In the animal kingdom, order is everything.

Absent order, chaos would surely consume the many and various creatures who live in and around Murder’s Field, for instance. Imagine the madness of the grain harvest without someone to make sure the quails wait their turn! Consider those small souls who would go hungry because of the gluttony of others!

Luckily, that’s where the crow king comes in. For generations—ever since the war of the wolves—he and his black-feathered forefathers have upheld a system of sharing and, to a certain extent, caring. Under his watchful eye, an order of sorts is imposed. Rabbits, badgers, rats and mice alike are all subject to his commands from on high, in an ornate nest in a great tree at the centre of this field.

But now, the crow king is dead.

And at the outset of Lupus Rex, there is a very real reckoning ahead...

[Read more.]

What a weird coincidence! A brand-new Superman comic debuting in comic shops and on your favorite mobile devices the same week as Zack Snyder’s big-budget Man of Steel hit theaters. And the comic is written by Scott Snyder—who is completely unrelated to Zack Snyder, actually, so, yeah, that part is a coincidence.

But the first part isn’t. Superman Unchained #1 is not just poised to take advantage of the excitement around a big splashy Hollywood production, it’s a comic that’s positioned to deliver on the same task: reclaiming Superman.

Scott Snyder and Jim Lee’s Superman Unchained isn’t tied to the movie in any way, and even though the early plans for the comic included using the words “Man of Steel” somewhere in its title, this isn’t set in the cinematic universe. This is Snyder and Lee doing their take on Superman in DC’s New 52. And it’s off to a strong start.

[Read more.]

It’s always fun to watch actors that you normally recognize from genre work do Shakespeare, and a special treat when the actors in question are American because... well, we don’t get many chances. While Patrick Stewart and David Tennant get to do Hamlet, and Tom Hiddleston wows us with Henry IV, American actors are usually lounging back with roles in terrible rom-coms that they’re clearly doing to make a paycheck. So it was awfully nice of Joss Whedon to decide he was going to film his own production of Much Ado About Nothing hot on the heels of The Avengers’ success.

[Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.]

We were feeling something they never had— a physical link into the world of the fictional— through the skeletal muscles of the arm to the joystick to the tiny person on the screen, a person in an imagined world. It was crude but real.

Father, forgive me, for I have sinned: it’s been a month since I last read Austin Grossman’s second novel You, and I still haven’t reviewed it. I’m not even sure how to approach reviewing it. I read it. I loved it, despite a few misgivings. I thought about it a lot. I went back and reread a few chapters, to see if I really loved it as much as I thought I did, and to see if those few misgivings were really justified. I did, and they were, yet I still didn’t know how to sum up my reading experience in such a way that it would possibly make sense for others.

[For some reason, I felt as close to having a life as someone who had no life could possibly feel.]

Sitting down to review Theatre of the Gods this morning, I tried four or five introductions on for size before settling on this artless admission. In one, I wondered about the worth of first impressions; in another, I took to task the formula so much contemporary science fiction follows. I attempted academia; I had a stab at something snappy.

Nothing seemed quite right.

Hours had passed before I realised my mistake, which is to say there is no right way to start discussing M. Sudain’s debut; no single question I could ask, or statement make, which would somehow inform all that follows... because Theatre of the Gods is like nothing else I have ever read.

Large parts of it are certainly reminiscent of novels by an array of other genre authors: I’d name Nick Harkaway, but also Adam Roberts, Ned Beauman, Felix J. Palma and K. J. Parker. At points, Suddain put me in mind of Mark Z. Danielewski, even. So no, it’s not entirely original. Call it a composite, or literary patchwork, perhaps. Yet it’s stitched together with such vision and ambition that it feels completely unique.

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After a lamentably uneventful 2012, Stephen King kicks off what looks to be an unusually huge year for fans of the master of modern pop horror with a small but perfectly formed mystery novel. Joyland is the second story King has written for Hard Case Crime, and like The Colorado Kid— which SyFy has since adapted into a reasonably successful TV series that deals with the weird and the wonderful on a weekly basis—it comes complete with throwback cover art and a fantastic, nostalgic narrative.

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There are certain short stories that feel almost uncomfortably compressed, so full of interesting concepts and characters that the material just begs to be explored further. In this case, “uncomfortably compressed” is a good thing, by the way—the exact opposite of a bloated novel that takes a few hundred pages to develop the same rich level of depth.

One example of such hyper-efficient compression was “Bridesicle” by Will McIntosh, originally published in Asimov’s in 2009. It was one of that year’s most memorable short stories, deservedly winning the Hugo for Best Short Story as well as the Asimov’s Readers’ Award. Will McIntosh must have agreed that the story’s starting concept was too good, and its emotional resonance too strong, to leave it unexplored further.

