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5 gifts that will shoot to the top of any reader’s TBR

Got a serious bibliophile on your list? Tick that box with one of these titles.
Got a serious bibliophile on your list? Tick that box with one of these titles.
Science Fiction & FantasyHorror

The Swarm

Andy Marino rides the balance between good horrific fun and grisly speculation in The Swarm, a tale of a cicada emergence of biblical proportions.
Andy Marino rides the balance between good horrific fun and grisly speculation in The Swarm, a tale of a cicada emergence of biblical proportions.
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Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Nettle & Bone

Review by Amanda Diehl

Hugo Award winner T. Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone is a dark, feminist fantasy that follows an unlikely heroine as she takes matters into her own hands to free her sister and other women from a cyclical system of abuse.

Princess Marra is shy and seemingly forgettable, content with being sent to a convent rather than married off for political gain. But when she learns of the death of her oldest sister, Damia, most likely at the hands of her husband, Prince Vorling, Marra worries that her other sister, Kania, will suffer the same fate. She’s destined to be Vorling’s second wife, after all.

Embarking on a quest to save what remains of her family, Marra turns to the dust-wife, a necromancer whose familiar is a demon-possessed chicken. The dust-wife tasks Marra with building a dog of bones, sewing a cloak of nettles and capturing moonlight in a jar. As Marra attempts to accomplish the impossible, she slowly assembles a team worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster montage. First, there’s Bonedog, whose creation occurs in the first chapter, an instantly gripping flash-forward to Marra midquest. Then there’s Agnes, Marra’s neurotic fairy godmother whose abilities are limited to granting good health. Rounding out the group is Fenris, a diplomatic knight who seems to have a bit of a death wish.

Fans of Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel trilogy will recognize her trademark blend of bleak world building and an affable cast of underdog characters. Marra’s evolution is an inspiration. She becomes a more confident version of herself as she works to save her sister, and then expands her mission once she realizes that if her vengeance remains focused on just Prince Vorling, it will leave many more women still in danger. But while Nettle & Bone is undeniably dark and sinister at times, Kingfisher balances the horror with well-placed levity. Any road trip is instantly made better by a demonic chicken, and who wouldn’t love a curious, energetic dog to tag along, even if he is made of bones? The more comedic characters allow readers to find comfort amid the larger, darker scope of the novel, bright spots in a world that can often feel hopeless.

Kingfisher is an inventive fantasy powerhouse, and Nettle & Bone represents the burgeoning “hopepunk” ethos at its finest, with its winsome characters and focus on their fight to make the world a better place.

Nettle & Bone is the burgeoning “hopepunk” ethos at its finest: a dark fantasy starring a demon-possessed chicken and a feminist avenger.
Science Fiction & Fantasy

Review

Review by bookpagedev

orce of Hobbit The upcoming release of the first feature film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy has sparked new interest in all things Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring doesn’t hit theaters until December 19, but anticipation is already building for the $270 million three-movie series starring Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett and Sir Ian McKellan.

All three films (including the sequels The Two Towers and The Return of the King) were shot over the course of roughly one year in New Zealand, making it the first time an entire feature film trilogy was filmed concurrently with the same director and cast. Before you check out director Peter Jackson’s hobbits on the big screen, enter the Middle-earth as Tolkien envisioned it.

Houghton Mifflin, Tolkien’s U.

S. publisher for more than 60 years, has produced a one-volume movie tie-in edition of The Lord of the Rings that packs all three books into a fat paperback. The inexpensive edition revisits the John Ronald Reuel Tolkien classic that has been heralded as the greatest book of the 20th century and credited with launching the fantasy genre.

A professor of languages at Oxford University, Tolkien often created stories to soothe his young son, Michael, who had nightmares. Always fascinated by legends and fairytales, one day while grading exam papers, Tolkien scribbled the line, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” From there came The Hobbit and the best-selling trilogy that followed. The writer who possessed a childlike sense of humor never thought his inventive creations would find their way into print; he was 62 when they were published.

Since the release of The Hobbit in 1938, eager readers have purchased more than 50 million copies of Tolkien’s books. Author Tom Shippey, who taught at Oxford with Tolkien, takes a critical look at the author’s continuing appeal in the just released biography, J.

R.

R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Far from being accidental, Shippey attributes Tolkien’s success to his expertise as a linguist and his experiences as a combat veteran.

Whatever the reason for his popularity, readers are sure to line up for the first live-action take on The Lord of the Rings. With second and third sequels waiting in the wings for Holiday 2002 and 2003, it looks like a merry Christmas for fantasy and science fiction fans.

orce of Hobbit The upcoming release of the first feature film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy has sparked new interest in all things Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring doesn't hit theaters until December 19, but anticipation is already building for the $270…
Science Fiction & FantasyHistorical FantasyFantasy

Wild and Wicked Things

Review by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

In Francesca May’s stunning, gorgeously composed fantasy debut, Wild and Wicked Things, a dissipated coven of witches and a meek young woman become unexpected allies.

