TL;DR: Van Helsing, but as played by a Murderbot-style ship’s AI, with the delightfully cozy and heartwarming flavor of Becky Chambers The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Synopsis: Spaceships aren’t programmed to seek revenge—but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception. Demeter just wants to do her shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha […]
Science Fiction
Review: Cathedral of the Drowned (The Lunar Gothic Trilogy Volume 2) by Nathan Ballingrud
Synopsis: The sequel to Crypt of the Moon Spider, Cathedral of the Drowned is a dripping, squirming, scuttling tale of altered bodies and minds. There are two halves of Charlie Duchamp. One is a brain in a jar, stranded on Jupiter’s jungle moon, Io, who just wants to go home. The other is hanging on the wall of Barrowfield […]
Review: Wraith and the Revolution by A.J. Calvin
Synopsis: Kye Verex is trapped. Due to a fluke of genetics, the decisions of the galaxy’s elite, and a lack of finances, he’s stuck on his polluted and noxious home world indefinitely. And it’s slowly killing him. Then his more fortunate sister returns one day, bringing the promise of salvation. Kelsey has always hoped to […]
Review: Canellian Eye: Prophecy (Book 1 of the Canellian Eye series) by Caroline Noe
Synopsis: Destiny can be savage The towering monolith of Erulia’s Prophecy stood for millennia in the watery paradise of Canellia, its dire warning unheeded. That time is long past. In the wake of dying twin suns, this generation faces extinction under the onslaught of an Ice Age. Then, in the depths of despair, a child […]
Review: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Synopsis When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization.” Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field […]
Review: Overgrowth by Mira Grant
Synopsis Day of the Triffids meets Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Cuckoo.This is just a story. It can’t hurt you anymore. Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she’s an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she […]
Review: Rose/House by Arkady Martine
Synopsis Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with. A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every load-bearing beam and fine marble tile with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. But now Deniau’s been dead a […]
Review: Toothsucker by Kaden Love
Something to chew over Synopsis In a cyberpunk future, an alarming disease strikes, dissolving the bones of those with cybernetic enhancements. Petya, a refugee, sells himself to a company experimenting with a potential cure and instead finds himself with a strange new implant… and a vampiric hunger for teeth. Petya only wanted a short trial […]
Review: Wraith and the Revolution by A.J. Calvin
A story of resilience and a rejection of some of the worst traits of humanity, Wraith and the Revolution is a surprisingly hopeful and sincere novel.
Review: Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Volume Two edited by Dustin Bilyk
Synopsis: In Volume Two of the hugely successful Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy anthology series, editor Dustin Bilyk brings tales to you that will shatter your speculative fiction expectations while introducing some of the most hard-hitting and evocative short stories on the market today. Dragons, space aliens, demons, AI, celestial sea creatures, gods, portals, or […]
Review: Orders of Magnitude by Yuval Kordov
Synopsis: The Moon was once colonized. Now it lies silent—mostly. When a mysterious radio signal echoes from the abandoned colony of Serenitatis, the Vatican dispatches an elite squad of space marines to investigate. Paladin-Captain Samuel Cohen’s mission is simple: locate survivors, uncover the signal’s source, and get out. But beneath the sterile domes, something ancient stirs—an […]
Review: Stellar Instinct (Agent Renault Adventures #1) by Jonathan Nevair
Synopsis Mission: Impossible meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in this fun and fast-paced spy-fi adventure series featuring a tough yet conflicted secret agent, cloak and dagger intrigue, and a charming cast of alien characters. When galactic danger calls, Agent Lilline Renault answers. Strange signals pulse from an icy planet in a remote star system. Enter […]