• Blog
  • About
  • Reviews
  • Great Series Read Project
  • Archive

SciFi Mind

Visions of Future Worlds

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Goodreads
  • Mastodon
You are here: Home / Archives for Fantasy Fiction

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill

By John Folk-Williams

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill

Kelly Barnhill’s The Crane Husband is, in many ways a companion piece to her longer work, When Women Were Dragons. In both, the desire of a woman to break free of the normal bounds of life takes literal form, but at great cost to others. In one case, they become dragons – at times on […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction Tagged With: art, coming of age, family, Kelly Barnhill, obsession, robots, shapeshifter, transformation

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

By John Folk-Williams

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee has turned in a bravura performance in the new novella, Untethered Sky. Set in a vividly imagined desert kingdom of Dartha, a young woman named Ester narrates the story of how she came to devote her life to raising and flying giant hunter birds called rocs. From an early age, when her brother […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction Tagged With: adventure, friendship, hunting, love, monsters, sacrifice

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

By John Folk-Williams

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

Set primarily in an alternative version of the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, Kelly Barnhill’s magnificent When Women Were Dragons tells many stories. There is the story of the mass dragoning of April 25, 1955, when over 642,987 mothers and wives stepped out of their human skins to live as dragons, and of […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction Tagged With: dragons, family, human emotion, Kelly Barnhill, liberation, memory, oppression, sapphic love

Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny – #VintageSciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

I had intended to write about a new science fiction novel this week, but that turned out to be a disappointment. So I’m eagerly diving into Nine Princes in Amber, the first book in Roger Zelazny‘s epic 10 volume fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber. This rounds out my contribution to the great not-a-challenge of […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction, Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: battle strategy, epic fantasy, family, imagination, memory, multiple worlds, power, Roger Zelazny, time travel

9 Favorite Fantasy Fiction Books I Read in 2022

By John Folk-Williams

Babel An Arcane History

Though I’ve usually thought of myself as a science fiction reader primarily, this year’s favorite fantasy fiction has shown me how diverse and vital this vast category can be. None of the nine books in this list resorts to the tired conventions of Eurocentric medieval-style settings and hero questing. Each one takes a completely original […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction, Favorite SFF Tagged With: Emery Robin, Jadie Jang, Leslye Penelope, Ling Ma, Liz Williams, Nicola Griffith, R.F. Kuang, Simon Jimenez, Tasha Suri

Monkey Around by Jadie Jang

By John Folk-Williams

Monkey Around by Jadie Jang

Here’s another great novel from 2021 I’m just catching up with. Claire Light, writing as Jadie Jang, has re-envisioned the Monkey King from the Chinese classic, Journey to the West, as Maya MacQueen, a shape-shifter twenty-something woman of the San Francisco Bay Area during the Occupy movement of 2011. Maya, while assuming human form as […]

Filed Under: Fantasy Fiction Tagged With: Asian-American, identity, indigenous culture, Jadie Jang, shape-shifting, urban fantasy

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 9
  • Go to Next Page »

Subscribe to SciFi Mind Posts



About SciFi Mind

nebula SciFiMind

Something is struggling to be born in this damaged and inspiring world, and I believe science fiction and its speculative cousins are helping us figure out what it is. It’s pushing the imaginations of fiction writers to bend and twist familiar forms to try to capture the forces that are hurling us into a barely conceivable future. This blog is my small way of exploring the half-perceived … Read More about About

Search SciFi Mind

Recent Posts

  • Furious Heaven by Kate ElliottFurious Heaven by Kate Elliott – Book 2 of The Sun Chronicles
  • The Mimicking of Known SuccessesThe Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
  • The Crane Husband by Kelly BarnhillThe Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill
  • Untethered Sky by Fonda LeeUntethered Sky by Fonda Lee

Categories

Twitter

John Folk-Williams Follow

SFMind

JL Thank you for following me!!

Reply on Twitter 1638350925340327941 Retweet on Twitter 1638350925340327941 Like on Twitter 1638350925340327941 Twitter 1638350925340327941

The Fiction Addiction 📚 Thank you for following me!!

Reply on Twitter 1638199805301121024 Retweet on Twitter 1638199805301121024 Like on Twitter 1638199805301121024 Twitter 1638199805301121024

A fine review - this book is next on my list: nerds of a feather, flock together: Review: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh http://www.nerds-feather.com/2023/03/review-some-desperate-glory-by-emily.html?spref=tw

Reply on Twitter 1637788987266940932 Retweet on Twitter 1637788987266940932 Like on Twitter 1637788987266940932 1 Twitter 1637788987266940932

Thanks for introducing me to another fine author: INFINITY GATE by M.R. Carey - Review https://booksbonesbuffy.com/2023/03/20/infinity-gate-by-m-r-carey-review/ via @tammy_sparks

Reply on Twitter 1637788691161546752 Retweet on Twitter 1637788691161546752 Like on Twitter 1637788691161546752 4 Twitter 1637788691161546752

Sounds like an incredible book: Why You Need to Read: "Assassin of Reality" https://mistyaquavenatus.com/2023/03/18/why-you-need-to-read-assassin-of-reality/ via @AquaVenatus #scifi #sff

Reply on Twitter 1637432091053813760 Retweet on Twitter 1637432091053813760 Like on Twitter 1637432091053813760 4 Twitter 1637432091053813760
Load More...

© 2023 Copyright by John Folk-Williams · Dynamik-Gen On Genesis Framework