Synopsis: The thrilling sequel to Lightfall, a fantasy epic of revolution set in a world of vampires, werewolves, and sorcerers, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Cassandra Clare’s Swordcatcher. The revolution is here… but in the Everlands, nothing comes easy. In the last vampire city of First Light, the rebels know […]
About Will Swardstrom
Review: The Traveler by Joseph Eckert
Synopsis: Meet an extraordinary father and son in this captivating, heart-wrenching speculative debut. It’s a day like any other when Scott Treder first jumps forward through time. One moment, he’s on his way to work, fingers drumming the steering wheel. The next, he’s tumbling head-long down the road, his car gone, a dozen panicked voicemails […]
Review: Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim
Synopsis: Doppelgängers, corporate intrigue, heartbreak, betrayal, and the harsh permanence of the border: Sublimation is a thrilling and provocative debut for fans of Severance that asks what you’d sacrifice for a different life from award-winning author Isabel J. Kim. The border cuts you in two. When you immigrate, you leave a copy of yourself behind, […]
Review: David Starr: Space Ranger (Lucky Starr #1) by Isaac Asimov
Synopsis: Reissued after seventy-five years out of print—and in hardcover for the first time in a generation—David Starr, Space Ranger is the first book in the Lucky Starr series written by the legendary Isaac Asimov, author of Foundation, the Galactic Empire series, and I, Robot. Conway could remember the day, the exact minute, when the […]
Review: Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer
Synopsis: Forty years ago, the world nearly ended. Be is an old robot who was there, and doesn’t want to think about what happened, or what role they played in that conflict. They have settled into a life of isolation in the abandoned ruins of an old mill in the former New York Botanical Gardens, […]
Review: Shadow Runner by K.J. Fieler
Synopsis: Born into a cage of silk, Ada has never mistaken luxury for freedom. Her aristocratic family has already planned her life: marry the man her father chooses, obey the rules of high society, and enjoy every comfort except choice. Then the Shadows come for her. The secret criminal order usually recruits from the forgotten: […]
Review: Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler
Synopsis: In Ray Nayler’s speculative novel of the recent past, four young teens caught between Nazis and the Red Army survive winter in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows with a magnificent secret of their own to protect Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist, […]
SPFBO XI Review: Blackwater by Emily Blakeney
Synopsis: There is much to be done when the kingdom isn’t looking. Iona Strider is a ruthless pickpocket cursed with a disobedient shadow. Violent, too. Worse, she can’t remember who cursed her, or why. But she does know one with each passing day, her control of the shadow dwindles. In her relentless pursuit of answers, […]
Review: The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean
Synopsis: From the USA Today bestselling author of The Book Eaters comes The Girl with a Thousand Faces, a Gothic tale set in a historical Hong Kong that meshes ancient myths and local legends into a haunting story of ghosts, grief, and women who will not forgive. When Mercy Chan washed up on the shores […]
Review: The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee
Synopsis: Get ready to be blown away by this searing standalone space opera where corporate samurai fight beneath merciless stars, and death is always a mere breath away. Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend has to come to an end. When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow–to walk out into […]
Review: Star Trek: Red Shirts by Christopher Cantwell, illustrated by Megan Levens
Synopsis: The doomed Starfleet crew members, the red shirts, must track down spies on an isolated planet in this graphic novel. Stranded on the snow-ridden planet Arkonia 89, the crew of the U.S.S. Warren has a small window in which to pin down spies seeking to steal classified secrets and keep Starfleet data out of […]
Review: Terrible Worlds: Destinations by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Synopsis: The Future Is The Journey. The vastness of space, the endless ribbon of time, worlds beyond our own: humanity has always been driven to explore, to pass the horizon and enter the unknown. For too many, that drive is what ultimately destroys us. In three critically-acclaimed novellas, the “British master of science fiction” (Reactor) […]