Questland by Carrie Vaughn My rating: 5 of 5 stars Fantasy is about what you can’t patent. Honor and heroism and… and… hope. I really enjoyed Carrie Vaughn’s latest offering, Questland. Jurassic Park meets Game of Thrones, set on a small island in the ‘real world’ where an eccentric billionaire tried to use science and […]
speculative fiction
Review: The Mad Women’s Ball by Victoria Mas
The Mad Women’s Ball by Victoria Mas My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Mad Women’s Ball was an interesting read. Touching on dark themes using beautiful language and a muted tone, it follows a few short weeks in the lives of several women committed to the infamous (and real) Salpetriere in 1885 in the […]
Review: How to Mars by David Ebenbach
How to Mars, by David Ebenbach, was really great fun: a reality TV show about 6 people taking a one-way trip to Mars. One of them gets pregnant, even after they were all strictly forbidden from having sex, and all the men have had the snip. What happens next? Some of it’s told in first […]
Review: Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen
Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen Speculative fiction / Dystopia My rating: 4 of 5 stars I love that there are more and more books being published with motherhood at their core. Dark Lullaby joins the ranks of Q, The Mother Fault and The Farm, imagining a dark future of suffocating control over women’s reproduction and […]
Review: The Emporium of Imagination, by Tabitha Bird
The Emporium is a bustle of a place. People come and go. Some see magic everywhere. They have phone messages and answer their phone when it rings. Other people see less magic and a more commonplace shop selling quirky vintage wares. It depends on what they expect to see. A person looking for the impossible […]
Review: Skyward Inn, by Aliya Whiteley
‘What are those?’ while pointing at Fosse’s shoes. ‘Shoes,’ he said, very clearly, as if talking to a young child. ‘I thought they were regulation standard military Coalition issued walking apparel,’ it said. It was strange how being more precise with language could move everyone further away from a mutual level of understanding. This is […]
