Fantasy Books

Mark Frost co-created, co-wrote, and co-produced, Twin Peaks. That includes the 2017 reboot (which I abandoned early on. I’m a huge fan of the original series, but the restart did nothing for me.

He also wrote the two Fantastic Four films with Jessica Alba (which I said here, are better than people give it credit), as well as 42 episodes of Hill Street Blues, which was an extremely influential cop show in the eighties.

Frost wrote the dark James Spader movie, Storyville after Twin Peaks ended. And he also wrote a novel, which came out in 1993.

The List of 7 came about because Frost is a Sherlock Holmes fan. Not only is the novel’s protagonist none other than Arthur Conan Doyle and bits of his life are scattered throughout, but there are Holmes-isms aplenty. Thus, the book is a type of pastiche, though darker than any straight Holmes tale I’ve read.

A struggling young doctor who hasn’t yet created Holmes, Doyle receives a mysterious summons to what turns out to be a séance. Really creepy stuff happens, people die, a mysterious rescuer appears, and Doyle spends the rest of the book on the run from a dark conspiracy. Turns out that his completely fictional novel submission, The Dark Brotherhood, exactly mirrors a real group. And as you can guess by the name, it’s a really evil secret organization. Man, don’t you hate it when that happens!

Doyle’s rescuer, Jack Sparks, clearly has a lot of Sherlock Holmes in him, with some James Bond thrown in. And the main villain certainly brings to mind a ruthless Moriarty. Doyle is a pretty good version of, well, himself.

This is a pulp style horror yarn: More Clark Ashton Smith than Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s lathered in supernatural like a cheap medium in fake ectoplasm. Four hundred pages long, it rollicks along at a breakneck pace: another pulp characteristic. I think that Frost is an over-writer. He uses lots and lots of words. I don’t particularly mind his style, but it certainly feels a bit wordy. This book could be leaner. It works, but it’s noticeable.

I’m not much of a horror fan, but I am a great fan of Robert R. McCammon (I wrote about his nearly flawless ‘coming of age’ novel, Boy’s Life, here). The antagonist brought to mind the villain from his novel, Baal. And that ain’t nice. There is some unpleasant stuff in this book: there’s just no way around it. This secret group is evil.

Now, along with Doyle, we meet Bram Stoker, Prince Edward Albert, and a slightly renamed Sir William Gull (the latter two figuring prominently in the Royal Conspiracy theories about Jack the Ripper).

But you can’t finish a chapter without running into something Sherlockian, which is fun. Sparks has a place on Montague Street, he uses cocaine, he’s brilliant, he has a brilliant brother: you get the idea. The story also nicely dovetails into Doyle’s actual life.

After the main problem has been resolved, there are still a couple of nice little surprises left. If you don’t mind a supernatural edge to your Holmes-like story, this is a pretty good read. Frost really does keep things moving forward at a brisk pace.

I recommend The List of 7 as as a Pulp-style, supernatural thriller with a Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle overlay. That definitely works for me.

THE SEQUEL

Two years later, Frost followed up with a sequel, The 6 Messiahs.

Doyle is now an international success, though constantly pestered to bring Holmes back from his supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls. Jack Sparks and Eileen Temple, from the first book, had vanished from his life.

Doyle, accompanied by his (real-life) younger brother, Innes, is off to America for a speaking tour. Shenanigans on shipboard (I like that turn of phrase) draw Doyle into a plan to steal great religious texts as part of an evil plot. Really, Doyle can’t turn around without coming up against some great evil trying to take over the world. It’s like Miss Marple or bakers on Hallmark, finding a dead body every time they leave the house!

Turns out five folks have had dreams of a great black tower rising out of the desert and events bring heroes and villains together for an epic showdown. “Five,” you say? Yep, you’ll have to guess who the sixth messiah is.

Unlike List, Messiahs is very much an American/Old West adventure. And there’s a Mormon feel to the religious commune. It doesn’t feel as action-packed as its predecessor. This one moves forward at a more leisurely pace. I think it’s in part because there’s much less a sense of imminent danger for Doyle this time around.

Anyone who enjoyed List should certainly read Messiahs, though I think it is markedly the lesser of the two. Nothing wrong with it, just not as good a book.

Mark Frost will forever be known (with David Lynch) for Twin Peaks. But he’s also got a foot in the Holmes door with these two dark, Pulpy novels about Arthur Conan Doyle. I’d certainly like to see it become a trilogy, but after thirty years of silence about it, I don’t think so.

Check out The List of 7. You won’t be disappointed.

 

Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.

 

Official Rachel Aaron WebsiteOfficial Travis Bach WebsitePre-order Death Has Joined The PartyRead the first two sample chapters over hereListen to an audio sample narrated by Nicholas Cain
Rachel Aaron and Travis Bach have announced a new series which is a whole new genre for both of them. Behold the fantasbulous cover of the MANA RUNNERS Book 1 titled Death Has Joined The Party which releases tomorrow (April 7th 2025)



OFFICIAL BOOK BLURB: Welcome, sentient races one and all, to the centennial season of the greatest collaboration between mortals and gods! The most thrilling, most deadly, most watched spectacle ever put on in any realm…Mana Runners!

The infinite dungeon below Whitepeak, the famous City of Wizards, has reset itself once again, bringing new traps, new monsters, and new, never-before-seen challenges to this historic event. All of your favorite champions from Season Ninety-Nine are back and ready to face what is sure to be the most difficult season of Mana Runners ever attempted. From the lowest Copper Tier to the Platinums who shine at the top, every Runner is ready to lay down their lives defending you from the monsters that lurk beneath the mountain.

All of their sacrifices shall be recorded in the pages of history, but only those blessed with unique powers from the gods can reach the deepest floors. It’s the event that brings sentient races from all over the world together! The spectacle no one can afford to miss! And you can watch it all live thanks to Whitepeak College of Wizardry’s revolutionary sendernet: the only Sending spell network that broadcasts the can’t-be-missed action of Mana Runners straight into your home!

(The Mana Runners Centennial Season is produced by the Whitepeak Dungeon Committee and the Coalition of Rightfully Aligned Gods. Remember, the gods are always listening, so be sure to pray for your favorite Mana Runner to earn them blessings as they battle the unthinkable dangers of the Endless Dungeon!)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 365 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: September 28, 2021
ASIN: B08QGJDSCK
Stand Alone or Series: Sttand Alone
Source: Borrowed ebook from Kindle Unlimited
Rating: 5/5 stars

“Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this from Kindle Unlimited on ebook.

Thoughts: This is one of the odder books I have read. I thought I was starting some sort of sci fi read, and it kind of is that, but it is so much more too. There is an ex-violin player cursed to send souls to hell, an alien running to Earth to protect her family by getting them set up to run a donut shop, a violin maker who is plagued by her family past, and a transgender runaway trying just to get people to accept her for who she is. It was a lot, but I was impressed with how seamlessly the story was woven together and by how hard this was to put down. It is a very different story, and I was impressed by how unique it was. I loved the ending as well.

