Michael Barnes

This one certainly falls into the 'unreliable narrator' genre, but unlike most not because they are a psychopath or a narcissist, far from it. In fact Elenor's unrelentingly critical inner voice is one of the challenges of this debut novel. Elenor is acerbic, aloof, unbearably awkward, rude, and a complete lack of social skills and as her character and background is revealed and you begin to see the nightmare she was living and the horror she has lived as a child you only want to see her achieve some measure of happiness.

The book follows Eleanor Oliphant, a thirty-year-old finance clerk in Glasgow whose life is governed by rigid routines: work, weekly phone calls with “Mummy,” and weekends blurred by vodka.

The way the story is revealed, a detail here a memory there of what Elenor is hiding from herself (and therefore, the reader) as it shades in the rest of her world. The discussions of loneliness, trauma, and the life-saving power of ordinary kindness resonates. Eleanor’s journey from isolation to connection is neither easy nor sentimental, which makes her eventual hope feel genuinely earned.

This is Space Odyssey crossed with chosen family where four young friends (late twenties, though if you read them as younger that's fine as the emotional intensity of the characters would be consistent) who whilst investigating the mystery of the disappearance of all the crew on the launch day of the Providence 1 the first dark matter powered spaceship twenty years earlier mission to Proxima Centauri B on a near-future earth stumbling towards environmental and societal collapse.

But at its heart it’s a sapphic romance where the lead character Cleo, who’s long dreamed of becoming an astronaut but maybe not like this thank you very much, falls in love with the resident hologram Billie created by and from the mental engrams of head of the mission, Captain Wilhemina Lucas.

I thought her fellow accidentally crew mates Kaleshia, Abe, and Ros who are a breath of race and gender and sexual orientation more reflective of where I hope our culture will be by 2061, and frankly where our society should be already. I wish we had got more time with these other characters who were interesting and complex but had too little time in the story.

The title comes from a poem 'The Old Astronomer' by Sadie Williams.

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night"

Six years after the publication of Hench where we read the story of Anna Tromedlov's journey from office temp learning the cost of superheros and joining with villains at first for work and then because the superhero organisation and in particular the world greatest superhero SuperCollider who injured her and at the end of the book saw her be the engine of his demise.

Well this book I enjoyed even more than Hench (which I enjoyed a lot) but it does get darker as you would expect from Anna's arc. Sia at 'Every Book a Doorway' seems to have enjoyed it as much as me and provides an excellent description/warning "realistic, morally grey, awfully complex complexity continues; it’s Villain’s defining characteristic. Which makes perfect sense, because while Hench didn’t feel morally complicated (in the sense that, yes, Anna and her team were doing awful things, but they were doing them to unmitigatedly awful people!) Villain is a darker read, with Anna progressively taking more and more steps that fewer and fewer readers will be willing to cheer on. This is a natural continuation on from Hench’s ending – which was much darker than the rest of it – so if you flinched at that ending? Then you probably do not want to pick up the sequel".

This book like Hench also end on a dramatic cliffhanger and I hope I don't have to wait six years for the next but even if I do I am sure it will be worth it.

This is Kiersten White‘s second Dracula book, after her remarkable Lucy Undying, I am here for it and hope she continues to explore the mythology of Dracula. Set in closing years of 19th century Europe. Our remarkable protagonist is consulting detective Anneke who has been pursuing the figure at the centre of her famous father Abraham Van Helsing's murder. Anneke does not believe in the supernatural. She is a scientist, a seeker of truth that she can observe and note and study. I appreciated when Anneke reviews who fathers notes with her keen scientific method sensibilities was a crap vampire hunter. In her eyes, her father didn’t discover vampires in his later years, but spiralled into madness, keeping journals full of mythical creatures that do not, and never did, exist. Anneke’s journey, then, parallels her father’s own discovery that the world is darker, stranger, and more frightening than he could have imagined.

Another standout was the cast of characters that surround Anneke. They encourage her, challenge her, and provide skills of their own that Anneke lacks. While David and Maher were great, Inge the determined younger woman that Anneke saw so much of herself in. But it was the romance between Anneke and Diavola who she thinks murdered her father is where much of the strength of the narrative progresses.

"Call me...call me whatever the fuckyou like. Isha. Or Isobel. Io. Imogen. Iris. Ivy. If there is a point to all this - to any of the cacophonous bullshit in my head - it's that I don't think I've ever been sure what the I in I Am stands for. But it's the only word or name or pronoun that's always been mine. That nobody's tried to take from me."

So right at the start, if the title of the book hadn't clued you in "…from hell's heart I stab at thee" we know this is a science fiction retelling of a gender-swapped, queer as fuck Moby Dick in space and I am here for it.

So for those that have read Moby Dick I think will enjoy this even more because of the shout out the author/narrator/disaster pansexual makes about their story is clearly coming from someone who read Moby Dick. "And yes, in hindsight I could probably have worked that information into the text more elegantly instead of just devoting the occasional chapter to long digressions about biology,..."

This also made me realise just how much Moby Dick is an exploration of capitalism in which value is exploitivly extracted from everything just to make a few rich.

