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Since these reviews aren't spoilery and I am sad, no cut tags.
Elaine U. Cho, Ocean’s Godori: In a Korean-dominated space culture, a disgraced pilot tries to follow her captain, but her captain’s unwise decisions lead to conflicts with pirates and with people out to kill a scion of an important industrialist—the pilot’s old friend/partial source of her disgrace. Also, a new member of the crew comes from a death-handling caste and may have trouble fitting in. I probably could have done with more time to breathe on the worldbuilding, but if you like not-totally-cohesive crew stories this might suit.
David Ignatius, Phantom Orbit: I thought this would be more sf-y, but it’s basically a thriller about nations interfering with satellites to gain advantage, with much of the action sparked by the invasion of Ukraine.
Genevieve Cogman, Elusive: I liked this more than the first book—Eleanor continues to work for the Scarlet Pimpernel, and returns to France, but she has more agency and doubts about the work of saving aristocrats from the French Revolution. She also learns more about her powers, the mage inhabiting her head, and the relationship between mages and vampires. A cliffhanger ending rounds it out.
Shelly Jay Shore, Rules for Ghosting: Ezra Friedman is a trans man whose problems mainly stem from his complicated Jewish family, its funeral business, and the fact that Ezra can see ghosts. Although he’s been a peacemaker all his life, the stress starts to get to him when a shocking Seder announcement disrupts the family, a main source of income disappears and he has to return to working at the family business, and the hot Jewish guy checking him out turns out to be the widower of a ghost that is behaving very unusually. This is very cozy—ghosts are not evil or tangible—and it reinforced for me that I’m no longer much of a romance reader, because the Jewish specificity wasn’t even doing it for me.
Virginia Black, No Shelter But the Stars: Kyran is the princess of a people who are trying to retake their lost planet after being forced out by a brutal empire; Davia is the emperor’s daughter who has tried to renounce politics in favor of spirituality. After a battle, they crash land and are forced to rely on each other to survive. It’s enemies-to-lovers, with the more experienced Davia teaching Kyran to calm her frantic soul. I thought the description of physical recovery from the serious injuries described was a bit unrealistic, but if you really like enemies-to-lovers, this might work for you.
Garth Nix, We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord: In 70s? Australia, the protagonist and his genius little sister are being raised by quirky parents who don’t allow things like TV. When his little sister finds a mysterious sphere that can talk in people’s heads and even change their behavior, he has to turn from his D&D games to saving the world. I think I would have enjoyed it as a middle-grade reader (it naturally seems slighter now).
Madeline Ashby, vN: Conscious, self-replicating Von Neumann machines are a controversial but significant part of the world; they have fail-safes that require them to love and not harm humans. Amy Peterson is a vN whose growth has been carefully constrained by food restriction so that her mother (another vN) and her father (a human) can raise her like a human child. But when she’s five, her grandmother shows up and attacks her mother for being a traitor. Amy reacts immediately—by eating her grandmother. Now she’s a lot larger, has her grandmother living in her consciousness, and lacks the fail-safe. Interesting stuff going on here; warning for sexual abuse of vN (not of Amy) as a motivating factor for several key points.
James S.A. Corey, Livesuit: Humanity’s in a war of extermination with aliens, and so some people sign up to do Forever War journeys, but with a twist: They’re put into exosuits that make them incredibly strong and improve their senses. It seems like a worthy mission. But is something deeply, terribly wrong? Creepy novella.
Holly Jackson, The Reappearance of Rachel Price: Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price disappeared, leaving her toddler in her car. Her family consents to a documentary about the case in order to get money to take care of an elderly relative with dementia. But, while the documentary is being filmed, Rachel Price reappears. Her daughter is suspicious; they were doing fine without her. A rather gothic plot unfolds. I see why people liked it, but I don’t think this is the variety of thriller for me.
Chuck Wendig, The Staircase in the Woods: In 1998, four loser kids and one golden boy were best friends—they called the bond between them the Covenant. But one night, drinking and doing drugs out in the woods, they came across a staircase standing alone in the woods, and the golden boy climbed it and disappeared, along with the staircase. Decades later, the one who stayed in their town calls the rest of them back, and leads them to another staircase. Trapped in an apparently unending house of horrors, can they survive and maybe find out what really happened? Effectively creepy in its use of trauma and the mundane; a few typos in the eARC.
Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real: Gregory seems endlessly inventive; this novel is set in a world with irrefutable proof that we live in a simulation, including Impossibles, which are phenomena that can’t be explained using physics (as well as a weekly text reminder that we are living in a simulation beamed to everyone’s brain—not clear what happens if the recipient can’t read). Some have responded with nihilism, considering everyone else (except perhaps fellow gun-toting, Matrix-loving incels) to be bots. On a tour of seven American Impossibles, a pregnant influencer, a rabbi, a nun (and accompanying novice), two German tourists, a would-be right-wing podcaster and his feckless son, a comic book writer, and his best friend, a retired engineer, join an inexperienced tour guide and seen-everything bus driver. But the trip gets more complicated when a fugitive joins them. Her mission is mysterious but urgent. Each of the characters has a distinctive perspective—the Engineer (“The thing is ridiculously oversized and out of scale, like a Koons Balloon Dog. He also doesn’t know how he feels when he looks at a Koons Balloon Dog.”), the Realist’s Son (“Why was anyone shocked that the world was not in our control, and that nothing we did mattered? The Simulators could hit reset at any time. Or climate change would kill us all. Same difference.”), and so on. I loved it.
The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters, ed. Anthony Francis: I’m not a big poetry fan, so the poems sprinkled throughout didn’t do much for me. Brian Starr’s The Interview engaged with the idea that, just because you’re not like other humans doesn’t mean that you have common interests with another entity who’s not like humans. Power fantasies (of which there were a number, where neurodiversity enables success) are fine and welcome, but I liked the challenge. Stewart C. Baker’s The List-Making Habits of Heartbroken Ships is likely to appeal to Murderbot fans for reasons suggested by the title.
Sung-il Kim, trans. Anton Hur, Blood of the Old Kings: A widow who lost her young child as well determines to rebel against the oppressive conquerors who killed them, and seeks out the defeated dragon that used to protect her country for help. Meanwhile, a young sorcerer determines to escape her fate of being used as an undead power generator for the same empire, and a young man seeks to find the murderer of his friend, no matter who he angers in the process. The widow, Loren, doesn’t spend too much narrative time contemplating what she’s lost, although she does share a few memories; she’s too busy finding out that politics are complicated even in a rebellion against a terrible enemy. Unusually for the fantasies I tend to read, there’s also no romance or really sexual energy at all.
Elaine U. Cho, Ocean’s Godori: In a Korean-dominated space culture, a disgraced pilot tries to follow her captain, but her captain’s unwise decisions lead to conflicts with pirates and with people out to kill a scion of an important industrialist—the pilot’s old friend/partial source of her disgrace. Also, a new member of the crew comes from a death-handling caste and may have trouble fitting in. I probably could have done with more time to breathe on the worldbuilding, but if you like not-totally-cohesive crew stories this might suit.
David Ignatius, Phantom Orbit: I thought this would be more sf-y, but it’s basically a thriller about nations interfering with satellites to gain advantage, with much of the action sparked by the invasion of Ukraine.
Genevieve Cogman, Elusive: I liked this more than the first book—Eleanor continues to work for the Scarlet Pimpernel, and returns to France, but she has more agency and doubts about the work of saving aristocrats from the French Revolution. She also learns more about her powers, the mage inhabiting her head, and the relationship between mages and vampires. A cliffhanger ending rounds it out.
Shelly Jay Shore, Rules for Ghosting: Ezra Friedman is a trans man whose problems mainly stem from his complicated Jewish family, its funeral business, and the fact that Ezra can see ghosts. Although he’s been a peacemaker all his life, the stress starts to get to him when a shocking Seder announcement disrupts the family, a main source of income disappears and he has to return to working at the family business, and the hot Jewish guy checking him out turns out to be the widower of a ghost that is behaving very unusually. This is very cozy—ghosts are not evil or tangible—and it reinforced for me that I’m no longer much of a romance reader, because the Jewish specificity wasn’t even doing it for me.
Virginia Black, No Shelter But the Stars: Kyran is the princess of a people who are trying to retake their lost planet after being forced out by a brutal empire; Davia is the emperor’s daughter who has tried to renounce politics in favor of spirituality. After a battle, they crash land and are forced to rely on each other to survive. It’s enemies-to-lovers, with the more experienced Davia teaching Kyran to calm her frantic soul. I thought the description of physical recovery from the serious injuries described was a bit unrealistic, but if you really like enemies-to-lovers, this might work for you.
