Becky Chambers takes a real chance in Record of a Spaceborn Few. She sets aside conventional adventure plots to create a convincing human society in space that is actually hopeful. Hopeful, but not easy. From the outset of this novel, third in the Wayfarer series, we are reminded of how fragile life can be on […]
Fantasy City: The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz
Bruno Schulz’ The Street of Crocodiles (1934), translated by Celina Cieniewska for a 1989 edition, is one of those completely original works that defies categorization. I guess I would call it fantastika. It’s a linked collection of stories about a boy’s view of his Polish hometown filtered through the adult mind of an amazing writer. […]
The Art of Unseeing in China Mieville’s The City & The City
The City & the City by China Miéville takes the form of a murder mystery amplified by Miéville’s unique ability to find richly suggestive fantasy metaphors about our world. This one is about the art of unseeing or seeing only what you are permitted to recognize in the midst of the doppelgänger cities of Besźel […]
Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy: A New Species Emerges
Prepare for a deep dive into the most intimate details of human-alien contact in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy. Step by step she takes you through the initial encounters between a human, Lilith Iyapo, and her Oankali captors (Dawn), the coming of age of a construct resulting from this union (Adulthood Rites) and the reconciliation […]
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany: Poet in Dystopia
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany seems to have many detractors as a work of science fiction but I find it a powerful portrait of a fractured mind, of a poet in dystopia, of a city broken the way its main narrator feels he might be breaking. Known mostly as the Kid, because he has forgotten […]
Comet Weather by Liz Williams: A Review
I guess I’m a bit late to join the Wyrd & Wonder group, but Liz Williams’ beautiful fantasy, Comet Weather, has won me over completely from my hard edged science fictional ways. Sad to think, I never would have known about Liz Williams, or discovered this latest novels of hers, if Alastair Reynolds hadn’t mentioned […]