One of whateverthefuckyoulike's first encounters is a terran called Q whose dialog in Latin consisting mostly of quotes from Catullus or Cicero or the Vulgate Bible; a really delightful joke about Elmo are worth having a translation app handy.

Since I have read Moby Dick I am unsure if it stands alone for those who haven't. I think it would Cat Treadwell at the Fantasy Hive certainly thinks so "This captures the intrinsic humanity contained in great literature, and reminds us why such stories are told and retold. It reflects who we are now, with all our crazy dreams, goals and utterly illogical societies, via the deep inner thoughts of a lonely fictional woman from the far future".

‘We’re bound together by webs of trust and betrayal and pain and comfort and triumph and humiliation and caring and apathy and life and life and life.

And below the web, the endless void.

And at its heart, monsters.’

Our plucky protagonist is the fiercely alone Karys Eska who has a well-earned ‘fuck around and find out’ attitude a result of a foolishly desperate act in her teens when she bargained her soul away to a terrifying eldritch being, Sabaster. Giving her the abilities of a Deathspeaker; she can communicate with the newly departed and see things through the 'veneer' but means at some indetermined future Sabaster will 'claim' her which is just as terrifying as it sounds.

Karys earns money (but not a lot) using her gifts to investigate suspicious deaths around the city. However, her latest job went horribly wrong and leaves Fe­rain Taliade the last survivor of a slaughtered embassy existing in the material world only as Karys’s shadow and ever present voice in her head.

When Karys, her ever present soul shadow the mysterious Fe­rain and vivacious scholar Winola head to Varesli, Fe­rain's home country, the story becomes a road trip that involves travel by giant spider and encounters with skin-thieves. As in other Kerstin Hall novels her worldbuilding is subtly revealed - no long clunky blocks exposition devlivered by sidewalk story tellers - anything she needs you to understand, Karys sees, or interacts with, or has cause to explain or have explained to her, succinctly and elegantly and there is something new to discover—and marvel at or be horrified by—at every turn.

This dark miasma of a story that for all the fantasy and world building elements seems to have been crafted to explore the consequences of desperate choices. All of the major characters have made some that they were driven to make by their extreme circumstances.

A few found the ending unsatisfying but I think it's well crafted and given all we learned about these gods and the characters consistent.

This is a novel of whimsy (you didn't expect otherwise with a title like Dallergut Dream Department Store (DDDS) were dreamers (including furry kind) go to when they fall asleep, a place where they can stop by different stores and buy a dream. The currency is the emotions the dreamers experience upon waking, at which time they’re collected by the store the dream was purchased from and then the store can deposit it in the bank or use the emotions for various things.

We follow new starter Penny a young, enthusiastic, woman who has always wanted to work at the DDDS. The cast is made of a diverse range of workers, all of whom are different and fascinating in their own way as well as perfectly suited to the types of dreams sold on their respective floors. We don’t get to know much about her personal life as the focus is on her job, but there does seem to be a new dream maker who might have an eye on her.

I was also surprised how genuinely emotion I found some of the dreams, an old dog that wants the dream of his family coming home, (who do come home while the dog (Leo) is dreaming of it, and two deferred dreams. One left by a grandmother as she was dying for her grandson and another by a five year old daughter who died for her parents and I am tearing up while typing this.

A very human set of dreams.

A collection of four short stories in a contemporary American setting centred on women. The first about a magic eight ball that seems to know better what the protagonist wants. The second tale about a hens night/weekend and what we owe to ourselves and those we choose to go along with, the third Goblin involves bulimia and weight control and the resolution was as satisfying as you could help and finally the titular bad doll.

As a sample of Rachel Harrison's work, I will certainly seek out more.

This tale unfolds like a Shakespearean tragedy disguised as a dark academia novel. If you do not like Shakespeare (my Dog HOW?, just kidding everyone is unique in their likes and dislikes) I do not think you will enjoy this novel which like the bard the author structures her novel deliberately like a Shakespearean play — Prologue, five acts, Epilogue — mirroring the arc of classical tragedy and each act divided into scenes.

At the fictional Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a prestigious and highly competitive American arts school, where seven acting students live and breathe the Bard until art and life begin to blur, and tragedy takes centre stage. James the tragic hero, Richard the villain? equal parts Iago and Edmund, Wren & Meredith the lovers and Oliver — our Horatio, the watchful narrator who survives to tell the tale.

"A haunting exploration of identity and performance, it’s a story for anyone who’s ever wondered whether we play our parts — or if our parts play us". - Coffee, Campfires & Shakespeare

This part murder mystery and part tragic love story is also a Gothic novel; the haunting sense of place at the academy and the sense that a terrible event is coming, the nightmarish atmosphere of the event occurring, and then the slow tearing apart of the fabric that held the friends and their world together. As Oliver muses towards the end of the story, that is the genius of a tragedy: you can almost believe, right up until the point of everything collapsing, that it might turn out alright.

This contemporary tale includes queer elements but I was a little disappointed that in the end (spoiler)could be categorised as the old trope.

