their perils, for these are lively characters, vividly compelling, and very human. And his worldbuilding is immensely fun, despite its more sinister elements.
Reviewed over at Tor.com:
A Song for Quiet is a short piece of work. So short that when I set out to review it, I wondered how much I would have to say. But Khaw has a real gift for writing truly disturbing horror with a solid core of human empathy and… I won’t say hope, exactly, but a sense that in the face of horror, persistence and humanity still matter. Khaw’s prose breaks open unsettling visions of twistedness, of things wrong and inimical to human life and sanity. (Really, it left me quite perturbed and in need of a comforting hug and a warm drink.)
A new column over at Tor.com.
So, over at Tor.com, there’s a review of Spencer Ellsworth’s Starfire: A Red Peace and a new Sleeps With Monsters column.
I’m a little bit overwhelmed with worry about the stack of work I need to do, so I’m just going to leave it at that for this week.
A new column over at Tor.com, that I am behind in telling you about:
At this time of year, perhaps we should talk about award lists and award winners—but really, I’d rather talk about the entertaining stuff that hasn’t made it onto the award lists. Like Sarah Kuhn’s Heroine Complex and its sequel, Heroine Worship. I missed Heroine Complex when it came out last year, but I’m glad to have been able to catch up on these two unique entries in the superhero(ine) subgenre. Well, unique as far as I can tell: there aren’t that many superhero stories that star Asian-American women and mix soap opera, action, and comedy.
A new column over at Tor.com:
I’m not exactly well known for my appreciation of the romantic comedy genre—it tends to grate—but like so much else, a really well done example can overcome all my objections. Especially if it’s short.
Reviewed over at Tor.com:
The Half-Drowned King is historical fiction, set in Norway during the early years—and early campaigns—of Harald Fair-hair, whom later history remembers as the first king of Norway. (Much of Harald’s life and reign is contested historical territory: there are no contemporary or near-contemporary accounts of his life.) Hartsuyker chooses not to focus on Harald himself, but instead on two siblings from a coastal farm, Ragnvald Eysteinsson and his sister Svanhild.
I’m in Uppsala. Here’s a post from Tuesday over at Tor.com!
This week I want to talk about two recent works, one by Finnish writer Leena Likitalo, and one by Singapore-based J.Y. Yang. It seems fitting to talk about the works of international writers as I head off to the Worldcon, somehow.
Reviewed over at Tor.com:
Arabella and the Battle of Venus leaves me feeling rather bombarded by the way it foregrounds its particular racisms without ever really showing the world from marginalised people’s points of view. For some people, this won’t be a barrier to their enjoyment of the novel. For me, it took all the joy out of reading about airships in space. As far as I’m concerned, Robyn Bennis’ The Guns Above does airships, capers, and 19th-century-esque warfare much better.
Reviewed over at Strange Horizons:
In some ways, Wolf Moon feels more like a sprawling family saga than the tightly intricate political/corporate/criminal thriller that was New Moon. Here there is no instigating event, like the assassination attempt in New Moon, that unfolds into an escalating series of crises. Rather, Wolf Moon deals with disintegration and with consequences: the disintegration first of the Corta family and the consequences of their fall from power, the disintegration of the Mackenzie family into warring factions, after an act of malice destroys their main family holding just like they destroyed the Cortas’ family seat, and the disintegration of all the old norms and certainties on the moon.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 