After reading R. Lee Smith’s undead erotica novel last month, my friends and I decided to make monster romance book club (well, that’s the sanitized version of the name) into a regular event. We all loved R. Lee Smith’s worldbuilding, and we knew that she had another monster romance, this time featuring an alien lizardmanRead more
I work in a special library, rather than a public or academic one. That means that our collection is mostly work-related documents, rather than fun reading. But we have a staff book exchange there, and sometimes you come across a real gem. Right before I left for vacation, I was shelving books and came across TheRead more
New Acquisitions is a feature where I talk about recent books that I’ve purchased, borrowed, won, and/or received for review consideration. All book descriptions are taken from Goodreads. For Review: Oathkeeper by J.F. Lewis This book is a continuation of the series that began with Grudgebearer. I enjoyed the first book tremendously, and am excited to pickRead more
A few weeks ago, I went to a used bookstore in DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood, where I was delighted to find a great selection of vintage pulpy sci-fi/fantasy novels. After much deliberation, I settled on the following: Sword Woman by Robert E. Howard an Anne McCaffrey space opera that I haven’t read yet a bookRead more
City of Illusions is the story of an alien who awakens on earth with amnesia. He doesn’t know who he is or why he’s there, but a group of earthlings take him in, and he takes the name Falk. From these people, Falk learns Earth’s history. It was a technologically advanced society, but then theRead more
Annihilation, the first book in Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, is a horror/survival story in which mankind explores the site of a world-changing catastrophe. The premise reminds me a bit of Roadside Picnic in that there’s this zone where something seriously weird happened, and it changes the people who interact with it in mysterious ways. Read more
Strange Bedfellows: When Science Meets Fantasy Guest post by Marian Perera, author of the Eden series I was browsing articles on Wikipedia one day (that site is almost as bad as TV Tropes for me) and I came across a picture of brain coral. “What would happen if that acted like a real brain?” IRead more
The Strugatsky brothers are among the classics of Russian/Soviet science fiction, most famous for their novel Roadside Picnic, which became the basis for the film Stalker and its later videogame adaptation. When I saw that another of their novels was being translated into English, I jumped at the chance to read it. Hard to BeRead more
Love Minus Eighty is a futuristic story that describes the love lives of a handful of intersecting characters. Mankind has developed the technology to revive the dead provided that their bodies are frozen shortly after their deaths. Of course, this technology is prohibitively expensive for people without resurrection insurance, which is most of the humanRead more
Katya’s War is the second book in Jonathan L. Howard’s Russalka Chronicles, which are set on a watery planet that was colonized by a group of Russians but eventually broke away from Earth’s influence. Katya’s War picks up after Katya Kuriakova has saved the world from an imminent threat, and now she’s trying to getRead more