Science Fiction & Fantasy Archives | Page 31 of 66 | BookPage

by Mya Alexice

Nicole Jarvis’ debut fantasy, The Lights of Prague, welcomes readers into an arresting and vivid historical fantasy world.

Set in 19th-century Prague, Jarvis’ careful and effective world building suggests an abundance of research and showcases her descriptive skill. In her version of the culturally rich European city, creatures from Czech folklore haunt its streets and endanger its citizens. Pijavice—vampiric monsters consumed by bloodlust—are particularly terrifying to those who walk alone at night. The Lights of Prague follows Domek Myska, an earnest member of the lamplighters, who in this world are also a monster-hunting secret society that keeps these creatures at bay, and Lady Ora Fischerová, a charming widow with her own ties to Prague’s supernatural underground.

The two protagonists’ paths cross and uncross as they each unravel the threads of a conspiracy that threatens the safety of the city, each bringing their own skillset to the fight to save Prague from doom. Their interactions exude chemistry when Ora’s playful flirtations bounce off Domek’s endearing shyness, a dynamic bolstered by how tangible and layered both characters feel when they are apart from each other. As the many secrets of her past unfold, Ora becomes especially engrossing. An intriguing cast of supporting characters surround the central duo, from a sentient and manipulative will-o’-the-wisp to an aristocratic pijavice who feeds on unwitting servants in his looming castle. Everything feels real, from the intriguing lore to the communities of people (and not quite people) who make up the gothic, powerful city.

The story unfolds at a measured pace, submerging the reader into moments of reflective exposition or lush descriptions of Prague. The book clocks in at more than 400 pages, and some of these passages can drag. Readers hoping for a fast-moving adventure might be left a bit wanting, but those interested in a story that’s meditative will enjoy spending their time in the world Jarvis has built. The Lights of Prague is an impressive and mature feat from a debut novelist.

Nicole Jarvis’ debut fantasy, The Lights of Prague, welcomes readers into an arresting and vivid historical fantasy world.

Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Historical Fantasy Fantasy

A Master of Djinn

Review by Ralph Harris

by Ralph Harris

P. Djèlí Clark’s A Master of Djinn is the literary equivalent of a cup of lovely mint tea: a refreshing, delightful and magical mystery to enjoy while absorbing vitamin D on a crisp spring day. The fourth installment and first full-length novel of Clark’s Dead Djinn Universe series, the smooth and welcoming A Master of Djinn provides the perfect amount of fan service to engage returning fans without alienating new readers.

In this fantastical version of our world, a man named Al-Jahiz tore a hole in reality in 1872, unleashing Djinn and magic across the earth. In the 50 years since, international governments have taken a variety of approaches to the new existence of the supernatural. In Egypt, magic has not only been allowed, but embraced. This decision put Egypt on the map as a world power, driving other countries (seemingly on the precipice of this world’s version of World War I) to meet for a peace summit in Cairo. The summit is only a few weeks away when a man claiming to be Al-Jahiz returned from the dead commits a series of grisly murders. Fatma, a famous agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities is assigned to the case. She is one of the Ministry's few female operatives, and her success has made her one of the Ministry’s favorite agents for difficult cases.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: How P. Djèlí Clark came up with the idea for his magical vision of Cairo.

Clark’s characters have wholesome, wonderful interactions with each other, never waiting long to address their interpersonal conflicts and always resolving on friendly terms. “Friendly” is an apt description of the book as a whole. While there is certainly conflict, tension and danger in A Master of Djinn, the reader will find themselves propelled along through the book by the likeability and relatability of Fatma. Even if you guess the plot's various twists and turns, Fatma’s endearing style, gruffness and no-nonsense approach make A Master of Djinn worth reading.

While A Master of Djinn admittedly breaks little new ground, Clark has created an engaging mystery and a vivid world with intrigue, arcane secrets and an epic climax.

P. Djèlí Clark’s A Master of Djinn is the literary equivalent of a cup of lovely mint tea.

Historical Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Historical Fantasy

The Chosen and the Beautiful

Review by Noah Fram

by Noah Fram

Adapting classic works of literature is always challenging, not least because the adapting author must decide how much novelty is appropriate. Too much and fans will shun it out of pique; too little and they’ll shun it out of disinterest. This dilemma is only heightened when the book in question is as widely read as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. And yet, in The Chosen and the Beautiful, Nghi Vo perfectly strikes that balance of the new and the familiar.

