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Fiction
KJ Charles, Gilded Cage: One of the Lilywhite Boys is framed for murder, and turns to his lost love Susan—now an inquiry agent—to help. Het romance with shenanigans. I liked it but would prefer more fantasy!
Robert Jackson Bennett, Shorefall: Sancia and her girlfriend Bereneice are back, trying to succeed at scriving while bringing down the Great Houses that are the source of so much oppression and suffering. But their plots are complicated by the return of a near-Godlike threat; their own slightly less-Godlike ally can’t really be trusted, either. The book does a good job doing what the middle book of a trilogy should do: advancing plot and throwing bigger challenges at the characters while setting up a final struggle. Also, scriving here works like computer programming, and Bennett does some cute things with back doors/viruses etc.
Nnedi Okorafor with Tana Ford & James Devlin, Laguardia: Graphic novel in which aliens, who have been coming mostly to Africa, confront prejudiced American customs and Customs. I couldn’t help comparing it to Rosewater, although that book has a lot more going on; here, the narrative is more tightly tied to the actual travel ban (without the Supreme Court decision upholding it). And the aliens are apparently largely welcomed by African governments, though existing tensions among humans easily get transferred to aliens. Anyway, Future Chukwuebuka returns to America after running a clinic for humans and floral aliens in Nigeria; she’s pregnant, and the question of what her baby will be—American, Nigerian, maybe alien?—is a big part of the narrative, along with found families and solidarity among people who are excluded.
Emily Skrutskie, Bonds of Brass: He’s the heir to a galactic empire, hiding out as a random cadet at the military academy on a newly conquered world. And he’s a traumatized kid who lost everything in the conquest but is determined to make a new life in the conqueror’s military—and in love with the guy who turns out to be the imperial heir. When the local governor makes a power play against the heir, they flee together. But will love be enough to get them through the resulting secrets and plots as they discover that not everyone who was defeated is willing to stay that way? A decent trilogy opener, though the traumatized kid’s secret was pretty clear by about halfway through.
Sarah Kuhn & Nicole Goux, Shadow of the Batgirl: Origin story for Cassandra Cain, involving a library and people (including but not limited to Oracle) kind enough to let Cassandra be kind herself. The art was not to my taste but it’s a sweet story.
Tobias S. Buckell, Mitigated Futures: Short story collection, often on the shorter side, with lots of climate futurism. Buckell is also interested in intellectual property, like the aliens who claim patent rights in the wheel and (separately) seed libraries, though he can’t always distinguish copyright from patent.
The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, ed. Gary Phillips. It’s really, really hard to exaggerate or even satirize the ways in which Trump is gaslighting the country, and so these stories largely didn’t work for me. Names I recognized: Walter Mosley (a variant on aliens/lizard people controlling the masses), Nisi Shawl (RBG clones), Robert Silverberg (a story about the ruling class altering their bodies at will; they didn’t even really try to fit the theme). Kate Flora’s Michelle in Hot Water, in which Michelle Obama is secretly a superspy, and Anthony Neil Smith’s I Will Haunt You, in which Trump is an Ahab-like figure searching the barren Gulf of Mexico for the one last assembly of biomass there, came closest.
Molly Knox Ostertag, The Midwinter Witch: Another story in the Hidden Witch sequence: the families meet for a competition, and Ariel is tempted by a witch who claims to be part of her family. A solid entry in the series.
K.D. Edwards, The Hanged Man: Rune Sun is back, trying to protect his ward from the attentions of the Hanged Man, an Atlantean power who controls death, which is a pretty terrible magic. Rune is also juggling his relationship with his human Companion and his boyfriend Addam. There’s a lot of found family and palace intrigue/magical protocol, and I love it.
Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth: Lesbian necromancers in the God-Emperor’s ancient manor, trying to become undying Lectors to serve Him. Gideon is the Ninth House necromancer’s cavalier, but she and her necromancer have hated each other since childhood (not that long ago; these are teenagers, though others from other Houses are older). She’s here because she has no choice. And then people start dying. For the first hundred pages, the Ninth House necromancer doesn’t answer Gideon’s perfectly reasonable questions, and neither does anyone else, and I was really mad, and then people started talking when they had recognizable motives to start talking, and I ended up really liking the book. I have questions about the basic structure of the Empire, which seems like it gets its necromantic energies by constantly invading places and killing their people, which does not sound good. But I will pick up the second book to see how she deals with that.
Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks, Pumpkinheads: Deja and Josiah have worked together at a pumpkin-themed festival throughout high school. Now it’s the last night—next comes college—and “employee of the month” Josiah has never talked to the girl at the fudge shoppe he’s mooned over for four years. Deja isn’t going to let him get away without trying, so they go on an odyssey through the festival. It’s adorable and about growth, change, and goats.
Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales, ed. Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant: Monsters, mostly pretty monstrous but also, sometimes simultaneously, rescuers from even worse humans. Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands short from Luke’s POV is by far the lightest and brightest, while Patrick Ness’s “everybody has demonic aspects and we are in a band” and Cassandra Clare’s “young girl meets vampire and is of no interest to him” are the next closest. Paolo Bacigalupi (krakens and abusive parents), Holly Black (space monster), Nalo Hopkinson (ghosts), Kelly Link (ghosts), and Alice Sola Kim (something bad), are among the other contributors. The discovery for me was G. Carl Purcell, a grim but inventive dystopia in which the world is poisoned by mercury spirits.
