The Worker Prince by Bryan Thomas Schmidt takes the Biblical story of Moses to the stars and beyond. When Prince Xander Rhii – Davi to his friends – graduates from the Borali Military Academy at the top of his class, his horizon looks clear and bright. Privileged enough to grow up in the […]
Lucy Stone works as a game designer in Edinburgh. Digital Damage is making a Massively multiplayer online role playing game based on dark ages Britain. With Zombies and other odd things. Slaving away at this game, Lucy gets a call from her mother, a fellow émigré from a troubled region in the Caucaus. Her mother […]
Jacob Aldridge, scion of a respectable, well off family in 1882 London, has had the shadow of tragedy hanging over him. His beloved fiancée, Rhoda Carothers, has suddenly died, and he seems more than usually affected by the tragedy. A chance meeting with Livia Aram is shocking to both, for Livia very much resembles the […]
City of Ruin, by Mark Charan Newton #2 in Legends of the Red Sun Series 448 pages ISBN: 0345520882 What do you get when you blend noir, 1920’s-style glitz, horror, an approaching Apocalypse, alternate universes, and a smattering of nearly every genre out there? Well, in this case, you might just be reading Mark Charan […]
Its late 19th Century Seattle. The gold rush of the Klondike a couple of decades earlier meant that the city was large and growing when inventor Leviticus Blue’s magnum opus due too greedily and too deep, releasing a gas that turns those who breathe it too deeply into the walking dead. Those bitten or injured […]
Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest, grabs the reader from page one and refuses to let go. The characters stand out, the setting is fantastic, and the situation dire. What better way to start a horror story? Set in the late 1800’s during the Civil War, the scientist Leviticus Blue invents an incredible drilling machine called […]
Sing, Muse!: Moses Siregar III‘s The Black God’s War Two very different realms have struggled against each other for years. The Rezzians, worshipers of ten deities, have engaged in a holy war against their godless neighbors, the Pawleons. With the birth of a royal son who is also a prophesied holy leader with divine powers, […]
Dealing with the running of Heaven, the creation of a new Earth, and a literal administrative Hell has the newly deified Kate and Daniel both frazzled and emotionally drained in Earth, the third book of Mur Lafferty‘s Afterlife series. Despite their godly powers and knowledge, they lack the experience to handle their new […]
“The journey is as important as the destination.” – God In Hell, Book II of the Afterlife series by Mur Lafferty, Kate and Daniel learn this important principle as they once again journey through the afterlife. God sends them on a divine mission, literally going through Hell – from Hades of Ancient Greece […]
A savage pant—almost a laugh—puffed foul breath that blew hair from Sanders’s forehead. Sanders raised a fist, but the beast caught his arm with ease and slammed it on the concrete floor. Liam felt bones give way with a sickening snap and was pinned between satisfaction and revulsion. Sanders howled. A talon plunged into […]
“So you’re saying that the journey is key, not the destination.” – Kate This sentiment – expressed in the very beginning of Mur Lafferty‘s Heaven – echos heavily throughout the novella. After dying in a car crash, best friends Kate and Daniel find out death isn’t what they expected. While they’re both superficially happy […]
“Ah!” Malagigi’s eyes flickered over the three staffs of power we carried—the staffs that were our Prospero Family legacy: Gregor’s Staff of Darkness, Erasmus’s Staff of Decay , and my flute, The Staff of Winds—before coming to rest upon Durandel riding in its sheath at Erasmus’s side. Softly, he murmured. “Maybe, with […]
Publisher: Spectra ISBN-10: 0345520858 ISBN-13: 978-0345520852 Nights of Villjamur Mark Charan Newton Shrouded in snow and ice, and facing the threat of an endless winter, the city of Villjamur is–understandably–under a great deal of stress. Refugees stream from all over the Empire, the Emperor is mad and paranoid, councilors are being murdered, cultist tensions are […]
hierophant noun. 1. (Historical Terms) (in ancient Greece) an official high priest of religious mysteries, esp those of Eleusis 2. a person who interprets and explains esoteric mysteries Back when I wrote a review of Finch, I called Jeff Vandermeer the “Hierophant of the New Weird”. I used that unusual word on purpose, then, and I use […]
Take a captain of a beat up old ship that sometimes can barely fly, but he loves it to death. He’s a veteran of a recent war, has no love for the Navy, and seeks freedom and profit, from trading between ports to a bit of light piracy and theft now and again. He […]
Galileo’s Dream, by author Kim Stanley Robinson, takes the reader on a time traveling adventure between the moons of Jupiter and the most famous cities of the Renaissance, between the political turmoil of the distant future to the inner turmoil of Galileo’s own mind. Our guides throughout the journey are a man named […]
A Review of Engineering Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan Jonathan Strahan is a freelance editor known for the wide variety of anthologies and author collections he has helped mold into shape. Ranging from collections of Jack Vance and Larry Niven to the New Space Opera to the Sword and Sorcery anthology Swords and […]
Hex, by Allen M. Steele, is the sixth book in his Coyote series, taking place a number of years after the original novel. It’s a fast, exciting read, but one that fails to live up to expectations. Humanity has been opened up to the stars via a network of gates and tentative connections with other […]
Do I dare disturb the universe? – (TS Elliot) quoted by The Mastermind Timecaster by Joe Kimball, a self described Eco-punk novel set in a green utopean future, promises all the thrills, violence, sex, and groin punches that you probably wouldn’t expect in that setting. It’s not short on humor either. In […]
The creature stalked forward, bent, its talon like hands flexing, and Burton saw that his first impression was accurate: the thing walked on two-foot-high stilts. Its lanky body was clad in a skintight white scaly suit that glittered in the dim light of the single guttering gas lamp. Something circular glowed on its […]
The Winds of Khalakovo A novel by Bradley P Beaulieu Review by Paul Weimer “You look thin” Rehada said, perhaps growing tired of the silence. She held two snifters of infused vodka, one of which she handed to Nikandr as she settled gracefully upon the nearby pillows. “The work on the Gorovna…” Thankfully the wasting […]
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