Summary: N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season is the first installment of The Broken Earth, a fantasy trilogy set on a vast continent called the Stillness, “which is not still even on a good day” (7). The inhabitants of the Stillness experience frequent seismic events and other natural disasters, including brutal “Fifth Seasons”––long winters lasting six months or more that […]
Summary: Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is a fantasy book in which the titular character attempts to understand the fundamental nature of the “House” he inhabits. The House is a seemingly-endless chain of statue-filled Halls rising out of an ocean. As Piranesi learns more about the House and encounters other characters within its labyrinthine structure, he becomes increasingly skeptical […]
Summary: Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch is a work of magical realism about a woman who develops the bizarre habit of transforming into a dog and leaving her house to hunt small animals at night. Frustrated with the challenges of mothering her young son and the lack of support from her amiable but largely-absent husband, the “mother” (or MM––we […]
Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library is a whimsical yet heavy journey into the ultra-trendy land of multiverse narratives. The protagonist is Nora Seed, a bedraggled Brit who decides to take her own life after her personal shitcake of bad luck gets iced by a particularly lousy day. Instead of fading to black, Nora finds herself in a […]
Ilona Andrews’s Blood Heir is a continuation/spin-off of the marvelous Kate Daniels series. These novels take place in a fantastical version of mid-21st-century Atlanta where a metaphysical “Shift” has brought magic back into the world after centuries of dormancy. This book picks up eight years after Kate’s tale comes to a close, with a new protagonist: Julie […]
I had a wonderful time losing myself in the pages of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. This clever and enthralling story swept me away in exactly the fashion one hopes a good romance will do. Niffenegger’s bonafide page-turner contains many excellent qualities: an elegant and well-executed conceit, deft characterization, and captivating writing. When it comes […]
As a huge fan of Philip Pullman, I take no pleasure in reporting that The Secret Commonwealth is a massive disappointment. This novel, which begins every bit the worthy successor to Pullman’s marvelous His Dark Materials trilogy, slowly and tragically dissolves into a narrative so desultory and dull that it may as well not exist. Or it’s brilliant in […]
Robin Hobb’s Ship of Magic is an ambitious work of fantasy that doesn’t deliver on the promise of its good ideas. The novel takes place on “The Cursed Shores,” a colorful coastal landscape where swashbuckling and supernatural forces collide. Hobb’s crisp description and imagery bring The Cursed Shores to life, inviting the reader on a journey that […]
After falling in love with the Kate Daniels series back in 2016, I was excited to learn that Ilona Andrews had released the first installment of a spin-off trilogy set in the same world. And while Iron and Magic is a fun visit to one of my favorite fantasy destinations, it doesn’t pack the same punch as […]
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is a unique and rightly-cherished accomplishment of narrative imagination. Given my deep fondness and respect for that work, I was both excited and nervous to hear that Pullman was returning to that world for a second trilogy. It can be dangerous to mess with a good thing, but more of a good […]