Annie Mason has led a quiet and ordinary life. When her estranged father dies shortly after the end of World War I, she reluctantly travels to Crow Island to take care of his estate. The island also happens to be the very place her former best friend, Bea, resides in a fancy house on the sea with her new husband. Crow Island is famous across the land for its faux magic parlors and fake spells and potions, but Annie soon learns that its inhabitants also practice true, darker-than-imagined magic. When she rents a summer cottage next to the infamous Cross House, where a coven throws lavish parties that feature Prohibited magic, Annie is given an opportunity to find a place—and maybe a person—that actually feels like home.

May seamlessly transports readers to the shores of Crow Island, straight into the shoes of Annie and de facto coven leader Emmeline Delacroix. Annie is whisked away by the island’s enchantment, and May’s prose echoes F. Scott Fitzgerald to capture the finery and wild parties of the era. And while Annie originally thinks she’s being bewitched by the coven’s magic or the island, she comes to realize that she is simply following her innermost desires. The supposedly cursed island gives her time and space to come to terms with grief over lost loved ones and her internalized shunning of her sapphic sexuality. Emmeline’s inexplicable and undeniable magnetism is a clever plot complication but also the perfect setup for a passionate, slow-burning queer romance that feels forged in destiny.

Under all the glamour, Wild and Wicked Things is also a nuanced exploration of intergenerational trauma and abusive relationships. Emmeline hovers over her adoptive siblings, Isobel and Nathan, even though their abusive guardian, coven founder Cilla, is long gone. Annie finds herself in a similar situation as she tries to shield Bea from a marriage gone wrong, and she and Emmeline bond over their roles as protectors and healers. But nothing is truly black and white, from the witches’ backstories and intentions, to Bea’s desires, to Annie’s past. May does not shy away from the macabre, and every twist is better and eerier than the last.

May’s thrilling fantasy takes familiar tropes, mashes them with a mortar and pestle, sprinkles them with a bit of herbs and throws them into the cauldron, creating a fresh and exciting take on witchy historical fantasy.

Wild and Wicked Things is a stunning, gorgeously composed historical fantasy with a compelling queer romance at its heart.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Three high fantasy novels aren’t afraid to ask the difficult questions

Feature by Laura Hubbard

Far from being simple tales of birthrights and inheritances restored, these books delve into heady questions about power, privilege and the consequences of political intrigue. And while each does this in a different way, they do have one thing in common: They open with a death.

The Amber Crown

Jacey Bedford’s The Amber Crown begins with the death of King Konstantyn of Zavonia, poisoned by an unknown assassin. His personal guards are immediately blamed for the death and executed by the new king. Valdas Zalecki, head of the king’s guard, was out of the palace on the night of the murder, and it is up to him to find out who killed his beloved king—and to find Queen Kristina, who’s gone missing. Mirza, a witch and healer with the power to speak with the dead, promises Konstantyn that she will avenge his death. And the last piece of The Amber Crown’s puzzle is Lind, the assassin who killed Konstantyn. Haunted by the specter of his abusive childhood, Lind finds that the murder of a king is not an easy thing to live with. As their stories collide, these three outsiders must work together to prevent Zavonia from falling further into chaos.

Despite its conventional premise, The Amber Crown still represents a divergence from traditional high fantasy. The world building echoes Eastern Europe, with Zavonia serving as a fictionalized version of Poland. This allows Bedford to pull from supernatural practices of that region of the world, such as blood rituals and dream walking. And Bedford’s focus on marginalized and supposedly “unimportant” characters, rather than knights and princes, forces readers to reckon with the consequences of political upheaval outside of a royal court.

★ The Bone Orchard

Sara A. Mueller’s debut novel also begins with the death of a monarch, this time an emperor. In The Bone Orchard, Charm is a prisoner but a well-kept one. Taken from her home when her kingdom of Inshil was conquered and colonized by the Boren Empire, the necromantic witch has been confined to Orchard House for decades. Charm is surrounded by her children, of a kind: boneghosts who are grown (and often regrown) from the fruit of the bone-producing orchard. Charm and her boneghosts—Justice, Pain, Pride, Shame and Desire—serve the powerful men of the capital city of Borenguard as entertainers, masseuses and sex workers. Charm is mistress to the emperor himself, bound by a neural implant that keeps her magic in check and keeps her loyal to him. But when Charm is called to the emperor’s deathbed, she’s given a chance at freedom. If she finds the person who killed him, she will be free of the magic that keeps her bound to the crown. 

