Books shelved under “Science Fiction”

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 …

Asexuality is everywhere, yet because it is classically the absence of something, its presence can be difficult to see. Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection is an attempt to foreground asexuality within a variety of environments. Madeline Dyer has assembled an ace team (oh, you know the puns are just starting) of authors to contribute stories and even a poem that get you thinking. Cody…

This is one of those rare books that is exactly what the cover copy promises: “A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a locked-room thriller.” The Death I Gave Him lives up to this hype, and I can easily see how some people would adore this book. I loved Em X. Liu’s obvious love for Shakespeare, and as far as Shakespearean retellings go, this one is pretty good. As far as thrillers go—well,…

Another story about stories, this time a metafictional romp through a Scientologyesque religion and the end of the universe. Lavie Tidhar’s The Circumference of the World is imaginative and, dare I say, quite a bit wacky; however, it never coalesced into something I would call enjoyable. Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC.

Delia is a mathematician from Vanuatu, though now she lives in London. Her boyfriend’s disappearance causes her to start looking…

You would think that as I age and have more disposable income (at least in theory) and more control over my free time (at least in theory) that I would get better, not worse, at reading series … but no. So here I am, partaking in Devil’s Gun, having not read You Sexy Thing first. I don’t know if the first book in this series from Cat Rambo just passed me by or if…

Time travel stories can come in so many forms! It has been a while since I’ve read a Benjamin Button–style story. A Second Chance for Yesterday has its protagonist, Nev, hurtling backwards in time. The title is everything: sibling authors writing under the name R.A. Sinn ask us if a person can reform simply by having the chance to do things over, albeit in reverse. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Solaris for the eARC.

Nev…

William Gibson is one of those authors whose books I think I like a lot more than I do. Likely because his fingerprints are all over science fiction these days, some subgenres more than others of course. There’s no denying that he is a brilliant inventor of ideas and extrapolator of futures. But I think there is probably a reason it has taken me so long to finally read The Peripheral. I kept telling…

The system doesn’t care. This is a lesson some of us learn sooner than others—and a few don’t ever have to learn it at all. In this timely novelette, Ai Jiang looks down the uncaring maw of capitalism in the form of the exploitation of workers “competing” with artificial intelligence. I AM AI rides the echoes of cyberpunk decades past into a future that is not far off, in many ways, from our distinctly dystopian…

Many a moon ago I read a duology (plus inciting novella) from Guy Haley called Reality 36 and Omega Point. It features, among other things, a dynamic duo of an AI and a cyborg as private investigators. I predictably loved it. I thought Emergent Properties, by Aimee Ogden, might give me some of the same flavour—and I was partly right. Thank you to NetGalley and publisher Tor for the eARC.

Scorn is one…

Was this a product placement for Malört? On Earth as It Is on Television is a quirky, borderline absurdist take on first contact with aliens from the perspective—at least so it seems at first—of ordinary, everyday people. Emily Jane asks us to consider what would happen if aliens show up one day and then leave as abruptly as they came. How would life go on, and how would we all be different? Unfortunately, I can’t…