Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Reviews & Community
I have concluded The Poet Empress needs to be experienced with very little knowledge of the story and characters, so the enigma of the villain can be unraveled as expectations…
“Jade City meets Never Die” At Emerald City Comicon, Ken Bebelle pitched the book he co-authored with Julia Vee to me as “Asian female John Wick with dragon magic in…
I enjoyed the Blue Eye Samurai much as I enjoyed Solo. Both tell engrossing stories, with complex plots, luscious visuals, and compelling characters; but suffer for being part of an…
Steeped in deep lore inspired by Chinese cosmology, Song of Silver, Flame Like Night infuses wonder and excitement into the common tropes of forbidden magic, lost heirs, and clash of…
“Yokai Scavenger Hunt-Heist-Military Fantasy” Yes, that tagline is a convoluted mouthful, that Rob J. Hayes manages to pull off, just as he did in book one of the Mortal Techniques…
Cradle meets Game of Thrones (if GRRM wrote it in a lighthearted tone). I have read hundreds of epic fantasy and Asian-inspired fantasy books; and up to now, nothing has…
I listened to the audiobook for The Crimson Queen, book one of Alec Hutson’s The Raveling, back when it was a finalist in the first SPFBO in 2018. At the…
As a lover of Asian-themed fantasy, and always a judge of a book by its cover, I had wanted to read Annette Marie’s Japanese urban fantasy, Red Winter, for quite…
Like much of the fantasy book world, I was surprised to find out that audiobook narrator extraordinaire Travis Baldree would be releasing a fantasy novel he wrote himself. I’d loved…
In April of last year, the Twitterverse erupted with charges of cultural appropriation in Jay Kristoff’s debut, Stormdancer. I took the accusations with a grain of salt, since the term…
“If Arya Stark were a mecha pilot.” Xiran Jay Zhao’s debut YA science-fantasy, Iron Widow, is the first book I’ve read in a very long time that I didn’t want…
“West Side Story meets Fists of Fury.” Australian-born-and-raised, American-educated, ethnically Chinese author Chloe Gong became a social media sensation with her TikToks drumming up anticipation for her YA historical fantasy…
JC Kang