Gravesong by Pirateaba
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh lordy, this is really hitting the spot for me. Pirateaba has been reliably hitting it out of the park with everything. The balance between comfort-emotions, overcoming odds, dealing with issues, and beautiful worldbuilding that sets up some pretty awesome foils--AND heart-wrenching action on a huge scale, as if the former wasn't enough, is just doing it all for my poor old heart.

The balance, here, is just as good as the later Wandering Inn books, and indeed, we are in the same world and hear some interesting, familiar names. But this one is special all on its own.

A song, whether it comes from an actress or a struggling earther thrust into a fantasy world that behaves by leveling-up rules, can still have enormous power.

It's just a bit more interesting when the song in question has THIS much power.

Really great stuff.


My synesthesia smells not grave-dirt or zombie rats, but comfort-tea and honey, together with a mouth watering biscuit and warm company.


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The Guns of Empire by Django Wexler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This war-centered Fantasy continues to deliver with the war-flavor. If you've gotten this far in the story, you're really here for the gritty ambiance, the female-led gun-heroes, and a little bit of romance to go with the rare appearances of demon-infused carriers of the Names.

Honestly? I loved the end. I loved a little of the romance. The battles, when they happened, were fascinating.

But the rest--it was kinda a glide. I was there for a bunch of normal stuff written in a normal way. Every day life between battles. I'm sure others will get more out of that than me. I admit to being a bit bored during these much-longer sequences.

But overall, it was still solid--so no harm or foul.


My synesthesia really smelled a lot of airborne ash throughout the read.


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Where the Axe Is Buried by Ray Nayler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nayler has earned my respect as a serious SF author. You know, not one that just panders to trends, but one that seriously explores issues, often philosophically and, better, to a sharp point.

This new one is no different, except that it is faster-paced and quite a bit more angry. I mean, what else can we expect when showing a different kind of dystopia, one that goes beyond robot overlords or ham-fisted dictators, but a seriously smart and even reasonable tragic end.

Wait... a reasonable tragic end?

Well, yeah, if security is what you want and when authoritarian governments have learned from the past mistakes of other authoritarian governments, it's only reasonable that they do EVERYTHING in their power to retain absolute control. The point? Don't half-ass it. Use those AIs to go whole-hog on the ideological vice-grip. You know, like what has just been happening in our world, now. Don't let anyone have a single inch. It's not just China that has social scores and micro-managed restrictions anymore.

This novel shines a pretty bright light on an extreme future that seems almost exactly like our own. Updated. Sharp. Scary. But with a little hope. There always has to be a little hope.


My synesthesia tastes the sweet scent of tulips and acetylene torches.


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The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 8 by Noret Flood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite the pretty epic confrontation with the old village he founded, with plenty of surprises in store, or the overall re-focus on Earth and Earth's image of itself to grow and protect itself from the coming cataclysms, the whole novel has a serious introspective mood to it. Reflection and a sharpening of focus.

I think it's pretty awesome--like a self-therapy session that ultimately builds a brand new foundation for your soul.

Of course, this has happened multiple times in the series, but it really stands out as something that tackles much bigger "state of the universe, of existence," questions.

I'm a sucker for this stuff in OTHER literature. So the fact we're getting it taken seriously in a LitRPG where it OUGHT to be forbidden or laughed out of existence, I'm very pleasantly surprised to get a hefty dose of self-improvement alongside massive magics, cataclysms, and large-scale bloodshed.

I likey.


My synesthesia is getting the sensation of paper under my fingers, of a chocolate smell.


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The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 7 by Noret Flood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Any book that can keep me up all night wanting to know what happens next is obviously going to be a cherished one. And that's what happened to me with this.

I really enjoyed the progression and the whole "as above, so below" structure to this one. The soul skill, indeed, a whole world-building AS a narrative conceit and source of character power is pretty awesome to behold. And not only do we get to visit as a god, but all changes work both ways, changing yourself.

If that wasn't enough, the full, bright story of the world of Tellus comes to a head, complete with the Calamity and resolution. Nobody comes out of it unscathed.

Very neat novel. Humble beginnings for the series, but this one really made it stand out.

My synesthesia tasted a wholesome ham on rye with really spicy mustard, oddly enough--with a dose of blood in the air.


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The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 6 by Noret Flood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Solid work. If you've come this far in the series, you know you'll have to challenge your current limits with every volume, so it should come as no surprise that Randidly must face some demons and get pounded before arising to the top again.

In this volume, we return to the world of spears. Stronger, a little wiser, and now a bit more smug than is healthy, he turns to ash and cold and mass annihilation to get the respect of his peers. He's living the dream.

Honestly, I'm having as much fun as I generally do with these, which is to say, I'm quite amused and invested. It's all action and leveling and finding all new ways to level. In this case, imagery. And what monstrous power it is.

My synesthesia tastes yet more ash, but this time it's not a hot wind, but a cold one. Kinda perfect for the setting.



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The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 5 by Noret Flood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This LitRPG is still going pretty strong, with a few non-deal-breaking caveats.