Brilliant and magnificent text that evokes the beauty and terror of Shakespeare's prose one for the fans.

M.L Wang's novels are well deservedly popular this one initially self-published went on to enjoy commercial and critical success. It’s a fantasy novel drawing on Japanese culture and martial arts. Set in a mountain village which is clearly on a decline, holding fast to traditional warrior culture of the Kaigenese Empire. It feels like something straight out of the Shogunate. A transfer student Kwang Chul-hee leads us to discover that there is significant technology in this world, with screens and telecommunications but it's just not embraced by this austere community whose leaders/ noble houses wield incredible magical abilities.

From Kwang Chul-hee Mamoru the son of one of the most traditional and powerful houses the Matsudas learns the history he has been taught is largely built on propaganda that is designed to keep the Shirojima warrior houses—known collectively as the Sword of Kaigen—under control so that they will remain willing to sacrifice their lives for the Empire, Something his mother Misaki also a powerful magical fighter has known ever since her time outside the village in one of the cities.

This provides one of the major themes of the novel, about what is owed when that duty is not reciprocated by those in power. It seems a very pointed critique of those who would suppress change that makes things better for all by the claim of 'tradition'. I found the characters engaging and well developed with the development of Misaki as she realised her dark, 'monstrous' nature was nothing to be ashamed of. Other characters provided reflections on the role one plays in such societies.

My only regret is that at the end as more of the mystery behind the story begins to be revealed it was clearly going to part of a larger story but the author updated in 2023 " I am no longer writing in the Theonite universe. Every time I consider returning to it, I hit a wall of deep fundamental issues with the world-building—an understandable consequence of writing in a world I conceived when I was twelve but not a problem with an easy fix. This doesn’t mean I’ll never return to that universe. It just means that, if I do, it will require a major overhaul of the world-building and collaboration with authors who have expertise I don’t (specifically authors from cultural backgrounds I don’t share and can’t write competently."

Which is a pity as I would have liked to read more but I have to respect an author who recognises this and doesn't just get pressured into writing more.

Rivers Solomon has set their challenging debut novel in the HSS Matilda a generational spaceship with an apartheid system with 'pales' on the upper — more spacious, comfortable and luxurious — decks and the lower class darker skinned people living in the much more cramped, much more spartan lower decks.

The story begins in the middle of a series of power outages which joins other mysteries uncovered via our main POV character Aster, whose mother supposedly committed suicide, but her newly decoded journals reveal her mother discovering a major secret which now becomes Aster’s task to solve.

Solomon is POC and nonbinary and as would be hoped does a great job of presenting us an organically (as opposed to shoehorned in) diverse cast of characters. Aster is neuroatypical, as is another major character, Theo — the light-skinned bastard son of a former Sovereign and currently a high-ranking official known as the Surgeon who befriends Aster (she’s also his assistant) despite the gulf between them. Both are also otherly gendered and in fact, gender and sexuality are generally varied/non-rigid throughout the lower decks: fluid, ambiguous, or queer, with some decks that do label gender categorizing all their inhabitants differently. Aster’s deck refers to all children as feminine (“she/her”) while another deck uses “they.” This ambiguity of gender and sexuality is another thick line drawn between upper and lower decks, with the upper decks whites much more rigid. Theo, for instance, is deprecated by his own father and called “faggot” by the guards due to what he calls his “unnatural girlishness… sissyness.”

I also liked the recognition that whilst learning is managed/restricted Aster and Theo are clearly shown to be very intelligent. I have read some reviews had some issues with the science and the story's resolution I thought it was a well developed and satisfying resolution.

As Bill Capossere at Fantasy Literature concludes "I’d still recommend Solomon’s debut novel for its detailed portrayal of the casual brutality of the apartheid system. While beatings, rapes, and executions occur in real time, much of the cruelty happens off-stage so to speak, sometimes quasi-directly via memory or sometimes in chillingly indirect fashion, as when we witness Aster’s lubrication routine, done in case the not-all-that-uncommon rape by a guard occurs. The vividness, detailed or not, of the inhumanness of this society means that often this is a book one admires while reading as opposed to “enjoys.”

Story is set in alternative London in 1883, in our 19 century England belief in spirits and the existence of mediums were widespread in this world, in our alternative worth the Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Mediums can be identified by their Violet-eyes. In England this is administered the Royal Speaker Society. Men who are mediums if they have the wealth can become speakers, able to move through society with little to limit their authority, women with violet eyes are considered too 'hysterical' to contact the veil and admonished "you know what happens to girls who deal with ghosts"

"Our protagonist sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. So when the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its rotten guts to the world—as long as the school doesn’t break him first". -Booksthatburn

I have read Andrew Joseph White and his novels are powerful, and well-grounded in his voice. At points in the book I wanted to skip over parts because I knew something terrible was going to happen to Silas, but I was grateful to the author because even though something terrible happens he was kind to the read, certainly kinder than what was happening to the characters.

Also Silas's inner voice was embodied as a rabbit who provides comments throughout the book and Silas resolution with the voice was very satisfying.