Reviews and Comments

omg this is a gem, and I've slept on it for ten years!

Planetfall is a scifi novel about space exploration, community, betrayal, and mental illness, in no particular order. It's superbly written, and the characters are deep and complex, and the gradual unpacking of the narrative is masterful.

Close whatever you're reading this on and go read Planetfall!

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart is a vignette about working through guilt and self-loathing toward self-forgiveness.

There's a lot going on in terms of themes: gender, transhumanism, anarchy and fascism, cloning, all mixed into a more standard crime plot.

Although the main thread is satisfactorily wrapped up, there's definitely room to explore the world further - I want more Dora!

#SFFBookClub

This is a book that isn't ashamed to show its influences - Interstellar space empire where magic shield belt technology has obsoleted guns in favor of knives and swords - "Highmatter swords" whose blades cut effortlessly through anything except each other, and whose blades can be summoned and dismissed from the hilt - Interstellar space empire that has regressed to feudalism, with the state religion taking a dominant role

There's some interesting stuff here, but there are also a lot of tired tropes. Every woman's appearance is described exhaustively. Every woman is either a love interest or an unfeminine drudge. The hereditary ruler scorns his intelligent, educated, hardworking son in favor of his other son who's a loutish brute.

It also has start-of-a-series syndrome - there's a lot of exposition and things started up, but hardly anything is concluded or resolved.

I don't know, I'm reading the next one, but

Astounding!! Finally you can see the cover of the anthology I've been working on for the past couple of years with co-editors @older@wandering.shop and Karen Lord! "We Will Rise Again" is full of essays, interviews, and speculative stories about protest, social movements, and hopeful resistance -- all informed by the experiences of real-life movement leaders and community organizers.

wandering.shop/@annaleen/114152401439112892

A very different book than The Space between Worlds, but equally good.

While TSBW kind of revolved around the interworld travel premise, Those Beyond the Wall is firmly rooted in "Earth 0"'s Ashtown. Mr. Scales has a wildly different perspective on the Ashtown oligarchy and culture than Cara did, and it's kind of fascinating to see some of the blind spots the author built in. Despite the very different plot foci, there are similar strong themes of antifascism, anticolonialism, and the struggle for justice.

It's even more gritty than the original, yet potentially more hopeful as well.

I would strongly recommend reading TSBW first, because a lot of the setting is taken for granted here.

#SFFBookClub

I've had this one on my to-read list for ages - I'd better start it now if I'm going to finish in time to read Those Beyond the Wall for #SFFBookClub February

Days of Shattered Faith does feel like a proper sequel to House of Open Wounds. It brings back a bunch of interesting characters from earlier installments, but also introduces some fun fresh faces.

This time around, we're dealing with diplomatic imperialism, integration, and free will, again through a lens of magic, gods, and demons.

It's a solid story, and I'd be interested to follow some of the characters a while longer and see what they get up to.

This feels like a big departure from the previous book. The first one was kind of a set of slices of life from a weird fantasy city under occupation, and this one follows one of the characters into an army field hospital.

The main theme seems to be exploration of what it would look like to attempt to rules-lawyer a world with magic, gods, and demons.

I enjoyed it, but I didn't get a real sense of continuity from City of Last Chances - they're essentially two distinct novels set in the same world.

ICMYI: I have a book out that's about found family, disaster sapphics, martial arts in space, neurodivergent shenanigans, and SPACE JELLYFISH (there's an entire chapter called "strobilation". If you know, you know)

us.macmillan.com/books/9781250324887/navigationalentanglements/

Get a copy now!

(cover art: Sija Hong)

wandering.shop/@aliettedb/113890128762483655