What's going well: Action, leveling, adventure, skill-ups, expanding universe, and potential.

What's weird: novel structure. Some of the characterizations.


I'll explain. Randidly builds his own class at the end of the last novel, and now jumps into a high-level dungeon with a few friends to flesh it out. It's all cool. His old, pre-apocalyptic friends are kinda ass-hats. And upon leaving that dungeon, which takes up what I thought was a big deal of the novel, Randidly up and skips town and levels up in a time jump to an all new place and PoV which builds a nice little western/cyberpunk city that feels like a completely different novel.

Ok, no problem, except, for the most part, we're generally always focused on Randidly. It does go back to him, and he's kinda aimless again, but I enjoyed watching him grind through new skillsets, so the original purpose of the novels was served.

Weird? Perhaps. But still enjoyable in the end.

My synesthesia smells gunpowder and a forge.


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Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5* with caveats.

This novel has a very specific purpose in mind. Sure, it may lead us to several different conclusions and does a great job handing us the options, but at its core, it's a Eco-SF novel. What is that? It's an agenda piece. And just because I'm one hundred percent its side, it doesn't mean I can't recognize it for what it is.

It's about species death--and the Extinction Machine we're still enabling.

Now, the novel reads just like a good tecnho-thriller with some fairly humorous elements, but don't get mixed up on that. It also shines a sharp spotlight on the kinds of economic and legislative fuckery that is so good at lip service while giving away the whole pie. You know the whole carbon-credit chicanery that goes on now? If you can purchase enough credits, or earn enough credits with the proper lip service, then you can go ahead and pollute and cause cancer to your heart's content? Well, apply the same idea to "extinction credits". Each with a dollar amount, tradable on the stock market.

And yeah, that couldn't possibly be abused, right?

Fast forward through a travel-adventure techno-thriller with an trader of such credits and a suicidal scientist to find a single, dwindling species--and we've got plenty of misadventure and the kinds of reveals to make anyone rage.

Modern con men, abuse of wealth and power, and the total betrayal of ethics.


So, again, 5* with caveats. It reads wonderfully, is informative, funny, and has interesting characters--but it's close to, if not exactly, a satire. The fact that I can't figure out whether it's overstating facts or not is just plain scary.

So, it's not exactly fun--it's terrifying.

My synesthesia tastes almonds--and I can't tell if it's poison or not.


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This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Let me just say this: I'm really rather surprised that this LitRPG series can remain this inventive for this long. It's wildly entertaining, and what's more, it's witty and crude and disgusting in all the ways that we know and love, and even attempts (and sometimes succeeds) in outdoing itself.

That being said, it's also a damn fine story that has heart and kindness and all the other goodies that come with being SO DAMN BLOODTHIRSTY.

Yeah. Well, this one was a tower-defense game/floor, and my GOD there were a lot of gods involved this time.

But hey, we all had a ball. Ahem. A ball.

Yes, well, you had to be there to really wish you hadn't been there.

Good shit.

My synesthesia doesn't often give me an upchuck reflex, but in a few places, it did. Good thing it was passing and filled with tons of humor, as if it really WAS happening to someone else, or else it would have flipped the toggle between humor to tragedy.


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Bounty Hunter by Rachel Aukes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't really have anything super bad to say about this except it felt very... how should I say this... done before. Like, very.

I mean it's a SF without the charm of Mandolarian, Fallout game minus the humor, and all the the tropes of hundred years or more of westerns.

It's written fine, but it's simply something that doesn't stand out to me. Alas.

I'll try some of her space opera later, perhaps.


My synesthesia tastes dried cowhide. Chewy. Not very satisfying.


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Assassin of Reality by Marina Dyachenko
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After having just read the whirlwind of a book, Vita Nostra, and succumbing to all its charms, it's WORDS, there was no way in hell I could stay away from the second book--not when it is in my grasp... in my eidos of understanding.

:)

So. First of all, this isn't the same brilliant entry as the first. It is, however, a seamless continuation of it--with one caveat: the confusion, the striving for meaning within an ocean of willpower, of the direct conception of gravity, of error--of fear--wasn't centered on our dear hero's understanding of the text or audio. The novel's confusion was, instead, focused on the DEFINITIONS.

JFC, my review--is it meant to be confusing? Forgive me. Put simply, the writing is fantastic, the character motivations and hiccups and sheer revisionist editing of reality, itself, makes this continuation a heady, un-put-downable tale. Remember Butterfly Effect? Now throw in Doctor Strange. Now add the massive stresses of higher education. And then, the conflict of self-actualization versus EVERYTHING ELSE.

My head is spinning--in a great way.

No, this book did leave some bad tastes in my mouth, at least at first, for her decisions, the kinds of self-effacing behaviors that come with trying to redefine yourself, but the end was something of a freaking revelation to me. Ambiguous, yes, but revelatory.

I am ABSOLUTELY loving this. High concept, gorgeously written, and creative as all freaking hell.

I cannot WAIT for the next.

My synesthesia allows for nothing less than a windstorm with stinging rain on my body.


