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A Speculative Reader

Historical fiction

She Became The Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan

A young, peasant girl, starving to death in small village, is confronted with the stark ignominy of her fate: She is nothing and she will die nothing. The girl refuses. In a devastating act of will, she pitches herself into Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsOctober 18, 2022 ago
Sci-Fi

The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird 

There have been many pandemic books written since COVID, and this is one of them. Drawing on the themes of terror, political incompetence and social collapse, End of Men does something a little different with this device, using it to Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsOctober 18, 2022 ago
Sci-Fi

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine 

If you haven’t read, A Memory Called Empire, I strongly suggest you put it at the top of your reading list and line A Desolation Called Peace up next. An ambassador from a small mining station is trying to avoid Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsSeptember 26, 2022 ago
Sci-Fi

Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

It’s halloween, and watching from an upper window, Jen sees her son kill a man. Her loving teenage boy barely looks at her, as tight-lipped and apparently indifferent, he is cuffed and taken away. At some point later that evening, Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsSeptember 23, 2022 ago
Sci-Fi

The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel

In a world were you can get limbs and organs replaced as easily as car parts, Kobo is addicted to his own transformation. Or he was, until his funds dried up. Now this one-time baseball star spends his days scouting Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsAugust 31, 2022 ago
Fantasy

The City We Became, by N.K. Jemisin

A homeless kid becomes the human embodiment of New York City, when a terrifying alien force arrives to destroy it (and possibly the universe).  N.K.Jemisin is undeniably a grand dame of speculative fiction and having gotten two highly-acclaimed, sci-fi trilogies Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsAugust 8, 2022 ago
Sci-Fi

The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Winner of the 2019 Nebula, Locus and Hugo Awards, I had high hopes for this, the first in the Lady Astronaut Series. Honestly, I was disappointed.  Overall I would say the set up is good and the world building is Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsJune 30, 2022 ago
Literary fiction

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

This is a sophisticated book, long and meandering, which makes sense as it follows a character destined to live, die and be born again with his memory in tact, ad infinitum; a strange sort of immortality. After his entirely ordinary Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsJune 15, 2022 ago
Fantasy

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton

I knew nothing about this book and had no idea what to expect, which made it all the more fun! I therefore won’t stray into any spoilers here. The story opens with the first person narrator crashing into consciousness, to Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsMay 12, 2022 ago
Literary fiction

Agua Viva, by Clarice Lispector

One of the most unexpected reads of my life – not an exaggeration. I thought I was picking up a novel, felt very hard done by after the first couple of pages which felt like slippery, stream of consciousness poetry, Read more…

By sophie, 3 yearsApril 21, 2022 ago

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