While the mechanics of Charm’s bone orchard and the empathic power that some citizens of Borenguard wield are certainly magical, other aspects of The Bone Orchard evoke classic sci-fi tropes. Charm’s boneghosts harken all the way back to Frankenstein, and the oppressive, fascist Boren Empire is straight out of Fahrenheit 451. But despite these nods to foundational works, The Bone Orchard still feels fresh and ambitious. Charm enjoys access to power while still being marginalized herself, a contradictory position that Mueller analyzes to endlessly fascinating effect. It may be an otherworldly, genre-bending fantasy, but The Bone Orchard is still intensely human at its heart. 

In a Garden Burning Gold

In a Garden Burning Gold’s opening death is not so much a murder as it is a sacrifice. Young adult author Rory Power’s first novel for adults centers on twins Rhea and Lexos, siblings gifted with immense power and responsibility. Rhea is the Thyspira, tasked with taking—and then sacrificing—a new consort each season to keep the world lush and the provinces that owe fealty to their father, Vasilis, in line. Lexos is their father’s second, trained from near birth to assist Vasilis in his political machinations and keep stability in the land. When Rhea’s latest suitor-cum-sacrifice is revealed to be embroiled in an independence movement that threatens the stability of the family’s demesne, the twins must scramble to maintain control and protect all they hold dear. 

Set in a world patterned after ancient Greek city states, In a Garden Burning Gold dives deep into family love, political intrigue and filial duty. It’s rare to find a main character whose powers engender so much ambivalence as Rhea’s abilities do for her. She offers little in return to the families and communities from whom she has stolen a life, other than the continuance of the status quo. Power makes Rhea a compelling and often likable character, while never losing sight of the fact that, in the end, she always lives and her consort always dies. That imbalance compels readers to ask whether the sacrifice is really worth it, and whether that sort of power should sit in any one person’s—or family’s—hands. A grown-up version of Encanto mixed with a political thriller, all set against a dazzling Mediterranean backdrop, In a Garden Burning Gold is a strikingly original and thoughtful fantasy. 

Readers who are eager for feats of magic and daring adventures but don’t want to retread the same old stories from decades past will be enthralled by these three novels, each of which strays outside of the traditional high fantasy playbook to great effect.
Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

John Scalzi is ready to rumble

Interview by Chris Pickens

After wrapping up the Interdependency trilogy, sci-fi author John Scalzi planned to write a weighty and serious novel. Instead, he had a monster of a good time. The Kaiju Preservation Society is an adventurous romp that follows one-time delivery driver Jamie, who lucks into the job of a lifetime working for the titular organization, studying and protecting enormous monsters who live in an alternate dimension. We talked to Scalzi about the book he calls “as much fun as I’ve ever had writing a novel.”

There’s nothing like a good monster book to shake things up. What drew you to writing a story about Kaiju?
Well, I was actually writing another novel entirely—a dark and brooding political novel set in space—and it turns out that 2020 wasn’t a great year to be writing a dark and moody political novel, for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who lived through 2020. That novel crashed and burned, and when it did, my brain went, screw it, I’m gonna write a novel with BIG DAMN MONSTERS in it. It was much better for my brain, as it turns out.

When creating the world that the Kaiju live in, what details were important to you? Were there certain inspirations you drew from?
I think the most obvious inspirations were the classic Japanese Kaiju movies, starting with the original Godzilla. From there, I worked backward: If you want to have Kaiju, how do you build a world where they could not only exist, but in fact, it makes sense that they exist? I wanted the world to have at least a sheen of plausibility. So the end result is a much warmer, much more oxygenated Earth, to start . . . and when you have those two things, a lot of other aspects of the world present themselves.

“Self-honesty is important, especially when some creature wants to eat you.”

You mention in your author’s note that The Kaiju Preservation Society is “a pop song . . . meant to be light and catchy.” Did it feel like that to you, easy and fun, while writing? Or were there elements that proved to be surprisingly challenging?
Not going to lie, writing Kaiju was as much fun as I’ve ever had writing a novel. Some of that was in contrast to the unfinished novel before it; anything would have been easier than that one, given the subject and year I attempted it in. But most of it was just giving myself permission to feel the joy of writing, and of creating something expressly to be enjoyed. I wrote it as quickly and as easily as I’ve written anything. 

There are many homages to sci-fi and monster movie tropes in this book. What preexisting audience expectations served you best?
All of the preexisting expectations served me! One of the important things about world building is that the characters are in on the joke—they’ve seen all the Godzilla movies, they’ve watched Pacific Rim and Jurassic Park, and so all the tropes are on the table for them and the book to lean into, to refute and to play with, depending on the circumstances of the plot. No one, not the characters nor the readers, has to pretend that the characters have no concept of Big Damn Monsters, and that opens up a lot of narrative opportunities. 

The dialogue in The Kaiju Preservation Society positively crackles with life. How do you approach writing dialogue?
Dialogue is one of the things I “got for free”—which is to say, something that was already in my toolbox when I got serious about writing. That’s great, but that also means it can be a crutch, something I fall back on too easily, or get sloppy with because I know I can do it more easily than other things. So, paradoxically, it’s something I have to pay attention to, so that it serves the story. 