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Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So, I just got my head blown.

Getting the obvious stuff out of the way, let me just say that I'm gonna get a hardcover copy of this and put it on my display of ultimate pride. Beautiful reading, extremely original, cognitively dense where it ought to be, and gloriously messed up where it HAS to be.

Coming away from this, I have to believe that everyone who has ever read any kind of SF/Fantasy really SHOULD read this as to experience what OUGHT to be a hard-fast CLASSIC of the genre.

Wow, right? It's so creative and gorgeous I'm putting it on the same pedestal as Library at Mount Char. And better, it's a fantastic demonstration of a half-way UF meets Magic School meets higher education pressures. It isn't Harry Potter. It's a true magical college, and what's more, the magic itself is GLORIOUS.

As I was reading it, I was hit by the sensation that I was reading the very best Lovecraftian depiction of higher learning ever, but spread out and given a lot of depth. It kept me wondering till the very end.

I will recommend this unreservedly to anyone and everyone. So beautiful.


My synesthesia review would be nothing less than pure silence, expanded and all-enveloping until my mind broke. And yes, this IS a good thing. :)


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Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A decent mystery with some SF elements. Of course, living in the world we are in now, with AIs everywhere, the SFnal aspect is sliding heavily into natural realism.

Either way, we're getting into investigative journalism, murder, politics, a tiny bit of ethical consideration, and a heaping handful of judgement on ourselves. And to be entirely fair, that judgement is WELL deserved.

We never learn. Whether the wisdom is natural, artificial, or entirely contrived out of whole cloth, we never learn.

My synesthesia smells champagne and plastic. Why plastic? The synthesis, my dear. The synthesis.


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Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You know your life is getting strange if, within two weeks, you read two books with intelligent parasites learning to live and love their potential hosts. Hell, it's even more odd to see these parasites suffering from social anxiety or just plain anxiety, feeling needy and pathetic like an ACTUAL parasite.

Too funny. This isn't Leech, however. The other was a doctor. This one was just lovestruck in a framework story that was all pretty awesome horror. Or dark supernatural fantasy, if you like.

Enjoyable, either way. Nommed for '25 Nebula.

I guess I kinda expected this to be richer, more imaginative. The premise was delicious. My synesthesia tastes good gore. Exactly what the parasite ordered.


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Countess by Suzan Palumbo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wasn't sure this would work, at first, but I should never ignore the power of any Count of Monte Cristo story.

This SF novella is nommed for '25 Nubula awards and is a bare-bones, quick-blossom retelling that really underscores not just the anti-colonialism sentiments, but the inequality and proper clever revenge needed to lay out a satisfying solution on the edge of a blade.

It worked.

Fun, fast, lucky, this short work is full of the kind of rage that most of us feel, today, at the immense propaganda and injustice all around us. And it has an ending that only Hollywood (or Dumas) can deliver.

My synesthesia tastes cold revenge: something similar to a leftover cold ragu sauce on toast. Nummy.


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Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Clim-SF AfroPunk.

This is a '25 Nebula nom for best novella and I'm honestly impressed at the depth of worldbuilding. It's never really enough to carry a Silo or a Ballardian High Rise feel to an African climate dysfunction. Just these two in a juxtaposition is nice, but if we add stories within stories, an attempt to wrest meaning from a hard, unjust life--it simply elevates it all.

If I were to re-comp this, I'd say it's Binti meets High Rise.

Definitely worth the read.


My synesthesia smells the pervasive damp, the cloying sourness of packed bodies and darkness.


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The Book of Love by Kelly Link
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Unfortunately for me, this book was kinda a slog. Other people's mileage might vary, of course.

I've read quite a few books like it--just imagine a bunch of young idiots, have them die, come back, have magic they need to control, but underneath it all, they're all pretty self-absorbed and thoroughly NORMAL in how they mess up their lives, love-lives, etc.

Sure, it's magical realism, and that's unfortunate, because realism when it comes to young idiots is all too commonplace and... frankly... dull.

But what about the fantasy elements? Wasn't that good, Brad?

Yeah, well, it was okay as far as it goes. On par with Locke and Key or any number of UFs, just so long as you imagine a goodly solid handful of main characters all circling each other on the peripheral, bound by the same aegis, and eventually requiring themselves to do SOMETHING (that something taking a LONG time to get to in the plot) while messing around with their after-life afterlife. Or rather, love-life.

Honestly--it was rather annoying. If you are looking for loving with a little fantasy, with all the miscommunications and ennui it involves, then this one is okay.

I don't really understand why it was nommed for the '25 Nebula.


My synesthesia smelled very little but wet fur and dust. It was familiar, but not in a good way.


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Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm boosting this book because Zuck REALLY REALLY hates that it's out there and is doing all he can do to squash it.

Yeah, I know. I'm just a contrarian.

-- And now, I'm here after reading an insider's accounting of What Facebook Is.

