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by Adam Morgan

Time and space are as fluid as water in Keith Lee Morris’ labyrinthine third novel, his first since 2008’s brutal The Dart League King. This time, a family road trip goes awry in the small town of Good Night, Idaho thanks to a hotel that rivals The Shining’s, a book with which Travelers Rest will inevitably be compared, though there are more definitive answers here.

The Addison family—mother, father, son and alcoholic uncle—are driving from Seattle to South Carolina when a snowstorm forces them to look for lodging in Good Night. The eponymous hotel, Travelers Rest, was once a palatial second home for the town’s high society, but fell into disrepair when the local mines dried up decades ago. After checking into the hotel, the Addisons quickly become separated in ways that are hard to describe, thanks to the shifting nature of time, space, memory, and dream in Good Night. The town is a lot like that grand staircase in Hogwarts, always rearranging itself depending on who enters and what they want.

Tonio, the father, wanders outside in the snow and follows a strange woman in silver shoes. Julia, the mother, finds an oddly familiar room on the third floor with an open roof, where she’s content to lie down and dream. Robbie, the uncle fresh out of rehab, bolts for the bar across the street, where he can’t tell if it’s the booze or the town that’s playing tricks on him. And Dewey, Julia and Tonio’s 10-year-old son, searches for his family, glimpsing them from a distance from time to time, but never quite able to reach them.

If you feel lost after the first 100 pages (and you will), don’t worry. The story is worth your confusion. In fact, it requires it. Proustian in theme but not in form, Travelers Rest is the definition of dreamlike prose. Morris’ writing is clean and cold as snow. The pages drift by just as effortlessly, lulling you into a quiet cocoon that you realize, too late, is actually something much more sinister.

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Suspense

Science Fiction & Fantasy Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense Science Fiction

A treasure hunt for truthers

Review by Cat Acree

by Cat Acree

Several years ago, after researching his true crime book The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, James Renner was diagnosed with PTSD. It’s not uncommon for journalists to suffer such effects after witnessing trauma for a story, and Renner’s 10 years of hunting serial killers and writing about unsolved murders caught up with him. Fiction provided an unexpected safe haven, and his genre-bending time-travel thriller, The Man from Primrose Lane (2012), was a crime he could finally solve. His latest thriller, The Great Forgetting, digs at a much larger mystery, one with more questions, no generic answers and therefore plenty of room for an imaginative author to play. The result is a mix of conspiracy theorist paranoia, alternate history and cross-country adventure.

The story begins with an epilogue—our first clue that nothing is as it should be—which provides several bizarre nuggets of information: Fourteen years after 9/11, the coroner who oversaw and organized the remains of Flight 93 returns to the crash site, where he finds a severed monkey’s paw, clasping a man’s watch that reads, “RIP, Tony Sanders. 1978 to 2012.” And on the monkey’s palm is tattooed a bright red swastika.

In 2015, Jack Felter has returned home to Franklin Mills, Ohio, to help care for his father, who suffers from dementia. Franklin Mills is a place Jack would like to forget—especially his former love interest Sam, who immediately enlists Jack’s help in finding her husband (once Jack’s best friend), Tony Sanders, who has been missing for three years. Tony’s trail leads Jack to an institutionalized teen named Cole, who promises to reveal Tony’s whereabouts if Jack listens to Cole’s story—and begins boiling his water to counteract the pacifying effects of Fluoride. Jack soon learns about the Great Forgetting, a vast conspiracy that conceals the true events of World War II, contradicting everything he knows about history, science, the government and even time itself.

The Great Forgetting explores humanity’s desperation to forget the worst things that happen to us and the worst things we do to each other. It never loses speed as it reveals large-scale histrionics and builds to a zealous reveal. However, in Renner’s attempt to exorcise our prejudices and transform history, he risks alienating his audience, as many readers may find themselves defensive of their living memory, holding tighter to their real history. Perhaps some things can’t be rewritten, even for fiction’s sake.

Science Fiction, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Science Fiction

An innovative sci-fi love story

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Kady barely has time to register how awful her breakup with Ezra feels—these things still hurt, even in year 2575—when, later that same day, her home planet is attacked. Kady and Ezra fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, but they’re separated onto two different ships in the process. With the enemy on their tails, bad turns to worse for the survivors: A plague on one of the ships is leading to quarantines, and the artificial intelligence known as AIDAN is becoming increasingly difficult to trust.

