“The Eye of Leviathan” by M.A. Carrick

This second collaboration of Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms (under the combined pen name of M.A. Carrick) is very different from their absolutely fantastic Rook & Rose trilogy. That one I think of as Sc...

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“Fabulous Bodies” by Chuck Tingle

Content warning for the book: self-harm, graphic violence, and lots of both.Chuck Tingle’s latest horror novel is about Poppy, a fashion influencer by day and grave robber by day. She’s got a solid fo...

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“Ode to the Half-Broken” by Suzanne Palmer

First of all, let me say that I appreciate the note from the publisher that the dog lives. I’ve been burned before.The protagonist of this book is an unnamed (at least at the beginning) robot living a...

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“Stay for a Spell” by Amy Coombe

This book about a princess trapped in a bookshop (the horror!) was extremely fun. It was cute and had me laughing out loud more than once.Our protagonist is the Princess Tanadelle of the Widdenmar, be...

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"The Last Contract of Isako" by Fonda Lee

This is a complicated book to categorize. It’s kinda-sorta dystopian, kinda-sorta cyberpunk, definitely a science fiction murder mystery, and definitely a ronin story (though I don’t know if that part...

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“The Unicorn Hunters” by Katherine Arden

I didn't have "being sad over the fact that in real life the independent Duchy of Brittany was subsumed into France 500 years ago" on my 2026 Bingo card, but here we are.A problem I have with books gr...

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“Sublimation” by Isabel J. Kim

This was an incredible book, especially considering it’s a debut novel (though Kim has been writing short fiction for a while). It has much to say about a lot of contemporary topics: immigration & dia...

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“All Hail Chaos” by Sarah Rees Brennan

The sequel to Long Live Evil left me thinking that Sarah Rees Brennan is being very smart with this. Spoilers for book 1 ahead.In many ways the point of the first book was our protagonist, Rae, coming...

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“Green City Wars” by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I’m generally quite happy to pick up an Adrian Tchaikovsky book based on his name alone, but I’ll admit that “raccoon PI” was an extra selling point for this one.This is set in the not-too-distant fut...

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"Building 903" by Lois Lowry

Everyone should know Lois Lowry; The Giver and Number the Stars are both absolute classics. I was more than a little surprised to see this book coming out, as I didn’t think Lowry was still writing. B...

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“The Faith of Beasts” by James S.A. Corey

Arbeit macht frei.The second volume of the Captive’s War (planned to be a trilogy AFAIK) holds up.Spoilers for book 1 ahead, but nothing you can’t find out from the back-of-the-book blurb for book 2.D...

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“The Rose Field” by Philip Pullman

Didn’t end up liking this. In fact I’d go so far as to call this an anti-recommendation; in a relatively minor moment, this book revealed some things (not saying what because of spoilers) about the or...

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“Dungeon Crawler Carl” by Matt Dinniman

I came into this as a skeptic. My only prior experience with litrpg had been the progression fantasy (which isn’t quite the same thing as litrpg? I think?) Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe -...

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"The Tapestry of Fate" by Shannon Chakraborty

I am delighted to report that the book 2 in one of the series I am most excited about these days is excellent. Truly a masterpiece of a story. My only complaint is that it ends on a hell of a cliffhan...

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“Where Furnaces Burn” by Joel Lane

An excellent, and exceptionally bleak, collection of short stories about a cop in the West Midlands of England (Birmingham & environs) between the late 80s and early 00s. The stories here are very sho...

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“Uncertain Sons and Other Stories” by Thomas Ha

Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha is a truly excellent collection of short stories. Creepy and weird in the best kinds of ways, while also having a lot of interesting things to say.It's a ...

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“The Scarlet Throne” by Amy Leow

This book pulls off a rather difficult trick. The main character is very clearly the villain in the overall story; she does a lot of truly horrible things; and yet the author manages to let me maintai...

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“Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein needs no introduction. It was groundbreaking; arguably, the very first novel of speculative fiction. It has been highly influential on culture and society, and is one of the most importan...

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“Dawn” by Octavia E. Butler

The is a classic, from a renowned author; first book in the Xenogenesis trilogy. Picked it up because I needed something for the 1980s Bingo square (hard mode), and I’ve been meaning to read something...

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“Absolution” by Jeff Vandermeer

Gotta be honest here: it’s going to be hard for me to review this book fairly. I’m pretty certain Jeff Vandermeer set out to screw me over, specifically. I’d read and enjoyed the first 3 Southern Reac...

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“To Ride a Rising Storm” by Moniquill Blackgoose

Happy news for everyone else who loved To Shape a Dragon’s Breath: the sequel lives up to the promise of book 1. I don’t think it was QUITE as good as book 1, but my criticisms can largely be chalked ...

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“We Will Rise Again,” edited by Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older

I didn’t like this anthology as much as I thought I would, I am very sorry to say.Part of this was the fault of when I chose to read this. Stories about fighting back against transphobia, racism, colo...

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“The Works of Vermin” by Hiron Ennes

This was absolutely, utterly bizarre. I also mostly didn’t really understand what was going on; I was loving it, but I didn’t understand it. Then there was a reveal that made me re-evaluate everything...

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“We Dance Upon Demons” by Vaishnavi Patel

This wasn’t the easiest novel to read, but it was an excellent one.Unlike the rest of Patel’s works, this one was relentlessly contemporary. It’s set in present-day Chicago; no secondary world at all....

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“Greenteeth” by Molly O’Neill

This was a decent book that could have been a great book, if Orbit’s marketing people hadn’t pushed it as “cozy” and the author had embraced writing something YA (which is not and has never been a pej...

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