"'Fake sun again today, I'm afraid.'" It's Sci-Fi Month - what better time to look back at the rather daunting backlog of NetGalley ARCs I never quite got to, and see what fits? And even better if it's something short to pad out those yearly reading stats 😉 We seem to be at something of … Continue reading Existence Augmented – Channing Whitaker
"Once upon a time, a knight came riding into the holler." The Knight and the Butcherbird comes with the description, "A dystopian fairy tale" and honestly I can't beat that. And I am in awe of how much of a world is conjured up in just 36 pages! The post-apocalyptic setting feels all-too bleak, with … Continue reading The Knight and the Butcherbird – Alix E Harrow
"Are you just a little tired of reading science fiction novels that take eons to finish?" A good short story is a hard thing to achieve. A good science fiction short story is nigh on a miracle, given that the genre benefits from world building and explanations of the 'otherness' presented. And so, while not … Continue reading New Adventures in Space Opera – various
"There was only one kind of weather in Camp Sunshine, and the wind threw rain by the rattling bucketload against the office window as Derek leaned myopically close to the typewriter's platen." Back in the 80s, the growing popularity of the role-playing board game, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), met with a confused moral panic. In … Continue reading A Conventional Boy – Charles Stross
"I was contemplating the fragments of an unidentified animal's skull, late on a wet, windy Friday in March, when a voice said, 'Booth? Is that you?'" I first met Kyle Murchison Booth in A Theory of Haunting, a 2006 novella I picked up after discovering that the author, Sarah Monette, also wrote under the name Katherine … Continue reading The Bone Key – Sarah Monette
"Whenever I get asked how I develop some part of my books - a magic system, a fantastical species, some invented history - the answer is always that I never do it in advance. Every story and every novel starts for me with a first line that makes me want to know more myself ... … Continue reading Buried Deep and Other Stories – Naomi Novik
"Look outward beyond the stars..." The Far Reaches is a collection of six short stories by some of the biggest names in sci-fi. Each tale takes a view of the - yup, you can guess! - furthest reaches of the universe, be that in distance or time, or both. The stories are available individually from … Continue reading The Far Reaches – various
It feels a little churlish to be less than glowing in my praise of this book, given it comes from both personal and worthy aims. Editor, Shawn Speakman, intends this to be a companion piece to both Unbound, and Unfettered II. As well as profits going to help pay medical bills for authors in need, these … Continue reading Unbound II: New Tales by Masters of Fantasy – various
I always enjoy seeing these posts on other blogs, but to be honest didn't feel I 'acquired' (ahem) enough books in a week to make it worth while. Why did it take me so long to think about a monthly haul post, instead?! This month has been very generous on the book-buying, hurrah, so suddenly the … Continue reading Stacking the Shelves – January 2023
"When the Nine Worlds were still very young, there were no stories." Honeycomb is a collection of dark, fable-like short stories, all set in the same world of myth and fairy tale, many of which centre around the same few characters while others take us on detours. I believe this is called a 'mosaic' collection, … Continue reading Honeycomb – Joanne M Harris
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