Retold from the perspective of Daisy Buchanan’s best friend, amateur golfer Jordan Baker—here recharacterized as a wealthy Louisville missionary family’s adopted Vietnamese daughter—the familiar contours of Fitzgerald’s tragedy are warped with a hazy dash of demonic and earthly magic. The result is an utterly captivating series of speakeasies, back-seat trysts, parties both grand and intimate and romances both magical and mundane, all spiraling through a miasma of Prohibition-era jingoism and entitlement toward its inevitably tragic conclusion.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Summer reading 2021: 9 books to soak in this season

Vo is a remarkable writer whose talent for reviving Fitzgerald’s style of prose is reminiscent of Susanna Clarke channeling Jane Austen in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. But it is Vo’s additions to Gatsby’s original plot that truly shine. By foregrounding Jordan’s and Daisy’s perspectives rather than Nick’s, she recasts a story about the consequences of male overreach as one about the limitations of female and non-white agency. This is further complicated by Jordan’s inability to remember anything of her childhood in Vietnam before she was brought to Kentucky. She sees herself as American, the daughter of the Louisville Bakers, but neither her white peers nor the Vietnamese immigrants she meets agree with her.

For both Jordan and Daisy, magic can offer some surcease, but only to a point. In the first scene of the book, for instance, when the two women go flying through Daisy’s house with a magic charm, they must return demurely to the couch when Daisy’s husband comes home. Throughout the book, the women’s choices are constrained by those of the men surrounding them. Even magic, whether a charm, an enchantment or a potion (which are always consumed as cocktails), can only win them a brief reprieve from the decisions others make for and about them.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Nghi Vo on the dangers of Hemingway.

In this alternate America, the fear of demons is consistently paralleled with the fear of immigrants. Magic is unavoidable in Vo’s West and East Egg, but although it may be consumed by those at the center of American society, it emanates from those at its periphery. To its consumers and connoisseurs, it is valuable precisely because it is foreign, while those who create and practice it are ostracized and hated for precisely the same reason. The fetishization of earthbound magics is reminiscent of the real-world fascination with traditions like folk medicine, and even demoniac, the psychotropic beverage derived from demon’s blood that several characters drink, could represent any number of exoticized vices prized by the American wealthy. There are lessons here for those of us living in the mundane reality of the 21st century, just as there are in Jordan’s commentary on the ways her agency is constrained as a Vietnamese American woman.

The Chosen and the Beautiful, like the novel it retells, is as much a tragedy as it is a social commentary. The reader will likely know how Daisy’s story ends, but Jordan is in the spotlight here, and her story is just as captivating, if not more so. By putting her in the foreground, and highlighting the voice among Fitzgerald’s core characters that was the least heard, Vo has transformed The Great Gatsby utterly.

Nghi Vo perfectly balances the new and the familiar in her magical adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fantasy

Malice

Review by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

Heather Walter’s debut novel, Malice, transforms the familiar fairytale of Sleeping Beauty into a captivating fantasy romance between the storybook Princess Aurora and the dark sorceress Alyce.

Walter’s immersive world building plunges readers into the Briar Kingdom, built on a system of inequality and discrimination. The fae, known as Graces, are kept as magical servants for cold-blooded mortal nobles. The Graces can create beauty and light, but Alyce’s magic seems to produce only ugliness and pain. Known as the Dark Grace, Alyce is the last descendant of a type of fae known as the Vila, and her relationship with the other fae is complicated—some avoid her, all fear her and most are willing to throw her under the bus.

When Alyce decides to attend a masquerade ball despite not being invited, she is outed as the dark fairy by one of Princess Aurora’s failed and jealous suitors. Alyce flees, but Aurora runs after her and Alyce is shocked at how down-to-earth the princess is. Aurora must find her true love by age 21 or she will be cursed to sleep forever. She has been kissed by many noblemen, often strangers, to try and break the curse, but none have succeeded. As Alyce and Aurora grow closer, the Dark Grace becomes determined to find a way to break the spell.

