William Gibson’s latest novel, Agency (2020), is a follow-up to The Peripheral which needs to be read first. In The Peripheral we learned that in the not-too-distant future, someone will discover some software on a secret server in China which allows users to interact with people using the internet in the past (our modern day). Contacting people in the past makes a new timeline branch called a “stub.” The future people who create the stub can play around with it,
March 10th, 2020. Kat Hooper and Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | William Gibson | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines
The people remaining on a devastated Earth have been turned into zombies by a virus accidentally unleashed by one of their own scientists. Fortunately for some humans, a race of aliens known as the Krakau have figured out how to genetically engineer humans without the virus. Thus, about 10,000 humans still live, but rather than return to Earth to be cannibalized by their own species, they choose to work for the Krakau who saved them. The Krakau are benevolent overlords; they have even preserved the records of as much of Earth’s civilization as they could so that their human fosterlings can have their own culture.
March 4th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Jim C. Hines | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Knife Children by Lois McMaster Bujold
Knife Children (2019) is a stand-alone novella set in Lois McMaster Bujold’s SHARING KNIFE world. I wasn’t a fan of that series because I didn’t like its main character, Fawn, but I’m a huge fan of all of Bujold’s other work, and I think she’s one of the best speculative fiction writers that’s ever existed, so I was happy to try this stand-alone story in which Fawn played only an insignificant role. You don’t need to be familiar with SHARING KNIFE to understand and enjoy Knife Children.
March 2nd, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
In his whimsical way, Charles Yu writes about the Asian-American immigrant experience in Interior Chinatown (2020). The story is about Willis Wu, a young man whose family lives in an SRO (Single-Room Occupancy Hotel) in the Chinatown of mid-20th century San Francisco. He’s the son of immigrants who came to America looking for a better life but who have been misunderstood, alienated, marginalized, ghettoized, and further discriminated against by an American government and populace that is always putting people into boxes and insisting that they stay there.
February 26th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Charles Yu | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Broken Crown by Michelle West
I listened to 19 hours (60%) of the new audio version of Michelle West’s The Broken Crown before giving up. The Broken Crown (1997) is the first novel in West’s SUN SWORD series which contains six books that add up to a whopping 4,803 pages. After getting through 458 of these pages and feeling absolutely nothing, I was dreading the remaining 4,345. I decided to quit.
Many readers love long,
February 24th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 0.1 | Michelle Sagara West | Audio | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Dispel Illusion by Mark Lawrence
Tadiana: Kat:
Dispel Illusion (2019) is the final book in Mark Lawrence’s IMPOSSIBLE TIMES trilogy. Readers will need to finish One Word Kill and Limited Wish before beginning Dispel Illusion, so we’ll assume you’ve done that. Kindly, Mark Lawrence provides a recap of previous important events at the beginning of this book.
February 19th, 2020. Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5, 4 | Mark Lawrence | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson
In Nalo Hopkinson’s Skin Folk, you’ll find 15 diverse Caribbean-inspired fantasy stories that are full of vividly-drawn characters, powerful prose, masterful storytelling, and imagery that is sensuous and haunting.
Skin Folk, Hopkinson’s first story collection, deservedly won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection.
Some of Hopkinson’s stories are metaphors, many having to do with the theme of “skin” — whether it’s characters who are hiding, changing, or pretending to be something they’re not.
February 13th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Nalo Hopkinson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North
“I do not know whether death is mercy, or love is easy, or vengeance is peace, or if all these things are lies or truth. Or if it is the truest thing of all to say that life is all of these things, all of these truths together in perfect contradiction, blinding us to a greater truth that lies beneath.”
My husband and I are foodies. We love to try new foods, new cuisines, and new restaurants. When we order off the menu,
February 6th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Claire North | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Flowers of Vashnoi by Lois McMaster Bujold
This VORKOSIGAN SAGA novella is a blast from the past, accompanied by a large dose of radiation. After Lois McMaster Bujold apparently wrapped up this long-running series in 2016 with Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, she returned once again to her immensely popular series with this brief novella, backtracking in the series timeline to just a few years after Miles Vorkosigan’s marriage to Ekaterin, when their oldest children, twins Sasha and Helen,
February 4th, 2020. Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Bronze Skies by Catherine Asaro
The Bronze Skies (2017) is the second book in Catherine Asaro’s MAJOR BHAAJAN series. In the first book, Undercity, we met Bhaajan, a private investigator who recently retired from military service. When she is hired by the royal family to track down a runaway prince, she must descend into the grimy tunnels under the capital city of Cries. This is where the lowest cast of citizens live — in the city’s underbelly — and this is where Bhaajan grew up before escaping into the military.
January 16th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Catherine Asaro | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.