At more than 600 pages and presented as a dossier containing emails, ship schematics, private journals and the transcribed “thoughts” of AIDAN, Illuminae is a bit of a doorstopper, but one readers will be hard-pressed to set down after page one. Part of the fun is piecing together these sometimes funny, often scary fragments to discover the story within. Gory scenes of plague victims are especially chilling when juxtaposed against clinical tallies of the infected and dead. Many of the survivors have been conscripted into the military, and the subsequent male bonding and raunchy humor lighten the mood while also adding an element of realism.

Illuminae is a smart, sad, funny, philosophical, action-packed futuristic love story. It’s also part one of a planned trilogy, so start here and prepare to be impatient for the arrival of the next installment.

This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction Fantasy

Making a Hollywood film in space

Review by Matthew Jackson

by Matthew Jackson

In Radiance, Catherynne M. Valente crafts a lush, detailed alternate history of Hollywood and a complex re-imagining of our solar system . . . and that’s just the beginning. Against that landscape, full of secrets, scandals and sci-fi awe, Valente weaves a tale of fathers and daughters, stories and truths, love and loss that is as much about the act of telling a story as it is about its characters.

Severin Unck is the daughter of a legendary, passionate Hollywood filmmaker, but she rejects his lush, romantic fictions and becomes a documentarian. With her lover and her crew, Severin travels the human-colonized solar system, chronicling life on other planets—until she disappears during a shoot on Venus.

From there, the story branches out to include Severin’s father, her various surrogate mothers, her lover and a mysterious child who survived that final expedition. To add even greater depth, Valente opts to tell the story not through traditional prose, but through transcripts, diary entries, old gossip columns, remembrances and letters.

It is striking that Valente—who is the author of several previous fantasy novels for adults and teens—managed to throw this many storytelling devices, themes and world-building quirks into a single novel and somehow make them all work, but what’s even more striking is how warm and human Radiance is. It feels cohesive and unified in its vision: the story of what a single life can mean.

RELATED CONTENT: Read our Q&A with Catherynne M. Valente.

This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Debut Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Debut Fiction

A high-stakes space drama

Review by Michael Burgin

by Michael Burgin

Given the title of C.A. Higgins’ debut novel, Lightless, it’s fitting that so much of the tale’s enjoyment stems from how well and how long it keeps the reader in the dark.

Like any good author, Higgins has rigged the game from the beginning. There’s something about the very setup—three crew members traveling through space in a large spaceship—that might cause a claustrophobic, or monophobic, twitch in some readers. The mission of this “miracle of engineering” called Ananke and of her crew? Unknown. A mere three pages in, Althea, the ship’s engineer and novel’s protagonist, sets this particular tale in motion with two ominous words: “Someone’s boarded.”

From there, and for much of the novel, Lightless relies more on its bona fides as a suspense thriller than any overtly sci-fi-flavored action, large spaceship locale or no. Higgins never lets the ship’s population rise above five or so, and even as the population grows, she rarely presents the reader with more than three characters together at a time. The novel is mostly divided between time spent in the mind of a character and watching a particularly prolonged and thorough interrogation unspool. (As much as some might wish to connect Lightless with Alien or, even better, The Martian, “The Closer in space” is probably the truer pitch.)

It’s for these reasons, and despite a gradually unveiled, sprawling backdrop filled with off-world colonies and an oppressive, ever-watching and oft-suppressing System, that Lightless remains relentlessly intimate throughout. For her part, Higgins sustains the suspense so effectively, that the novel’s rather shocking conclusion doesn’t feel forced or contrived. Instead, it feels like a fitting, explosive release of a plot drawn tight and kept taut before the reader even opened the book.

Granted, Lightless pulls off a few tricks that will only work once. With a sequel, Supernova, scheduled for 2016, it will be interesting to see just how well Higgins handles the transition from claustrophobic thriller with a cast of, well, not many, to the chaotic, actor-filled stage the ending of Lightless at least implies awaits us.

Michael Burgin is the Movies Editor for Paste Magazine. He lives in Nashville.

