Adrian Tchaikovsky takes on familiar themes in Alien Clay, but, as always, he shuffles the cards of his imagined realities to create a story that is also uniquely powerful. Arton Daghdev, an academic revolutionary who transgressed the rules of orthodoxy imposed by the dictatorial Mandate on Earth (similar to the Perfection ideology in Days of […]
Embassytown by China Miéville
When I first read China Miéville’s Embassytown, which I now regard as a nearly perfect novel, I didn’t get it. The story seemed to move quite nicely to an anticlimax, I thought, where a potential massacre turns on a dime because of language. My fault – I was expecting the normal sort of adventure and […]
These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs
Before getting into the gripping debut novel, These Burning Stars, by Bethany Jacobs, I need to mention a few things about this blog. After four years of writing reviews for SciFi Mind, I ran into a burnout period earlier this year and took some time off. I’m getting back into review mode again but find […]
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth
For me, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is a treasure — along with The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven, I think, her finest work in science fiction. It brings together so many of her themes in a complex story that is beautifully written and deeply engaging. Themes like coming home, […]
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin – A Review for #VintageSciFiMonth
Ursula K. Le Guin wrote that Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We was the greatest science fiction novel that had yet been written. I’m not as well-read as she was, but We, so influential on later books like Brave New World and 1984, is definitely the greatest one in my experience. From the beginning, its narrator, known like […]
And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed – A Review
Premee Mohamed’s And What Can We Offer You Tonight is a tightly written novella about a story of rebellion from oppression focused on the inner struggle from the invisible chains of psychic servitude. And What Can We Offer You Tonight, narrated by Jewel, a courtesan at the high-end House of Bicchieri, begins with one of […]
