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The Oleander Sword by Tasha Suri

By John Folk-Williams

The Oleander Sword

In The Oleander Sword, the second novel of The Burning Kingdoms trilogy, Tasha Suri has produced an even more intensely involving and brilliant book than she did in The Jasmine Throne. That first novel richly explored the many selves and identities its characters had to adopt to survive as they strove to increase their power, […]

Filed Under: Epic Fantasy, Great Series Read Project Tagged With: gods, identity, power, religion, sacrifice, sapphic love, South Asian fiction, Tasha Suri

Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith

By John Folk-Williams

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 […]

Filed Under: Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: Cordwainer Smith, fable, identity, immortality, patriarchy, religion, slavery, social classes, telepathy, transhuman

Amazing Cities in SFF – 3

By John Folk-Williams

The Wall Sumer Cities in SFF

To round out for now this series on cities in SFF, I’m revisiting a few novels that capture the importance of how people experience urban environments and how the massive structures affect their language and thought. A city, after all, is not just buildings and a way of physically organizing dense populations, but also a […]

Filed Under: SFF Cities Tagged With: Arkady Martine, city, culture, Gautam Bhatia, language, Lavie Tidhar, memory, myth, poetry, power, religion

Fevered Star and Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

By John Folk-Williams

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

Fevered Star is the second book in Rebecca Roanhorse’s brilliantly imagined series Between Earth and Sky. Picking up directly after the conclusion of Black Sun, Fevered Star pushes its central characters in new directions while building on their gods-driven purposes played out in a richly imagined setting that draws together elements of many pre-Columbian American […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: avatar, city, gods, human emotion, indigenous culture, power, Rebecca Roanhorse, religion, sacrifice

The Horizon by Gautam Bhatia

By John Folk-Williams

The Horizon by Gautam Bhatia

In The Horizon, Gautam Bhatia has written a masterful sequel to his first novel, The Wall, that brings together a close examination of the politics of radical change with the songs and stories that can sustain but sometimes also limit the imagination of what is possible in life. Directly following the climactic ending of The […]

Filed Under: Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: city, Gautam Bhatia, language, memory, poetry, politics, power, religion, revolution, South Asian fiction, The Wall

The Quantum War by Derek Künsken – A Review for #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

The Quantum War by Derek Kunsken #scifimonth

Derek Künsken’s The Quantum War, the third book in The Quantum Evolution series, continues the stories that blend exciting space adventure with probing speculations on the philosophical and religious implications of altering human evolution. At the heart of these novels, set in the 26th century, are new human species, especially the Homo quantus, endowed with […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, SciFiMonth Tagged With: artificial intelligence, brain, consciousness, Derek Kunsken, evolution, genetic engineering, religion, sacrifice, sentient beings, Venus

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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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