Given the title of C.A. Higgins’ debut novel, Lightless, it’s fitting that so much of the tale’s enjoyment stems from how well and how long it keeps the reader in the dark.

Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fantasy

A brave new world for Jim Butcher

Review by Michael Burgin

by Michael Burgin

Occasionally, Jim Butcher likes to write about things other than wizard PIs in a noir-tinged Windy City. His first departure from the 15-book (and counting) Dresden Files series was 2004’s Furies of Calderon, the first of six books in the Codex Alera series. Now comes The Aeronaut’s Windlass, the first entry in a new, steampunk-steeped, Napoleonic naval battle-flavored series called The Cinder Spires. True to the steampunk genre mandate, The Aeronaut’s Windlass has plenty of goggles (worn out of necessity, not mere fashion, natch), airships and Old World, aristocratic political structures, known as Spires.

The author wastes no time establishing and gathering his ensemble. By the end of Chapter 8, The Aeronaut’s Windlass has introduced us to Bridget, scion of a once-prominent noble house now on its last legs; her cat, Rowl; highborn Gwendolyn Lancaster and her fighter (“warriorborn”) cousin, Benedict; the grizzled Captain Grimm; and master etherealist Ferus and his assistant, Folly. Not long after that, this particular fellowship has been bound together and sent off to stop the mysterious force behind a very coordinated and deadly series of attacks on Spire Albion by its rival, Spire Aurora.

If much of the initial setup of the book seems rushed (and some of those names, cartoonish), well, they are. If anything, the opening chapters are a reminder of how tough seamless world building can be, especially when you don’t have a fully realized environment premade by, well, reality, as is the case with the modern-day Chicago of the Dresden Files. The initial presentation of Spire Albion relies heavily on a mashup of steampunk clichés and England-versus-France naval intrigue circa the Napoleonic Era, but thanks to the swiftly moving plot, these shortcomings aren’t anywhere near fatal.

With each page turned, the distractions lessen as the characters are fleshed out by actions and interactions. Butcher’s skill in presenting and resolving extended action scenes on multiple fronts also does its part in keeping the reader’s attention. By the end of The Aeronaut’s Windlass, the only question a reader is likely to have is the most important one for any series debut: What is going to happen next?

Michael Burgin writes about movies for Paste magazine. He lives in Nashville.

Jim Butcher's exciting new series is a steampunk-steeped, Napoleonic naval battle-flavored series called The Cinder Spires. True to the steampunk genre mandate, The Aeronaut’s Windlass has plenty of goggles (worn out of necessity, not mere fashion, natch), airships and Old World, aristocratic political structures.

Fantasy, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Fantasy

A heist with deadly stakes

Review by Annie Metcalf

by Annie Metcalf

Leigh Bardugo’s new series, set in the same universe as her best-selling Grisha trilogy, kicks off with Six of Crows. In this gritty world, gangs battle for control of the streets in the bustling port city of Ketterdam. One of these gangs is the Dregs, led by Kaz Brekker, whose youth belies his cunning as a thief and viciousness as a leader. Because of this growing reputation, Kaz is offered a job: liberate a prisoner from the Ice Court, a legendary stronghold in the nation of Fjerda. It’s almost certainly a suicide mission, but the reward money, even split between six accomplices, is worth the risk.

Six of Crows is narrated by the rotating perspectives of Kaz’s young crew, a relatively diverse group whose personalities are distinct and compelling. Bardugo reveals each character’s backstory in stages, which adds suspense in the early chapters before the action ramps up. The bonds between members of the gang, especially the romantic ones, are sufficiently convincing to carry readers through a few weaker moments. Beyond the romance, Six of Crows is undeniably exciting. Bardugo cultivates a taut sense of urgency that intensifies as the heist unfolds minute by minute, leading to an unexpected twist in the final moments.

While the adventure and romance are perfect for the provided age range, episodes of extreme violence makes this dark heist novel suitable for older teen readers.

