China Miéville last published fiction in 2016, including his fabular novella this census taker, so his collaboration with Keanu Reeves shot to the top of my list, despite my reservations about the source material. The Book of Elsewhere builds on Reeves’ (et al) 12 issue series of the graphic novel, BRZRKR, about an 80,000 year-old […]
The Stars Undying by Emery Robin
It’s a bold idea for a debut novelist to choose the stories and legends of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar projected into a space opera. Bold, I think, because these were formidable people in life, and I’ve been disappointed too many times with thin fictional replicas of great historical figures. But Emery Robin’s The Stars Undying […]
Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith
Norstrilia (written as two short novels in the 1960s but not published as one until 1975 after the author’s death), is a unique masterpiece by Paul Linebarger who wrote under the name Cordwainer Smith. The story begins with an odd preface that throws the key elements of the book at you in the manner of […]
Nexhuman by Francesco Verso
Nexhuman by Francesco Verso brilliantly blends the story of a young man’s obsessive love for a transhuman being with a vivid depiction of a consumerist society strangling on its own trash. Skillfully translated by Sally McCorry, the novel poses powerful questions about what it means to be human. We see this world through the eyes […]
