The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw

 

I love going to author panels at conventions. I will go because I like one of the authors and after listening to all of them talk for an hour, I usually have put a bunch of new books on hold at the library because I’m so intrigued by what I have heard from the new-to-me authors. 

I first encountered Cassandra Khaw at a panel at NYCC a few years ago and I thought they seemed really cool. I realized that they had written for one of my favorite D&D sourcebooks, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, so I decided to check out their fiction. I thought their novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth was creepy and interesting, but I really bounced off The Dead Take the A Train, a novel they cowrote with Richard Kadrey (which did not live up to the specific premise in the title, among other issues I had with it). 

I was intrigued when the publisher and NetGalley gave me an eARC of her new book in exchange for an honest review. The Library at  Hellebore was billed as dark academia, but after recently reading the Scholomance trilogy and Incandescent, this book just felt like warmed over tropes poorly executed with an excess of gore for gore’s sake. The characters were too unlikable and I didn’t care about the plot. This book was not for me. 

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Vol. 1: Second Contact by Ryan North

 

My first ever comics were Star Trek comics. I loved superheroes when I was a kid, of course, still do, but what I knew of them came from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and the Superfriends and the Super Powers action figures (which did have mini-comics, (as did He-Man figures, but I digress in this double paranthetical)).  When I fell in love with Star Trek in 1988, I couldn’t get enough of it. So in addition to watching the show and reading the novels, I picked up Star Trek comics at a convention and eventually subscribed to get the TNG comic from DC in the mail. 

Although I fell off reading Trek comics for a while, I recently have started reading more of the IDW Star Trek comics (I enjoyed Godshock and I LOVED Ryan North’s Lower Decks miniseries and his new graphic novel Warp Your Own Way) so I was happy to get an eARC of the trade paperback of Mr. North’s six issues from this new Lower Decks ongoing from IDW and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Moonflow by Bitter Karella

I had heard of Bitter Karella before, I sometimes read and find amusing Karella’s bluesky posting of the Midnight Pals, and so I thought I would give his first novel a chance (note: it is my understanding that the author uses both he/him and she/her pronouns) and I requested an eARC from NetGalley and the publisher and exchange for an honest review.

From the blurb, I knew it had to do with mushrooms and was a horrible book and so I was hoping that it would be reminiscent of something by T. Kingfisher. I was very wrong.

I’m not exactly sure what this book is trying to be, or who the targeted audience is, but I am not it.  I think we’re supposed to feel sympathetic to the protagonist in the beginning of the book, because she is selling drugs and underemployed, but I just kept thinking in my head as I read the early chapters “get a job!”  to me, The drug selling and casual drug use removes much of the potential for sympathy for any of these characters.  The protagonist ends up trumping through the woods and encountering a brutal cult, but the offer also seems to go out of her way to bash law-enforcement at every opportunity, even when it distracts from the narrative.  

I was incredibly glad of the content warnings the beginning of the book because if I had encountered some of these scenarios called, I would have found it even more offputting and unpleasant than I did. 

The writing style isn’t bad, and I found several turns of phrasing, beautiful. I enjoyed the framing device of mushroom field guide intros at the beginning of the chapters.  I might try another book from this author again in the future, but for now, this is not a good fit for me. 

Spread Me by Sarah Gailey

I think I first became aware of Sarah Gailey’s work when I read about her hippo riders in a review on tor dot com and thought “that sounds super fun!”  It was super fun, and after devouring River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow, I have always looked for new works by this author. I loved Magic For Liars and the Echo Wife, and Just Like Home was terrifying in a wonderful way. 

I was delighted when I got an audio eARC of her new book, Spread Me, from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

This book was so so so so creepy! The protagonist is the leader of a small isolated research team that has been alone in a desert for years (except for the occasional excursions to a dive bar many many miles away). The characters make several joking references to Johnny Carpenter’s The Thing until they find something in the sand. Everyone but the protagonist gets sick - she instead gets very horny. Suddenly her crewmates are sprouting unexpected orifices and the protagonist is surprisingly aroused. 

My description does not do this justice. This book is no Tingler - not to throw shade on the great Chuck Tingle, just to clarify that this is not erotica, but instead a horror novel where the protagonist is erotically drawn to the monster in a fascinating way. This book is excellent and I highly recommend it to people who don’t shy away from horror. 