Told through the puckish voice of Alyce, Malice is a sympathetic take on the traditionally one-dimensional figure of the dark fairy. Alyce’s wry wit and determination to save Aurora make her instantly sympathetic, a refreshing change from other fairytale retellings that attempt to conjure some meticulous, outlandish backstory to explain the evil doings of a nefarious character. Alyce is feared, yes, but for things she’s had from birth and can’t control. Her growing love for Aurora and her increasing resistance to the status quo shine through her gloomy outlook, and as she learns about the history of Briar and the truth behind the treatment of the fae, Alyce learns some unexpected truths about her powers as well.

This heartfelt, ever-escalating story of true love burns bright, encouraging readers to brush aside shame or condescension and follow their hearts.

Heather Walter’s debut novel, Malice, transforms the familiar fairytale of Sleeping Beauty into a dark and compelling fantasy romance between the storybook princess and the dark sorceress Alyce.

Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fantasy

The Helm of Midnight

Review by Ralph Harris

by Ralph Harris

With a magic system that’s two parts enchantment and one part pseudoscience, The Helm of Midnight is a well-executed fantasy set in a heavily religious world reminiscent of Renaissance Europe. Author Marina Lostetter (Noumenon) brings together a cast of relatable, remarkably human characters across three separate timelines to tell a beautiful story of struggle, loss and, eventually, triumph.

Rather than spells and grand wizards, the world of The Helm of Midnight is built on a foundation of “scientific magic,” which is similar to traditional representations of alchemy. Magic is accessed via specific metals that each represent one of the five gods of the pantheon: Emotion, Knowledge, Unknown and twins Time and Nature. The twins are male and female; Emotion and Knowledge go by unique pronouns to represent their genders; and the Unknown's identification is undisclosed (perhaps representing nonbinary or genderfluid identity). These gods are central to everything in Lostetter’s world. Magic follows their rules, government is modeled on them and the plot circles around their religion.

In the present-day storyline, Krona, a Regulator of magical items and enchantments, is searching for two lost items: a death mask imbued with the spirit of a religious fanatic and serial killer and a stone of pure despair, enchanted to bestow grief on its wearer. As Krona continues her search, Lostetter weaves in the other two storylines, which unfold in the past, to paint a broader picture of the city-state and the greater history at play.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Marina Lostetter on why The Helm of Midnight needed to be told from three perspectives.

While the setting is rich and full of layered, complex culture, the core draw of The Helm of Midnight lies in its characters and their plights. These characters have suffered, are suffering or will suffer serious hardship. Dealing with grief, loss and emotional damage is as much a part of the book as the enchantments and murder wrought throughout. The city’s currency is literally lost time, which is taxed at birth, then bottled and sold. Emotions are drained away into stones in order to embrace good feelings and wash away painful ones. Masks are enchanted with the knowledge of the dead to avoid their disappearance into oblivion.

While clearly setting up for a series, Lostetter tells a complete and satisfying story within the 400 or so pages of The Helm of Midnight. Tears, smiles and surprise await any reader that opens this book.

With a magic system that’s two parts enchantment and one part pseudoscience, The Helm of Midnight by Marina Lostetter is a well-executed fantasy set in a heavily religious world reminiscent of Renaissance Europe.

Horror, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Horror

Near the Bone

Review by Laura Hubbard

by Laura Hubbard

Two monsters lurk on Mattie’s mountain. The first is her husband, William, a harsh man as likely to starve, berate or beat Mattie as he is to make sure she’s safe. The other is an unknown terror in the woods, a clawed beast that strings its kills up in the trees as if displaying a macabre collection. William is convinced that it’s a demon. Mattie isn’t so sure. But when a trio of strangers bent on photographing the strange creature suddenly appear on the mountain, Mattie knows that no matter what the truth actually is, the situation can only end badly.

With its visceral depictions of gore and emotional and physical abuse, Christina Henry’s Near the Bone can be a difficult read. At times, it inspires cold sweats of terror. At others, it causes stomach-clenching levels of dread. As Mattie and her strangers move around the mountain, we feel rather than see the sinister intelligence dogging their every step and threatening to turn them into piles of bones. Bigger than any bear, with razor-sharp claws and a nearly human intellect, the beast lurks just offstage, all the more terrifying for its incomplete profile. It is humanity’s primeval fears given form.