Reworking a short story into a full-length novel doesn’t always work, but in this case, Will McIntosh has pulled it off and then some. Love Minus Eighty, the author’s third novel after the excellent Soft Apocalypse and Hitchers (which I reviewed here and here), has turned out to be a beautiful, emotionally resonant tale.

[My love she speaks like silence, without ideals or violence]

True fact: words have impact.

As readers, I doubt either you or I would dispute that, yet in the lexicon of Lexicon, the power of applied language is rather more dramatic than we might be inclined to imagine. Indeed, the right word could change the world. How, then, does one determine which phrases will prove most persuasive?

Furthermore, if there are right words, must there not also be wrong ones?

Unravelling these riddles seems simple to begin with. All we need is a meme. A few friendly questions followed by a couple that catch you off guard. For example, are you a cat person or a dog person? What’s your favourite colour? Do you love your family? Why did you do it?

Answer honestly, or not. In any event you reveal a great deal about your particular personality, which is all the knowledge a so-called “poet” needs to build a profile of your psychographic segment.

[Read more]

Having plumbed the depths of the known solar system, explored the various ramifications of the existence of aliens, and exploded a whole bunch of stuff in the interim, James S. A. Corey—a collective pseudonym for co-authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham—shows no sign of slowing down in Abaddon’s Gate, the third volume of the fantastic Expanse saga.

If anything, this is the best book in the series so far, and it’s been a superb series: an accessible, spectacle-heavy space opera with an expanding cast of characters and a massively ambitious narrative. And this time, the depths are even deeper. The ramifications are far grander. And the explosions? There are oh so many more of those.

Abaddon’s Gate picks up a couple of months after the events of Caliban’s War, with the human race in disarray after the recent crisis on Ganymede.

[Read more]

At the outset of Red Moon, Patrick Gamble, the teenage son of a single soldier, is having one of those mornings. You know:

A what the hell morning. His father is leaving his son, is leaving his job at Anchor Steam, is leaving to fight a war, his unit activated. And Patrick is leaving his father, is leaving California, his friends, his high school, leaving behind everything that defined his life, that made him him.

It’s enough to inspire violent fantasies in the mind’s eye of our protagonist, already unbalanced on the flight towards his new life in Portland, but though Patrick might feel “like punching through windows, torching a building, crashing a car into a brick wall, he has to stay relatively cool. He has to say what the hell. Because his father asked him to.” So he sucks it up. Lets his worries wash over him while he waits, as patiently as he’s able, for his turn in the toilet a few aisles back.

But the man who went into the bathroom a few moments ago doesn’t come out. Or rather, he doesn’t emerge a man, but a monster.

[Read more]

If, like me, you were introduced to the wonderful and somewhat insane world of Chuck Wendig via Blackbirds, eagerly lapped up its sequel Mockingbird, and then found yourself desperately looking for more, well, there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news—I’m just going to go ahead and say it—is that The Blue Blazes is not the new Miriam Black novel. That would be Cormorant, due out at the end of this year from Angry Robot.

The good news is that, if you liked the Miriam Black novels (which I reviewed here and here), The Blue Blazes should be right up your alley: a dark contemporary fantasy that somehow manages to be fun and unnerving at the same time. (Bonus good news: another gorgeous cover by Joey Hi-Fi!)

[Below the mine shaft roads, it will all unfold]

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: promises are made to be broken. In truth, trust exists to be tested.

We’re often called upon to give our word, for what it’s worth, but keeping it is never so simple. Of course it can be done, and indeed, we should endeavour to honour as many of the bonds we form as possible. But sometimes, circumstances arise; unavoidable, inescapable circumstances that require us to behave badly in service of the greater good. To do something we have sworn not to, or say what someone else would rather we wouldn’t.

I’m sure I sound like someone with a guilty conscience, and perhaps I am. I’d argue that we all are, to a greater or lesser extent. Thankfully, the consequences of betraying a vow in our world are in nothing compared to what we’d face if we came from Kharein, the capital city of Darhan.

[Read more]

Space.

The final frontier?

For now, that searching question stands an unfortunate fact. We want to know more, of course, but there is no clear need for the revelations we may or may not gain from our desired endeavours, or none that we can easily see.

And so we wait, painfully aware that—even if the Powers That Be see reason—we are lamentably unlikely to see a man on Mars in our lifetimes.

Maybe our children will. I want that for them.

But neither you nor I nor they, in their day, will find out what awaits on the other side of the interstellar space NASA’s lonely Voyager probe is on track to chart; the odds are simply not in our favour, I’m afraid. But we can wonder, can’t we? We can imagine. We can read and write and damn it, we can dream.