The Last Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison

 

Harlan Ellison is dead. This was clearly not edited by Ellison, but by J. Michael Straczynski (aka JMS), who, as Mr. Ellison’s friend and the executor of Ellison’s estate, poured alot of time into, energy, and love into this book. That’s fine - Harlan Ellison was a terrible person. He sexually assaulted Connie Willis when she was being awarded a grandmaster award because he thought it was funny. He was mean and rude to fans at conventions, and even if I particularly liked his writing, I have no respect for him and I will not separate the person from the man. 

However, even though his name is on this, it is not his book. It is JMS’s book. And I have the utmost respect for JMS.  I loved Babylon 5 since I was first introduced to it in college.  I loved everything about it, and am still amazed by the fact that JMS wrote every episode of seasons 3 and 4, and all but one of 5.  I don’t think anyone else has ever surpassed that stunning accomplishment. 

I later came to realize that JMS was the reason why I had enjoyed so many of the cartoons of my youth. His work on the Masters of the Universe, the Real Ghostbusters, and Captain Power were all ahead of their times. I read a number of his comics and enjoyed many of them. And when his autobiography came out a while back, I devoured it with delight.  (The fact that Peter Jurasik narrated it didn’t hurt.). I read one of his few fiction novels in the past and really enjoyed it, even though I’m not a big horror fan.

So I was interested when I found out he was going to finish Ellison’s work and finish the Last Dangerous Visions anthology that Ellison claimed to be working on for decades, and even more intrigued when I got an eARC from NetGalley and the publisher. 

Now, I don’t always love anthologies. The tonal shifts can cause whiplash and I always prefer single author short story collections. 

But I really enjoyed a number of the stories in this book! Most of the ones I liked best were the newer replacements for older stories bought by Ellison whose right reverted or which were printed elsewhere. A story about a human food critic who are alien food still sticks with me. 

But the best thing in the book was the lengthy piece by JMS, Ellison Exegesis. In it, JMS details his friendship with Ellison as well as Ellison’s crippling mental illness that ended up with him unable to complete this work on his own. It was a very well written piece and to my mind worth 

The Two Lies of Faven Sythe by Megan E. O'Keefe

 

I’m beginning to wonder: Maybe this author is just not for me?

 I really wanted to enjoy this book - I love space opera and had been poor for a new one to read. I had never read anything by Megan E. O’Keefe before the Blighted Stars, but I had heard good things about Velocity Weapon (and I found it on my virtual TBR pile, purchased when it was on sale ages ago). I really enjoyed the Blighted Stars and was able to overlook its flaws because of all the stuff I enjoyed in it. But in the other two books in that trilogy, all of the stuff I enjoyed about the first book seemed to be missing or muted there. No robots, very little spaceship excitement, mostly it was people talking in rooms boringly. The romance, which had a good long slow burn last time, had hit the reset button and was an unbelievable slog. 

But I really enjoy the author’s writing style, so i requested an advanced copy of her new standalone space opera from Orbit and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

I found this book to be boring with uninteresting characters, an unrealistic take on piracy, and a romance I cared nothing about. The world building had potential, but ultimately fell flat also. It’s hard to recount the plot because nothing interesting occurred. I cannot recommend this, sadly. 

The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi

 

Finally! A return to a well loved by one of my favorite authors that doesn’t disappoint! I’m a big fan of Mr. Scalzi’s work since I found Redshirts on the new books shelf at my local library years ago, and I’ve been reading his website regularly for a long time. After Redshirts, I went through his back catalog.  I remember enjoying Old Man’s War but bouncing off the sequel, the Ghost Brigades, the first time I tried to read it. I went back to it and enjoyed it eventually, but found the series to be a bit uneven. I didn’t particularly care for the Zoe character and didn’t love The Last Colony or Zoe’s Tale, but I enjoyed The Human Division and The End of All Things a great deal more. I realized that what I enjoyed most about this series was the world building much more than I enjoyed the Perry family. This was a space opera set in a world where humans were often the villains and where human civilization was not a monolithic political entity, both ideas that I find interesting and that I thought were executed well. 

Mr. Scalzi’s novels in the past few years have been more misses than hits for me. Many of them were weaker than some of his earlier work, and I personally think it was due to his habit of rushing through writing them to make his deadlines (as he has eloquently described on his blog). However, his last novel, When the Moon Hits Your Eye, I loved (well, except maybe the ending) and he seemed to have his mojo back. 