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction

A sci-fi sequel brings double the pleasure

Review by Michael Burgin

by Michael Burgin

One of the great pleasures of science fiction is watching the mundane be transformed by a vigorous application of cutting-edge (to the general audience, at least) scientific theory. By such a standard, David Walton’s first book, Superposition, was a true joyride. Though the book was by no means the first quantum theory-infused piece of sci-fi, Walton’s bear-hug embrace of this particular field transformed the murder-mystery genre it otherwise inhabited. Whereas most authors are content to use some aspect of quantum theory as a jumping-off point for their stories—a spice giving a tale that sci-fi taste—Walton made the field and its implications the main ingredient. It worked. The energetic unspooling of quantum consequences made Superposition a page-turner in spite of its one-dimensional characters and occasionally implausible “real-world” sequences.

In Supersymmetry, Walton returns to the near-future world of Jacob Kelley and his family, this time focusing on his now-adult daughters, Alex and Sandra. Alex and Sandra are more than twins: They are actually two versions of the same person, an as-yet uncollapsed wave-form of two quantum potentialities left over by the events of the first book.

When it becomes clear that the varcolac, the other-dimensional intelligence that brought them about in the first place, is once again threatening their world, Alex and Sandra are forced to confront both it and their own fears. (Having two “yous” that could return to one at any moment brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “identity crisis.”)

With Supersymmetry, Walton shows that he has a firm grasp on what exactly made Superposition so enjoyable for readers. His latest is filled with multiple dimensions, Higgs singlets and a host of other quantum characteristics and applications. The stakes, as one expects, are higher, even as some of what made the varcolac so compelling—its immense otherness—is diminished a bit by some on-the-nose explanations of purpose and goal. Nonetheless, most readers will find that Supersymmetry’s pages turn just as fast as those of its predecessor.

Fantasy, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Fantasy

A twist on the Fates

Review by Jill Ratzan

by Jill Ratzan

Chloe was born a teenager and will always be one. Like her sisters, the middle-aged Serena and the elderly Xinot, she exists only to spin, measure and cut the threads of human lives. Chloe and her sisters are the Fates of Greek mythology, living and working on an island far from human entanglements—until a desperate teenage girl, Aglaia, seeks shelter in the Fates’ home.

Aglaia’s village was destroyed, and she alone knows why. Soon Chloe and her sisters are driven to follow the refugee as she pursues a new life on the mainland. There, the Fates are tempted to intervene in human affairs for the sake of their friend—despite prophesies that their involvement will cause the weaving to come unwound and the sun to sink into the sea.

Chloe’s narrative voice is stunning, especially when she speaks of the dark power that she and her sisters channel, the mystery that fills and guides them. This is a story to savor and discuss, especially in multigenerational groups.

Jill Ratzan teaches research rudiments in central New Jersey. She learned most of what she knows about YA lit from her terrific grad students.

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fantasy, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Fantasy

Not waiting for a prince

Review by Kevin Delecki

by Kevin Delecki

A wonderful, brilliant mother—who dies. An adoring, protective father, who remarries—and then dies. A beautiful but nasty stepmother, two conniving, vapid stepsisters—this is starting to sound familiar, isn’t it? However, Betsy Cornwell’s Mechanica is anything but another lifeless “Cinderella” retelling. And Nicolette, filled with her mother’s inventiveness and her father’s determination, is anything but another princess waiting to be rescued.

Detested by her stepmother and called “Mechanica” by her stepsisters to humiliate her, Nicolette has resigned herself to a lifetime of forced servitude—and to the loss of access to magic from the now-banished Fey. But at age 16, she is granted access through mysterious means to her mother’s hidden workshop, filled with wonders beyond her imagination. There, Nicolette discovers fantastic inventions and clockwork animals that almost seem to think. Most importantly, she finds hope—hope that she can get her life back, hope that she can escape, hope that she can reclaim her home from her stepmother. And with the help of new friends and the perfect timing of the technological exposition and royal ball, Nicolette sets out to do just that.

With a unique mix of steampunk and the maker movement, Mechanica introduces a smart, strong, talented heroine who may be able to find her prince, but doesn’t necessarily want to.

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Romance

Romance Paranormal Romance Fantasy

Atlanta at supernatural war

Review by Lois Dyer

by Lois Dyer

Best-selling author Ilona Andrews—a pseudonym for husband and wife writing team Gordon and Ilona—returns fans to the world of Kate Daniels in Magic Shifts. The novel is the eighth installment in the wildly popular post-apocalyptic series. Kate and her mate, shape-shifter and Beast Lord, Curran, have abdicated their role of running the Pack and are living in suburban Atlanta.