Read our review: ‘The Kaiju Preservation Society’ by John Scalzi

Do you see yourself as a Jamie? Ready to believe, optimistic, quick with a joke? (Maybe we all wish we were like Jamie, at least a little bit.)
You’ve hit on something, which is that Jamie is meant to be someone whom the readers can see themselves in, or at least could see themselves relating to. There’s a little of me in Jamie, sure. There’s also some of me in Jaime’s friends. They each have qualities that help them work together, which becomes important in the book. 

OK, real talk: What weapon would you reach for first if you were face to face with a Kaiju?
If I’m being real, I’m going to remember what the weaponmaster in the book asks the characters, which is, basically, “Are you competent enough for that weapon?” Self-honesty is important, especially when some creature wants to eat you. In which case, I’m going for the shotgun: widespread, low level of difficulty to use. Perfect. And then, of course, I’ll run like hell. 

Did working on this book make the insanity of 2020 and 2021 any easier to bear? What did you feel like when you finished writing?
When I finished writing, honestly, I was all like, “Fuck yeah, I nailed this one.” Which absolutely made the previous year easier to bear, considering how badly I flubbed the previous novel I had been trying to write, and how awful the year had been generally. I should note I wasn’t having a crisis of confidence in my skills; I’ve written more than 30 books, I know I can do it. But I was disheartened at how that one novel was a mess, and how it all-too-closely mirrored my mental state for 2020. Kaiju got me back in my stride, and I’m grateful for that.

Headshot of John Scalzi courtesy of the author.

Why The Kaiju Preservation Society was the most fun John Scalzi has ever had as a writer.
Science Fiction & FantasyRomanceNonfictionMystery & SuspenseFiction

13 writers to watch in 2022

Feature by the editors of BookPage
Maud Newton

Maud Newton, author of Ancestor Trouble
Random House | March 29

Maud Newton made a name for herself back in 2002 as one of the very first book bloggers, drawing a large audience with her blend of cultural criticism and personal writing about her family tree. Now her first book, Ancestor Trouble, will develop those early musings into their fullest forms, using the lens of Newton’s family (including her Confederate heritage-obsessed father and a grandfather who got married 13 times) to examine the wider world of genetics, intergenerational trauma and family secrets, both buried and spilled. Her approach is sweeping, even exhaustive, but Newton is a master at taking a complex, far-reaching topic and making it magnificently intimate.

M.E. Hilliard

M.E. Hilliard, author of Shadow in the Glass
Crooked Lane | April 5

A working librarian who grew up on the Connecticut coast, M.E. Hilliard brings her professional and personal expertise to bear in the Greer Hogan mysteries, the rare cozy series that can be legitimately described as “edgy.” The standard elements are all there—a beautiful small-town setting in New England, a clever and resourceful heroine—but there’s a pleasing strain of darkness running through the proceedings. Hilliard’s debut, The Unkindness of Ravens, won rave reviews across the board, and Shadow in the Glass is bound to lure even more readers to her chilly, ceaselessly clever take on the classic cozy. 

Bonnie Garmus

Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry
Doubleday | April 5

California-born, London-based author Bonnie Garmus’ first novel, Lessons in Chemistry, made waves when it sold in a 16-publisher auction, and now Brie Larson is set to star in and executive produce the Apple TV+ series adaptation. That’s a whole lot of hype, but the great news is that Garmus’ novel delivers on its promises in depicting the ups and downs in the life of chemist and cooking show host Elizabeth Zott. Plus, Garmus seems like someone we’d like to be friends with: copywriter, creative director, open-water swimmer, rower and mother with a background in tech and science and a real knack for naming dogs. (The dog in Lessons in Chemistry is named Six-Thirty, and the author’s own is named 99.)

Kris Ripper

Kris Ripper, author of Book Boyfriend
Carina Adores | April 26

The extremely prolific Kris Ripper became one of the genre’s rising stars with The Love Study series, a charming, nuanced look at modern love that boasted an enviable and highly entertaining friend group. Ripper’s next book, Book Boyfriend, offers a charmingly meta wrinkle to the always popular subgenre of romances set in the literary world. PK is a writer who has been in love with his best friend, Art, for years. He pours all of his feelings into his work, creating a novel in which a fictionalized version of himself is the perfect partner (aka a “book boyfriend,” a romance term used to refer to characters that readers would love to date in real life). 

Shelby Van Pelt

Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
Ecco | May 3

First-time novelist and Pacific Northwest native Shelby Van Pelt arrives with the year’s most anticipated animal narrator: Marcellus, an Ove-style curmudgeon that just so happens to be a highly observant giant Pacific octopus living in an aquarium. Van Pelt has combined My Octopus Teacher with a drama involving an elderly woman’s search for her missing son, resulting in a novel that aims for the book club sweet spot.