So I was  I got the new John Scalzi book from NetGalley and Tor in exchange for an honest review I was really looking forward to a return to the Old Man’s War universe. 

The main character of this book was Gretchen, a minor character in previous books who was the teenaged friend of Zoe. When she was a kid, I found her fairly one dimensional and annoying, but now she’s all grown up into an interesting character in her own right. This book tells into two of the interesting and previously unexplored aspects of this universe - the enigmatic aliens the Consu, and the skip drive. When the skip drive was introduced in the first book, it was explained that ships equipped with it didn’t travel through space so much as they skipped into a parallel universe that was so close as to be indistinguishable from the original universe, and that people shouldn’t bother thinking about it. Multiverse stories have all the rage recently, but what the author does with it here did not feel trite or overdone to me. Without spoiling the mysteries, I will say that this story move the overall political plot forward and satisfying ways, while giving us interesting characters that, unlike in a number of previous books by this author, actually felt like different people. 

It was a real page turner and a return to form by an author I really like and like to enjoy. 

The Summer War by Naomi Novik

 

I had never read anything by Naomi Novik until the Scholomance books were nominated for the best series Hugo a few years back. 

I had heard the name Naomi Novik for years, of course, and had picked up Spinning Silver and Uprooted when they were on sale on audible, but I had never read any of her books. I gave A Deadly Education a try and immediately got sucked in and read them all in a rush one after another after another. I loved her writing style and her characterization, and I was thrilled when I got to meet her at New York Comic-Con a while back and tell her how much I enjoyed the series. I also really enjoyed Uprooted and Spinning Silver, and her short story collection Buried Deep and Other Stories last year was one of the best things I read all year. 

I was excited to get a copy of the Summer War, her new novella, as an eARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. And that was before I saw her at GenCon this summer in which she was interviewed at a panel and explained that this book was originally supposed to be a short story in an rerelease of either Uprooted or Spinning Silver (I forget which) until it got away with her, and that her publisher was putting it out as a standalone because she was working on a new seven book series that she didn’t want to turn in to the publisher until all 7 were done. 

This is a wonderful story of wonderful characters. If this is based on an actual fairy tale, it is not one I am familiar with. It involves a younger sister and two older brothers, none of whom start the story treating each other very well, set against a backdrop of a recurring war with fey people from the Summerlands. The book is haunting and lyrical and clever and beautiful and I loved the way it got to the happy ending. I can’t wait for the next thing Ms. Novik publishes, and, until then, I still have her entire napoleonic dragon series to dive into. 

Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire

 

This is yet another fantastic Wayward Children novella!!

I love Seanan McGuire’s writing. (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person. 

I was already a big fan of Ms. McGuire’s when the first wayward children book, Every Heart a Doorway, came out, and I loved it! As a kid who grew up loving the Oz series and resenting the Christian imagery in Narnia, it was right up my alley. It is a wonderful book and this is an excellent series, definitely deserving of its Best Series Hugo win.  In this series, the odd numbered books are the main timeline, and the even numbered books tell stories outside the main timeline - sometimes introducing us to new characters when they travel through their Doors, and other times showing up backstory of preexisting characters. 

I was overjoyed when tordotcom and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of Through Gates of Garnet and Gold, especially since it is an odd numbered book, meaning it is advancing the main timeline. 

And we are back with Nancy, who started us off in the first book as our main character before she went back to her world, the Halls of the Dead, where she remains motionless as a statue for most of her time there. 

But Nancy returns to the school because something is killing the residents of her world. The adventure ropes in perennial favorites Sumi, Kade, and Christopher, and introduces a new girl from a world of moths and stories.

It sometimes felt like part of the reason behind this book is existing is to answer some critics of the first book that thought that Nancy was suicidal in wanting to return to the halls of the dead. By more fully fleshing out this world, the author helps to explain the appeal of this realm for Nancy, and how it has nothing to do with wanting to be dead. The cause of all the problems ties back into another character from earlier books, but I do not want to spoil that reveal here. Suffice it to say, that this book really moves the story forward in interesting and surprising ways and I cannot wait for the next odd number book in two years.

Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher (Audiobook)

 

In the past 4 years, or so, I have become a HUGE fan of T. Kingfisher aka Ursula Vernon. 

Ms. Vernon is the author of the Hamster Princess books, which both of my daughters have enjoyed (as have I!). Those books were my introduction to her, along with her social media presence, which I found through Seanan McGuire. 

Ordinarily, I don’t like horror. I never wanted to watch scary movies as a kid. I got nightmares from E.T.  But based on recommendations I read the Twisted Ones and The Holllow Places and I realized that I loved Ms. Vernon’s writing and I could make it through the scary parts unscathed with her as my guide. 

I started devouring her back catalog and putting all new releases on hold at the library.  I have subscribed to her Patreon and I convinced my wife to read Nettle and Bone, which she loved (as did I). I even backed the kickstarter for the rerelease of Digger, which was wonderful. 

I was very excited when I heard she had a new book out in 2025 called Hemlock and Silver and I was even more excited when I got an eARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

This new book is loosely based on the Snow White fairy tale, with some Rose Red in there too. Our main character is reminiscent of other Kingfisher protagonists - a somewhat awkward older (but not old) woman who is brilliant and skilled and in a bit over her head.  She is an expert on poison and is recruited to try to figure out what is making the princess sick. Without spoiling things too much, I can tell you that you may never look at a mirror the same way again after this novel. 

This book was wonderful and was a story I could have lived in forever. 

This was the one of the best new releases I have read in 2025 so far and it will probably be on my Hugo ballot next year! Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

I listened to this at 1.75 speed. 

Lucky Day by by Chuck Tingle

Who here doesn’t know about Chuck Tingle? Author of dinosaur erotica, unwitting target of the Rabid Puppies who turned their own hate against them, he is a neurodivergent pink-masked beacon of hope who preaches that love is love. I excitedly read Camp Damascus, his first traditionally published novel last year, and really enjoyed it! It was a tad rough in spots but the story and the message outweighed any minor issues. I loved his second traditionally published novel, Bury Your Gays, even more! 

So I was very excited when NetGalley and the publisher gave me an ARC of his new book, Lucky Day, in exchange for an honest review. 

I enjoyed this book, but I didn’t love it as much as Bury Your Gays.  The premise is that one day a bunch of incredibly unlikely things happen, like fish raining from the sky, and millions of people die from unlikely accidents. The protagonist is a statistics professor who just breaks when her mostly estranged mother is killed in front of her and retreats from her fiancée and the world until a former FBI agent convinces her to join his investigation of what is causing these unlikely events. 

The cosmic horror driving the plot and its resolution didn’t feel all that compelling to me, and the third act heel turn of a character felt abrupt to me, but the main thing I disliked in this book was how the protagonist just abandoned her fiancée. I know it is supposed to be emblematic of how broken she was, but it just made her very unlikable to me.  This books was good but not great. 

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I have said in the past that I used to think I didn’t like Adrian Tchaikovsky’s books. I mean, I was told that I SHOULD like them since I’m a big fan of Peter F. Hamilton’s space opera doorstoppers. But when I tried to read one of his books a few years ago I rage-quit it like 12% of the way through. 

But then when his novella Elder Race was nominated for a Hugo, I read it and enjoyed it. I also read Ogres when it was nominated, and it wasn’t half bad. I enjoyed Service Model when the publisher and NetGalley gave me an eARC in exchange for an honest review, and it wasn’t bad. My main complaints were too many pop culture references and some incoherent worldbuilding. His other big novel from last year, Alien Clay, really didn’t do much for me. I hated the protagonist and felt it was dreary. 

When I reviewed Service model, I explained that I would definitely check out this author’s next book. And here we are!

Shroud is a much more interesting first contact novel than Alien Clay. Scientists crash on a planet, meet some eyeless aliens who live in the dark, and survive until rescue. We also get some sections from the aliens’ point of view. 

Although not a riveting page turner, I did enjoy this book. 

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders

 

I have loved Charlie Jane Anders’s writing since her io9 era. I really enjoyed All the Birds in the Sky and her YA trilogy. I think it was back in 2017 when I was at NYCC and got an ARC of The City in the Middle of the Night and got her to sign it and she was thrilled because she didn’t think they had them available for giveaways yet. (That may be my favorite book of hers.)

