As the second book in Ada Hoffman’s The Outside series, The Fallen picks up where The Outside left off but is less concerned with a continuing adventure than with deep probing of all the major characters. There is plenty of action as well, but I was totally absorbed in understanding the minds and backgrounds of […]
Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson – A Review
In Far from the Light of Heaven, Tade Thompson, author of the Wormwood Trilogy, constructs a fine murder mystery on board a colony space ship in methodical detail. Step by step he introduces characters and settings, with just enough detail to bring each person to life and give each of their worlds its full reality. […]
Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard’s prose swept me through Fireheart Tiger like a single brushstroke of many beautiful strands toward a strong conclusion that came just a little too easily and a little too soon. She is a master at plunging the reader at once into a richly imagined fantasy world yet without distracting the mind with […]
King of the Rising by Kacen Callender: A Review
Freedom from slavery has a cost, not just in human lives but in the internal torture of mind and morality brought on by lifetimes spent in forced repudiation of one’s language, culture, religion and self-esteem. For an ex-slave to have a position of privilege in the midst of this history of oppression is all the […]
SciFiMonth: Colonizing the Mind in Tade Thompson’s Rosewater Insurrection
With #SciFiMonth getting underway, and a certain election holding our fates in the balance, my reading has turned to more political scifi themes, or maybe I’m just more attuned than ever to that dimension of so many recent books. I’m in the midst of Tade Thompson’s Wormwood trilogy and find it more engrossing with every […]
Human Connection in The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
Simon Jimenez‘ The Vanished Birds is an amazing novel that takes you from humble beginnings on an agrarian planet across thousand-year time spans, multiple worlds, journeys through folded space, then by instant travel into mysterious dimensions beyond time and normal reality into the depths of human connection. It offers powerful and lyrical testament to the […]
