I really, really enjoyed this book. It had all the things I traditionally love in good books: great writing, some science fiction and a compelling family plot thrown in ( Read more... )

Signal to Noise is the debut novel of Mexican-Canadian author Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who has spent the last few years carefully crafting a respectable reputation for herself as a short story author (of the excellent This Strange Way of Dying) and editor (of various anthologies published through Innsmouth Free Press, the micropress she created ( Read more... )

I stopped counting books when I realised it was making reading feel like a chore. While I've read a lot of manga I realised I'd never read any novels by Japanese people, so I decided to make a special effort to do so ( Read more... )

The Lifecycle of Software Objects may be a novella, but its story stretches out over years, with Chiang providing a compelling narrative which leads us through the early years in the life of several digients, i.e. computer software avatars imbued with artificial intelligence. The story begins with their creation and development as overseen by two ( Read more... )

Stories of Your Life & Others boasts an incredible pedigree and came to me highly recommended from a wide variety of individuals. Virtually every story in the book has been previously published by a big name literary magazine (Asimov's, Omni, etc) and have won awards. I came to the book with high expectations and was left  disappointed.

The problem ( Read more... )

New Zealand post-apocalyptic sf/fantasy: rabbit calicivirus has mutated and devastated the population of New Zealand while the rest of the world has succumbed to ebola. I love the early chapters especially for the way the communities get on with what's necessary to survive - this is no libertarian fantasy; people need each other. (It is a bit of ( Read more... )

Song For Night by Chris Abani
About a boy soldier (trained to defuse mines) separated from his platoon after an explosion. A short and easy read (in style if not in content matter. Trigger warnings re the content: skip) the book includes graphic descriptions of violence and of the protagonist being forced to rape a woman.) told in a beautiful ( Read more... )

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

( Slightly spoilerish review here. )

I read:
Fledgling, Parable of the Sower, and Parable of the Talents.

I had the library pull a bunch of Butler's stuff all at once; after reading Lilith's Brood, and reading other people's comments that the issues of consent there are pretty typical of Butler's work, I almost didn't read the rest of her books I had. I finally did go ahead and ( Read more... )

Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler.
( Review (contains spoilers) here: )