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Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick drew me in with one tightly written, deeply engaging scene after another. And like so many of Dick’s novels, it turns the protagonist’s life upside down and inside out in the first couple of chapters. It’s a must-read for any fan of Dick’s fiction. The […]

Filed Under: Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: dystopia, grief, identity, love, Philip K. Dick, privilege, reality

Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

Destroyer of Light

Jennifer Marie Brissett has written a beautifully crafted time puzzle mystery wrapped in a new version of the Greek myth of Demeter’s search for her daughter Persephone (or Koré) in the underworld. Destroyer of Light gradually builds its world as told from multiple points of view at different times. The pieces of this puzzle deftly […]

Filed Under: Epic Fantasy Tagged With: alien life forms, altered minds, city, identity, myth, racism, religion, time

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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 […]

Filed Under: Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: alternate worlds, consciousness, fable, identity, memory, Piranesi, psychic powers, Susanna Clarke

Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds – A Review

By John Folk-Williams

Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds brings us back to the Revelation Space universe with the magnificent Inhibitor Phase. It’s a story about sacrifice, redemption, rebirth and basic human bonds of friendship, love and loyalty that builds to a powerful conclusion. Now, a confession here. When I started reading science fiction seriously almost 20 years ago, Alastair Reynolds and […]

Filed Under: Reviews, Space Opera Tagged With: Alastair Reynolds, alien life forms, consciousness, human survival, identity, inhibitors, memory, rebirth, redemption, Revelation Space, sacrifice

Creative Surgery by Clelia Farris

By John Folk-Williams

Creative Surgery by Clelia Farris

I am embarrassed to admit that I started reading Clelia Farris’s brilliant story collection Creative Surgery thinking I was in the middle of a different book. That can happen with Kindle. Everything looks the same. There are no beautiful covers, unique typefaces, pages to turn down. You just open and there is the text. I […]

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction in Translation Tagged With: art, Creative Surgery, deception, dystopia, identity, reality

Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

By John Folk-Williams

Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

I like writers who take risks in introducing their heroes. Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa sets this first book of The Nameless Republic series on the continent of Oon and its dominant country called Bassa. But unlike the image of the sleek figure on the cover art, the protagonist appears before us […]

Filed Under: Reviews, Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: caste, empire, fantasy, identity, magic, power, race, Suyi Davies Okungbowa

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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

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