Putsata Reang

Putsata Reang, author of Ma and Me
MCD | May 17

When journalist Putsata Reang was less than a year old, she spent 23 days on a crowded boat with her mother as refugees fleeing Cambodia. Sanctuary was eventually offered in the Philippines, where Reang’s mother rushed her sick baby to a military doctor, who saved Reang’s life. This is the debt Reang owes her mother—and this is the reason Reang felt her mother’s disappointment so acutely when Reang came out as a lesbian and her mother severed the relationship. Ma and Me is an important new entry in the growing body of American refugee and immigrant literature, shining a light on the experiences of queer people whose families have survived the trauma of war. 

Kirstin Chen

Kirstin Chen, author of Counterfeit
William Morrow | June 7

Award-winning author Kirstin Chen’s first two novels, Soy Sauce for Beginners and Bury What We Cannot Take, received several “best books” nods and plenty of critical love, but her third novel, Counterfeit, is her first from a traditional publisher, which means that a whole new section of the reading public will finally get the chance to discover her. To tell the story of two Asian American women who band together in a counterfeit handbag scheme, Chen undertook a research trip to Guangdong, China, to witness the industry of luxury brand “superfakes.” It’s a juicy premise, so of course TV rights have already been sold, with Chen set to executive produce. Born and raised in Singapore, Chen currently lives in San Francisco, and she teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco and in Ashland University’s Low-Residency MFA Program.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Woman of Light
One World | June 7

No doubt about it, Colorado-based author Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s star is rising. Her 2019 short story collection, Sabrina & Corina, won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize and the Story Prize, which means that her first novel, Woman of Light, is really exciting in a “if you know, you know” sort of way. It’s a multigenerational epic set in the American West from 1890 to 1935, following an Indigenous Chicano family throughout five generations. Fajardo-Anstine earned her MFA from the University of Wyoming and is the 2022/2023 Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Texas State University.

Nekesa Afia

Nekesa Afia, author of Harlem Sunset
Berkley | June 28

It’s hard to write a good historical mystery. Authors must manage all the spinning plates of a good whodunit (premise, red herrings, pacing of clues, etc.), while also wrestling with the knotty questions of historical fiction. Can they evoke the feeling of an era while still making it accessible to modern readers, and successfully highlight both the fun and glamour and the inequalities and issues of the day? In her roaring ’20s historical mystery debut, Dead Dead Girls, Nekesa Afia succeeded at all of the above and introduced a complicated, perfectly crafted sleuth to boot. No surprise the book became a word-of-mouth hit. We expect that Harlem Sunset will introduce even more readers to Afia and her fashionable heroine, Louise Lovie Lloyd.

CJ Hauser

CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife
Doubleday | July 12

Novelist CJ Hauser (Family of Origin, The From-Aways) struck it big in 2019 with her Paris Review essay “The Crane Wife,” which has since been read by over a million people. Now her debut work of nonfiction will take the eponymous viral essay—about traveling to Texas to study whooping cranes 10 days after calling off her wedding—and enlarge its scope with 17 additional pieces that explore how to cultivate an unconventional life, from robot conventions, to weddings, to John Belushi’s grave. As a fiction writer, Hauser’s work is smart, surprising and irresistibly weird—and now, as an essayist, perhaps doubly so.

Isaac Fitzgerald

Isaac Fitzgerald, author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts
Bloomsbury | July 19

Isaac Fitzgerald has been a man about book-town for years: He’s the founding editor of Buzzfeed Books, a bestselling children’s book author, an essayist, a co-author of art books about tattoos and a frequent “Today” show guest. Dirtbag, Massachusetts marks his grand entry into one of the few book-town neighborhoods where he hasn’t yet set up shop: prose books for adults. Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays will chart his rough-and-tumble upbringing in Boston and rural Massachusetts and the choppy waters of his West Coast adulthood, learning to navigate the pitfalls of masculinity, body image, class and family strife. There will be tough stops along this journey—including discussions of violence, homelessness and trauma—but we suspect Fitzgerald’s signature tenderness, humor and generosity will carry readers gently the whole way.

Alexandra Rowland

Alexandra Rowland, author of A Taste of Gold and Iron
Tordotcom | August 30

Fantasy romance is absolutely huge right now, to the point that it can be hard to stand out among the flood of gorgeously crafted tales of star-crossed lovers or rival princes. But standing out has not been a problem for Alexandra Rowland. Their Conspiracy of Truths duology was funny, moving and profound in equal measure, thematically ambitious but still deeply rooted in the personal experiences of its characters. We expect even more from A Taste of Gold and Iron, a standalone fantasy romance set in a world inspired by the Ottoman Empire. This tale of a prince and his bodyguard falling in love while untangling a plot that threatens their kingdom and promises to be a feast that satisfies both emotionally and intellectually.