Near the Bone is a tale of survival in more ways than one, pulling readers through Mattie’s struggle against both her husband and the unknown terror in the woods. Just as she must deal with the terror of the unknown beast, Mattie must also come to terms with what she doesn’t remember of her own past, including just how she and William came to live on the mountain. That part of the tale isn’t an easy one to read. As the book opens, Mattie is meek, even pitiable, weakened by years of malnutrition and physical and psychological abuse, a far cry from the typical heroines of the monster-slasher subgenre. Even as the book progresses and she begins to process her trauma, Mattie is far more practical than heroic, more cautious than selfless. In short, she is believable rather than fantastic, a trait that makes rooting for her success all the more nerve-racking.

Henry is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the Chronicles of Alice series, and she may have written her best book yet. Near the Bone features compelling and creative characters, descriptions of snow so realistic that they’ll make you reach for a blanket and a monster so terrifying that it is sure to haunt the dreams of even the most stoic reader. Best for people with a strong stomach, Near the Bone is a terror-ridden yet poetic hike that will leave your nerves frazzled and heart aching.

Two monsters lurk on Mattie’s mountain. The first is her husband, William. The other is an unknown terror in the woods.

Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Short Stories

Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Stories Science Fiction

I’m Waiting for You

Review by Chris Pickens

by Chris Pickens

A character awakens after dying in “That One Life,” one of the four stories in South Korean author Kim Bo-Young’s expansive, captivating collection, I’m Waiting for You. In the afterlife, he’s greeted by a god who tells him, “Every life changes the whole universe. Whether or not that life is yours.” Where does humanity end and the universe begin? What are the limits of love and hope? What is the difference between creation and destruction? These are big questions, but Bo-Young’s attempt to bring shape to them in these stories is stunning, humbling and utterly beautiful.

I’m Waiting for You’s four stories form two pairs with interwoven thematic elements. In the titular story and in “On My Way,” an engaged couple, one on Earth and one on Alpha Centauri, exchange letters about their plans to meet to get married. (Each story contains one person’s letters.) Due to the problems posed by the theory of relativity and by light-speed travel, they must carefully coordinate their departures so they can arrive together at their destination at the same time, yet each lover encounters increasingly difficult complications to their original plan. Weeks, then months, then years are added to the journey’s overall time. Can the lovers hold out hope of finally being in the same place, at the same time?

In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” godlike beings, the progenitors of human existence, contemplate their impact on Earth and everything in it. From the smallest rock to the largest ocean, all of creation is an extension of them. When a young god created by Naban questions whether controlling the human world is right, Naban wonders if he and his fellow divine beings have had it backward all along. What if they exist because humanity exists, rather than the other way around?

The collection’s translators, Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu, should be commended on shepherding these stories so gracefully into English. They introduce complex and ambitious ideas about space travel, philosophical and metaphysical riddles playing out in worlds inhabited by gods . . . you get the idea. But even when it’s challenging, Bo-Young’s prose is always oh-so-gorgeous.

This is some of the most beautiful science fiction writing that I’ve read recently. Not every element between the pairs of stories is analogous, but sometimes, just there, right under the surface, Bo-Young has hidden common threads. The bookended stories of lovers traveling through space in time and the feelings of longing and trust in the face of astronomically impossible circumstances are particularly lovely. Even in the huge expanse of space, the second-person voices in their letters are intimate and genuine, and the emotional power of each story’s closing moments is hefty. Grab your tissues, because you may be thoroughly moved.

I’m Waiting for You isn’t just a statement of action. It’s a promise: I’m waiting on your behalf, to be with you, to experience the universe’s purpose for me through you. If only we can live up to such a promise.

A character awakens after dying in “That One Life,” one of the four stories in South Korean author Kim Bo-Young’s expansive, captivating collection, I’m Waiting for You

Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fantasy

Black Water Sister

Review by Laura Hubbard

by Laura Hubbard

Sometimes a book makes you forget everything: the water boiling on the stove for tea, the lunch or dinner that has long since gone cold. These books don’t just pull you in; they tug at the edges of your consciousness, cultivating a new reality that you can slip into as easily as an old T-shirt. Zen Cho’s Black Water Sister is one such book. It plunges readers headlong into the often troubled and usually sarcastic mind of Jess Teoh, a recent Harvard graduate with far more on her plate than finding gainful employment.

