From the brilliant opening of Nnedi Okorafor’s Remote Control, when we meet the confident Sankofa, just fourteen, walking a road in rural Ghana (“Small swift steps made with small swift feet”) the hints of her extraordinary power are everywhere. She is a subject of rumor, people hide from her approach, she wears adult clothes though […]
Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky – A Review
In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s tour de force, Elder Race, we first encounter Lynesse (Lyn), Fourth Daughter of the tough minded Queen of Lannesite, climbing the steep rugged slopes of a mountain to call forth a powerful wizard. As only the fourth daughter, Lyn is never taken seriously, but she is determined to change that by destroying […]
The Bone Ship’s Wake by R. J. Barker – A Review
The first two books of R. J. Barker’s The Tide Child trilogy (The Bone Ships and Call of the Bone Ships) blew me away with a sustained level of sheer excitement, inventive detail of a sea-faring world of two archipelagos, a great set of characters and incredible staging of naval battles. These books brought me […]
The Pastel City, a Novel of Viriconium by M. John Harrison – A Review
The Pastel City (1971) is the first story by M. John Harrison in his Viriconium fantasy sequence. This short novel drew me in immediately with its luminous prose and its ability to depict a world in ruins and a world of hope with just a few brilliant visual strokes. Though it begins with a prologue […]
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – A Review
Never having read Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, I picked up her Piranesi with no preconceptions about the sort of book it might be and promptly fell in love with it. It’s a masterful fable about life in this world that introduces us to the mind of a narrator who proclaims himself to […]
Taking on my SciFi TBR – Summer Wrap-Up
Well, I worked through this summer’s scifi TBR, adding a few more titles along the way, but not all of the novels and stories were quite right for me. I’ve already reviewed the four I really loved – books that changed me in some way. Those are Notes from the Burning Age, And What Can […]
