The nitty-gritty: Higher stakes, terrifying alien robots, and plenty of human drama as well, I thoroughly enjoyed this follow-up to Sleeping Giants. I had a blast reading Sleeping Giants last year, and despite some issues with the format, I enjoyed Neuvel’s original take on the alien invasion story. If you haven’t read Sleeping Giants, the […]
The nitty-gritty: Disturbing, violent, weird and hallucinatory. This story is tough to handle. How can I even begin to describe Waggoner? He looked and sounded exactly like me. He was also a fourteen-year-old schoolboy. When Mum had laid out my uniform on the bed that he and I had started sharing a week before, he […]
The nitty-gritty: A fast-paced adventure in space with some cool world-building ideas, but with too much of an emphasis on the romance, it lost me in the second half. Color me conflicted. I read lots of enthusiastic reviews of Shadow Run before I dove in, and based on its high ratings on Goodreads, I was […]
The nitty-gritty: Weird and wonderfully terrifying, and written in stunningly beautiful prose, this short alien invasion story—based on scientific fact—will scare the hell out of you with its creeping terror. We have to carry her up to and down from the roof now, the girl from Seattle. In the gray light from the television, her […]
The nitty-gritty: A lushly written retelling of The Tempest, filled with emotion and complex characters. I gather flowers from the gardens and the fields, and put them on Miranda’s window-ledge when she is not there. I love you, the flowers say. Ariel, that Ariel, does frown at the flowers, but Master has said nothing to […]
The nitty-gritty: Not my favorite of the books so far, but still a very funny and imaginative installment in the Sin du Jour series. At some point I thought maybe Matt Wallace’s series would start to feel “been there, done that,” but thankfully, he seems to have an unlimited supply of humorous fodder up his sleeves, […]
The nitty-gritty: A short but foreboding story about the reincarnation of gods, and one unlucky man who finds himself in the middle of it all. I’ve come to appreciate solid writing and storytelling from the folks at Unsung Stories, and so I was excited to accept The Speckled God for review, which turned out to […]
The nitty-gritty: A magical and thrilling adventure into the world of dreams. It looks as if someone has attempted to build a clock but did not know when to stop. It is a cataclysm of clockwork parts in synchronized motion arranged in the shape of a frigate. The ship has no sails, barely any hull […]
The nitty-gritty: An imaginative Pride and Prejudice retelling that will delight readers with its incredible world-building, deft characterizations and thrilling action. When I heard this book described as “Pride and Prejudice with dragons,” my first reaction was “Yes!” But then I thought, “Huh? That sounds…weird?” This was an odd book for me because of the […]
The nitty-gritty: A short but emotional story about life and death, with ghosts and witches and cats. And rats. We talk about the knives in her kitchen. She agrees to lock them in the closet for the night. Too readily: she’s not a knife girl, not Vicky. I listen to the despair and weariness in […]