One of the things that makes Ling Ma’s stories in Bliss Montage so extraordinary is her ability to blend keen perceptions of human relationships with fantasy elements that somehow make the fantastic an intimate part of ordinary life. There is the house in “LA” the narrator shares with a hundred ex-boyfriends, the pickup date in […]
The Oleander Sword by Tasha Suri
In The Oleander Sword, the second novel of The Burning Kingdoms trilogy, Tasha Suri has produced an even more intensely involving and brilliant book than she did in The Jasmine Throne. That first novel richly explored the many selves and identities its characters had to adopt to survive as they strove to increase their power, […]
A Storm of Wings – A Novel of Viriconium by M. John Harrison
From the beginning of M. John Harrison’s A Storm of Wings (1980), you know you’re entering a shattered world with a diminishing human presence, but it is also a dazzling world captured in densely brilliant and beautiful prose. This second novel of the Viriconium series caught me by surprise. The first, The Pastel City (1971), […]
Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse
Rebecca Roanhorse has created a stark fantasy world in the weird west of her powerful novella, Tread of Angels. From its brilliant opening, as a dark and violent wind blowing off a mountain called Abaddon storms into the grim town of Goetia and slams down Perdition Street into the Eden, its main den of gambling […]
The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford – A Review for Wyrd & Wonder
John M. Ford’s The Dragon Waiting is a brilliant reshuffling of fantasy tropes and alternate history but at heart also a beautiful study of a group of extraordinary characters. First published in 1983, this is the first of Ford’s novels to be republished since his death in 2006 when, apparently because no one could trace […]
Moon Witch Spider King by Marlon James, A Review for Wyrd & Wonder
Marlon James’ Moon Witch Spider King (second book of the Dark Star trilogy) impressed me at first as everything I had missed in the first novel, Black Leopard Red Wolf. There was a story of emotional depth I could link into and a brilliant character I could care about, as opposed to the strangely alienating […]