Garth Nix, We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord: In 70s? Australia, the protagonist and his genius little sister are being raised by quirky parents who don’t allow things like TV. When his little sister finds a mysterious sphere that can talk in people’s heads and even change their behavior, he has to turn from his D&D games to saving the world. I think I would have enjoyed it as a middle-grade reader (it naturally seems slighter now).
Madeline Ashby, vN: Conscious, self-replicating Von Neumann machines are a controversial but significant part of the world; they have fail-safes that require them to love and not harm humans. Amy Peterson is a vN whose growth has been carefully constrained by food restriction so that her mother (another vN) and her father (a human) can raise her like a human child. But when she’s five, her grandmother shows up and attacks her mother for being a traitor. Amy reacts immediately—by eating her grandmother. Now she’s a lot larger, has her grandmother living in her consciousness, and lacks the fail-safe. Interesting stuff going on here; warning for sexual abuse of vN (not of Amy) as a motivating factor for several key points.
James S.A. Corey, Livesuit: Humanity’s in a war of extermination with aliens, and so some people sign up to do Forever War journeys, but with a twist: They’re put into exosuits that make them incredibly strong and improve their senses. It seems like a worthy mission. But is something deeply, terribly wrong? Creepy novella.
Holly Jackson, The Reappearance of Rachel Price: Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price disappeared, leaving her toddler in her car. Her family consents to a documentary about the case in order to get money to take care of an elderly relative with dementia. But, while the documentary is being filmed, Rachel Price reappears. Her daughter is suspicious; they were doing fine without her. A rather gothic plot unfolds. I see why people liked it, but I don’t think this is the variety of thriller for me.
Chuck Wendig, The Staircase in the Woods: In 1998, four loser kids and one golden boy were best friends—they called the bond between them the Covenant. But one night, drinking and doing drugs out in the woods, they came across a staircase standing alone in the woods, and the golden boy climbed it and disappeared, along with the staircase. Decades later, the one who stayed in their town calls the rest of them back, and leads them to another staircase. Trapped in an apparently unending house of horrors, can they survive and maybe find out what really happened? Effectively creepy in its use of trauma and the mundane; a few typos in the eARC.
Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real: Gregory seems endlessly inventive; this novel is set in a world with irrefutable proof that we live in a simulation, including Impossibles, which are phenomena that can’t be explained using physics (as well as a weekly text reminder that we are living in a simulation beamed to everyone’s brain—not clear what happens if the recipient can’t read). Some have responded with nihilism, considering everyone else (except perhaps fellow gun-toting, Matrix-loving incels) to be bots. On a tour of seven American Impossibles, a pregnant influencer, a rabbi, a nun (and accompanying novice), two German tourists, a would-be right-wing podcaster and his feckless son, a comic book writer, and his best friend, a retired engineer, join an inexperienced tour guide and seen-everything bus driver. But the trip gets more complicated when a fugitive joins them. Her mission is mysterious but urgent. Each of the characters has a distinctive perspective—the Engineer (“The thing is ridiculously oversized and out of scale, like a Koons Balloon Dog. He also doesn’t know how he feels when he looks at a Koons Balloon Dog.”), the Realist’s Son (“Why was anyone shocked that the world was not in our control, and that nothing we did mattered? The Simulators could hit reset at any time. Or climate change would kill us all. Same difference.”), and so on. I loved it.
The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters, ed. Anthony Francis: I’m not a big poetry fan, so the poems sprinkled throughout didn’t do much for me. Brian Starr’s The Interview engaged with the idea that, just because you’re not like other humans doesn’t mean that you have common interests with another entity who’s not like humans. Power fantasies (of which there were a number, where neurodiversity enables success) are fine and welcome, but I liked the challenge. Stewart C. Baker’s The List-Making Habits of Heartbroken Ships is likely to appeal to Murderbot fans for reasons suggested by the title.
Sung-il Kim, trans. Anton Hur, Blood of the Old Kings: A widow who lost her young child as well determines to rebel against the oppressive conquerors who killed them, and seeks out the defeated dragon that used to protect her country for help. Meanwhile, a young sorcerer determines to escape her fate of being used as an undead power generator for the same empire, and a young man seeks to find the murderer of his friend, no matter who he angers in the process. The widow, Loren, doesn’t spend too much narrative time contemplating what she’s lost, although she does share a few memories; she’s too busy finding out that politics are complicated even in a rebellion against a terrible enemy. Unusually for the fantasies I tend to read, there’s also no romance or really sexual energy at all.
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