So I was overjoyed when I got an eARC from Tor and NetGalley of her new novel, Lessons in Magic and Disaster. It is a story about a trans woman teaching her lesbian mother magic, as the back cover promises, but it is about so much more. It is about love and loss and parenthood and childhood and how to exist in the world. This book made me laugh and it made me sad in all the best ways. The flashbacks to the life of the protagonist’s mother were some of the most riveting sections of the book. I wonder what a nonSF book by this author would look like? Probably also amazing. The view of academia and anti-trans right wing hate in this book seems almost quaint compared to the hate and vitriol I’m seeing in the news today- it’s hard to believe that the real world has gotten so much worse since the author wrote this novel. I cannot recommend this book enough. 

Galaxy Grifter by A. Zaykova

 

I’m always looking for a good space opera. I love a universe with lots of aliens and spaceships, as do many. Sometimes I feel like everyone is still chasing the Firefly vibes, and that is why I requested an eARC of Galaxy Grifter from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I think this book was aiming for an easy breezy vibe, like the chillest parts of Firefly, but this book really missed the mark for me. 

Maybe I’m more alert to anti-semitism than I used to be, but when you make your protagonist an amoral thief from a rich privileged family who only cares about material things and you name him Levi in a book where no one else appears to be Jewish, it really feels antisemitic, playing into all of the heinous stereotypes that I had hoped that we had left behind in the 20th century. When you have him drug people to get information and act as an accessory to multiple murders and then you still want us to root for him, I think you are barking up the wrong tree. I don’t understand why the female lead ever has sex with him, let alone falls for him. Much of the dialog is stilted (like when the male lead talks about how he enjoys being a thief) and the overall plot is dull. I cannot recommend this book. 

The Elysium Heist by Y. M. Resnik

I’m a sucker for a fun heist story - who isn’t? All I knew when I requested this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review was the tag line that it was a sapphic Ocean’s Eleven type tale. It sure lived up to that billing! This book threw together an interesting group of women to pull off a heist at a casino. I enjoyed a lot of this book, even if the characters often felt like stereotypes. I could rest easy if I never had to encounter the virginal prostitute trope again, and I felt that the author could have used one more pass from a Jewish sensitivity reader. I enjoyed the fact that one of the protagonists was an observant Jewish woman, but her embracing of her own lesbianism felt rather quick, and I don’t think the author realized how her villainous husband played into several antisemitic stereotypes. The prostitute’s asexual sister who was in love with the casino’s AI was fascinating and I wish the whole book had been about her. I don’t mean to sound too critical - this was a fun and breezy summer read. 

Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree

Can you capture lightning in a bottle twice? Yes. Three times? That’s iffier. 

I first heard about Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes from Seanan McGuire’s Twitter account. She often will talk about upcoming books that she loves, and she described it in such a way that I was very much looking forward to reading it. 

It didn’t disappoint- it was a very nice, sweet, cozy story, and I really enjoyed it. It might have bordered on being too twee, and the inventions of cinnamon rolls and other coffee shop staples felt a tad too convenient at times, but that didn’t detract from the joys of the book. 

So I was overjoyed when Tor and NetGalley gave me an eARC of the prequel, Bookshops and Bonedust. Set years before L&L, this book focused on a Viv who was just starting out in the mercenary business when she gets injured and stuck in a seaside town to recuperate. The cast of characters was even more fun than the last book, and Viv seemed either to be more well rounded or just better written in this volume. 

Fast forward two years later and this new book, Brigands and Breadknives, which is a sequel to both! I received an audio eARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This book focused on Fern, the ratkin bookseller from the last volume. It is now a few years since Viv opened up her coffee shop and Viv has convinced Fern to move to her city and open a new bookstore there. I loved revisiting this world and I mostly enjoyed the main chunk of this narrative. But the story begins with Fern disaffected with book selling for no discernible reason and being too afraid and/or embarrassed to tell Viv, and then accidentally running away.  

I understand the author wanted Fern to go on an adventure. The problem is how he got her into it. It made Fern into both a moron and an asshole. She ends up just disappearing from her friends (and her pet!) with zero notice. And she acts very unlikable throughout much of the story. There are alot of wonderful things about this book, particularly the titular bread knife, but the author didn’t think enough about how much I would hate the protagonist for her choices in this book. 

I listened to the audiobook of this novel at 1.75.