King Maker by Maurice Broaddus

The premise of King Maker is simply awesome, and I wanted to love the book based on that alone. I’m a big fan of the King Arthur mythology, and the idea of such a unique slant on the story had me extremely excited. I found myself bewildered, however, as I worked my way through the book.

I want to deal with the strengths of the novel first. Maurice Broaddus’ writing creates a dangerous and authentic mood. The language is fierce and evokes the gritty realism of life on the streets. When the supernatural elements are introduced, they drift through the novel like smoke, leaving the reader gradually horrified as the end game is reached. Broaddus’ horror background is evident; some of the events in King Maker sent chills down my spine.

With all that said, I didn’t enjoy King Maker, for a nu... Read More

The first of three novelettes in the February 2014 issue of Asimov’s is Derek Künsken's “Schools of Clay,” a space opera that is almost incomprehensible. It concerns a race of beings that is modeled on bees, apparently, with queens, workers and new generations of princesses. These beings mine asteroid belts and seem to be partly machine and partly organic (though their nature is never spelled out, one of the serious shortcomings of this story). Some of these beings have souls, and some do not, though what “soul” means in this context is unclear. Diviya is the viewpoint character, a medic or mechanic or both, caught between castes. And he is a revolutionary, for the workers have become dissatisfied with their status. A need for the colony to migrate — a pod of predatory shaghāl has come after the colony, beings whose nature and aims are not explained — comes too early for the plans of the revolutionaries, but Diviya encourages them to rise up regar... Read More

Mixed Up edited by Nick Mamatas & Molly Tanzer

Mixed Up (2017) is an anthology of cocktail-themed flash fiction and cocktail recipes, edited by Nick Mamatas and Molly Tanzer. The stories, like the drink recipes, are grouped by type and theme. I thought the editors took the most liberal view of “flash” here, because I think some of these works might run to 1200 words or slightly over, and I think of flash as topping out at 1,000 words. I don’t think there is a hard and fast threshold, and certainly the spirit of flash fiction (see what I did there?) is met.

Nick Mamatas says in his introduction to the stories that this is conceived as an old-fashioned “all-stories” magazine. The tales in the book include literary stylings, horror, science fiction, fan... Read More