Valerie

I mean what is there to say about Lauren Groff. I've loved every novel of hers, and this short story collection did not disappoint. “Eyewall” is a stand out, but there's a masterclass in craft on every page. Check trigger warnings, especially if you are a parent, but even the hardest to read stories are incredible pieces.

This is a weird one to review. On the one hand, it's foundational to my love of science fiction, one of the first I ever read. For its time, it has some incredibly progressive points on feminism and disability. McCaffrey created an ahead of its time book on what it means to be a human, and what a life without a body could be.

On the other hand, it's still rooted in some deeply problematic misogyny and throws around the R-word as a casual insult, so judging it by modern standards, lots of issues. And also by those modern standards, the ending just doesn't super hold up.

So I'm going with a 4 because it's a legendary book by a legendary author, but like most legends, we need to look at them through the lens of the present and proceed accordingly.

I thought I was too salty about ASOIAF to enjoy Martin much anymore, but this was a really lovely fairy tale, lushly illustrated. It looks like a novella, but it's really a short story, and Martin's prose works really well within those confines. If you like a story that feels like an old tale but with a modern take, definitely give this one a try.

This book was okay, but I think in the grand scheme of things, I'm going to forget it. It's a romance, sci-fi, mystery, and that's a lot of genres to juggle. I think if the order was a mystery, sci-fi, romance, I might have liked it more. As it was, I found it taking me an extraordinarily long time to finish such a short book because I just didn't engage with the romance or the mystery parts at all. It wasn't bad, per se, but I don't think it's going to stick with me.

McCaffrey was one of my favorites as a young teen, and I'm having some fun revisiting now. I don't think I read this as a kid, but it's the type of story I would have loved then: headstrong princess rejecting her rank, mysterious strangers. It's perhaps a bit simplistic by comparison to a lot of modern fantasy, but the fairy tale rings true and the illustrated pages are a nice touch.

I wasn't sure how I was going to handle a whole collection of horror stories, but really only two of them (Noble Rot and the MT Anderson baby story) were the type that really were too much for me. “The Haunting of the Wilson's By Me and That Bitch, Todd” is one of my top McSweeney's of all time. Great collection, even if you are on the squeamish side like me.

I rescued this book from a family garage sale because I had such clear memories of loving it though I didn't remember anything besides talking wolves. On an adult re-read, yeah this is the kind of LOTR knock-off I loved as a child but that doesn't really hold up.

Another quarter, another great edition. I particularly loved “Serranos.”

Look, Madeline Miller is at the forefront of mythological retellings and I intend to read everything she writes. Galatea is a short story, but it packs all of the depth and perspective of Miller's full-length novels. It's the perfect size for the story, but it also just makes me wish there was another story to follow it. Alas, we'll just have to keep waiting.

This is my second experience with this book, and it really stands up to a reread. The writing is gripping, the characters have incredible depth, and it's such a bizarre story that the reread helps it make a bit of sense. It doesn't resonate with me the way a five star book does, but it did keep me turning pages even when I knew what was going to happen.

That said, it is one of the most violent and gory books that I've enjoyed, so if that is an issue for you, you should skip this. If you like a bloody, epic, world-bending fantasy that's grounded in what it means to be human and also what it means to be lion, though, this is not one to miss.

I always like reading John Scalzi, although the time period of these blog entries made this more of a bummer. Quite a reminder that we could have had a world were T** was never president. I still enjoyed his blogs on pets and family and writing and all of the other many subjects “Whatever” tackles, though it probably would've been better for my mental health to skip all the political ones in this collection.

A very surreal issue which was mostly to my taste although the first one with the toddler was a little much for me. If you have a young child, I'd put a few trigger warnings on that one. Overall though a quality issue of a quality magazine.

Another one of those books that remind me why I've stuck with the S&L book club for so long. I'd never heard of Maureen F. McHugh, as unlikely to ever hear of her at this stage. The book isn't in my library, isn't available in audio, and I don't know any fans of her work to clue me in. And this book is great. Her prose and internal monologue overcomes the dated feel to the science fiction aspects (a 45 minute delay to print out your messages.... oh 1992, if you could see us now). The mosaic layering, rich characters, and worldbuilding around of the humdrum everyday life in a communist-dominant world, though, all made this a fantastic read for me.

That said, it is a book about a mixed race gay man written by a white woman, which is always a bit of a red flag. It's progressive for its time, but I'd be curious to hear reviews from people of Chinese descent and the LGBTQ+ community. There wasn't anything to trip my own yikes meter, but I'm a cishet white woman too, so my meter only goes so far.

I would advise you to check the trigger warnings or skip “Three Fragrances,” however if you're in need of such things.

Maybe my favorite issue of McSweeney's yet. I loved the theme of duplicity and double lives, the speculative twists of Carmen Maria Machado and Laura Van Den Berg, the heart-wrenching parenting tale of Andrea Bajani, and the evocative illustrations of Daniele Castellano. I've got a backlog of McSweeney's that were delivered to my old house over the last year, and I'm excited to get back into reading the rest.