The two are focused on building the client list for Cutting Edge, Kate’s mercenary-for-hire company. Nothing has ever been simple for these two, however, and stepping down from ruling the city’s shape-shifters to embrace civilian life proves to be no different. They soon learn that an ancient enemy has been unleashed and is bent on wreaking havoc on Atlanta. Since Kate accidentally claimed the city during a showdown with her godlike father, it’s up to her and Curran to save their world. To do so, they’ll have to fight a horde of ghouls, terrifying killer insects and massive giants. Given the nature and power of their enemy, however, this time they might not win the final battle. Could someone close to her—someone Kate can’t bring herself to fully trust—provide the answer to defeating what seems to be indestructible evil?

The world of Kate Daniels is unique, often bloody, frequently laced with humor and downright fascinating. Toss in elements of myth and legend, and readers have a novel they won’t be able to put down until the last page. Twists in the continuing plot involving Kate and Curran continue to surprise, intrigue and delight, and longtime fans of the series will cheer as familiar faces appear. This one is for readers everywhere who love a rattling good yarn and excellent writing.

Lois Dyer writes from Port Orchard, Washington

est-selling author Ilona Andrews—a pseudonym for husband and wife writing team Gordon and Ilona—returns fans to the world of Kate Daniels in Magic Shifts. The novel is the eighth installment in the wildly popular post-apocalyptic series. Kate and her mate, shape-shifter and Beast Lord, Curran, have abdicated their role of running the Pack and are living in suburban Atlanta.

Fantasy, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Fantasy

Fighting for freedom and family

Review by Sarah Welch

by Sarah Welch

Caught between her Patron father and her Commoner mother, Jessamy’s entire life is a balancing act, yet she yearns for the freedom to become whomever she wants. She relishes her secret sessions on the Fives court, where she trains for the intricate, dangerous athletic event that could someday bring her glory. But when Jes’ family is endangered by cruel Lord Gargaron, she must focus on saving them from a fate worse than death.

With this new series, World Fantasy Award finalist Kate Elliott has built an intriguing world inspired by Greco-Roman Egypt, in which class dictates opportunities and everyday life is ruled by strict codes of conduct. Jes is strong-willed and savvy, unafraid to take risks but always putting her family’s safety ahead of her daredevil nature. Her romance with the upper-class Kalliarkos is sweet but unobtrusive; Elliott has fulfilled this YA requirement with a perfectly light touch. Though many supporting characters remain mere sketches, Jes joins Katniss among the ranks of fierce leading ladies.

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fantasy, Fiction

Fiction Fantasy

A witty alternative history of the Cold War

Review by Matthew Jackson

by Matthew Jackson

The trick to a good alternate history, particularly one that’s trying to be as impish and unpredictable as Crooked, is walking a delicious but delicate line between the weird and the plausible. You don’t want the story to veer into territory so unbelievable that it becomes a farce, but neither do you want to follow the straight and narrow. Austin Grossman (You) knows how to walk this line, and as a result he’s delivered a fiendishly entertaining book.

Our story begins with the premise that everything you know about Richard Nixon is wrong. He is not simply a disgraced politician whose own susceptibility to corruption and lust for power and victory doomed him. He is something much more. In Crooked, a young Nixon, years from the presidency, stumbles upon a supernatural secret behind the Cold War, something that shatters his view of how the world works. Armed with and suffering from this knowledge, Nixon embarks on a personal quest to become powerful and protect his nation, crafting in the process an alternate narrative that reimagines him as the best president the United States ever had.

The imaginative power Grossman deploys in Crooked is staggering. If you’ve ever been taken by alternate history before, or you just want a truly engrossing yarn to keep you up at night, this is the book for you—but that’s far from the only reason to read. From the beginning, Grossman understands that to buy his premise, you need to buy his version of Nixon. So he roots the story in the president’s voice, crafting a man who understands his own shortcomings, who realizes that his motives aren’t always pure, and who wants something more for himself even if it will cost him. This is a Nixon with a depth even the man himself never had in the public eye, and that depth makes the jokes land harder and the truths appear sharper.

Crooked is a wonderfully entertaining book that will please both political junkies and fantasy fans, but it also makes us see Nixon in a new light.

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.