Urban fantasy fans, watch out for this one, coming next month. It follows the classic UF structure, but takes it to a more thoughtful place by making relationships and family, in many different permutations, key throughout the book.
I understand this has just gone on sale at Amazon for 99c. It’s well worth picking up if you enjoy old-school space opera, smart, plucky, principled underdogs, and banter.
I have a story in Volume 2, but my five-star review is not influenced by that. Rather, it stems from the fact that these are well told, moving, clever, diverse and interesting SF stories.
This review turned into kind of a rant about literary vs genre and unexamined structural pessimism. Among other topics.
A fine example of mythopoeic fantasy: the protagonists don’t so much solve problems as come to realizations about themselves.
Another of my reviews, republished (by permission) on Fantasy Literature.
Originally shared by Fantasy Literature (FanLit)
Unexpected Stories: Challenging science fiction – Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler The late Octavia Butler wrote brilliant, challenging science fiction along more or less the same lines as Ursula K. Le Guin: the speculations are often anthropological, and she’s fascinated by how people interact. I read one of her XENOGENESIS novels years ago and found it the kind of powerful, disturbing book that I can only read occasionally. I was excited to hear that a couple of her unpublished storie…
I’ve had a few people leaving comments on my website to ask me to review books, so I’ve linked to my review policy and updated it.
tl;dr: I don’t do reviews by request, because most of the books I got (nearly all of them, in fact) were not very good or not to my taste. I now only review books I choose for myself.
(If I’ve reviewed one of your earlier books positively, though, feel free to offer me a later one. I may or may not accept, depending on how many other books I have in my queue at the time.)
Another of my reviews reprinted by Fantasy Literature.
Ignore the find-and-replace glitch, which I’ve alerted them to.
Originally shared by Fantasy Literature (FanLit)
The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories: Humane science fiction
This is an excellent anthology, which demonstrates what good shape SFF is in. Some powerful and excellent writing and plenty of fresh ideas.
N. K. Jemisin has a new column in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, and here’s the first instalment. I might take a look at the Charlie Jane Anders book; it sounds interesting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/books/review/the-latest-in-science-fiction-and-fantasy.html