Maya Phillips

Maya Phillips, author of Nerd
Atria | October 11

Poet and New York Times critic at large Maya Phillips will breathe new life into the ever-popular subject of fandom in her prose debut, Nerd: Adventures in Fandom From This Universe to the Multiverse. Growing up in the 1990s, Phillips cut her teeth on narrative greats such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, “Doctor Who” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” As she teases apart how these franchises and others formed her identity, worldview and media appetites, her experiences as a Black woman and chops as a professional film and TV critic elevate each essay above the typical fandom fray. Nerd will lend weight to a sometimes-flighty sector of cultural criticism and establish Phillips as a true contender.

Newton author photo by Maximus Clarke. Garmus author photo by Serena Bolton. Van Pelt author photo by Karen Forsythe. Reang photo by Kim Oanh Nguyen. Chen photo by Sarah Deragon. Fajardo-Anstine photo by Estevan Ruiz. Afia photo by FizCo Photography. Hauser photo by Shannon Taggart. Fitzgerald photo by Maddie McGarvey. Rowland by Charles Darrel. Phillips photo by Brian Goldfarb.

From debuts to breakout books, this year promises to be a big one for these 13 authors. Keep them on your radar!
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

The Bladed Faith

Review by Chris Pickens

David Dalglish’s beautiful, grandiose and expansive The Bladed Faith begins at the roots of a rebellion.

Cyrus Lythan, heir to Thanet’s throne, witnessed his parents’ capture and execution when their small island nation was invaded by the Everlorn Empire. Having been held as a political prisoner ever since, Cyrus was helpless as the empire worked to eradicate his kingdom’s culture and religion. But during a skirmish with Thanet resistance fighters, Cyrus is rescued by Thorda Ahlai, a wealthy aristocrat bent on overthrowing the empire. With his two highly trained daughters and vast wealth, Thorda seeks to avenge his homeland’s destruction. Cyrus is all too happy to join the effort, but the price of reclaiming the country may be steeper than he realized. Cyrus will need to become something new: a folk hero and vigilante who exacts bloody revenge from the shadows. Will his and Thorda’s need for vengeance cost them their souls?

It’s a tale as old as time: Country is overthrown by authoritarians; heir forms resistance band to win back the country; revolution ensues. Of course, it’s never quite that easy in practice, and Dalglish grounds The Bladed Faith in reality as he charts his hero’s rocky path forward. It is extremely hard to run a rebellion. It’s also extremely hard to change one’s body and mind so completely as to become someone else, so Cyrus’ training lasts a lot more than one page. There are plenty of bumps in the road to liberation. Things go wrong for our heroes, and The Bladed Faith is all the more interesting because of it. 

The world around Cyrus and Thorda is vivid in every way, and the opening sequence depicting the fall of Thanet is particularly breathtaking. The nation’s two guardian spirits, who take physical form as a massive golden lion and a woman with shimmering wings, are cut down by goliath super soldiers from Everlorn. It’s sad, brutal and beautiful. But Dalglish takes equal care with smaller details, too, like Cyrus’ running route as he trains or the details on a character’s ax. At every turn, The Bladed Faith feels fully formed, without a single description haphazardly thrown in. Dalglish has an uncanny ability to predict his readers’ thoughts; more than once I found a character explaining answers to my own internal questions in real time.

Yes, rebellion against an evil empire is a familiar plot in fantasy. But this is a rebellion with soul, and one that promises to reach even greater heights as the series continues. Given Dalglish’s track record, don’t be surprised if he somehow manages to top the triumphant standard he sets with The Bladed Faith.

David Dalglish’s beautiful, grandiose and expansive fantasy The Bladed Faith tells a familiar story of rebellion with uncommon soul.
Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

The Kaiju Preservation Society

Review by Chris Pickens

John Scalzi had lofty goals for his next book, but like many of us, he found that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted even the best-laid plans. He found himself looking for a release, something to keep his mind off the unmitigated disaster that was 2020. Writing the funny and endearing Kaiju Preservation Society turned out to be just what the doctor ordered.  

Food app delivery driver Jamie Gray has just about had it—with work, New York City and the pandemic. But a chance encounter leads Jamie to Tom, an old friend who offers Jamie a job working for a mysterious animal rights organization called the KPS. Eager to do anything to get out of town, Jamie jumps at the chance. But this job is unlike anything anyone could have imagined. On another Earth, one warmer and devoid of humankind, gargantuan creatures called Kaiju roam. It’s up to the Kaiju Preservation Society to make sure the incredible, powerful monsters don’t hurt anyone—and that no one tries to hurt the Kaiju.

Why writing ‘The Kaiju Preservation Society’ was the most fun John Scalzi’s ever had as a writer.