Robert Jackson Bennett, Shorefall: Sancia and her girlfriend Bereneice are back, trying to succeed at scriving while bringing down the Great Houses that are the source of so much oppression and suffering. But their plots are complicated by the return of a near-Godlike threat; their own slightly less-Godlike ally can’t really be trusted, either. The book does a good job doing what the middle book of a trilogy should do: advancing plot and throwing bigger challenges at the characters while setting up a final struggle. Also, scriving here works like computer programming, and Bennett does some cute things with back doors/viruses etc.
Nnedi Okorafor with Tana Ford & James Devlin, Laguardia: Graphic novel in which aliens, who have been coming mostly to Africa, confront prejudiced American customs and Customs. I couldn’t help comparing it to Rosewater, although that book has a lot more going on; here, the narrative is more tightly tied to the actual travel ban (without the Supreme Court decision upholding it). And the aliens are apparently largely welcomed by African governments, though existing tensions among humans easily get transferred to aliens. Anyway, Future Chukwuebuka returns to America after running a clinic for humans and floral aliens in Nigeria; she’s pregnant, and the question of what her baby will be—American, Nigerian, maybe alien?—is a big part of the narrative, along with found families and solidarity among people who are excluded.
Emily Skrutskie, Bonds of Brass: He’s the heir to a galactic empire, hiding out as a random cadet at the military academy on a newly conquered world. And he’s a traumatized kid who lost everything in the conquest but is determined to make a new life in the conqueror’s military—and in love with the guy who turns out to be the imperial heir. When the local governor makes a power play against the heir, they flee together. But will love be enough to get them through the resulting secrets and plots as they discover that not everyone who was defeated is willing to stay that way? A decent trilogy opener, though the traumatized kid’s secret was pretty clear by about halfway through.
Sarah Kuhn & Nicole Goux, Shadow of the Batgirl: Origin story for Cassandra Cain, involving a library and people (including but not limited to Oracle) kind enough to let Cassandra be kind herself. The art was not to my taste but it’s a sweet story.
Tobias S. Buckell, Mitigated Futures: Short story collection, often on the shorter side, with lots of climate futurism. Buckell is also interested in intellectual property, like the aliens who claim patent rights in the wheel and (separately) seed libraries, though he can’t always distinguish copyright from patent.
The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, ed. Gary Phillips. It’s really, really hard to exaggerate or even satirize the ways in which Trump is gaslighting the country, and so these stories largely didn’t work for me. Names I recognized: Walter Mosley (a variant on aliens/lizard people controlling the masses), Nisi Shawl (RBG clones), Robert Silverberg (a story about the ruling class altering their bodies at will; they didn’t even really try to fit the theme). Kate Flora’s Michelle in Hot Water, in which Michelle Obama is secretly a superspy, and Anthony Neil Smith’s I Will Haunt You, in which Trump is an Ahab-like figure searching the barren Gulf of Mexico for the one last assembly of biomass there, came closest.
Molly Knox Ostertag, The Midwinter Witch: Another story in the Hidden Witch sequence: the families meet for a competition, and Ariel is tempted by a witch who claims to be part of her family. A solid entry in the series.
K.D. Edwards, The Hanged Man: Rune Sun is back, trying to protect his ward from the attentions of the Hanged Man, an Atlantean power who controls death, which is a pretty terrible magic. Rune is also juggling his relationship with his human Companion and his boyfriend Addam. There’s a lot of found family and palace intrigue/magical protocol, and I love it.
Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth: Lesbian necromancers in the God-Emperor’s ancient manor, trying to become undying Lectors to serve Him. Gideon is the Ninth House necromancer’s cavalier, but she and her necromancer have hated each other since childhood (not that long ago; these are teenagers, though others from other Houses are older). She’s here because she has no choice. And then people start dying. For the first hundred pages, the Ninth House necromancer doesn’t answer Gideon’s perfectly reasonable questions, and neither does anyone else, and I was really mad, and then people started talking when they had recognizable motives to start talking, and I ended up really liking the book. I have questions about the basic structure of the Empire, which seems like it gets its necromantic energies by constantly invading places and killing their people, which does not sound good. But I will pick up the second book to see how she deals with that.
Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks, Pumpkinheads: Deja and Josiah have worked together at a pumpkin-themed festival throughout high school. Now it’s the last night—next comes college—and “employee of the month” Josiah has never talked to the girl at the fudge shoppe he’s mooned over for four years. Deja isn’t going to let him get away without trying, so they go on an odyssey through the festival. It’s adorable and about growth, change, and goats.
Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales, ed. Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant: Monsters, mostly pretty monstrous but also, sometimes simultaneously, rescuers from even worse humans. Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands short from Luke’s POV is by far the lightest and brightest, while Patrick Ness’s “everybody has demonic aspects and we are in a band” and Cassandra Clare’s “young girl meets vampire and is of no interest to him” are the next closest. Paolo Bacigalupi (krakens and abusive parents), Holly Black (space monster), Nalo Hopkinson (ghosts), Kelly Link (ghosts), and Alice Sola Kim (something bad), are among the other contributors. The discovery for me was G. Carl Purcell, a grim but inventive dystopia in which the world is poisoned by mercury spirits.