Enduring War: The Continuing Allure of Warhammer
Nick Clark
Warhammer – you’ll probably know it for its long list of computer games, its plethora of licensed novels, or the venerable tabletop battle game itself. Almost certainly you’ll have seen…
science fiction
The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
Claire Lines
Paige Mahoney is one of the rarest and most powerful clairvoyants in the known world. She is the infamous Pale Dreamer, known for her ability to control the minds of…
Irregularity edited by Jared Shurin
Jo Niederhoff
I recently began some writing projects into what I thought was a thus far unexplored genre: historical science fiction. Steampunk touches on this but is largely attached to the Victorian…
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Sonia Grace
The 5th Wave is the first in an ongoing trilogy by Rick Yancey. The second book, The Infinite Sea came out in September, and the third book is expected in…
Class Warfare: Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Literary Fiction
Zachary A. Matzo
The line drawn between so-called literary fiction and genre fiction has always irked me. As I embarked upon a re-read of the first two volumes of Lev Grossman’s frustrating Magicians…
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
If you’ve come into contact with any of David Mitchell’s work before, you’ll be well-acquainted with the sort of genre-switching, time-slipping, scene-shifting fiction that the author is best known for.…
What Makes a Great Bookstore?
Nicole Singer
Everyone has a favorite bookstore—whether it’s a big chain or the corner independent. It’s the place where we discover new books, maybe even wait in line for hours for the…
The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard
Long before ‘cli-fi’ was a thing, long before the issue of climate change had really impacted on popular consciousness, there was J G Ballard’s The Drowned World. Ballard’s 1962 debut…
Art Imitates Life, Life Imitates Art: Where will SFF Go Next?
Genre has a strong history of leading to invention in the real world. From Star Trek’s influence in a whole myriad of ways, to Iron Man’s suit (Yes, this is…
Perfect Beginnings
Overlord
There is no doubt that the first sentence of a novel is important; it’s the hook that draws the reader in. And, when it comes to fantasy and science fiction,…
Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
Joie
The YA trilogy that started with Shadow and Bone concludes with Ruin and Rising – with quite a few unhappy readers. Apparently, the uproar is over a relationship that didn’t…
The Vorrh by Brian Catling
“My name is Muybridge and here’s the answer to the letter you sent my wife.” The trigger pulls, the muzzle flashes, the bullet cracks, and Major Harry Larkyns is dead…