The story follows three main characters. Katrina Nguyen is transgender and has runaway from an abusive home; she is incredibly talented at playing violin but struggling to make ends meet. Shuzuka Satomi is looking for her last victim; she made a deal with the devil and has delivered six of the seven souls she promised. Lan Tran is trying to run a donut shop, which is tougher than it sounds since she is an alien refugee fleeing a war and she is trying to provide for her whole family. All three women become entangled together, and things don’t turn out how any of them expect.

The writing is very well done and flows well. We jump between three main different viewpoints (with a couple others thrown in), but the story never feels fractured or hard to follow. This was a story that kept me interested and guessing; I struggled to put it down. I have honestly been struggling a bit with finding books that really grab me; sometimes, everything I read seems like something else I have already read. This book stood out from the crowd by being unique and different as well as thought-provoking and entertaining.

I really loved everything about this book. The characters have a lot of depth and are interesting; the story had a lot of different threads and they are masterfully woven together; and I just never knew what was going to happen next, so the story kept me interested.

There are heavy themes here around being people cruel to things/people they don’t understand (especially regarding people from a different background, women, or people with different sexuality) and around being true to yourself and finding a family and place where you belong. They were addressed very thoughtfully and wrapped in with an intriguing story.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I really loved this strange book about donuts, aliens, music, and souls. This was very well written, had excellent characters, and a unique storyline that was masterfully woven together. I would recommend this if the synopsis sounds intriguing to you and will definitely keep my eye out for future books by Aoki.

The January-February issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and
Asimov’s Science Fiction. Cover art by Tithi Luadthong and Dominic Harman

We’ve settled into a new reality with Analog and Asimov’s SF. Both magazines are consistently running more than two months late, but both are at least on a predictable schedule, arriving regularly in two-month intervals. Readers more observant than I have pointed out that the publisher, Must Read Magazines, has removed the cover date and Next Issue date from the covers entirely, which was probably a good idea.

They do provide semi-regular updates online, and on March 31st Emily Alta Hockaday, Managing Editor at Dell Magazines, posted this in the Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine Fan Club on Facebook in response to a question on postal delivery.

We’re in the process of switching printers — both because of print quality and the delays we’ve experienced with them. Once we have the contract with the new printer figured out, I’ll have warehouse dates to share for both March/April and May/June.

Hopefully that change will help them gradually get back on schedule. In other news, Sheila Williams continues to recover from the brain aneurysm she suffered two months ago. She remains hospitalized, but her family posts occasional updates, including the delightful photo of Sheila below.

The unstoppable Sheila Williams, in a photo posted by her daughter Irene (with the caption “Felt cute might delete later”). That stare!

Until Sheila returns, Emily Hockaday continues to act as interim editor of Asimov’s.

As usual, the latest issues have plenty to offer science fiction fans, including new stories by Alexander Jablokov, William Preston, Adam-Troy Castro, Susan Palwick, Sean Monaghan (twice!), Jack Skillingstead, Will Ludwigsen, Lavie Tidhar, James Sallis, Mark W. Tierdermann, Geoffrey Hart, Matt McHugh, Jo Miles, Rich Larson, and many more.

Victoria Silverwolf at Tangent Online enjoyed the latest Analog.

“Sin Eaters” by Mark W. Tiedemann is the lead novelette. A police officer rescues alien children from a man who kidnapped and tortured them. The adult aliens refuse to press charges. The officer tries to figure out the motives of the man and the aliens, while dealing with his own emotional trauma. This is a powerful story that deals with issues of guilt, atonement, and psychological healing in a thoughtful and mature fashion. It also provides an example of true, profound friendship, rarely seen in fiction.

In the novelette “The Origami Man” by Doug Franklin, a fishing boat discovers what seems to be a drowned man in the middle of the ocean. The being turns out to be alive, and something other than human. It goes on to interact with the man who found it in a special way. At first, the mood is that of a horror story, with the entity compared to a zombie or a shape-shifting alien. The conclusion changes the tone drastically, in a way that some may find a bit too sentimental. The story is most notable for a vivid portrait of its Alaskan setting.

“You Who Sought the Stars’ Distant Light” by Stewart C. Baker is narrated by what was once the mind of a human being, now the consciousness of a starship. It defends itself against an intruder, only to discover its former relationship with the person invading it. The revelation of the narrator’s previous life, now forgotten, offers emotional appeal.

“Unsung” by Derrick Boden features a man who has been genetically engineered and prosthetically enhanced to become a military cyborg, destined to be a hero in a war taking place across the solar system. He participates in many battles, becoming less human each time, until he learns the truth about his origin and purpose. This is a dark, cynical story, with multiple deceptions involved in the plot.

The title character in “And She is Content” by Frank Ward is an artificial intelligence running a starship while the crew and passengers are in hibernation. Once a century during the long voyage the people wake up and enjoy the pleasures of a city created for them. The AI panics when the journey is complete, now that she has no purpose and will lose the company of the ship’s commander. This is a romantic science fiction story, reminiscent of Anne McCaffrey’s 1961 story “The Ship Who Sang” and its sequels. The once-a-century city is compared to the one featured in the 1947 musical Brigadoon. The AI and the Commander are referred to as the famous medieval lovers Heloise and Abelard. These allusions create a wistful, nostalgic mood that will appeal to softhearted readers.

“Linka’s Out” by Rich Larson takes place on a mining planet. The protagonist travels to the planet’s prison to meet the title character when she is released. The reunion leads to a shocking conclusion. This is a gloomy and hopeless tale, set on a harsh world dominated by an autocratic corporation. A hint to the story’s mood appears very early in the text, when the reader learns that the bodies of dead workers are recycled into raw material. The discovery that the main character makes at the prison is particularly gruesome.

All the characters in “Iron Star Swing” by Kate Orman are beings made up of subatomic particles, although they appear to each other as people or even as inanimate objects. They live on the surface of the sun, which is now a black dwarf in the immensely far future. They feed on neutrinos that reach the sun from stars that become novae. The plot involves a wounded warrior in a war that has lasted trillions of years and a young being who sometimes takes the form of a boy and sometimes of a firetruck. As can be seen, this story is most notable for its bizarre setting and characters.

Read Victoria’s complete review here.

The new Asimov’s is reviewed by Mina at Tangent Online. Here’s an excerpt.

“The Greenway” by Susan Palwick is an odd story, but it grows on you. The narrator is alone with her two children when the caravan comes bringing the “greenway” with it. We learn that all people eventually begin to sprout plants (a new meaning for “gone to seed”), which slowly kills them. But the sprouting bodies bring a new fertility that is spread every spring by the caravan. The bitter-sweet ending stays with you.