And honestly, the title really says it all. Sarah hopped on board early on, idealistic as hell about WHAT Facebook could have been: a platform to reach out and connect people, to boost important messages, to change the world. She was a true believer. And it took some time for her to see how Zuck's power, the company's greed, the utter unfeeling pursuit of users, of cow-towing to authoritarian governments to get more market share made her realize, at long, long last, that she couldn't make things right from within the belly of the beast.

There's plenty of evidence already of Facebook (now Meta) gave over all its user's data to the Chinese government, of how it just ignored laws because it had already gotten so powerful, so pervasive, and how so many other governments just loved what it gave them. And it isn't the worst of it. There's also the Rohingya genocide. You know, the Myanmar massacre. What happens when the only internet that's available happens to be stripped down versions of Facebook promoting hate and persecution and calls for mass rape and murder.

And we know that Zuck got away with it because he just said he can't control what others do. And yet, the platform not only let it happen, it helped others with hate on their minds find each other and boost that algorithm. Money, lawyers, political influence. Facebook is the goose that laid the golden eggs for all those authoritarians.

And Sarah was there as the political arm, the idealist forced to watch as her ideas were ignored in favor of Right Wing advisors and the power hungry, how endless Harvard Grads were installed in all key places. And then there was the 2016 American Elections. They patted themselves on their backs for how they managed to promote and algorithmically skew all the right messages in all the right ears. How hate speech in America got boosted. How White Power got boosted. How Trump was catapulted, monetized, and incentivized right to the top of all of Facebook's feeds, an endless loop, AND an utterly successful deployment of media manipulation.

One that could be incentivized again and again. And of course, we know that Facebook got extremely rich during this time. The culture in their offices did nothing but promote how they did nothing wrong, how they were on a mission that is hard to understand, how they were getting things done.

Sarah, by this time, was utterly disillusioned, a victim of the old boy's network, and drumrolled out because she couldn't stand what was happening by this point.

We can take her accounting of this with a grain of salt if you want, but really, I've also been paying attention to the social media giants for many years. If you don't see how they make their money, then YOU are the product, after all.

I've read the news and read the full investigations of these ties, and let me be frank: it all fits. I don't see any reason to doubt Sarah. Her story is an old one. She thought she was doing great work, but her bosses succumbed to the call of greed and power and when they discovered they were hurting people, they didn't stop. Indeed, they just hunted for more power and the ability to shrug off whole governments' pressure. After all, if you have that much power, you can make your own rules.

Zuck even wanted to become president after Trump's first success. Too bad he has all the presence of a Bond Villain--or Lex Luthor. And I think we've all seen what those kinds of cartoon characters are like once they are told no. Or that they aren't popular.

They get mean.

Or, in this case, he's been hell bent on stopping people from reading THIS book. An army of lawyers, injunctions, gag orders--enen trying to squash the publishers FFS.



I'm glad I got to read this. This much smoke generally means there's a fire.


My synesthesia tastes ash. I just hope this fire gets boosted.


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A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nebula award nominee for '25.

The author has been getting quite a bit of notoriety for her fantasies for the last few years, sticking close to fairy-tale retellings and generally feel-good light fantasy that manages to satisfy that comfort-food craving we all seem to get these days.

As I was reading it, I thought it might have started a bit heavy-handed, but I REALLY loved the whole Miss Marple meets a good old fashioned Regency novel feel. The sorcery, mischief, and murder was quite fun.


My synesthesia tastes bread and marmalade. Yes, seriously. Marmalade. And it's good.


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Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like the Saint of Bright Doors, it teases with real life and then just catapults us into a rich afterlife/world of uploaded minds, gods, and rebirths.

It's Buddhist SF, ya'll. It's a playground for the imagination.

I love the creativity and I admit I like to think, think, and think about all the worldbuilding here, not to mention the theology, the scope, the Akashic record.

We also get a ton of story-within-story action here, which is quite delightful.

So, why am I only giving it 4 stars? Because the core story wanders. It's fun as long as you go into this for the journey, for the sightseeing, but plot is subsumed in experience. Even dead-experience. You might say--it's just a slice of life.


Nommed for '25 Nebula awards.


My synesthesia sees a lightshow of colors throughout the novel, but all the other senses are dulled--especially the scents. I experienced this at a remove, alas. Wanting to get deep into it isn't the same as being deep in it.


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A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-read after 17 years. Did it get better because I'm older? I enjoyed all the things I originally thought were brilliant at the time, and yet, it just HITS harder now.

What the hell am I talking about?

This is Canticle for Leibowitz, a true classic of SF. In short, it's a retelling, or rather, a history always-f**king-repeats story, of humanity's ongoing stupidity, sacrifice, redemption, brilliance, and desperate striving for wisdom where there seems to be absolutely none.

It simply begins with monks illuminating already ancient scientific texts they no longer understand, canonizing the very IDEA of science-as-religion. It is THE granddaddy of the Fallout game series. But then the novel hops across time, showing progress and the conflicts of preservation, of cupidity and greed versus the expansion of knowledge.

And from there, a modern future world feeling echoes of this strange science-religion as it goes through the throes of the same mistakes WE made before the nuclear war bombed us to the stone age.

