Christine Sandquist is an NYC-based sensitivity/developmental editor and author assistant to writers such as Hugo Award Winner Mary Robinette Kowal, World Fantasy Award Winner Tobias S. Buckell, and SOVAS Award Finalist Cadwell Turnbull. They specialize in analyzing and providing feedback on works that include diverse, queer casts, representations of sexual trauma, and broader gender-based violence. They are part of the team behind Reddit r/fantasy, the internet’s largest discussion forum for the greater speculative fiction genre.
Brimstone and Marmalade is one of those stories that I simply have to pull out of the woodworks every year around Halloween. Most Halloween themed stories are spooky, filled with horror and fright. Aaron Corwin, however, bucks the trend with this adorable little short story about a girl and her demon. … More Brimstone and Marmalade by Aaron Corwin
Fortuna’s premise snagged me in an instant – a whole family of space smugglers! Devastating massacres! A young, roguish captain! How could I resist? Yet, while it didn’t disappoint… neither did it impress. Advertised as “Perfect for fans of Becky Chambers and Catherynne M. Valente,” I came in expected both interesting twists and turns combined with a cast of truly lovable, yet kind characters. Ultimately, the characters were decent, the setting cliche, and the plot mostly straightforward and with a few straggling ends. Many interesting ideas that it could have delved into, such as recovery from child abuse/neglect, were only touched on briefly at best and stranded high and dry at worst. … More Fortuna by Kristyn Merbeth
This tag was originally created by Jenn @ Jenniely. I was tagged by Keikii at Keikii Eats Books and figured I’d participate with a post of my own. I’m a sweater person in every weather, since I am secretly a lizard person who is incapable of generating my own body heat. Other people without this deficiency seem to have some fairly radical ideas about how high the air conditioner should be turned up during summer, so I’m all about sweaters and cardigans year round. … More Sweater Weather is Every Weather When Your Office Loves to Turn Up the AC…
The Deep is a compelling tale focused on the importance of history as a part of identity, specifically within black culture. This short novella is focused, coherent, and was written with a clear message in mind: no matter how painful, our past leaves an indelible print on our present and on our identity as individuals and as a culture. … More The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes
I love weird, squishy, biological scifi, and I was impressed by how perfectly Escaping Exodus delivered on this front. When I originally read the premise on Goodreads – “a city-size starship carved up from the insides of a space-faring beast” – I knew I had to get my hands on this book. I’ll admit that I came in feeling a hint of trepidation: what if the beast is relegated to being in the background? What if it’s a normal spaceship that’s only “alive” when it’s plot convenient? Etc., etc. Fortunately, we were wading through ichor and entrails from the very first page. My worries were utterly baseless. Nicky Drayden embraced every bit of icky organic goodness right from the start. … More Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden
Marina and Sergey have crafted a unique and strange experience in Vita Nostra, one requiring effort and attention from the reader to unravel. While it is a book set in a magic school, it is dissimilar to most everything else I’ve encountered in the magic school subgenre. The students sit under constant threat of severe retribution should they fail to perform – up to and including the deaths of their loved ones. They are assigned strange and esoteric mental exercises, forced to run until they can’t any more, forced to prostitute themselves. It is a book without chapters, without clear plot or goals. … More Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko
This book held promise, and kept me interested by introducing new ideas and premises as it progressed. It was short and a quick read. The prose was more than serviceable. However, every promise the novelette made to me as a reader ended up unfulfilled. I think this book needed to pruned back heavily, and perhaps would have been more appropriate as a short story instead of a novelette. … More Duchamp Versus Einstein by Christopher Hinz and Etan Illfeld
This is not a comfortable book. It is brutal. It is often gory. It is violent, torturous, and painful. It is not palatable. And yet, A Lush and Seething Hell is perhaps one of the most polished and seamless books I have read. As Chuck Wendig put it in the foreword, “his magic tricks remain pure fucking magic. These murder ballads are ones we have not heard before.” I cannot find it in myself to disagree with him. When I review a book, I tend to pick it apart to see what makes it tick. Then, I reduce it down into a format that will give a reader a good idea as to the tone and content of the book while also allowing some of my own biases and voice to come through. I fail to pick this book apart. I fail to see the specific gears that make it tick, though I can certainly see the hands turning and hear the bells chiming. … More A Lush and Seething Hell by John Hornor Jacobs
Cradle is so much fun, y’all. While Uncrowned is not perhaps my favorite novel in the series to date (this honor still goes to Underlord), I still had a dang good time with it. Will Wight is a machine who churns out about one novel per year, and I have yet to be disappointed. Uncrowned is book 7 in the Cradle series. … More Uncrowned by Will Wight
September was sure an interesting ride. We had a few stand outs – namely, The Bone Ships by RJ Barker, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, and The Imaginary Corpse by Tyler Hayes…. all sandwiched in between a few books that didn’t quite hit that sweet spot for me. Both Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and The Miracles of Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino were near-misses and had quite a few aspects I enjoyed greatly even if they didn’t pull together in the way I might have hoped. The Resurrectionist of Caligo, however, didn’t work for me at all on nearly any level – though I think the author duo behind it shows promise and may well improve in future works. … More September Reading Wrap-Up
Black Forest Basilisks 