Category Archives: Speculative Fiction

Piranesi

Posted on October 4, 2020 by

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is one of my favorite books, and I’ve been longing for another novel from Clarke ever since I first read that masterpiece. (I haven’t read her  story collection, fearing that short stories won’t have the … Continue reading →

Posted in Speculative Fiction, Uncategorized | 10 Comments

September Reading in Review

Posted on October 3, 2020 by

Do you ever feel guilty for not loving a book? I sometimes do, especially when I have several middling reading experiences in a row with books that don’t have obvious problems because that’s when I have good reason to suspect … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics, Contemporary, Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 10 Comments

The Changeling

Posted on July 23, 2020 by

I’ve been interested in stories about changelings for a long time. I can’t quite trace the source of the interest — perhaps part of my more general interest in stories about interactions between fairies and humans, and that goes back … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Seed to Harvest: The Patternist Series

Posted on April 21, 2020 by

Octavia Butler’s Patternist series is a series of Octavia Butler’s earliest novels (although she wrote Kindred as a standalone during the time these books were published). Four of the novels that make up the series were published in a single edition … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 5 Comments

Call Down the Hawk

Posted on January 19, 2020 by

The interactions between the Lynch brothers were one of my favorite parts of Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle series, so I was delighted to learn that she would be writing a new series focusing on Ronan Lynch (with, presumably, a lot … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's / YA Lit, Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 4 Comments

Among Others

Posted on January 15, 2020 by

Mori’s diary starts in September 1979, as she heads to a new boarding school in the country, after the school year has already started. Teenage Mori suspects she’s being sent to school so her aunts can be rid of her. … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 5 Comments

The Water Dancer

Posted on January 12, 2020 by

There is a lot to like about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ debut novel. I appreciated, for example, the way he illuminates the complex relationships between the enslaved and those who enslaved them, especially when, as so often happened, those characters were actually … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 6 Comments

Oval

Posted on December 25, 2019 by

Anja and her boyfriend Louis live in a supposedly sustainable housing enclave in Berlin, all thanks to Anja’s employer, a corporation devoted to science and sustainability (or the appearance of it). Anja, Louis, and their friends spend their evenings partying … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 2 Comments

Golden State

Posted on December 23, 2019 by

Imagine if each person was allowed the luxury of claiming their own truth, building a reality of their own in which they can live. Imagine the danger that would pose, how quickly those lies would metastasize, and the extraordinary threat … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 2 Comments

The Southern Reach Trilogy

Posted on December 22, 2019 by

Annihilation was one of my favorite movies of last year, which made me curious about Jeff Vandermeer’s book series that inspired it. It has taken a while, but I’ve finally gotten around to reading the 2014 book series: Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 4 Comments