But it doesn't stop there. It hops, and hops again, and the best part of this novel isn't just the imagination or the obvious conflicts, (giving a VERY nice effect, a-la Asimov's Foundation), but the massive subtext of WISDOM. Not religion, not science, but the core idea of WISDOM.

Something we obviously lack, in spades.

Oh, history isn't a rhymer. Screw that. It's singing the same damn tune, every chord, every line, every single time.


I just wish we had more novels like this in the world. Ones that really lay it out like this. It's not enough to just say we're being stupid. We have to know it. And do better.

Great novel. Huge scope SF.


My synesthesia smells dust, ink, and the perspiration of ages.


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Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 222, March 2025 by Neil Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"From Enceladus, with Love" by Ryan Cole -- (4*) Nice premise, a what-if all electronics became self-aware, and humanity's inevitable conclusions. The twist, however, is an old one, even if it's one I've always approved.

"Pollen" by Anna Burdenko -- (5*) Very, very good. A perfect mix of SF and Horror, with all the ghost feels mixed with survival madness. I love this kind of thing.

"Mindtrips" by Tlotlo Tsamaase -- (4*) I'm of two minds on this one. I tend to love any kind of mindspace, memory-resolution kind of story--and this one is pretty decent. I just... kinda wish it had gone a step beyond.

"Those Uncaring Waves" by Yukimi Ogawa -- (3*) While I do appreciate the SFnal parts of this story, I did start to get somewhat annoyed by the interwoven abuse/self-harm threads that had to be *necessary* for the plot.

"Hook and Line" by Koji A. Dae -- (4*) A very pretty ode to death and memory that just happens to be on a starship. Most notable is the "sinker" motif in the title. lol

"The Sound of the Star" by Ren Zeyu -- (4*) A pleasant alien-rich series of vignettes that really focus on snappy imagination.

"Funerary Habits of Low Entropy Entities" by Damián Neri -- (5*) This is easily my absolute favorite story this month. Lyrical, deeply fascinating, wildly imaginative, and spanning the cosmos. I love it.



The "Funerary Habits of the Low Entropy Entities" was easily the best of the lot, but my second favorite of the month was "Pollen". Both for different reasons, but the writing and creativity for both really stood out.

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An Instruction of Shadow by Benedict Jacka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book two solidly continues Stephen's growing skill and has him navigate various setbacks in the world of this magic--mostly in terms of being poor, naturally--but there were some really great developments.

I won't say this outdid the first book for premise or setup, but I'm hooked and now that I want more--and don't see more, yet--I'm tempted to cry.

This story is smooth sailing and a lot of fun. I expect years and years of enjoyment out of it. Long haul, here we come!


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Delicious.

But let's get the other stuff out of the way first. I loved the Verus novels, so I had to expend some energy trying to give this one the space it needs, especially since it's NOT related to them. Inheritance of Magic is a brand new UF.

That being said, it's also a REALLY good slow burn and it's very careful to build a serious foundation. We know it'll be here for a long haul and it shows. So characterization must shine--and does. Stephen is kinda aimless, feeling just like most of us do, downtrodden and overworked and underpaid, but he has a hobby--making magic sigils, practicing without any instruction but what he can figure out on his own, with only a small amount of help from his dad that has been missing now for three years.

As for the magic, it's enhancement type runes, with an extra dose of Quintessence-like visual components to the magic, and it quickly becomes clear that most users don't have the same kind of foundations that Stephen was forced to develop on his own. Even so, he's poor, overlooked, and treated like shit by people who ought to have considered him family.

Most of the novel is him getting his life in some semblance of order, and it's quite satisfying. If there's a slight bit of revenge mixed in with the survival aspects, all the better.

But no matter how I look at it, I enjoyed the entire tale from start to finish. It's more than comfort food. It's feeling like the start of a fantastically interesting magical journey that may promise a huge amount of skill-ups for our hero, hard-won and satisfying.

My synesthesia tastes rice. Rice with just a hint of jasmine, some other even more subtle herbs. It's fresh and perfect for a deep, deep hunger.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fascinating tale, made all the better for the story's landing and that oh-so-brilliant end.

Tchaikovsky has been tackling truly other-than-human viewpoints for a long time now and he's definitely not done with it--and for that, I thank him. So much SF glosses so much of the first-contact type of tale, and whenever I see a true failure to communicate, I want there to be some serious problems. You know, like with Arrival, or Blindsight, or even Cherryh's Foreigner series (to a lesser, more insidious degree.

This one just dives into the EM spectrum, suffocating out light, and amps up that radiation--in the Shroud.

It was funny, this time, to see corporation-speak ravagers overwork the poor humans into an adventure they were woefully unprepared for. It was also rather great to see such an alien intelligence just try to do NICE THINGS for us out of curiosity or pity. But the true main character was the vast gulf of misunderstandings. Hell, if the corporation of humanity hadn't been so bloody stupid from the get-go, this could have turned into a VERY different tale. Maybe even something on par with Solaris.