“Ecobomb” by Alexander Jablokov is an invasion story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The aliens are truly alien, sending “ecobombs” to change the ecosystems on the planet they are invading. But the humans on the Earth adapt to the changes and start working with the new flora and fauna to create hybrids. They create biocomputers and, through cooperation, they not only survive but are ready when the alien invaders arrive. The story grows on you like an unpleasant fungus.

“The Man with the Ruined Hand” by Sean Monaghan starts with a heist in the middle of a desert of a distant planet. Cliff is sent to catch the thief but finds himself in the middle of a double cross. It feels like the author wanted to create a Philip Marlowe vibe, but Raymond Chandler did it better.

In “Replacement Theory” by Jack Skillingstead, Tyler suddenly starts seeing everyone around him as monsters, including his girlfriend Emma. Does he have a brain defect or is he surrounded by aliens? Then he meets someone else with the same problem. But who can he trust?

“The Imaginative Youngster’s Handbook to UFOs” by Will Ludwigsen is one of those short stories I really like — a wonderful surprise. What starts off reading like a book for intelligent and imaginative youngsters slowly gains an emotional depth that is truly heart-rending. We begin to care very much about one particular child, who experiences abuse and bullying in their daily life, yet who manages to keep wonder alive inside themselves despite their loneliness. There is gentle humour and questioning of things adults hold to be self-evident but, mostly, there is compassion and a desire not to be a person who hurts others just because you have been hurt yourself. What’s particularly well done is the mix of a child’s logic with adult understanding. I would read this more than twice!

“As Long As We’re Still Here, We Might As Well Dance” by Adam-Troy Castro continues our descent into grimness. We watch the last moments of two people who did not flee when the Nihilators arrived to destroy and “repurpose” their city, including anyone left alive in it. We see love and defiance, and an unwillingness to die. The real tragedy is that both protagonists stayed because each in their own way believed they deserved to be damned.

“The Lady in Camo” by John Richard Trtek is a detective story with references to Blade Runner, Chandler, and Sherlock Holmes. Jack Twice is hired to find a missing person. It’s a world filled with clones, soft deaths and partial resurrections. I wanted to like this story but just couldn’t fully engage with it. The last few lines are good, making you wish the rest of the story had lived up to them.

Read Mina’s complete review here.

Here’s all the details on the latest SF print mags.

Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine January/February 2026 contents Analog Science Fiction & Science Fact

Editor Trevor Quachri gives us a tantalizing summary of the current issue online, as usual.

This issue’s opening salvo of 2026 stories continues right on into a furious fusillade of fiction next issue, including:

“Sin Eaters,” by Mark W. Tiedemann: how do you investigate — let alone prosecute — a crime when the societal standards violated are so alien that we can hardly recognize them?; A slick interstellar heist (…or is it?) in “The Starworthy Slip,” by AC Koch; a particle-scaled solar fable in “Iron Star Swing” by Kate Orman; a sweet burgeoning romance that mingles with a perspective on a deep geological timescale to reveal something else entirely, in Peter Medeiros’ “A Future Full of Glaciers”; a salvage crew that thinks they’ve found signs of intelligent life only to realize that the life may have anticipated them more keenly then they’d like, in Geoffrey Hart’s “Monkey Trap”; a look at the realities of building permanent settlements on the Moon, in “Homes Away From Home,” our Fact Article for the issue, by Michael W. Carroll; and more, from Doug Franklin, Howard V. Hendrix, Theodora Suttcliffe, Sean Monaghan, Matt McHugh, and others, plus, of course, all our regular columns, including an additional Guest Alternate View from Richard A. Lovett on AI and conspiracy theories (sadly, ever more relevant by the day); as well as our annual Index and Analytical Laboratory ballot.

Get your copy now!

Here’s the full TOC.

Novelettes

“Sin Eaters” by Mark W. Tierdermann
“The Origami Man” by Doug Franklin
“Monkey Trap” by Geoffrey Hart

Short Stories

“Salary Man” by Matt McHugh
“You Who Sought the Star’s Distant Light” by Stewart C. Baker
“Artificial Cupidity” by Hayden Trenholm
“Still Cold, Still Losing Air” by Sean Monaghan
“A Goodbye at the End of the Universe” by Ian Baaske
“Silver Hands” by E.L. Mellor
“Unsung” by Derrick Boden
“A Future Full of Glaciers” by Peter Medeiros
“Flag Lamp” by Jonathan Olfert
“Recognition Memory” by Benjamin C. Kinney
“Jack Cade’s Rebellion” by Philip Brian Hall
“A Chatbot’s Guide to Self-Respect” by Jo Miles
“Like Father, Like Son” by Theodora Sutcliffe
“And She is Content” by Frank Ward
“Linka’s Out” by Rich Larson
“Iron Star Swing” by Kate Orman

Probability Zero

“Jiggity Jog” by Dan Mark Baldridge

Science Fact

Nor Any Drop to Drink by Kevin Walsh

Special Features

The War, Astounding, and Campbell by Edward M. Wysocki, Jr.
Me-N-You-Genics by Howard V. Hendrix

Poetry

Escape Pod by S.L. Johnson
The Bones They Left by Stanley Poole

Reader’s Departments

Editorial: The State of the Union by Trevor Quachri
In Times to Come
The Alternate View by John G. Cramer
In Memoriam: J.T. Sharrah by Emily Hockaday
In Memoriam: Bruce Boston by Emily Hockaday
Guest Alternate View by Richard A. Lovett
Unknowns, edited by Alec Nevala-Lee: Time Lapse by Todd McClary
The Reference Library by Sean CW Korsgaard
Brass Tacks
2025 Index
Analytical Laboratory Ballot

Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine January/February 2026 contents Asimov’s Science Fiction

Sheila Williams provides a brief summary of the latest issue of Asimov’s at the website.

We have a lively bunch of stories in our January/February 2026 issue! John Richard Trtek’s novella teems with intrigue, deceit, danger, and the mystery of “The Lady in Camo,” while Alexander Jablokov’s novelette, “Ecobomb,” is a tense yet often amusing tale about the unanticipated consequences of an alien invasion!

William Preston tells a moving story about a dying man, his sister, his robot double, and his best friend in “Stay”; James Sallis’s characters calmly face alien visitors and the death of half of humanity in “And We Will Find Rest”; in his first sale to Asimov’s, R.T. Ester tells a complicated tale about “The Tourist”; also new to Asimov’s, well-known author Adam-Troy Castro’s characters enjoy a final day of freedom in “As long as We’re Still Here, We Might as Well Dance”; some young men experience serious breakdowns in Jack Skillingstead’s “Replacement Theory”; a woman faces an unusual condition in K.A. Teryna’s lovely story about “All My Birds” (this tale was translated from Russian by Alex Shvartsman); another woman faces mysterious strangers and an illness along “The Greenway” in Susan Palwick’s new story; Sean Monaghan reveals why you shouldn’t trust “The Man with the Ruined Hand”; a woman copes with an extreme fetish in “The Moribund” by Lavie Tidhar; and Will Ludwigsen charms us with “The Imaginative Youngster’s Handbook to UFOs.”