As Black Water Sister opens, Jess is adrift. She’s living with her parents and helping them move from the United States to Malaysia, a country she hasn’t called home since before she could walk. Then the voices start. Or rather, a single voice: that of her dead grandmother, her Ah Ma, a woman Jess never met. Ah Ma is bent on getting Jess’ help to destroy a real estate developer who threatens to demolish a local temple devoted to Ah Ma’s god. Although Jess resists, she soon finds that once the spirit world has marked her, it will not easily let her go. As she is forced into a world of mediums, gods and spirits, Jess must face the possibility of losing not just her autonomy but also her life.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Zen Cho on major and minor gods, and the importance of good food in fantasy writing.

While Black Water Sister terrifyingly depicts the otherworldly and uncanny horrors of the spirit world, it is also funny and poignant, full of the angst and irony of a recently graduated “zillennial” living with her parents. This balance allows Cho to explore facets of Jess’ life that may be smaller on the cosmic scale than angry gods and vengeful spirits but are no less important. From Jess’ internal struggle about how (and whether) to come out to her parents to intra-family discomfort around religion, Black Water Sister peers into the evolving relationships of an entire family, not just those of a single character.

Fans of Cho’s Sorcerer Royal duology might not initially see the resemblance between her Regency-era romantic fantasy and this modern mix of horror and the supernatural. But it is there in Cho’s turns of phrase and her spare sentences as she reveals a world so real that you feel as if you could step into it. And like the Sorcerer Royal novels’ alternate England, this world will surprise you when you least expect it. Vivid and masterfully done, Black Water Sister will haunt you.

Sometimes a book makes you forget everything: the water boiling on the stove for tea, the lunch or dinner that has long since gone cold.

Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fantasy

The Unbroken

Review by Noah Fram

by Noah Fram

Lieutenant Touraine is a conscript. Kidnapped as a small child from her homeland—once the Shāzan Empire, now the colony of Qazāl—she was forced into service in the Colonial Brigade of Balladaire, serving alongside others who, like her, were seized from their native desert lands.

They've recently been deployed to El-Wast, the capital of Qazāl and Touraine’s own hometown. Her immediate superior is a noble-born sadist who denigrates her and her companions any chance he gets. Her commanding officer is a woman both respected and feared for her single-minded devotion to the throne and pragmatic brutality. Her best friend yearns for revolution, her lover for safety, and Touraine herself for success, for a chance to prove her worth and the worth of her fellow fighters to their Balladairan overlords. When Touraine foils an assassination attempt against Luca Ancier, the princess of Balladaire, Touraine is hurled headlong into a whirlwind of intrigue, romance and rebellion. She encounters revenants from her past, as well as types of magic that the nobles of Balladaire have denied but that Touraine and her comrades know to be horrifyingly real.

Throughout The Unbroken, the first book in C.L. Clark's Magic of the Lost series, Clark introduces characters as if they're old friends, trusting the reader to infer the connections between Touraine and her fellow soldiers. Although this feels jarring at first—for the first several chapters, the reader almost constantly feels as though they have missed something—it quickly becomes one of The Unbroken’s greatest strengths. As the book submerges the reader in this way, it gives the story a unique urgency and drive, and it persuades the reader that if you just keep going, the answers will reveal themselves. Combined with Clark’s undeniable skill as both a writer and a world builder, this plunge into plot renders The Unbroken a remarkably active read. It requires attention from the reader in ways few speculative works do.

The Unbroken also follows in the grand tradition of speculative fiction that comments directly on the real world. Clark presents a searing and unflinching view of European colonization in North Africa, and of Africans' struggle against it, and she refuses to soften any of the harshness or resolve any of the complications inherent in those events.

In Clark’s world of Balladaire and Shālan, no benevolence goes untarnished and no grand ideal is left uncompromised. Even her villains are driven less by sadism or a desire for chaos than by simple selfishness, greed and the thoughtless cruelty of a bigot convinced their bigotry is, in fact, truth. And yet, for all the disturbingly plausible grime, gore and occasional horror that coat every surface of this tale, The Unbroken is not a dark fantasy. There is a current of optimism that flows throughout: optimism for Touraine and Luca, optimism for Shālan and Balladaire, and perhaps optimism for the real regions Clark has translated onto the page. It's a hope that all these people and places will somehow remain, in spite of the destruction that flawed, selfish, well-meaning people wreak on each other, unbroken.

