Overgrowth by Mira Grant

I have loved Mira Grant before I ever heard of Seanan McGuire. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award - that year, the person in charge of ebook buying for my local library got copies of all of the Hugo nominated works and that one was by far my favorite. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person. 

I started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. I eventually fell in love with October and the Incryptid series, and her Velveteen Vs. series holds a very special place in my heart. 

But science fiction has always been my first love with fantasy coming in second place, so I have always gravitated towards the Mira Grant books. After Tor got the rights to publish more October Daye and Incryptid books from Astra (formerly known as DAW) I was wondering if they would also be putting out more Mira Grant titles. I’m so glad to be right!

I remembered reading the initial description of this book in 2023 on Ms. McGuire’s social media and thinking to myself “ oh, hey, she wrote an autobiography”. You see, I remembered reading an interview years ago where Ms. McGuire said that she firmly believed that she was the vanguard of an invasion of alien plant people - she came out of the woods as a child and told that to her family.  She has mentioned this on her old live journal and elsewhere over the years.  (I always personally wondered if this was a response to a childhood trauma but it is folly to try to armchair psychoanalyze someone you don’t know based on what they say online). But I was quite intrigued when Tor and NetGalley gave me an eARC of Overgrowth in exchange for an honest review. 

This book is excellent. The sense of creeping dread is palpable. I was enjoying this book but I kept having to put it down at different points to savor the impending doom - it is not a book to rush through. 

The characters feel very real in what slowly becomes a very unreal scenario.  I had a few quibbles with the government reactions at different points in the novel but all of it was very minor. The author described it as a “cozy apocalypse” novel, not meaning that the end of the world is relaxing , but that it has a very tight focus on the characters. That is a really good description. 

I really enjoyed this book and I cannot wait for the next Mira Grant novel. 

The Bones Beneath My Skin by T J Klune

 

When I saw TJ Klune at NY Comic-Con in October, I remembered how cool I thought he was and how much I liked his style and sensibilities. I really enjoyed his Extraordinaries trilogy (although his strong pro- and anti- police stands in different volumes gave me whiplash), but I didn’t really vibe with Under the Whispering Door. I enjoyed the sentiments of House on a Cerulean Sea but felt the world building was weak in a way that took me out of the book., and I felt the sequel had a deus ex machina that felt cheap. I enjoy his takes on love and joy even when I don’t enjoy the stories they are in. 

So I decided to request I from NetGalley and Tor an eARC of the reprint of his self published The Bones Beneath My Skin in exchange for honest reviews.

I enjoyed this book. It was much more Science Fiction than fantasy, though the “science” is a little handwavey. A reporter who lost his job for unethical practices, goes to his dead parents summer cabin and finds an escaped alien and her former military minder and together they form a family. These are some of the most interesting characters that I can remember seeing in a book by this author, and I really enjoyed this story. I wish the unethical behavior of the protagonist had not been such a violation of his journalistic ethics, because it made him inherently unlikable, and he never really got a redemption park, but otherwise this was an enjoyable book. 

Velveteen Vs. The Early Adventures by Seanan McGuire

 

I love Seanan McGuire’s body of work.  (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 started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. But the Velveteen Vs. series holds a very special place in my heart. 

When I was very sad and in a very rough place I needed a new audiobook to listen to, something to distract me from everything. And I found the first two Velveteen books on audible. They were perfect. They were exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. I loved the world Ms. McGuire had created where superheroes were a mix between reality tv stars and child actors. These were wonderfully developed characters that came alive and the fact that they had powers and domino masks didn’t make them feel any less real. 

I was overjoyed when Subterranean Press and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of this volume (I had already preordered my hardcover edition). I am thrilled that more people will get to read and enjoy Vel’s story. And I am beyond ecstatic that another volume is coming and that Vel’s story will come to a natural endpoint, even as I hope beyond hope that there will be more stories beyond the currently in-progress long awaited fourth book. 

This book is a gift. Enjoy it. 

Red Sonja Consumed by Gail Simone

  

Gail Simone is a treasure. I have loved her writing for years - whenever I saw her name on a comic book cover I knew I was in for a good time. I adored her run on the Secret Six and her take on Barbara Gordon is the definitive one for me. So when I found out she was coming out with her first prose novel I was excited! But when I realized it was a Red Sonja novel I was a little apprehensive. Red Sonja was never a character I had read or wanted to read. Although I love D&D and sword & sorcery stories, I had never been a fan of the scantily-clad-warrior-in-a-chainmail-bikini subgenre and I had never read or seen any Red Sonja in any medium. But I trusted Gail, so I requested an eARC from NetGalley and the publisher, and received one in exchange for an honest review. 

I was glad I trusted Gail. I enjoyed this book - I especially liked her way of starting every chapter with an excerpt of something, often scholarly work, that treated Sonja as a character out of myth or historical legend. 

Now, although I enjoyed the book, I didn’t particularly like the character of Sonja herself - the book starts out with her stealing from and betraying a lover, actions I was unable to forgive her for throughout the book. That colored my overall enjoyment. Some of the secondary villains felt unnecessary to the story and some late plot twists seemed unnecessary or poorly telegraphed. But these are minor quibbles. I will be happy to read the next Red Sonja novel Ms. Simone writes, or anything at all she comes up with. 

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

Generation ship? Cozy mystery? Auntie detective who knits? Sold!

I am a big fan of generation ship stories, so I was intrigued when I saw Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite on NetGalley and I was very happy to be granted an advanced reader copy by the publisher. This book was a lot of fun, but suffered for its short length. The world building was very interesting – unlike many generation ships, the technology on this ship allowed people to be reborn into newly created bodies, so each generation could be comprised of the same individuals. In addition, if someone wanted to take a “rest” from existing, their mind maps could be stored in a library until they felt like coming back. There are so many things built into these concepts that didn’t have room to breathe because this was just a Novella. I thought the drunk computer concept at the beginning was a little weak, but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope that this author writes more in this setting.