Roses and Rot by Kat Howard
Jonathan Thornton
Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers. Please read with caution if you’ve yet to finish the book. This is the thing about fairy tales: You have to live through…
Reviews
Company Town by Madeline Ashby
Charlie Hopkins
There is a lot to like about this ambitious, quick and explosive sci-fi story. Company Town is told through the eyes of the protagonist Hwa and takes place in a…
The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough
There is a language to dying. It creeps like a shadow alongside the passing years and the taste of it hides in the corners of our mouths. It finds us…
Mash Up edited by Gardner Dozois
Victoria Hooper
Mash Up is a short story anthology edited by Gardner Dozois, in which authors take famous first lines from literature and weave completely new stories from them, all with a…
The Bound Folio by Rob J. Hayes
Richard Bray
In the Five Kingdoms, previously the setting of Rob J. Hayes’ Ties That Bind trilogy and now the setting of his new collection of short stories, The Bound Folio, injustice…
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
Lucy Hounsom
When I asked Twitter whether I should buy the first Witcher game, I got a unanimous YES. One gentleman informed me that the games were based on a series of…
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
Joie
My first impression after reading the title was, “Will I turn invisible once I enter? Can no one find me?” A place where I can read, undisturbed and uninterrupted? Sign…
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
Jo Niederhoff
Karen Memory is the sort of book I’d like to write someday, and the sort I wish I could read more often. If you need to lose yourself in a…
Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Every Heart A Doorway is an ambitious mixture of genres. It plays tribute to every portal fantasy you can think of, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland through to Narnia and…
The Malice by Peter Newman
T. O. Munro
Peter Newman has followed up his remarkable debut The Vagrant with another exceptional tale, The Malice. In The Vagrant, Newman flouted convention with a present tense story of a protagonist…
Star Wars: Bloodline by Claudia Gray
Zachary A. Matzo
Bloodline is best novel of the new Star Wars unified continuity. It’s certainly one of the best Princess Leia tales ever told. Steeped in the myth, lore and continuity of…
Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay
Eric Christensen
Children of Earth and Sky, Guy Gavriel Kay’s 13th novel, interweaves several individual tales into a larger story highlighting the pain and opportunity and fragility of living between clashing empires…