But isn't that what we love to see? Variations and nods and making the tale its own thing. And Shroud is definitely that.

Why can't we have so much more SF that actually builds on all that has gone before? Tchaikovsky understands the assignment. Over and over, he proves he can plumb the rich field of old SF and make it fresh again.

I just pray we can stop smoothing over the old concepts and bring back the sharpest tools to our collective shed. I'm talking to all you fans of good SF. Demand sharp SF. For everyone's sake--our reality has gotten so damn stupid. We need to have something to dream for--a way of being that we can be proud of.

Not that humanity in THIS novel proved itself in that regard, but the NOVEL certainly spells it out. :)

My synesthesia gave me a wonderful light-show this time, which is ironic since the majority of the novel took place in the dark. I'm definitely not complaining.



Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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Defiance of the Fall 14 by TheFirstDefier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I admit I get excited when returning to TheFirstDefier's work. It's not that the core story is brilliant or all that unusual in any particulars, but when the actual ADDITIVE nature of all that came before gets thrown into this particular spotlight, it shines. It shines hard.

An explanation: it begun as Zach's denying fate, the System's rules, and thanks to his nature, he set about breaking everything, getting stronger and stronger and incorporating just about everything he broke into his body, his soul, and his mind. 14 books in, we've fully graduated from Earth domination to star systems to hegemony mental domains to a whole star sector war complete with massive battleships and individuals, like Zach, who can tear through them with overwhelming power. And yet, he's still just C grade. There's always bigger fish.

The scaling is absolutely enormous. And to think he started with just a loincloth and a camp axe.

I'm just having a great time with the huge amount of time spent on purifying soul bits and Tao idealisms and faith arrays right alongside a technocratic theocracy and ancient gods exerting their undead influence across the multiverse. And it's still, strangely enough, focused and character-based to remain relatable.

Sweet. :)

My synesthesia smells cake and tastes sweet cream.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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The Imaginary Corpse by Tyler Hayes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A truly delightful novel.

Look, I've always had a sweet spot for interesting juxtapositions. So when I realized this was an Urban Fantasy a-la Dresden featuring the lost imaginary friends who were loved by children and then discarded, along with their plushiness, to be trapped in a liminal space, the StillReal, where they continue on because they WERE loved--is all kinds of beautiful.

And Tippy the Triceratops, with his love of going through the dryer, of root beer, has ALL the makings of a Detective--and good thing, because there's a murderer of Friends on the loose.

I'll be the first to admit it enjoys all the old clichés, with a hefty dose of "we're all good people here because that's what our People made us to be", but it's still serious and sometimes rather scary because the underlying subject matter IS genuinely scary.

But the nostalgia, a wonderfully humorous playground--and hugs!--make this book very heartwarming.

I'm very happy to have read it. It hit the spot.

And now, my synesthesia can't get rid of the wholesome smell of root beer. Here! Here! A toast to the fallen.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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Leech by Hiron Ennes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a somewhat surprising read. I got into it with remarkably little knowledge about it—indeed, just that it was regarded as a new and interesting horror.

Indeed, after starting it, I think I rather fell in love with it. An intelligent parasite living and working as a gothic doctor tickled all my mystery/sawbones funnybones.

For more than half the novel, it read like a medical mystery AND a professional rivalry tale—and a very strange one.

Of course, it got serious, and then it got delightfully SF, letting us in on a few really interesting tidbits that made me re-evaluate everything.

Truly, not a bad little novel. I dug it.

The flavour was quite hearty, even if I couldn’t get through more than the first course with the Baron, like anyone else. ;)


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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The Tempest by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-read 3/7/25, for the umpteenth time.

Arguably the most beloved of Shakespeare's romances, where 'tis a brave new world to have such people in it--even if they are full fathom five deep.

I simply adore the thin line Prospero walks between devilry and the angels, and the realization that it is love, not hate, that will set not just him, but everyone--free.

It doesn't get better than this. I LOVE redemption tales, no matter how atrociously they've been abused in the past. They still hit hard, and if the world has its sights on total misery, then this message will hit all the harder in the future.

Where is wisdom? Is it all lost? Or will Prospero break his staff for real?

Power corrupts, infinite power... well, you get the idea.

My synesthesia smells ionization and the spray of an angry sea.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I heard this on a few recommendations that espoused "deep" and "strange" and a good example of literary SF. From what I knew at the time, and without even checking when this came out (1995, translated in '97), I thought it might have been a close example of another novel that immediately came to mind: Blindness by José Saramago.

It was only after I started it did I realize that these two came out at the same year, showing the senseless cruelty of locking up women and then never dwelling on the reason WHY. But where Saramago's gave me a deep foreboding that really unlocked many more doors to the reality of the cruelty, Harpman's novel took a very different road: understanding from a viewpoint of near-total isolation and innocence in an objectively horrific dystopia--but without the overt cruelty.

I grew fascinated by the events, the logical progression, the curiosity she had about LEARNING a world that had no meaning.

It was only after I read it that I realized that the author was a psychoanalyst. And then it ALL came clear.