Lieutenant Touraine is a conscript. Kidnapped from her homeland as a small child—once the Shāzan Empire, now the colony of Qazāl—she has been forced into service in the Colonial Brigade of Balladaire.

Audio, Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Audio Fantasy

The Witch’s Heart

Review by Mari Carlson

by Mari Carlson

In Genevieve Gornichec’s fantasy novel, The Witch’s Heart (12 hours), Angrboda has been burned three times for performing witchcraft, but she remains alive at the edges of the mythical Ironwood, where she begins a lasting, tenuous relationship with the trickster god Loki, Odin’s half brother. But Ragnarok, the destruction of the known world, threatens their future—and the future of their unusual offspring.

Jayne Entwistle, best known for her narration of the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley, brings Angrboda to life with a husky, sage voice and northern English lilt. Her comforting tone and gentle pacing reinforce the novel’s focus on Angrboda’s domestic challenges in the shadow of cosmic conflicts. Accents used to delineate characters create a lively cast of women and men who visit Angrboda in her forest hovel. As many listeners will want to continue this dive into Norse mythology, a helpful list of resources for further reading follows the narration.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Genevieve Gornichec on writing The Witch’s Heart when she should have been writing a term paper.

Jayne Entwistle, best known for her narration of the Flavia de Luce series, brings Angrboda to life with a husky, sage voice and northern English lilt.

Horror, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Horror

Whisper Down the Lane

Review by G. Robert Frazier

by G. Robert Frazier

If you aren’t sure what kind of experience you’ll be getting when you crack open Whisper Down the Lane, the first chapter will cast aside any uncertainty. Within just a few pages you’ll have gotten enough shocking violence, overwhelming fear and psychological intrigue to keep you hooked for hours.

Inspired in part by the real-life McMartin preschool trial—in which members of the McMartin family who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with sexual abuse of children, which in turn gave rise to a national panic over satanic ritual abuse—the novel follows similar circumstances, although in a highly fictionalized way. Author Clay McLeod Chapman alternates chapters from the perspectives of Sean, a kindergartener in 1983 Greenfield, Virginia, and Richard, a teacher living 30 years later in Danvers, Virginia, where he and his wife are raising his stepson, Elijah. As you might expect, their stories are inextricably linked, and everything starts when Sean, influenced by his mother’s paranoia, tells a lie that will change his entire world.

Part of the novel’s chilling effectiveness comes from its portrayal of the detectives assigned to Sean’s case and how their leading questions ultimately result in Sean saying what they want him to say, resulting in the unfair and undeserved persecution of Sean’s teacher on suspected sexual offenses. Chapman pulls no punches, revealing how the simplest of misrepresentations can result in a sort of mass hysteria against someone, just as it did in the real-life McMartin era.

Sean changed his name when he grew older to put his past behind him, but now, as Richard, he is haunted by his past lies and the psychological fallout of those lies. When his school’s rabbit mascot is found brutally slain on the soccer field, it sets off a thrilling chain of events that sets his past and present on a collision course.

While most of the novel is enmeshed in psychological thrills and foreboding, its depictions of ritualistic animal slayings are graphic, unnerving and not for the easily squeamish. The contrast between grim unease and startling violence only serves to heighten the chills. Chapman, who ironically writes both children’s books and horror novels, combines the two mediums in masterful style, just as a certain Maine-based author does with his horror novels.

If you aren’t sure what kind of experience you’ll be getting when you crack open Whisper Down the Lane, the first chapter will cast aside any uncertainty.

Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fantasy

The Bone Maker

Review by Chris Pickens

by Chris Pickens

Twenty-five years ago, in the land of Vos, a group of mighty warriors fought and defeated a great evil. Celebrated and rewarded for their bravery, the group became legends in their own lifetimes and retired in a time of newfound peace. In Sarah Beth Durst’s The Bone Maker, it’s the demons we battle after triumphing over our greatest hardships that are the most challenging to defeat. How much pain and how many sacrifices does it cost to win? And could you summon that courage again, if you were called upon?

