Book Recommendation: Savage Legion by Matt Wallace

As usual, before I get to why I loved and recommend Savage Legion I’ll point out that I have a little explainer of my approach to book and short fiction recommendations and you can find it here.

Next, let’s be clear here and get the bias out of the way: I am a Matt Wallace fan. I can not claim to have been a fan for his entire journey so far as a writer, but I’ve been a fan for quite awhile and have delved into the things that came before I was aware of him. There is nothing of his I’ve read I would say I haven’t enjoyed and quite a bit I’ve loved. In particular, one of the really fun things I’ve enjoyed about being a fan of Matt Wallace is that he is always doing interesting and frankly innovative things with his work.

To be really frank about it? I believe it is fair to say Matt Wallace tends to be cutting edge in the things he tries with his work and that has made being a fan delightful even as it has likely made it harder for him to break through to the wider audience that work deserves (it doesn’t always pay to be one of the first people with their foot through the door). Examples? He was one of the very early explorers of podcast fiction and his serial novella series SLINGERS was self-published (including exploring options for directly selling to fans outside of the Amazon option) a year before Tor.com announced the inaugural list of their very successful novella line and declared novellas the future of publishing (Wallace would be a part of that list, with another series of novellas that wasn’t afraid to be boldly, wonderfully gonzo in it’s combining urban fantasy with cooking and catering).

With that it in mind it really didn’t surprise me, though it did intrigue me, when I heard that his next works would be delving into all new territory for him as he would be branching into contemporary middle grade and into epic fantasy. It is that last, the recently released SAVAGE LEGION that I want to talk about more fully here.

Continue reading

Book Recommendation: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Quick note before I get into my thoughts on Mexican Gothic and why I recommend it. I have created a little explainer of my approach to book and short fiction recommendations and you can find it here.

First things first. The foremost thing you need know about Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s MEXICAN GOTHIC is that it is a horror novel. The second is that, while everyone’s taste and tolerance for horror varies, it is a legitimately scary and disturbing horror novel. If you’re familiar with Stephen King’s three types of horror (the gross-out, horror, terror) know that this book fulfills all three.

If that sounds like a warning you’d be right. If it sounds like criticism you’d be wrong. MEXICAN GOTHIC is a horror novel and a horror novel that manages to move past creepy to actually scary is one especially deserving of the designation and of attention.

Continue reading

Book Recommendation: The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

I haven’t done much writing about novel length work in quite a while so I think I better lay out some ground rules and expectations before diving in to my thoughts on THE CITY WE BECAME by N.K. Jemisin. You can find those in a post I’ve made here. Call it my recommendations policy. Of particular importance: I don’t think I get super spoilerly in this recommendation at all, but as with probably any and every recommendation it’s best to assume there may be spoilers below. Now, on with the recommendation for this wonderful book!

Continue reading

Book Recommendation: The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan

*Note: While I try to avoid giving specific spoilers I also wouldn’t necessarily call this spoiler free, especially as different people have different feelings about what constitutes a spoiler. In particular, the last paragraph talks about the feeling and general nature of the ending of The Bloodprint. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you’d rather avoid such things

 

One of my favorite words is synchronicity, the idea of “meaningful coincidences”, and I couldn’t think of it as being anything other than a moment of synchronicity when today I both read an article on Tor.com about magical weapons and finished reading Ausma Zehanat Khan’s The Bloodprint. Continue reading

120 Authors – 230 Tales – 1.1 Million Words! All Free!

Check out that title! That is what you’ll find if you go download yourself a copy of Up and Coming: Stories from the 2016 Campbell-Eligble Writers.

This mega-anthology was put together by writers SL Huang and Kurt Hunt, themselves Campbell Eligible this year, to showcase the vast range of new talent out there in the speculative fiction field. Continue reading

“Next Time On…” aka The Series I Can’t Wait to Read More Of

I’ve always intended this place to be partly fro talking about the various rabbit holes I’ve fallen down. The stories and media that have sucked me into their worlds, set up a little home for themselves in my consciousness, and made me love them.

Unfortunately, sharing stories I love is just one of the many things I haven’t been doing around here with much consistency. So today I thought I’d do a little mental housekeeping and tell you about some of the things I’ve been reading (some recently, some less so) that I not only enjoyed, but that have more coming down the line for their continuing series.

If you haven’t read these things yet they get my strongest personal recommendation. Go get them, read them, and join me in jittery anticipation waiting for the next fix these authors have lined up for us.

Continue reading