Robert Silverberg’s Reflections considers: “The Multiplicity of Mermaids”; James Patrick Kelly’s On the Net looks at AI audio and says, “Welcome to Just Okay”; Kelly Jennings’s On Books reviews works by Mary Soon Lee, Ray Nayler, Chuck Tingle, Charlie Jane Anders, and others; Kelly Lagor’s Thought Experiment shines a light on “Bradbury and Truffaut’s Empathy in Fahrenheit 451”; plus we’ll have an array of poetry, our yearly Index, and our 40th Annual Readers’ Award ballot!

You’ll find our January/February 2026 issue on sale at newsstands on December 8, 2025. Or subscribe to Asimov’s—in paper format or our own downloadable varieties — by visiting us online at www.asimovs.com. We’re also available individually or by subscription via Amazon.com’s Kindle Unlimited, BarnesandNoble.com’s Nook, and Magzter.com/magazines!

Get your copy now!

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

Novella

“The Lady in Camo” by John Richard Trtek

Novelettes

“Ecobomb” by Alexander Jablokov
“Stay” by William Preston
“The Tourist” by R.T. Ester
“As Long as We’re Still Here, We Might as Well Dance” by Adam-Troy Castro

Short Stories

“The Greenway” by Susan Palwick
“The Man with the Ruined Hand” by Sean Monaghan
“Replacement Theory” by Jack Skillingstead
“The Imaginative Youngster’s Handbook to UFOs” by Will Ludwigsen
“All My Birds” by K.A. Teryna (Translated by Alex Shvartsman)
“The Moribund” by Lavie Tidhar
“And We Shall Find Rest” by James Sallis

Poetry

Monster by Megan Branning
The Freetown Bar and Bookstore by M.C. Childs
Thirty-Six Views of the Milky Way by Connor Yeck
Closing Time by Brian U. Garrison
Humans Make Anything Their Pets by Dawn Vogel

Departments

Editorial: WorldCon Extraganza by Sheila Williams
Reflections: The Multiplicity of Mermaids by Robert Silverberg
On the Net: Welcome to Just Okay by James Patrick Kelly
Thought Experiment: Bradbury and Truffaut’s Empathy in Fahrenheit 451 by Kelly Lagor
2025 Index
Asimov’s Readers’ Awards Ballot
On Books by Kelly Jennings
Next Issue

Analog, Asimov’s Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction are available wherever magazines are sold, and at various online outlets. Buy single issues and subscriptions at the links below.

Asimov’s Science Fiction (208 pages, $9.99 per issue, one year sub $57.75 in the US) — edited by Sheila Williams
Analog Science Fiction and Fact (208 pages, $10.99 per issue, one year sub $57.75 in the US) — edited by Trevor Quachri
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (208 pages, $12.99 per issue, one year sub $46.95  in the US) — edited by Sheree Renée Thomas

The January-February issues of Asimov’s and Analog are officially on sale until mid-February, but since that was almost two months ago and the magazines are still on sale, I suspect they’ll be on shelves a little longer than that. No word on when to expect the next F&SF, but let’s say 2027 to be on the safe side.

See our coverage of the November-December 2025 issues here, and all our recent magazine coverage here.

The fifteenth annual Women in SF&F Month continues with three new guest posts this week, starting tomorrow with an essay and book giveaway (with one print copy for a US reader and one digital copy for someone outside the US). Thank you so much to last week’s guests for a wonderful start to the month! The new guest posts will be going up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week, but before announcing the upcoming schedule, here are last week’s […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Week 2 Schedule & Week in Review first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

Alex Carter book 5

Wildlife biologist Alex Carter takes a job in Hawaii monitoring the nesting sites of endangered Hawksbill Turtles. While there she finds herself dealing with wildlife traffickers and even worse. As a hurricane descends on the nesting beach threatening the eggs laid there a group of criminals are also heading in her direction.

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Book 5 of this series once again delivers a suspenseful adventure with a gentle education in conservation. I love this series, I love that the author doesn’t really try to moralise. She has done her research and taken a side and she puts that on the page.

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me Series: Maggie the Undying #1
Published by Tor Publishing Group on March 31, 2026

Outlander meets Game of Thrones in this blockbuster new epic fantasy series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author duo Ilona Andrews.

When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, it doesn't take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy series she's been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years for the final novel.

Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic, and mayhem? Her encyclopedic knowledge of the plot, the setting, and the characters' ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she's coming to love—a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures, and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes—and attentions—of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic war.

For fans of Samantha Shannon, Danielle L. Jensen, Sarah J. Maas, and isekai and portal fantasy, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is the beginning of the most epic adventure yet from genre powerhouse author duo Ilona Andrews.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Pages: 368 GoodreadsGenres: Fiction / Fantasy / Epic, Fiction / Fantasy / Romance
ISBN: 9781250377272
By: Ilona Andrews
Series Rating:

Also by this author: Kate Daniels, #8, Burn for Me, Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles, #2), Magic Stars (Grey Wolf Book 1), Magic Binds (Kate Daniels, #9), One Fell Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 3), White Hot (Hidden Legacy, #2)

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I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one. I’ve loved most of the author’s other series, but this felt a bit different. While it had plenty of intrigue, it also came with a lot of cliffhangers and unanswered questions. By the end, you’ll definitely be hoping there are more books in the series to continue the story.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33, developed Sandfall Interactive and published by Kepler Interactive April 24, 2025

So… if you are an enthusiast of single player RPGs and have not spent any time thoroughly engrossed in this modern masterpiece, you’re either buried under a pile of rubble or not allowing yourself enough time for brilliant escapism.

In either case, you’re missing out on what was unequivocally the 2025 GOTY.

I’ll work up a proper review at some point but am simply too busy playing this stunning piece of interactive art with all of my spare time to do so now.

Fighting the giant head in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

My very short take, aside from the above, is that this is essentially the game that Square Enix has been wishing they could have produced over the last two decades. I truly do not remember the last time I played a game that checked every box I have on my list of desired qualities after a lifetime of video games.

Fresh, engaging mechanics, sumptuous visuals, deeply developed world-building, top shelf voice acting, brilliant writing with staggering emotional depth, and the most phenomenal score since Final Fantasy VII.

All from a tiny French studio with barely more than 30 team members, most of whom are Ubisoft refugees.

Buy it, play it, support Sandfall Interactive. But even if they never produce another game again, their debut masterwork will prove to be an enduring legacy in the field for decades to come.

Joshua Dinges’s last game review for Black Gate was Return of the Obra Dinn.