Kreya of Vos lost her husband, Jentt, when he sacrificed himself to save the world from the renegade bone maker Elkor. But Kreya is a bone maker too, able to use animal bones to animate inanimate objects with sentience and locomotion. Consumed by grief and hidden away deep in the forest with Jentt’s corpse, she pores over forbidden rituals that temporarily bring Jentt back to life. When she risks everything to harvest the bones of soldiers defeated at the final battle with Elkor, she discovers that the world may not be safe after all—the ancient evil Kreya and Jentt thought they defeated 25 years ago may have returned.

Readers will be hooked by an early scene that depicts one of Jentt’s many returns from death. Kreya awakens him, but she knows her spell is only strong enough to keep him alive for a day. It’s incredibly sad and instantly relatable. Regret is a significant theme for all of the book’s characters, and Kreya’s longing is a pitch-perfect way to introduce it. Other characters have regrets as well, but a wife who wants her husband back hits especially hard. Durst displays a mastery of emotional resonance throughout the book, bringing each character’s scars to the surface even in moments of levity. You never really forget the toll the past has taken on each person.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Sarah Beth Durst on her love of backstories, the importance of humor and the inspiration for bone magic.

The Bone Maker follows story beats common to many fantasy novels. The second act has a certain “getting the gang back together” spirit to it, returning a group of semibroken people to one another’s company. Two things keep the story feeling fresh while Durst sets her chess pieces upon the board. The first is dialogue; The Bone Maker features lovely banter between people who know each other well, and they alternate insults, jokes and witty comebacks with raw conversations about pain and regret. Some of the best moments involve characters simply talking to one another and reflecting on feelings they have held inside.

The second element that sets The Bone Maker apart is its magic system. Each kind of bone magic is distinct, simple to understand and integral to the story. Durst constantly reveals new and creative ways to use the slightly creepy shamanistic act of carving symbols in bones in order to solve problems—to read the future, for example, or to endow someone with superhuman strength. While some of the central rules are set up early and repeated, the reader always feels that a new way to use magic is right around the corner.

When I read Durst’s Race the Sands last year, I loved the way she zeroed in on her characters as they searched for ways to reconcile with pain and loss. That same empathy is present in The Bone Maker, refracted across a new group of fantastic characters. There’s power in these bones.

Twenty-five years ago, in the land of Vos, a group of mighty warriors fought and defeated a great evil. But their quest isn't over.

Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Science Fiction

Dead Space

Review by Laura Hubbard

by Laura Hubbard

If you’re an employee of Parthenope Enterprises, there is no such thing as privacy. Your movements around whatever desolate space station you occupy are tracked constantly, and the only place you aren’t under video surveillance is in the comfort of your own quarters. Or so security officer Hester Marley believes. But when an old friend dies under mysterious circumstances after sending her an untraceable message, Hester is forced to reexamine her certainty about the Parthenope panopticon. In order to solve his murder—and indeed, in order to survive her investigation—Hester will need to reconsider not just her views of life within the company, but also what she knows of her own tragic past.

Kali Wallace's Dead Space is tense and kinetic. Wallace masterfully dances back and forth between two speeds, using them to guide us towards a destination that feels both surprising and inevitable. In some scenes, Wallace lingers over interrogations as Hester and her investigative crew dissect every word and facial expression of the dead man’s fellow crew members at the asteroid mine where he worked and died. In others, the narration careens from one impact to another, sometimes literally, as the body count on the mining station continues to mount.

Because it’s written in first person, the book centers almost claustrophobically on Hester. At first glance, Dead Space’s protagonist is not exactly dynamic. Hester is competent but miserable, having been forced into indentured servitude by medical debt from injuries she sustained in a terrorist attack. In the moment of the attack, her dream—to explore the moon of Titan as part of a team looking for extraterrestrial life—was ripped away from her, replaced by a sobering reality of imperfect prosthetics and a security job ill-befitting an artificial intelligence expert. At least, that’s the view of her we see initially.

Yet as bad goes to worse in the investigation, we witness Hester bloom into someone who is passionate, curious and fiercely intelligent. Dead Space is as much about processing grief as it is about solving a murder. The events on the mining station force Hester to fully reckon with her loss even as they push her to her limits, giving an intensely human throughline to a story that might otherwise lose focus during its many twists and turns.

The book opens with a bloody description of a body modification surgery gone horribly wrong, and descriptions of gore only escalate from there. But Dead Space gives readers who can stomach such things an amazing gift: a character-driven thriller full of secrets, mayhem and plenty of explosions that will leave them guessing from beginning to end.