It’s impossible to read this book without sensing how much fun Scalzi was having while writing it. The Kaiju Preservation Society revels in its own nerdiness, joyfully calling out the absurdities that Jamie and the other new KPS employees experience in their journey to the other Earth. The dialogue practically skips along, with jokes and minor insults pinging off each character at a near-constant pace. And the richness of the alternate Earth, with all its odd flora and fauna, is clearly the result of a creative mind let loose.

The camaraderie formed among the hodgepodge group of scientists and explorers entertains throughout. Jamie’s optimism and enthusiasm for the mission provide the focal and entry points, from which readers can track how tightknit the group becomes. No one character is too unlikable or outright obtuse all of the time, and everyone gets a good line, a heroic moment or a chance to shine. 

What better way to escape the feeling of being trapped inside, from pandemic-related reasons or anything else, than to go somewhere vibrant and unique, where you can feel loved by your friends, valued by your job and morally unassailable as you fight to preserve vulnerable wildlife? It certainly works for Jamie, and it will work for anyone lucky enough to pick up a copy of The Kaiju Preservation Society.

Feeling trapped? Go to another Earth and take care of some monsters in John Scalzi’s totally endearing new sci-fi novel, The Kaiju Preservation Society.
AudioFantasy

The Eye of the World

Review by G. Robert Frazier

The success of Amazon Prime Video’s adaptation of the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is enticement enough to revisit his epic fantasy novels, which debuted in 1990. But even more exciting is listening to the new audiobook of book one in the series, The Eye of the World (33 hours), narrated by Golden Globe- and Emmy Award-winning British actor Rosamund Pike. Pike stars in the series as Moiraine Damodred, whose quest is to find a hero to defeat the Dark One, and she brings a unique familiarity to the characters and storyline.

Previously recorded by narrators Michael Kramer and Kate Reading for the 2004 audiobook, The Eye of the World benefits from Pike’s smooth voice and dramatic, slower-paced rendering, which extend the length of this edition by almost three hours. She gently invites the listener into Jordan’s richly detailed world before powerfully amplifying the high stakes and tension.

Through her smooth, dramatic performance, award-winning actor Rosamund Pike amplifies the new audiobook of book one in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.
Science Fiction & Fantasy

Review

Review by bookpagedev

erry Bisson’s latest book is a laugh-out-loud fantastic tale. It’s a critique and a question: what does an individual have to do to stand out from the crowd? But on the surface, this novel is a simple tale of a man and his dog, and how the man manages to lose everything, starting with his government job.

In this near-future world, the Bureau of Arts and Entertainment (BAE) is a nebulous organization that has purview over choosing which pieces of art (including music, film, sculpture, etc.) stay, and which are deleted. Our hero, Hank, is a pickup artist, the internal term for a BAE operative. He picks up such things as old books, CDs, films and prints, and takes them back to the bureau to be destroyed all in the name of making space for new artists to emerge. When Hank becomes curious about a Hank Williams album, he gets involved with bootleggers and quickly loses all connections to his past life: legal job, friendly bar and all.

With this novel, Bisson enters the land of Vonnegut, Douglas Adams and even Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Hank’s naivete lets us accept at face value the world as presented: talking dogs, pregnancies that go on for eight years, corpses addicted to Last Rites, a revivifying drug and more. Hank has a touch of Candide about him. He takes all that’s thrown at him with an elan that makes him either the coolest operative since Sam Spade, or (and this seems somewhat more likely) a little slow on the uptake.

Bisson takes accurate and funny potshots at life and political concerns of the early 21st century: state tax is avoided by Ôflee markets’ that cross over state lines every day; Native American-owned casinos have been sold to a Danish concern; and the world is run more by a coterie of rich industrialists than any governmental organization. Like Bisson’s short stories (he is the author of the collections Bears Discover Fire and In the Upper Room and Other Likely Stories), this novel is mordantly funny, fast-moving and sharp. If, as he claims, Kurt Vonnegut really has given up writing novels, we can relax a bit Terry Bisson will keep us on our toes.

Gavin J. Grant lives in Brooklyn, where he spends most of his time reviewing, writing and publishing speculative fiction.

erry Bisson's latest book is a laugh-out-loud fantastic tale. It's a critique and a question: what does an individual have to do to stand out from the crowd? But on the surface, this novel is a simple tale of a man and his dog, and…
AudioFantasy

Good Omens

Review by Anna Zeitlin

Good Omens (12 hours) is the most fun you’ll have at the apocalypse. Amazon adapted the 1990 novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett into a TV series in 2019, and while fans wait for the second season, they’re rewarded with this audiobook update featuring an all-star cast, including the show’s two lead actors. David Tennant reprises his role as Crowley, a demon tasked with overseeing the end times but who is rather enjoying life on Earth. His portrayal comes off as part sardonic badass, part buffoon. Likewise, actor Michael Sheen returns as foppish and erudite Aziraphale, the angel who is happy to help Crowley thwart Armageddon despite their supposed enmity. Both actors have a long list of Shakespearean stage credits to their names, and their performances here are some of the best character work ever recorded on audiobook.

