The One Who Wrote Destiny is about siblinghood. Family. Immigration. Generations. Identity. Love. Death. Choice. Bricks in the night, 1966: Mukesh is a normal teenager in Bradford just trying to celebrate Diwali and meet a pretty girl whlist not getting beaten up by a fit arsehole. The wrong laughter: Raks wants people to laugh at […]
I have thinks (and significant feels) about Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. Before the review, some scene setting: A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is a fun adventure story about finding yourself, love, and loss, and it introduces you to the Wayfarer universe, which is diverse and fun and interesting. […]
If you expected Ancillary++, you’ll be disappointed. Leckie has gone from big to small – the Radch Empire makes only a small appearance. Where the trilogy was big – gender, class, humanity and empire-spanning revenge, Provenance sits on a smaller, more personal scale, digging into what family means. Ingray is the adopted daughter of an […]
The end of the world typically doesn’t bother with heroin, politics, and books. Memoirist and poet Michelle Tea delves into a very personal the end of the world stepping backwards and sideways to an alternate 1999 San Francisco – gentrification still sweeping across the city & cleaning up the drug-addicted lesbian punks. Protagonist Michelle takes […]
Oh my bloody god this book. This series. This writer. Ninefox Gambit was my one book of 2016. The one I wanted to win all the awards. The one I was doubly-disappointed to be skipping a year with The Kitschies. Twisty-turny maths-based alteration of reality meets big evil empire and mad geniuses. It gets weirder […]
If I had any problem with The Girl with All the Gifts it was the same as I’ve seen elsewhere: It’s very good, but it’s Yet Another Zombie Book. This, despite being in the same universe, goes way beyond that. The hungries (zombies) aren’t the main feature: here it’s the humans, and what happens to […]
Ed note: This was written in 2013 and just turned up in my drafts folder. Oops. Have it now! Somewhere between the manger and gathering fishers of men, Jesus grew up. Lavie Tidhar presents us with a Jesus learning from three wise men: Pig, Monkey, and Sandy, from the Chinese classic Journey to the West. […]
This book is an astonishing gamble of object desire and fervent hope: that there are people out there who are filled with a combination of a love for language, the theatre, and Shakespeare that they’ll make a market for a book like this. It’s by no means perfect: it’s riddled with continuity errors, anachronisms, and […]
I missed these books the first time they came around – and on @kameronhurley’s recommendation, had a watch of the telly series, and thought it might be worth a read. It is. Take one part big idea space opera, add top worldbuilding and pretty progressive politics, and shake it together with a lot of […]
  What more can be said about this book? It won the Booker. Irvine Welsh called it amazing. I’ve finally got round to reading this book, and it… I don’t even know how to describe it. The style and craft of it is mind-blowing. There’s a bit of lush, prose, and just when you’re thinking […]