For anyone who thinks protagonists have to be likable in order to enjoy a book, give this one a try. June is pretty horrible, the human incarnation of “I'm not racist, but...”, and yet Kuang preserves her humanity and allows the reader to feel empathy with her. She's awful, but she's not a caricature. She's a very real person, probably all too common in Kuang's publishing spheres. As a white woman with dreams of traditional publishing myself, I can't help but read her as a cautionary tale.

Yellowface is a major departure from Kuang's epic fantasies, but her writing is strong enough to cross genres effortlessly. I wouldn't call it a “fun” read. It's frustrating, complex, and frequently disheartening, but it is a good story that is vital and incredibly relevant in our social media fame-obsessed age.

I liked this more than I expected. I'm really burned out on magic schools, particularly dark and gritty versions, and it seems like the author really wants to write “The Secret History.” It took a while to suspend my disbelief at the amount of power given to college freshmen, but the characters and the mystery were strong enough that I stayed engaged to the end. I don't know that I loved it enough to jump into the sequel, but it was a spooky exploration of classism, and reads pretty quickly for its size. Definitely investigate trigger warnings before reading if that is important to you.

I heard a lot of negative reviews for this one before I read it, but I still think it was a pretty good continuation of the series even if not quite as strong as the first two. It was definitely a brain-stretcher, and having Miranda as a POV character was quite the Brave New World, but I wouldn't expect a book that's essentially about how we define sentience and the value of “life” to be anything less than a challenge.

Given Tchaikovsky's penchant for references, could the alternate title to this book be “The Meaning of Liff?”

This is exactly the kind of psychological sci-fi story I live. It's such a nuanced look at grief, guilt, and mental health while also featuring organic alien cities and space colonization. Renata as a main character is brilliant, secretive, and a great person to tell this story. I really enjoyed it, and am definitely keeping an eye on this author.

I started reading this for a bit of Irish mythology research, and found it really fascinating. I'm so intrigued by the layers of Irish legends and Christian influence that create such a strange set of stories. Yeats is one of my favorite poets, and it was fun to look at these stories through the lens of his work and poetry. Like many original fairy tales, these are bloody, dark, and definitely not for children, but if you're interested in such things, it's worth a read.

This series is definitely a new favorite of mine. I wasn't sure where Tchaikovsky was going to go after CoT, but I really enjoyed the direction, especially because I like octopuses and arguing about the correct pluralization of “octopus.” The hardest thing I find about the series is trying to explain it to others as the serious, intelligent take artificial intelligence, space exploration, and what makes us Human without just saying “And also there are spiders and octopuses and they have spacesuits...” It sounds so silly, but it's all very well done.

If you liked CoT, it's worth your time to continue. Definitely read CoT first though or you are going to be very lost.

Look, I'll start this review by saying this book wasn't for me. It got picked by my SFF book club, but it's definitely a romance book with a fantasy setting. The setting itself is essentially just Pern meets the Hunger Games, but mostly just the parts of each of those that are most nonsensical and problematic. A military school where there's a focus on killing off the weak at home instead of sending them to die at the front lines and classmate murder is essentially encouraged? Why?

The whole thing reads like bad self-insert fanfic down to the main character with magical color changing hair and eyes. Also it's over 500 pages which is just ridiculous for how little story there is. I never go lower than 3 stars unless something is morally offensive to me, but ooh this one was not my cuppa at all.

LeGuin really was ahead of her time. City of Illusions is a wonderful blend of pulp adventure and philosophy on the nature of truth, and while certainly parts of it feel dated (especially some of the gender dynamics), it was still a really great read.

I think I was a bit disappointed in this one because I wanted something on the level of the Green Bones Saga, and this is definitely not that. I also don't love the humans vs. giant predator that doesn't follow basic evolutionary predator behavior trope. The rocs in this book are awesome, but I don't love the manticore conception at all.

That said, once I managed to stop thinking about how the manticore makes no sense in the ecosystem of this world, I did enjoy the quiet, human drama that Fonda Lee really excels at, and the ending was perfectly melancholy and well done. So mixed feelings, but I still think Lee is one of the best of this generation of fantasy writers.

A lot of people use the word “epic” when describing books, but very few come as close to the actual meaning of the word as Children of Time. What an incredibly sweeping story with huge emotional range too. It's also features great perspective-bending points of view and while often tense, morose, and critical of us Great Old Ones, the persistent thread of hope woven within keeps the reader turning pages just as the Gilgamesh keeps on flying. Recommended for anyone who loves a really big science fiction story and also is not an arachnophobe. Must love spiders.

Wow, this book puts you through the wringer. I actually got it as an ARC way back in like 2018-19 somewhere in there, but the size of it just meant I never really found the time to commit to reading it. I wonder how differently it would have read pre-2020. If everyone had read this, would we have managed our pandemic so badly?

Wanderers is a sprawling story of the end of the world. Multi-faceted perspectives and storylines. Gut-wrenching emotional arcs. Amoral artificial intelligence. Really a book written for me. My reading time these days is often limited to before sleep, and I found myself staying up later and later just to see what happens next. It's a masterclass in plotting and pacing while still containing dozens of viscerally real characters.

That said, trigger warnings EVERYWHERE, particularly around pandemics and violence, so investigate those if you need to before you commit to this tome.