Rebecca Front, known for her BAFTA-winning role in the British comedy series “The Thick of It,” provides the perfect narration to balance the weight of the topic with the silliness of the execution. An ensemble cast rounds out the other characters.

Good Omens would make great listening for a road trip, especially for families with precocious tweens and teenagers.

An updated audiobook with an all-star cast, Good Omens is the most fun you’ll have at the apocalypse.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

A River Enchanted

Review by Laura Hubbard

A River Enchanted, Rebecca Ross’ adult fiction debut, is an elegant fantasy novel of homecoming and mystery. With its lyrical prose and tight world building, this story is both modern and timeless, drawing from the traditions of genre greats like Steven Lawhead and marrying them to the sensibilities of modern works like Genevieve Gornichec’s The Witch’s Heart and Tana French’s In the Woods.

The novel opens with the prodigal Jack Tamerlaine’s return to Cadence, the isle of his youth, a land where magic and spirits run free and gossip is carried on the wind as easily as smoke. He soon learns that young girls are going missing on Cadence, seemingly plucked from the air by a formless spirit, leaving no trace of them behind. Adaira, heiress to the laird and Jack’s childhood nemesis, has summoned Jack back to the island to help her find out exactly what has happened to the girls—and to get them back before it’s too late. She wants him to sing down the spirits as her mother once did so that Adaira can ask them what matter of mischief is afoot. But as Jack and Adaira delve deeper into the mystery, the spirits begin to suggest that a far darker secret lies behind the loss of the girls.

Already known for her young adult fantasy novels, Ross has created a world both rich and wonderful in Cadence. The island is full of so much magic, so many feuds and stories—enough that capturing them all in one novel, even a nearly 500-page one, seems a difficult task. But somehow Ross succeeds, guiding readers through the intricate warp and weft of the island and its traditions and creating a brilliant tapestry full of mystery and wonder. And while Ross does revel in world building, she doesn’t tell her story at a remove. The four characters that the book centers on—Jack, Adaira, guardsman Torin and healer Sidra—are vibrant and fully realized, keeping the myth-making quality of the book at bay and instead grounding the story in these characters’ heartaches and fears, their desires and attractions. A sublime mix of romance, intrigue and myth, A River Enchanted is a stunning addition to the canon of Celtic-inspired fantasy.

A sublime mix of romance, intrigue and myth, A River Enchanted is a stunning addition to the canon of Celtic-inspired fantasy.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Last Exit

Review by Ralph Harris

Max Gladstone spins a story from the perspective of several unreliable narrators in Last Exit. That unreliability is the point in this standalone fantasy, which is intentionally cerebral and difficult to follow. The dynamics of alternate dimensions and conflicting viewpoints are not background to the plot: They are the plot.

Set in modern-day America, Last Exit revolves around alternate dimensions, nicknamed alts. Alts can only be visited with the help of spin: an individual’s understanding of possibility. If someone has a limited belief in what is possible, then they will only see what is currently in front of them. But if you can overcome skepticism and accept various possibilities, you can force possibilities to materialize. A door that should be locked just happens to be unlocked.

Zelda, Ish, Ramon, Sarah and Sal were once a dimension-hopping fellowship, fighting a mysterious rot that corroded worlds. The group imploded after the loss of Sal, and Last Exit begins as Zelda, convinced that Sal isn’t lost forever, tries to get everyone back together to save Sal and defeat the rot once and for all. The realistic rifts between characters, conveyed via broody monologuing from each unique perspective, allow readers to compare each person’s opinions, providing a rich depth of relationships for readers to explore despite the relatively limited core cast. Last Exit has a relentlessly oppressive atmosphere, with the rot barely giving Zelda and her companions room to recover, but the compelling protagonists keep things engaging.

Gladstone avoids in-depth detail, leaving the reader to conceptualize a scene by leaning on their imagination (their spin, you might say) to flesh out the details. For example, Gladstone uses the phrase “cracked the sky” with no description of the crack’s appearance or its effect on the rest of the skyline. He then reuses the phrase multiple times, challenging the reader to recall their own mental imagery. As a result, Last Exit is a book enriched through sharing; it’s easy to see a book club discussing their varied interpretations of this phrase.

The beginning of Last Exit feels like the start of an archeologist’s excavation: new clues are popping up in unexpected places and nothing makes sense. But that process of discovery and excavation is where Gladstone’s novel shines, as each chapter revises and adjusts the reader’s understanding. By the end of the book, their individual vision of Gladstone’s world reaches something like clarity, enough for the intrepid archeologist to piece together most of the picture. While not a light undertaking, Last Exit is a satisfying read for those with a lot of imagination—and a little spin.

While not a light undertaking, Last Exit is a satisfying fantasy read for those with a lot of imagination.

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