Books shelved under “Science Fiction”

Damn but William Gibson can write! I realize this might feel like a contradictory pronouncement to the one I made at the start of my review of The Peripheral, but I assure you the statements are compatible. I wasn’t aware of this sequel, Agency, until recently, but it was nice to pluck it from my library’s shelves. While you don’t need to have read the first book—this is a very loose sequel, with…

Years and years ago, I said that my love for space opera was dimming. Space opera has always been one step away from science fantasy, of course, but I was getting bored with how same same all the nanotech-fuelled, AI-high stories seemed to feel. In the last couple of years, something has changed. I don’t know if it is me or the field or both, but I have been loving space opera again! When I…

Look, I knew The Rules would be a long shot from the moment I laid eyes on it, but I was bored and plucked it from the obscurity of the YA stacks at my library because why not. I feel like I have fallen off the YA wagon lately; I have only read three in the past year, so I was rather starving. Stacey Kade is not a name I recognized, but the plot…

As mentioned in my review of the first book, I ordered A Desolation Called Peace from my indie bookshop about thirty pages into A Memory Called Empire. The result? Arkady Martine is one hell of a writer. This sequel forms the conclusion of a tight duology.

Spoilers for the first book but not for this one.

Mahit Dzmare has returned to her home, Lsel Station, after barely a week as the Lsel Ambassador…

This book worked its way into my brain. I’m not sure how else to describe it. I slept on this one, but when I finally started reading it, I did not want to put it down. So what did I do? I put it down to save it for a road trip later that week—but I immediately messaged my local indie bookshop so they could order the sequel for me, which I will read…

Some good reviews by people I trust brought this new standalone novel from Ann Leckie to my attention. Translation State, similar to Provenance, is set in the universe of her Imperial Radch trilogy but tells a different story. This one enlightens us ever so slightly as to the nature of the Presger, but really, of course, it’s about what it means to be human.

The story alternates among three viewpoint characters: Enae, Qven,…

Damn, I don’t think I can write a review that’s going to do this book justice. It’s not just because I’m a white woman, and I’m going to miss a thousand little elements that Alicia Elliott has put in her for her fellow Indigenous readers. It’s not just because I read this weeks ago and am behind on writing reviews, so my memory has faded a bit. No, it’s mostly because And Then She Fell…

Not bad, John M. Ford. Not bad. That’s about all I’ve got for opening thoughts. I received an eARC of this reprint edition of classic Web of Angels from Tor and NetGalley in exchange for a review.

This edition has a foreword from Cory Doctorow, who delivers an encomium of Ford while waxing poetically about Web of Angels as a kind of evolutionary cousin of what became cyberpunk. It makes a lot of sense. As…

The phrase “burn it all down” is a popular one, but how many people really mean it? What would that look like? A.D. Sui explores this in The Dragonfly Gambit, a revenge novella featuring a former fighter pilot with nothing to lose, an empire staving off a rebellion, and a small cast of supporting characters caught in the middle. I received a review copy.

Inez Kato was a hot-shot pilot for the Rule—until an…

Nearly four years ago (wow), I gushed over The House of Styx, a Venusian planetary romance that swept me off my feet and into the clouds of Earth’s harsh neighbour. If you haven’t read my (spoiler-free) review of that book, go do it now so I don’t have to retread all the praise I gave it—all of which applies to The House of Saints, and then some. Derek Künsken brings this duology to…

The description of Floating Hotel overtly likens it to The Grand Budapest Hotel, and this comparison is both correct and compelling. Recreating the same tragicomic balance with her wandering space hotel, Grace Curtis takes this story places I didn’t expect it to go. Simultaneously heartwarming and heartwrenching, this is a book about doing what you love—and then saying goodbye to what you love. I received a copy in exchange for a review.

Carl is…

Sometimes we get stuck in a loop, too stubborn for our own good. Sometimes we have good reason to be stubborn. I was thinking a lot about trauma as I read These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart, by Izzy Wasserstein. This is a novella that knows exactly what it’s about and does exactly what it’s meant to do. Although it didn’t end up wowing me, I still thoroughly enjoyed its premise and execution. I…

I touched the ocean only once. In 2014, flying back home from England for the first time, I stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to attend the wedding of two Canadian teachers who had been colleagues in England. The timing was perfect, and it also allowed me to visit an old friend who lived there. The two of us took a trip out to Peggy’s Cove, and I touched the Atlantic. Beyond that, I have barely…

How far will you go to save everything you hold dear? Will you betray your values? Fight your friends? Become the very thing that you are fighting against? These are questions eternally asked in fiction, especially in science fiction, where the things we imagine we could become can be frightening indeed. Weapons of the Mind continues a long tradition of fugitive arc stories in which a scrupulous protagonist has no choice but to enter the…

Finally got around to picking up Our Violent Ends, the sequel to These Violent Delights. These books are a close-knit duology—although the main plot of the first book is resolved, Juliette and Roma’s story is not. Chloe Gong wraps it up here in a poignant, melodramatic way that remains true to the source material while also elevating it in complexity and scope.

Spoilers for the first book but not for this one.

The…

I read and reviewed my first M.G. Vassanji novel in 2009, when I was nineteen years old, making it among one of the earliest reviews I wrote, about a year into this project. It’s wild, going back and reading those old reviews. Kara of 2009 was so young, and self-deprecating: “I suspect that when I revisit this book as an older, more experienced person, I will see additional facets of the story that escaped…

Sometimes books fall through the cracks. What can I say? I received a copy of Interchange in exchange for a review. Did it maybe take me a year to read it? Welcome to asking Kara to read things in a timely fashion. Sorry, Garrick Fincham. I’m glad I did finally dust this file off where it was lurking on my Kindle. It’s Mad Max meet The Expanse.

Jude Harrison once led the Clan, a…

One piece of writing advice that has always stuck with me is Ursula K. Le Guin’s take on conflict. Put simply, she challenged the orthodox opinion that every story must have conflict in it. I find myself thinking of this as I ponder Look to Windward and, indeed, Iain M. Banks’ Culture series as a whole. Banks once again proves himself so skilled at writing interesting utopias.

The majority of this book takes place on…

It has been over a year since I DNFed a book, and that’s a statistic I am pleased with. I am afraid that C.J. Cherryh, despite being recognized as a titan of science fiction, might be one of those authors whose books just don’t work for me. My other outing, The Paladin was all right but didn’t leave me astonished the way I hope most of my science fiction and fantasy does. I picked up …

Sometimes you need some science fiction that’s just weird. That gets you to your bones. Jennifer Marie Brissett brings that energy to Destroyer of Light. With shades of the Oankali from Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy as well as Emma Newman’s Planetfall, this novel is about people on the brink. There’s ineffable aliens, unrepentant bad guys, and reluctant allies. Although the characterization is messier than I would like, I can’t deny that …