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quoted The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

The Ministry of Time (Hardcover, 2024, Simon & Schuster) 5 stars

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …

I should say that my face does a good impression of whiteness, late-entering or not. I didn't know how to tell [minor spoiler redacted] that I'd been tricking him, feature by feature. I wasn't sure I was ready to. He'd made, as people do, an assumption about me that left me room to maneuver. Later, when he found out the truth--as people do--he'd be unbalanced by his own mistake. Another person's unguardedness in that moment can be very useful, interpersonally, as long as you don't soften.

— The Ministry of Time by  (Page 27)

"But you don't look Turkish..." #SFFBookClub

commented on The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

The Ministry of Time (Hardcover, 2024, Simon & Schuster) 5 stars

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …

Chapter 1 thoughts: I'm charmed by this so far, but waiting to see how it turns into a whole story. Every page feels thoroughly quotable, and I'm finding I have a lot to identify with in the narrator character who is very clearly a self-insert by the author, so that biases me in the book's favour.

Also, the physical book itself is an unusually nice artefact for a modern book. This publisher evidently cares how the paper feels in the hand, and I appreciate that. #SFFBookClub

reviewed These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart (EBook, 2024, Tachyon Publications) 4 stars

Security expert Dora left her anarchist commune over safety concerns. But when her ex-girlfriend Kay …

Short, tense thriller

5 stars

This is a tightly focussed that tells one story from one character's perspective, against a background of a much bigger collapse that doesn't really get discussed. I think that focus is one of its strengths, at the same time as I'd love to see the same story through the eyes of a couple of the other characters in it.

Wasserstein also uses the story as a vehicle for some trans parent trauma catharsis, by way of a character who is the sum of every bad parental reaction to a child coming out as trans. It also pokes a bit at the tensions between anarchist commune idealism and practice, and at the simple truth that one's clone would still be their own person. Which is a lot to pack in to a novella!

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reviewed Countess by Suzan Palumbo

Countess 3 stars

A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which …

I wanted to like this book but it ultimately frustrated

2 stars

The concept is one I really want to like: a twist on the Count of Monte Cristo that recasts it to make racism the motivating factor of all the betrayals, and uses a future setting to make a point about the durability of colonialism. But the pacing is so off that it takes away the impact from most of its own story.

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reviewed The marrow thieves by Cherie Dimaline

The marrow thieves (2017, Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.) 3 stars

In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, …

The Marrow Thieves

3 stars

This book is off the #SFFBookClub backlog, and I saw it mentioned on Imperfect Speculation (a blog about disability in speculative fiction).

The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic near future world where most people have lost the ability to dream, and the only "cure" is through the exploitation of bone marrow from indigenous people who still can. The book follows Frenchie, a Métis boy who has lost everybody he cares about and travels with a found family trying to find safety and community. The metaphor here resonates directly with the horrors of Canada past, as armed "recruiters" capture anybody who looks indigenous to send them off to "schools" to extract their bone marrow.

I know this is a YA novel, but I wish some of the characters and the protagonist Frenchie had more depth. Maybe this would land better for somebody else, but I also don't have any room …

commented on Countess by Suzan Palumbo

Countess 3 stars

A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which …

I really dig the premise, but the execution bothered me a lot. Maybe they were just trying to do too much in a novella length, or maybe it's just me, but everything just felt rushed and clumsy. 🤷

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reviewed Countess by Suzan Palumbo

Countess 3 stars

A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which …

Countess

4 stars

I enjoyed this recontextualization of the Count of Monte Cristo into a science fiction story of revenge against empire and colonialism. It riffs on many elements from the original, but ultimately takes them in a different direction. Here, Virika is still framed by one of her peers due to his career jealousy, but it's also because of rebuffed sexual advances. Instead of "wait and hope" from the original, this book has the much more modern "success or perish" mantra.

As both a personal and thematic moment, the final scenes of negotiation come satisfyingly full circle, but sadly there's not that much room for worldbuilding in this short novella. It makes the larger diplomatic picture feel shallow, and the end of the book feel abrupt.

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reviewed Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson

Those Beyond the Wall 5 stars

Faced with a coming apocalypse, a woman must reckon with her past to solve a …

Bitter, entirely devoid of subtlety, and very very good

5 stars

This is the rare sequel that I like even better than its predecessor. The action is all in one world this time, and that lets the magical physics element disappear into the background. It also lets Ashtown and Wiley City both feel more developed - they're much more complete places in my mind now. More importantly, this is a much more direct, much more straightforwardly angry book. Johnson clearly wanted to wield a chainsaw, and she's very good at that.

It was not an escapist read in 2025, but the conclusion was very satisfying.

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