This wasn't really an SF. It's more of a psychoanalytical hypothesis with an obvious feminist reading. Specifically, the missing men, and the release from the prison (yes, yes, patriarchy) led directly to the bigger prison of existentialism. Meaning and the search for meaning just dried up and withered for everyone but the main character.

She still had a sense of wonder, of curiosity. And that, at least, saved this novel from being one of the topmost depressing books I've ever read.

It was a good thought experiment, however. The 90's were really good for that kind of literature.


My synesthesia smells leeks, meat, and green open earth. It WAS almost pastoral except for the whole dystopia bit. :)


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Love, time paradoxes, and sexual escapades abound for this Byzantium time-travel tour-guide.

If you can get over the 1969 contextual nuttiness of the popular-culture free love mythos and the rather blasé way that racism rears its ugly head, the novel is rather fun and mild.

It's fun to hate tourists in any time period. Plus, when you're as young, dumb, and full of cum as our hero, it's almost a passion play AND a comedy.

But I'll be clear on this: it's nowhere close to my favorite time-travel hijinx tale. It's not even my favorite sub-sub-category. Give me more humor and/or pathos any day. But if you're just looking for some light humor/tragedy that also happens to be hopping through time, look no further.


My synesthesia smells incense and tons of unwashed bodies. Ew.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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The Man Who Saw Seconds by Alexander Boldizar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely un-put-downable. This is one of those razor-sharp books that follow through a line of storytelling reasoning, slams the foot on the gas, adding ALL the relevant AND gloriously detailed details to make it pop (mostly real information, well researched) and yet also sticks to its storytelling guns to drive home a very hard point.

This could have been a simple, fun, popcorn ride of a novel, and indeed it absolutely begins that way. This regular guy has lived with a peace-loving talent for always seeing seconds in to the future, but when he looks a cop wrong and mouths off, EVERYTHING goes wrong.

I won't spoil it, but this has some of the very best action scenes I've ever read in a book. It's fantastic fun from start to finish for just that, alone.

But what sets this book apart is the OTHER layers. The layers that show a great little juxtaposition between seeing myopically, or in this case, only a few seconds ahead of time, versus relying on a grand systemic edifice of cultural contingencies that that is, if anything, even blinder, and ANOTHER, almost completely hidden juxtaposition, that rails against the necessity that got us all here in the first place.

For, without spoiling, the consequences of such a small inflexibility was both fluid, deadly, and amazingly pertinent to us all.


We, as a human species, are watching the death of critical thinking in real time. This book makes that extremely clear, as if we didn't need further proof.

At least this book had the glorious benefit of being wildly entertaining, smart (unlike the things going on in the real world), and actual FICTION.

100% recommend for thriller and SF fans. This one OUGHT to get tons of traction. Hell, I think it'd make a BRILLIANT high-budget mini-series. Keep everything, and watch the sparks fly.

My synesthesia smelled cold, hard steel, gunpowder, and even though I don't know what dumdums smell like, I get this impression of an air blast to the face.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 4 by Noret Flood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Getting really fun now. The LitRPG brought Randidly back to Earth, way overpowered, but still managed to give him a little space to grow and tend his garden. How nice!

(And for those who actually KNOW how it turns out: yes, I'm being wildly droll.)

What a seed to grow at the end of that novel, right?

Can't wait to get back in and see what this first class will do to him.


My synesthesia smells wet fur, sweat, and a hint of sulfur--and not unpleasantly so.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So, out of the freaking blue, I just read one of my top books of all time.

I think I heard somewhere, something about the SCP and thought the idea was cool but then I never put the effort into checking out the website. My bad. And then I kept hearing rumors about this book being insanely good and that it ought to be at the top of anyone's reading list if they like seriously smart SF/Horror, and YEARS LATER, I went ahead and bought a copy.

It's only a little more than 220 pages, and yet, from the very start to the very end, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, my mind rolling and rolling around its ideas, the implications, while I followed all the tiny breadcrumbs laid out for me.

It 100% engaged every single one of my brain cells.

Suffice to say, I think I found a brand new favorite classic SF, even if it isn't very old.

It's amazing on every single level.

Yes, yes, but what is it ABOUT? Well? Take all the very best early fears and existential horrors from Stross's Laundry Files, make it sharper, minimalistic, non-linear, a vast puzzle that never goes in a straight line--for good reasons--and slam us against a true Case Nightmare Green that outdoes just about any Cthulhu story I've ever read. While being hard SF, competence-porn, a fanatically intricate mystery, and so damn sharp I'm STILL cutting myself.


Yeah, I'm giving this all the stars for everything. Readability, originality, characters, pure story, worldbuilding, and most of all, QUALITY. I'll be re-reading this again, with great enjoyment.



My synesthesia doesn't want to feel a tearduct slug, but alas, this is what I feel.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 3 by Noret Flood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, I admit this one hit all my sweet spots. Actual story gets laid down, progressed. But even more than that, we get a full-on exciting tournament with lots of setbacks and breakthroughs and even more sideways-progressions that make it all feel worthwhile.

