The Court of the Midnight King by Freda Warrington The Court of the Midnight King (2003), by Freda Warrington, is an alternate history of England’s King Richard III with some supernatural elements. I’m kind of bummed that I didn’t discover it in 2003, because I’d probably have liked it even more. I was going through […]
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Supernova Era by Cixin Liu Chinese science fiction author Cixin Liu has had a successful career in China for many years, winning China’s prestigious Galaxy Award nine times. But it wasn’t until 2014, when his 2007 novel The Three-Body Problem was first published in English, that he became well-known outside of Asia. Since then, some of his […]
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Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow I picked up Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003) because it’s set in one of my favorite places in the universe: Walt Disney World. I grew up less than an hour’s drive from the Magic Kingdom, so I’m intimately familiar with the park […]
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Demo by Brian Wood & Becky Cloonan Demo is a collection of eighteen coming-of-age short stories about young people. It’s a giant collection of close to five hundred pages. Usually, but not always, one of the characters has a “super power,” but none of the stories is a superhero story. None of these characters tries […]
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Raw Spirit by Iain Banks In Raw Spirit (2003), Iain Banks (Iain M. Banks to science fiction readers) and his friends journey in search of the perfect dram. It would not be wise to approach this book for an overview of Scotch, how it’s made, and how to drink it. One part stunt memoir, one […]
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Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fumiyo Kouno (An Oxford College Student Review!) In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe […]
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The Tempestuous Voyage of Hopewell Shakespeare by Sophie Masson I’ve always enjoyed Sophie Masson‘s books; to put it simply, her stories are imaginative and her prose is elegant. The Tempestuous Voyage of Hopewell Shakespeare is no exception, (though it’s not one of my favourites of hers) inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Twelfth Night, and […]
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The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger I’m certainly late to the party when it comes to reading Audrey Niffenegger‘s first novel — I remember it making a huge splash when it was first published, and was astonished to flip open my copy and realise it was released back in 2003. Time certainly flies, which […]
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AVENGERS The Red Zone written by Geoff Johns, art by Olivier Coipel and Andy Lanning I ended up with this story arc (this is the term I’m going to use as it appears when I search for this story) through a Reddit gift exchange over a year ago in which I was also delighted to […]
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The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson Time does not flow for me. Not for me the progression in a straight line from earliest to latest. Time eddies. I am now then, now there, sometimes simultaneously. Nalo Hopkinson published The Salt Roads in 2003. Originally the book was marketed as historical fiction, and sometimes as magical […]
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Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson Of course I know what to expect when reading one of Robert Charles Wilson’s novels: a strange technology or entity has a localized effect that snowballs until it has the potential to completely change the world. We follow the ride primarily from the point of view of one everyman […]
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Dreamer of Dune by Brian Herbert In 2003 Tor released Dreamer of Dune, a biography of Frank Herbert (1920 – 1986) written by his son Brian Herbert, who has written a number of novels as well. The best known of these are the DUNE prequels and sequels written in collaboration with Kevin J. Anderson. Dreamer […]
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Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer Avoiding the trappings of fragile motifs, Jeff VanderMeer’s debut novella — err, novel — Veniss Underground shows every sign of a writer who is confident in his ability to put a fresh perspective on well-worn tropes. The framework of Veniss Underground is based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, […]
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The Etched City by K.J. Bishop The Etched City is a story about a deteriorating tropical city whose denizens include the monstrous, the deranged, and the metamorphic, circling each other in rainy alleys and hot cafes. It’s been lauded as an intelligent and alluring novel. Bishop has been compared flatteringly with Miéville and Moorcock. While The […]
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Neil Gaiman’s Murder Mysteries adapted for comics by P. Craig Russell P. Craig Russell’s artwork is stunning in his adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Murder Mysteries. And since the story has all the other-worldly hallmarks of a Neil Gaiman Sandman story, Russell really gets a chance to show off his talent as he bounces from the […]
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The Black Gondolier by Fritz Leiber The Black Gondolier is a collection of horror stories by Fritz Leiber. I love Leiber’s LANKHMAR stories — they’re some of my very favorites in fantasy literature — and I’ve enjoyed several of Leiber’s short stories and one of his horror novellas, so I figured I might enjoy The […]
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A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman A Study in Emerald is a Hugo and Locus Award winning short story by Neil Gaiman in which he pays tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. At first Gaiman’s story appears to be a straight Sherlock Holmes pastiche as a man […]
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Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire The Eye Is Always Caught by the Light, but Shadows Have More to Say… Gregory Maguire is best known for Wicked, his take on the life of the Wicked Witch of the West, but due to the fact that 2012 seems to be the year of Snow White (with two […]
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The Night Country by Stewart O’Nan In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us. To call The Night Country a ghost story or horror story does a disservice to […]
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Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin Airports are horrible places — the boring waits, the noisy rush, the germy stale air, the ugly utilitarian décor, the nasty food. That is, until Sita Dulip, while waiting for her delayed flight from Chicago to Denver and noticing that “the airport offers nothing to any human being […]
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Sunshine by Robin McKinley I do not know what I have given you tonight… My strange and frustrating relationship with the books of Robin McKinley continues. Pretend that there’s a picture hanging on your wall. Everyone who sees it raves about it: the colours, the texture, the composition, the style. People want copies of it […]
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Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones Diana Wynne Jones once again combines eccentric characters, moral ambiguity, magic, time-traveling, shapeshifting and an uncanny ability to portray human behaviour in one of her best books: Aunt Maria. With all the twists and turns that we expect from Wynne Jones, Aunt Maria is one of the most re-readable […]
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Wizard at Work by Vivian Vande Velde Wizards are supposed to be old men with pointy hats, so the young wizard professor at the center of this story makes himself look like an old man during the school year. He puts his disguise away at the beginning of his summer vacation and looks forward to […]
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The Old Country by Mordecai Gerstein Gisella lives in the Old Country, where “every winter lasts one hundred years, and every spring is a miracle.” In one tumultuous day, her brother Tavido is drafted into the army on the eve of war, even though they are Crags, a despised ethnic group. When she goes into […]
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Poison by Chris Wooding The fantasy genre owes Chris Wooding a huge favour. In a genre awash with sad Tolkien knock-offs filled with magic swords, plucky heroes, wise wizards, princesses-in-distress and other tired clichés, Wooding continues to churn out exciting and intriguing stories that contain a rare force of imagination. Even though Poison is not […]
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