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 a new destiny, one that will upturn the boundaries of Read more…
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 becoming political lunchmeat, when her handler—and one-time lover—from the heart Read more…
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, shell-shocked and devastated, Jen falls asleep, and when she wakes, Read more…
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 under her belt (Broken Earth and Inheritance), here she tries Read more…
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 pretty solid: A comet hits 1950’s America and doesn’t wipe Read more…
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 first life (and death), it takes Harry August a couple Read more…
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, and then got wrapped up in one of the most Read more…
Three sisters live an antiquated, disconnected existence on a remote island. Their lives are ruled over by their autocratic parents, who mete out medieval punishments and force them to compete in bizarre rituals of sufferance. The girls are introduced to us one by one, their narratives unfolding, sad and lonely Read more…
One of my favourite books from the last few years. It won the BSFA Award for Best Shorter Fiction, the Nebula Award for Best Novella of 2019, and the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novella. If you’re only going to read one book this year, read this one. The story Read more…
Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, Bewilderment is an important and beautiful book about empathy and the sadness and beauty which define living in our troubled world. The book follows a father, Theo, and his son, Robin, as they struggle to fill the spaces the world has cut out for them. Set Read more…