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A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which …
I really dig the premise, but the execution bothered me a lot. Maybe they were just trying to do too much in a novella length, or maybe it's just me, but everything just felt rushed and clumsy. 🤷
A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which …
It had been a productive day. Too productive.
— Countess by Suzan Palumbo
mood
A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which …
Space colonization had not been the great equalizer the capitalist billionaires had advertised.
— Countess by Suzan Palumbo
A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which …
The #SFFBookClub pick for April 2025
Security expert Dora left her anarchist commune over safety concerns. But when her ex-girlfriend Kay …
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart is a vignette about working through guilt and self-loathing toward self-forgiveness.
There's a lot going on in terms of themes: gender, transhumanism, anarchy and fascism, cloning, all mixed into a more standard crime plot.
Although the main thread is satisfactorily wrapped up, there's definitely room to explore the world further - I want more Dora!
Security expert Dora left her anarchist commune over safety concerns. But when her ex-girlfriend Kay …
I hadn’t seen Juan in years, not since I left the commune.
— These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein
Security expert Dora left her anarchist commune over safety concerns. But when her ex-girlfriend Kay …
The #SFFBookClub pick for March 2025.
Faced with a coming apocalypse, a woman must reckon with her past to solve a …
A very different book than The Space between Worlds, but equally good.
While TSBW kind of revolved around the interworld travel premise, Those Beyond the Wall is firmly rooted in "Earth 0"'s Ashtown. Mr. Scales has a wildly different perspective on the Ashtown oligarchy and culture than Cara did, and it's kind of fascinating to see some of the blind spots the author built in. Despite the very different plot foci, there are similar strong themes of antifascism, anticolonialism, and the struggle for justice.
It's even more gritty than the original, yet potentially more hopeful as well.
I would strongly recommend reading TSBW first, because a lot of the setting is taken for granted here.
Faced with a coming apocalypse, a woman must reckon with her past to solve a …
Stories should never be believed, but they should always be trusted.
— Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson (The Space Between Worlds, #2)
Faced with a coming apocalypse, a woman must reckon with her past to solve a …
They call me Mr. Scales because I’m a snake.
— Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson (The Space Between Worlds, #2)
‘My mother used to say I was born reaching, which is true. She also used …
I've had this one on my to-read list for ages - I'd better start it now if I'm going to finish in time to read Those Beyond the Wall for #SFFBookClub February
Faced with a coming apocalypse, a woman must reckon with her past to solve a …
The #SFFBookClub pick for February 2025
It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic. "No maids, no …
I suggested this for #SFFBookClub, and so I gave this a reread so I could enjoy it again. I love the way this novel takes Hollywood and its obsession with stars and all of its racism and homophobia, and mixes it with fey magical realism. Overall, it's definitely a book whose strengths are in its setting and its writing, rather than in a tight plot, but I still love the characters.
In particular, probably my favorite part of this book are the constant turns of phrase that bring in fey elements at unexpected times. You're just reading along and then you get hit with a line like "The cameras were better now, I told myself. They had tamed them down, fed them better." Silent movies steal people's voices. Film stars are (ambiguously but also maybe literally) stars in the sky and wield their star power. Names are sacrificed, or …
I suggested this for #SFFBookClub, and so I gave this a reread so I could enjoy it again. I love the way this novel takes Hollywood and its obsession with stars and all of its racism and homophobia, and mixes it with fey magical realism. Overall, it's definitely a book whose strengths are in its setting and its writing, rather than in a tight plot, but I still love the characters.
In particular, probably my favorite part of this book are the constant turns of phrase that bring in fey elements at unexpected times. You're just reading along and then you get hit with a line like "The cameras were better now, I told myself. They had tamed them down, fed them better." Silent movies steal people's voices. Film stars are (ambiguously but also maybe literally) stars in the sky and wield their star power. Names are sacrificed, or hidden for protection. These pieces give the story some extra teeth and a darker edge of danger that always feels present at the margins. The extra ambiguity over what's real in a story about movie magic is delicious.
I have mixed feelings about parts of the end, especially with the trip to San Francisco. I think this is probably the part where the novel loses me a little bit. The pieces work well, but the pacing is a little jarring. It's nice to have a moment to come full circle to Luli's sister, the reveal of art outside of Hollywood that Luli has been too tunnel-visioned to see, and the continuing contrast of the realness of Tara and other places with the fey world of movies. I like the depth that this journey adds, and I'm not sure where else arguably in the novel that it would go.
"What so great about being seen?" Tara demanded. "What's so important about that?"
She might have had the words for it, but I didn't. They locked up in my throat, about being invisible, about being alien and foreign and strange even in the place where I was born, and about the immortality that wove through my parents' lives but ultimately would fail them. Their immortality belonged to other people, and I hated that.
One thing I saw in this reread was how much the book played with "being seen": fey bargains to get seen in pictures; pressure about being seen in "wrong" ways; being mis-seen as Mexican instead of Venezuelan; being asked to make do things to be seen as straight and married; the fear of being seen as crossing class lines or being seen as queer and butch.
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; …
Joining #SFFBookClub this month 📚️