Nautical Novels – All Aboard for Danger on the High Seas! Search on Bookshop.org One-Way,…

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I’ve often said that writing humour (sorry, American readers: ‘humor’) is HARD. The difficulty is, as I understand it, that writing humour means that it doesn’t come across in the same way as a spoken one-liner. Perhaps more problematical is that a person’s sense of humour is not the same as another’s. What can seem…

Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is artist and author Elaine Ho! Her illustrations, which can be found on her website and Instagram, include “Bones to the Wind” from the eponymous book cover jacket, “Harmony” from the Gen Con 2024 program cover, “Wall of Roses” from Uncanny Magazine Issue 46, and scenes from her debut novel. Her dark political fantasy book released late last year, Cry, Voidbringer, explores “how identity is reshaped under empire” and the question “Why do post-colonial […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Elaine Ho first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

P. Schuyler Miller

Peter Schuyler Miller was born on February 21, 1912 in Troy, New York. He earned a Master of Science from Union College and worked as a technical writer for General Electric and the Fisher Scientific Company.

Miller had a lifelong interest in archaeology and was a member of the New York State Archaeological Association.

His first published short story “The Red Plague,” appeared in the July 1930 issue of Wonder Stories. Based on the cover of the magazine’s January issue, it was the first winner of a contest Wonder Stories ran, earning Miller publication and $150. Sam Moskowitz described the story as “more of a well-written plot synopsis for a novel than a short story.”

Miller participated in multiple collaborations. In the early 1930s, he wrote two stories with Walter Dennis and Paul McDemott: “The Red Spot of Jupiter” and “The Duel on the Asteroid.” These two stories were the only fiction Dennis and Dermott published, but Dennis was the co-editor, with Raymond A. Palmer, of The Comet, often cited as the first fanzine.

Wonder Stories, July 1930, Cover by Frank R. Paul

In 1934, he took part in the collaborative novel Cosmos, for which he wrote “Chapter 14: The Fate of the Neptunians.” In 1950, he collaborated with L. Sprague de Camp on the 1950 novel Genus Homo, which took advantage of Miller’s interest in archaeology. In late 1933, he began publishing the 11 part serial “Alice in Blunderland” under the pseudonym “Nihil.”

Willy Ley attacked Miller’s 1931 story “Tetrahedra in Space” for its scientific inaccuracies and Miller responded that the physical chemistry described in the story was accurate. Everett F. Bleiler had a low opinion of Miller’s stories in general, suggesting that his 1936 story “The Chrysalis,” published in Astounding was his only story worth reading.

After 1951, Miller became best known for writing reviews for Astounding’s “The Reference Library” until his death om 1974. He had very little fiction output once he began reviewing books. His reviews tended to look for the good in the stories and novels he was reviewing, often including mini essays of this historical and literary context of the works under review. In 1963, he won a Special Hugo Award for his book reviews.

Miller died in Parkersburg, West Virginia on October 13, 1974 while on an archaological tour of the Fort Ancient culture and was buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Schaghticoke, New York.

His papers formed the bases of the P. Schuyler Miller Memorial Library at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 

Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 256 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: May 5, 2026
ASIN: B0FMSC5S4W
Stand Alone or Series: 8th book in The Murderbot Diaries
Source: eGalley from NetGalley for Review
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good.

After volunteering to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realizes that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn’t know.

Including human children. Ugh.

This may well call for… eye contact!

(Emotion check: Oh, for f—)”

Series Info/Source: This is 8th book The Murderbot Diaries. I got an eGalley of this from NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: The last book in the Murderbot Diaries was published in Nov of 2023, so it’s been quite awhile since we’ve seen a new Murderbot book. As a result the beginning of this book, which jumps straight into action, is incredibly confusing. As the story continues, we do get clarification about what is going on, but I was nearly 30% of the way in before I figured out why Murderbot was doing what it was doing and why it was where it was.

The beginning of this book has Murderbot and Three infiltrating a massive rotating space station shaped like a torus, things go sideways when Barish-Estranza troops show up. I was quite sure why Murderbot and Three were infiltrating this space station until much further into the story. You are plopped straight into the action, which was a bit confusing.

Once I got about 40% of the way in, I was fully engaged in the story, understood what Murderbot was doing, and didn’t want to put the story down. However, that first third was pretty clunky and confusing. If you are going to take years between publishing books in a series, you have to give at least a few sentences of recap at the beginning. Not all readers go back and re-read the whole series before the next book or even have access to the previous books in the series.

I enjoyed Murderbot’s normal sardonic comments and also enjoyed the new “emotion check” functions. I didn’t feel like Murderbot grew much as a character in this book. This story felt very much like filler to me and was a bit disappointing. I didn’t feel like it progressed Preservation’s story much or really progressed any larger storyline at all. It was a very compact and separate story from the rest of the series. Additionally, the way the book wrapped up was incredibly abrupt. I was left feeling like, uh, okay I guess the book’s done then.

I would love to feel like that is a broader story arc here that is making progress, but at this point, I think we are just reading about instances in Murderbot’s existence. Which is fine, I guess. I just really loved where some of the previous books were going, and this feels so much like filler to me.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed revisiting Murderbot and this world. I was disappointed at how confusing the first part of the book was and at how abruptly the story ended. The second half was action-packed, and the book was very hard to put down for that portion. All of this left me a bit confused about how to rate this book. The first part 3 stars, the middle to end portion 5 stars, then the end 3 stars…so I settled on 4 stars. I will definitely continue to read this series but feel like this book wasn’t as good as come of the previous books.

Joan and Peter by H.G. Wells (Macmillian, first American edition, 1918)

Science fiction fans naturally know H.G. Wells best for his scientific romances. But after 1905, he wrote relatively little in that genre. Instead, he turned his efforts variously to the Fabian Society, Britain’s indigenous socialist movement; to surveys of human knowledge for general audiences, in the style later followed by Isaac Asimov (I read my grandmother’s copy of The Outline of History, and I still have the four volumes of The Science of Life); and to realistic novels, starting with Love and Mr. Lewisham in 1900.

Joan and Peter is a curious amalgam of these interests — a realistic novel about changing class relations and cultural attitudes in England, much of whose storyline focuses on the problems of the English educational system as experienced by its title characters. This gives Wells a chance to explain things to his readers, though he’s often fairly good at enlivening the presentation beyond big lumps of exposition.

[Click the images to embiggen.]

The books of HG Wells

When I say “realistic” here, I mean it in a mostly literary sense: fiction that avoids scientific speculation, marvelous inventions, supernatural powers, and other exotica. Joan and Peter’s characters are human beings living in a human world. However, some of its narrative turns seem to show the influence of older romantic themes.

The foundation for this story is a pair of English families with different origins and qualities. On one hand, the Stublands: Solidly middle class, in the older sense that meant “six hundred a year” and no need to work, thanks to ancestors who made a success in textiles. Ancestrally Quaker, they drifted over time among various non-established churches, and by the start of the novel, they’re spiritual without being religious, and many of them are artistic. On the other hand, the Sydenhams: County people, generally conservative, and prolific enough to have little money for their younger generation.

