Candace Havens also contributes to the 
Charmed and Dangerous by Candace Havens
Bronwyn’s job is not exactly conventional. She’s a witch who not only fights off warlocks, demons, and evil zombies, but gets paid to do it. She protects the Prime Minister and is his personal body guard. She also murders, plots, and shoots fire from her hands while blowing up cars in the process. Bronwyn is not a witch to be reckoned with, although being a magical body guard does tend to get in the way of having anything that resembles a normal love life.
I made it to exactly page 35 of this book.
Read More
I might say "formulaic" actually.
Your review made me curious, so I looked this book up. Sure enough: Tor. Tor seems to specialize in these…
It's a tightrope act for sure.
[…] Stuart (2 December 2015). “Roadside Picnic: Russian SF classic with parallels to Vandermeer’s Area X | Fantasy Lit…. fantasyliterature.com. Retrieved 8 […]
yes, I mean, there are certainly lots of good sci-fi/fantasy novellas out there, so they aren't impossible to do, but…