So for the foreseeable future, space may indeed be the final frontier in fact, but fiction, by its very definition, need not be held back by what is. Instead, its pioneers ask: what if? And occasionally, incredibly, what if is what is.

[Read more]

My standard spoiler warning for this series: Antiagon Fire is the seventh novel in L.E. Modesitt, Jr.’s Imager Portfolio series, and the fourth one following the adventures of Quaeryt Rytersyn. The first three novels in the series had a different protagonist and were set in the same fictional world but several centuries after the events portrayed in the Quaeryt novels.

In other words, you may want to stop reading this review if you haven’t at least read the first three Quaeryt novels: Scholar, Princeps and Imager’s Battalion. If you’d like a refresher, you can find my reviews of those novels here, here and here. (You can also find my look at the initial Imager trilogy here.)

So, in summary: if you’re not familiar with this series yet, please check it out because it’s excellent—but stop reading this review here to avoid spoilers.

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Before we start I want to say this about Star Trek Into Darkness: I’ve seen it in both 3D and 2D, and I urge you not to waste your money on a 3D ticket. Seriously, there is nothing in this movie that requires 3D, and it does bupkuss to enhance the experience.

Mind you, this movie is a visual feast, but 3D doesn’t really add anything to the feast except for maybe that piece of parsley that is used as a garnish that you throw away and never eat.

Enough of the tortured food metaphor. I went into STID with very low expectations. As I’ve said in the past, Star Trek is not at its best in movie format, especially in our post-Star Wars world where science fiction movie must equal BIG-ASS ’SPLOSIONS! in order make its box office requirements. At its best, Trek is about the exploration of the human condition, something not remotely on display in either of J.J. Abrams’s films. I figured we’d get what we got four years ago: a visual feast (as long as you don’t mind lens flares), excellent acting, and a script that doesn’t hold together upon scrutiny. My expectations were, sadly, met.

If you want a spoiler-free review, Tor.com’s own Chris Lough wrote an excellent one here. For this review THERE BE SPOILERS HERE!!!! LOTS OF ’EM!

[I was only gone for one day!]

The third and final installment of Chris Moriarty’s Spin Trilogy, Ghost Spin, releases at the end of May—nearly seven years after the initial release of Spin Control, itself the brilliant follow-up to her debut novel, Spin State. In much the same way that the second book differed significantly from the first in tone, focus, and structure, Ghost Spin is an ambitious attempt to once again provide a fresh angle on this universe and its problems—this time with space pirates, fractured AIs, and a desperate two-pronged search for answers to questions that are at first personal, but are ultimately the force that will shift the direction of the future.

The story revolves primarily around Catherine Li and Cohen, with the addition of other narrators, including ex-Navy captain, now-pirate William Llewellyn. In the opening chapter, Cohen is trapped on a backwater planet recently taken over by the UN—and, as a security team closes in on him, he commits suicide. His component parts are auctioned off almost instantly, as is the usual procedure for decoherent AIs; however, he’s left a trail of clues for Li, and the only hope for what he was trying to do, to save, is that she’ll find and pursue them. Li herself, without Cohen’s protection, is also in plenty of danger—from Nguyen, from the Syndicates demanding her extradition, and elsewhere. The question of what Cohen was up to, as well as how she can finish the job and put him back together, drives Li to make a series of dangerous and significant decisions that might alter the course of humanity’s future.

[A review.]

Regardless of whether you’re a casual summer blockbuster moviegoer or a long-time Star Trek fan, you’ll find that Star Trek Into Darkness pitches straight down the middle. You can jump into it not knowing anything about Trek and still fully enjoy the characters, environments, and story, although there are elements within that story that will resonate deeply with Trek fans.

But just because the gang’s all here doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s Star Trek.

[A spoiler-free review of Star Trek Into Darkness]

This is a novel about a time-travelling serial killer from the 1930s, his victims, the girl who survived him, and a burned-out murder-beat journalist. It’s competently, even excellently, written, makes brilliant use of a non-linear narrative to create and build tension, wears its American Literature influences proudly on its sleeve—

And for me, despite its technical competence, The Shining Girls is ultimately a frustrating mess of a novel, one whose climax falls apart under the weight of nested paradoxes.

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For a long time now I have been afraid of Sofia Samatar's fiction. Knowing the effect her poetry has had on me—in Goblin Fruit, in Stone Telling, in Strange Horizons—I have trembled at the thought of allowing her words any deeper purchase on my psyche. Given her ability to incapacitate me with a few well-turned stanzas, what havoc might she wreak with a whole novel?

Through some terrible and wonderful magic, A Stranger in Olondria has anticipated these fears and commented on them. With characteristic wit, poise, and eloquence, Samatar delivers a story about our vulnerability to language and literature, and the simultaneous experience of power and surrender inherent in the acts of writing and reading.

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