Dolly Sydenham, a vicar’s daughter, has a deep attachment to her cousin Oswald — but loses track of it temporarily in the excitement of meeting Arthur Stubland (“whom everyone called Stubbo,” Wells says, but in fact the nickname is used only half a dozen times, all in the first chapter). Arthur and Dolly marry and have a son, Peter. A couple of years later Dolly’s brother, an alcoholic reactionary journalist, dies and leaves her to care for his bastard daughter Joan.

And that gives us our core cast. This kind of family tableau seems exactly the sort of thing English novelists favored as a setup, though Wells may have been a little hasty with his: I tried to draw family trees and couldn’t make either the Stublands or the Sydenhams entirely consistent on the basis of Wells’s statements.

1918 Macmillan Company advertisment for Joan and Peter by HG Wells

From this foundation, Joan and Peter develops in three main parts.

In the first part, Peter is born, in a house designed by Arthur (one of only two), and Oswald comes from Africa to visit and, learning that Peter is not to be christened unless he asks to be, offers to be his godfather “pour rire,” and pledge that he shall be taught French, German, mathematics, chemistry, and biology and that he shall renounce the Devil and all his works. After he departs, Arthur and Dolly have a bicycling accident and consider who would become Peter’s guardian if they were both killed; after a little while Arthur thinks of Oswald.

A few years later, Oswald comes for another visit, after Joan has become part of the household. By this time, Arthur has been unfaithful to Dolly, “on principle,” Wells says, and goes on to hint at the affair to Dolly (a century later he would have said “polyamory”), who reacts very unhappily and indeed is tempted to return Oswald’s previously unconfessed love for her, perhaps even to go to Africa with him. Finally Dolly and Arthur are dramatically reconciled, and go on a trip to Italy, while Arthur’s sisters Phoebe and Phyllis move in to look after the children. During the trip they both drown in the waters off Capri.

By this point, it’s clear that Oswald is Wells’s real hero, and he has the right attributes for one: Enlisted young in the Navy, he receives the Victoria Cross at twenty for courage in battle — a battle that blinds one eye and scars half his face. No longer able to serve in the Navy, he eventually ends up in Nyasaland as a British agent, with the idea of serving humanity and the British Empire, suppressing slavery and despotic local rulers, but also with the idea that civilization is essentially an educational enterprise.

Joan and Peter inside flap (Cassell, 1918)

All of this actually makes Wells sounds more Kiplingesque than he’s often thought of as being. On his second visit to England, Peter gives him the nickname “Nobby,” after his favorite toy, a Dutch doll half of whose face was smashed off while Peter was playing with him and then painted black; the two of them fuse into a central figure in Peter’s private mythology. It’s as that myth that he appears in the second part.

All of that part’s complications derive from Arthur’s will, as he revised it before the trip to Italy — without telling Dolly! He appoints his two sisters as joint guardians with Oswald, and then, not wanting Oswald outvoted all the time, he adds Oswald’s aunt by marriage, Lady Charlotte, a wealthy and conservative widow, “one of those large, ignorant, ruthless, low-church, wealthy, and well-born ladies who did so much to make England what it was in the days before the Great War.”

This leads to a long series of conflicts over Joan and Peter’s upbringing, their schooling, and their religious instruction, carried out partly through solicitors, and eventually by Lady Charlotte’s agents taking Joan and Peter from their school to dispose of them more suitably (as Lady Charlotte sees it), when Peter has reached the age of ten.

At this point, Oswald comes back to England, for two reasons: first, he’s been warned that if he stays in Africa, blackwater fever will kill him; second, witnesses have been found to Arthur and Dolly’s deaths, and while the courts normally assume that the woman will drown first, being “the weaker vessel,” their testimony shows that Dolly went on swimming long after Arthur sank — so her will prevails, and Oswald is the only guardian after all.

Joan and Peter paperback edition

The third part then jumps forward a decade, to when Peter and Joan are nearing majority, though with flashbacks to Oswald’s arrangements for their schooling. They get caught up in the Great War, and also in sexual passions — and Joan learns that Peter isn’t her brother, or even her half brother, but her first cousin, whom she can think of marrying, while Oswald puzzles over what a mess his wards are making of the whole matter.

On one hand, for American readers, these attachments of cousins may seem peculiar and even creepy: Oswald and Dolly are first cousins, and so are Peter and Joan, and there’s even a scene of unspoken romantic attraction between Oswald and Joan, who’s his first cousin once removed and thirty-two years younger. Wells treats it as a matter of course, though, and American writers once did so: Louisa May Alcott’s Rose Campbell (in Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom) never even considers a suitor who’s not one of her male first cousins.

On another, having been raised together, and even thought each other to be half-siblings since infancy, Joan and Peter may not be a plausible romantic couple, and making them so may owe more to romantic poets like Shelley than to actual observation. The Westermarck effect had been recognized about when Wells began writing fiction. I also noticed several scenes of same-sex attraction; it’s visible that Wells makes male–male attraction much more disturbing than female–female.

But all of this is something of a side issue to Wells’s real plot, which is didactic. Key scenes involve his characters encountering the peculiarities of a sample of schools of various English types.

Joan and Peter: The Story of an Education (Cassell, 1918)

The School of St. George and the Venerable Bede, which Joan and Peter both attend from early childhood, has what we might now call a New Age flavor: children wear robes called djibbahs, and the curriculum is rather freeform and experimental, with artistic activities such as performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Wells makes a point of reading being taught by the “look–say” method and arithmetic by a process that emphasizes understanding rather than memorization, much like New Math or current approaches to mathematics — unfortunately the young woman who teaches arithmetic is a little confused about some of it. (These were things I thought came in after World War II, and maybe they did — in the United States.)

High Cross School is a much more traditional school, with a headmaster who was good at sports and never really mastered the classical languages he mainly teaches. After being harassed by other boys and caned by the headmaster (for not answering to the headmaster’s newly invented nickname for him) Peter runs away and finds his way home (and one of the boys sent out to search for him expresses extravagant, sentimental grief when it appears that he drowned). Peter calls on the name of “Nobby” during the caning and fantasizes about him while running away. Joan, in the meantime, isn’t sent to school at all; as a bastard she’s thought best suited to domestic service — and then she catches measles.

After this, Oswald undertakes a long search for better schools, of which we hear most about the ones for boys. Peter ends up at Caxton, a fairly progressive school for boys, and Joan at Highmorton, a school for girls run by suffragettes. And during this phase Wells gives us a passage where the headmaster of a preparatory school that readies Peter for Caxton bemoans the limits placed on him by parents’ demands for the standard sort of education.