I love this sweet spot of LitRPG complexity, further developments of skills, transcendence. It's why I keep coming back, why I keep chasing these highs. :)

It's safe to say that I think this has found its stride.


My synesthesia believes it smells peanut butter cookies. Rich, fattening, and fresh out of the oven.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-read 3/3/25:

I've been on a serious Shakespeare jag recently, thinking, finding clips online, and then, even introducing my daughter to more than just Hamlet. I just happened to show her a rom com by the name of 10 things I hate about you and she loved it. And then I told her it was based, loosely, on Taming of the Shrew. Amazed, she then didn't argue in the slightest when I asked if she'd like to read, then watch, the Globe version. (For those who don't know, you can watch great, classic versions of the original in the same stage that the originals were first displayed, with all the same feel, jacknapery, and fourth-wall-breaking goodness and bawdry songs and low-brow displays that were the delight of all, right alongside the poetry and high-wit.)

It was glorious.

And even though it's not QUITE the same as being there in person, it comes so much closer than those silly movies with expensive sets. We both laughed up a storm.

And, at least for me, I'm always finding new things to appreciate, on this, my 6th read. I can only hope I will continue to raise a Shakespeare nut. :)


Original Review:

As with all of Shakespeare's plays, there's always a different interpretation always handy at foot, be it a woman's duty to place her hand under her husband's foot or not.

As it is, though, I can both be supremely annoyed with a society that demands that women be always so obedient, culturally, and be wickedly satisfied that Kate and Petruchio have worked out a true meeting of the minds and wills in such a way as to transcend all other's expectations.

There's a little something for everyone in this classic comedy, whether or not you subscribe to the patriarchy or the matriarchy. Kate gets a lot out of the situation because she's discovered just how much power she really holds with the right partner who respects her, and Petruchio finds a mate that will always be his equal in wit and will. Is there another definition of happiness?

Ignore the setting if it upsets you. These men in this man's world, even Petruchio's methods of "taming" his wife. The method merely demonstrated his deeper positive qualities by the negative, just as Kate's shrewishness belied a razor sharp wit.

Don't we all have such depths and thorns?

I've seen this one done in many different Veins, now, and the one constant is this: There are no victors, merely endless combatants that sometimes sue for peace. It could be a true power struggle or perhaps it is just an eventual meeting of the minds. What do we prefer? That's interpretation. :)

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The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 2 by Noret Flood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Solid story, but really just a straight-line vehicle for power progression.

Of course, this IS a lit-RPG that's all about power-creep and unlocked skill trees and greater destruction, so why not? It succeeds on those exact reasons. And it's fun.

Maybe later the story might get deeper, or not, but for a book full of great action and development, I can't complain at all.


My synesthesia sees ash in the air and feels sweat on my skin. I don't exactly need to yell with rage into the air, but I reserve the right.


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If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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The Immeasurable Heaven by Caspar Geon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I was offered an ARC for this, I was frankly hooked by "non-human PoVs" and that was about all it took. But when I actually read it, what I found was something I've been frankly STARVING for: far-future, rich, high-tech alienish peoples and cultures living actual lives amid mind-boggling, awe-inspiring vistas.

I'll be honest, this is what *I* always imagined SF to be as a kid. The reality is often a bit disappointing, or just plain mild, with the good stuff always leaning more toward characters or fantastic plot over that overarching feel of awe.

But there ARE SFs out there that give proper respect to the AWE. And for years, I feel like I've been truly starving for it. There are a few, of course, like Ninefox Gambit or some Reynolds or Adrian Tchaikovsky, but 'tis just a handful.

This soon-to-be published work is a must-read for all you starving SF fans who understand what I'm talking about. Wild, visual, deeply thematic, and it has a flood of SF ideas that we can float around in like a wild-river ride. Give it some love.

My synesthesia went into an overload, as if I had just fallen into Willy Wonka's factory.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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The Wandering Inn: Book 14 - Hell's Wardens by Pirateaba
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What can I say?

Two times in this book, I found myself curled in a blanket, tears in my eyes, clutching onto reality for dear life as either the best thing--or the worst thing--came to pass.

Any book that can rip such an emotional reaction out of me, heedless of anything, gets absolute full marks.

There's plenty I could say about the new Hell's Wardens, or the showdown with the other mages, but all of that was completely outstripped by what came out of the blood fields. And the aftermath? We've had Toren's (skeletal worker) epic arc develop across all these books, only to have a brief, and utterly shattering reunion with his old boss. This, I should say, nearly shattered ME.

There's a reason why this series has been widely, widely praised, and I'm completely on-board. Vast adventure, wonderful characters of all kinds, and extremely imaginative fantasy. And best of all, it's balanced in all things. Humor, comfort, earth-shattering tragedies, violence, friends, sympathetic villains, even stories surrounded by miscommunication AND (oddly enough) GOOD communication. It's so refreshing.

Anyway, I'm shook. Shaking. This book has me reeling.

My synesthesia makes me feel like I'm stroking cold steel, with the scent of magnolias on the air.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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