Joan and Peter The Story of an Education (Aevum Editions Publishing, December 30, 2023)

Behind all this is a clash of philosophies of education, presented in a conversation during Peter’s infancy: Arthur and Dr. Fremisson, the family doctor, are all for a natural childhood, in the spirit of Rousseau or William Morris, but Oswald thinks that human planning can improve nature considerably. This leads to a debate over whether plowed fields are artificial or natural:

“I’d like to know just what does belong to the natural life of man and what is artificial,” said Oswald. “If a ploughed field belongs then a plough belongs. And if a plough belongs a foundry belongs — and a coal mine. And you wouldn’t plough in bare feet — not in those Weald Clays down there? You want good stout boots for those. And you’d let your ploughman read at least a calendar? Boots and books come in, you see.”

“You’re a perfect lawyer, Mr. Sydenham,” said the doctor, and pretended the discussion had become fanciful…

The whole thing was remarkably like a Heinlein character’s rant about technophobes! Wells really was an ancestor to classic science fiction.

In a charmingly comedic scene, Arthur tries to get the children to build cooperatively with toy bricks, following Kropotkin’s theories, only to be frustrated by each one wanting to do the whole job: “Dadda not put any more bricks. No. Peter finish it.” The housemaid, Mary — a socially enlightened household has to have at least one servant, who actually spends more time with the children than either parent — finds it simpler to draw a line across the floor and give each child half the bricks, letting them play side by side. (Mary quietly vanishes from the story sometime after Oswald’s return.)

Joan and Peter trade paperback edition (Read Books, 2008)

A final chapter has Oswald setting out to give Joan and Peter a valediction, an apology for his own life and what he’s made of it, and a philosophy of education. But he doesn’t get to deliver much of what he’s lain awake rehearsing; no sooner does he ask his rhetorical introductory question, “What is education up to?” than Peter jumps in and offers his own answers. In the end Oswald, sitting in the dark in his study, reflects on his own life, and his feelings for Dolly and Joan, and then gets up to light his reading lamp and go to work.

I suppose literarily this is more plausible, and livelier, than Socrates giving a long speech while his young admirers say, “Yes, Socrates!” but I ended up feeling that it was a little too inconclusive. (And Plato would have explicitly linked erotic attraction to education in a way that Wells hints at but doesn’t quite make clear.) The whole project is a kind of amphibious entity, half a novel and half a tract, and both halves are interesting, but they don’t quite mix.

It had not thitherto occurred to Oswald that his ward had the most beautiful neck and shoulders in the world, or that Joan was as like what Dolly once had been as a wild beast is like a cherished tame one.

William H. Stoddard is a professional copy editor specializing in scholarly and scientific publications. As a secondary career, he has written more than two dozen books for Steve Jackson Games, starting in 2000 with GURPS Steampunk. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, their cat (a ginger tabby), and a hundred shelf feet of books, including large amounts of science fiction, fantasy, and graphic novels.

LitStack Spots Here are other books we’ve spotted and we’re adding to our TBR list,…

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The Imaro trilogy by Charles Saunders, all from DAW Books: Imaro (November 1981), The Quest for Cush (February 1984) and The Trail of Bohu (October 1985). Covers: Ken Kelly and James Gurney

Charles Saunders (1946 – 2020) was one of two men who established a sub-genre of Sword & Sorcery that has come to be called Sword & Soul. The other was Samuel Delany (1942 – ). Saunders was born in the USA but moved to Canada as a conscientious objector after being drafted for Vietnam. He became a journalist and wrote a lot of nonfiction, much of it dealing with the lives of Blacks in Canada.

Around 1974, Saunders created a fictionalized Africa called Nyumbani and began writing S&S stories set there about a hero named Imaro. These were published in a small magazine but the first one was reprinted by Lin Carter in his 1975 edition of Year’s Best Fantasy. By 1981, some of these stories had been connected into novel form and were published as Imaro, by DAW books (Ken Kelly cover). Two more books followed, The Quest for Cush (1984) and The Trail of Bohu (1985), both with excellent and more appropriate-to-the-character covers by James Gurney.

DAW’s original cover for Imaro, with tag line The Epic Novel of a Black Tarzan, withdrawn and reprinted after a complaint from the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs

DAW didn’t know how to market a black S&S hero like Imaro and initially the character was compared to Tarzan, probably because of the African connection. Imaro, however, is much more Conan than Tarzan, although he is a unique character and no “clonan.” DAW realized their error and made the better connection, quoting on the back of Imaro:

Imaro’s saga will be compared with that of Conan and other heroes of history and legend…

(An aside about this quote: Conan is implied to be a hero of ‘history and legend.’ That’s a little odd.)

Heroic Fantasy edited by Gerald W. Page & Hank Reinhardt (DAW Books, April 1979). Cover by Jad

Imaro III: The Trail of Bohu has a cover quote:

Imaro follows in the footsteps of Conan

I first discovered Imaro in an anthology I’ve mentioned before called Heroic Fantasy. This led me to the first Imaro novel, although it took a while to find #2 and #3. They make a nice, solid body of work.

Imaro: The Naama War (Sword and Soul Media, December 29, 2009). Cover by Mshindo Kuumba

In 2009, Saunders self-published a fourth Imaro novel called The Naama War, through Lulu. Unfortunately, I didn’t immediately pull the trigger to buy it and now it’s unavailable. I’ve shown the cover pic by Mshindo Kuumba above.

There’s also a short story collection called Nyumbani Tales set in Imaro’s world (below), but the copies I’ve seen are used ones for nearly 150 bucks.

Nyumbani Tales (MVmedia, May 19, 2017). Cover by Edison Moody

Updated versions of the first two Imaro novels (re-edited by Saunders) were published in the early 2000s, although I don’t have them (see below). Saunders also wrote stories about a woman warrior named Dossouye. I read one of these, which was quite good, but the collection is currently unavailable.

I remember hearing of Saunder’s death several months after it occurred and being shocked. His writing, fine as it was, had not brought him any comfortable financial situation.

Reprint editions of Imaro and Imaro 2: The Quest for Cush from
Night Shade Books (February 15, 2006, and January 2007). Covers by Vince Evans

He died in a small apartment with no phone or internet connection, and apparently with no one close enough to him to check on his whereabouts. We can at least hope he’ll be better remembered after his death than he seemingly was before.

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was a review of two S&S anthologies, both titled Warlocks and Warriors, edited by Donald M. Grant. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.

Women in SF&F Month 2026 officially starts today with a guest post by Lorraine Wilson! Her short fiction includes “Bathymetry” (winner of the British Fantasy Award) and “Mhairi Aird” (published in the British Fantasy Award–nominated anthology Nova Scotia: New Speculative Fiction from Scotland, Volume 2). Her first novel, This Is Our Undoing, won the SCKA for Best Debut and was a finalist for the Kavya Prize as well as the British Fantasy Awards for Best Novel and Best Newcomer. Her […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Lorraine Wilson first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

Here are 7 Author Shoutouts for this week. Find your favorite author or discover an…

The post 7 Author Shoutouts | Authors We Love To Recommend appeared first on LitStack.

In March I read 10 books. You can see the reviews for all of them, which ones were my favorite, etc. below. Hope you all had a great month of reading!

I started the following series:

• None

I finished the following series:

• Redemptor (Raybearer, Book 2) by Jordan Ifueko (5/5 stars)

My Favorite Books of the Month Were:

• Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett (5/5 stars)
• Redemptor (Raybearer, Book 2) by Jordan Ifueko (5/5 stars)
• Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross (5/5 stars)

– Goodreads Reading Challenge (Progress: /150)

The full list of books that I read this month are shown below:
1. The Glowing Life of Leeann Wu by Mindy Hung (3/5 stars)
2. Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett (5/5 stars)
3. So Far Away by Kat Mellon (4/5 stars)
4. Silver and Lead (October Daye, Book 19) by Seanan McGuire (3.5/5 stars)
5. Hollow Gods (Monstress, Vol 10) by Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda (4/5 stars)
6. Redemptor (Raybearer, Book 2) by Jordan Ifueko (5/5 stars)
7. Wings and Broken Things (Mitzy Moon, Book 3) by Trixie Silvertale, Narrator Coleen Marlo (4/5 stars)
8. Keeper & Kindred (Meow: Magical Emporium of Wares, Book 2) by Toni Binns (4/5 stars)
9. Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross (5/5 stars)
10. The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst (4/5 stars)

Image by kalhh from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

Everyone has a preference, right? Preferences show up all the time; in food, in friends, in partners, in art, films, and books. I, for example, like my food relatively spicy. My father will take it so damned hot any normal person will hallucinate pink elephants for hours. Not my preference. Sharing an Indian meal with him is sometimes a challenge. I prefer whiskey to most other alcoholic beverages, though I’ll happily have a rum and coke on occasion. I am a huge fan of surrealism in art, and find expressionism a little dull (controversial take alert). And when it comes to my books, I do not like first person perspective narratives, or LitRPGs, and I’m very particular about my humour.

Well, there are two books/series now that have absolutely slapped me in the face and called me a liar. And I’m here to admit I have (joyfully) been proven so very wrong.

Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pixabay

First, I have to mention that I had struggled with reading for years and years and years. In fact, reading for pleasure became in credibly difficult during and after my university years. I just could not find it in me to pick up a book and start reading. There are some books that pulled me out of the slump momentarily (thank you Malazan Book of the Fallen), but on the whole, I’ve not been able to read.

I have no idea what the block was about. I did try to overcome it last year, attempting to force myself to read just before bed. While I did read more books last year (I think the number was four) than I had in previous years, it was still an absolute slog. This made me incredibly sad, as I had, prior to university, devoured books by the dozens in a year. I loved reading. Or I did. So why couldn’t I read?

Something this year shifted. For some reason, I have been much better about reading. As I don’t really have much spare time, I’ve kept my reading time for the times I’m on public transit, which is usually just Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (when I head to and from martial arts training). This appears to have worked a bloody miracle. I set my reading goal for twelve books in the year. I figured one book a month was more than doable with my schedule.

I have, as of this weekend just done, finished my tenth book. I don’t know why I’m suddenly devouring books again, but I’m not sad about it… because I have read some stellar books of late. My wallet, however…

The first book that took me by surprise in my new reading feast was this one:

I had heard from a few ‘BookTok’ creators that this was a good read (though BookTok appears to have ben swallowed whole by Romantasy at present, some folks are recommending different books). The first book in the Farseer Triology, The Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb is written in one of my least favourite perspectives – first person. I was not thrilled, to be honest, when I read the first page. Until I hit the second. And then I was all in on this story. I cried three times before chapter five. This was an absolute five star read for me. And it took me by surprise. I was not expecting something written in the first person to be as affecting as it was.

I chalked it up to a fluke. One exception to the rule due to an exceptional writer.

And then, and then, and THEN I read this:

I admit, I was influenced. A number of people in my circles had mentioned how good this book was. It did not seem like my thing. I am not a fan of LitRPGs, and worse, it was first person. So, not something I would enjoy. Still, folks were taking about how good this book was, so I resolved to give it a chance.

I. Loved. It.

This book is funny, and earnest, and somehow able to maintain some incredible tension. The situation was absolutely ridiculous, yet I managed to be filled with compassion for some of the ‘mobs,’ charmed by characters who could be incredibly annoying if mishandled, and absolutely holding my breath in some of the scenes.

This was my second five star read that I absolutely did not expect. Twice now I’ve been made a liar, and this book made me a liar twice over. A first person LitRPG that I loved? Impossible!

This is, of course, because both Hobb and Dinniman are exception writers, who have both created complicated, fascinating and charming characters, with styles very appropriate to the stories they are telling. While I did not cry during Dungeon Crawler Carl (usually a prerequisite for a five star rating from me), I was so thoroughly entertained, I could not help but rate it highly. For the record, I did tear up a bit in the afterword, which was something I did not know I needed.

You will not break me. Those who’ve read it will understand, I think.

My experience with both first person perspectives as a young reader had coloured my opinion, as these things tend to. It didn’t help that more recent books written in that perspective that got wildly popular were… not very well written in my estimation. If I hear the words ‘Inner Goddess’ one more time, I will absolutely lose what’s left of my sanity. LitRPGs similarly proved disappointing reads before now, and I’ve found them boring or so silly that I cannot get into the story.

Given the poor experiences in the past, it cannot be a surprise that I was hesitant to read these books, and sceptical of their popularity as well (and I have found a lot of books that became wildly popular not really to my tastes besides). Turns out, they’re exceptional, and I am now a liar, liar, pants on fire. I do like first person perspective books, and at least one LitRPG. I should have kept a more open mind.

There’s no really point to this post, except to say that maybe we should all be giving more books a chance, and maybe take some time to test our preferences every once in a while. We might end up very pleasantly surprised… and a little poorer because now I need these books and the entirety of their associated series on my shelf. They bring me joy.

It could be drugs. At least it’s not drugs. Besides, I’ve started walking to work again now that my flu has passed and my lungs are supporting movement again, so there will be less time on public transit. That should slow my reading and spare my wallet a bit…

In any case, I hope you’ll all accept this mea culpa. First person perspectives and LitRPGs are not inherently bad reads. Turns out, like every other genre and perspective, there are good books and bad ones, and a fair number of middling ones. I’m sorry for instinctively turning my nose at them.

Have you read these books? What did you think of them? What kinds of books are your preference? I love talking books. Sound off below!

When S.M. Carrière isn’t brutally killing your favorite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and sometimes painting. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and sometimes relaxing. Her most recent titles include Daughters of Britain, Skylark and Human. The Timbercreek Incident is free to read on Wattpad.