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Review: The School for Invisible Boys by Shaun David Hutchinson

Nov 062023
 

Kirkus: When bullying triggers Hector’s unsuspected ability to turn invisible, it seems like a superpower—but he’s not invisible to the monster lurking at school.

At home, sixth grader Hector faces bullying stepbrothers and a stepfather who values sports over piano. He was reconciled to his Catholic boys’ school thanks to best friend Blake—until Hector asked Blake to be his boyfriend, and Blake (despite having two moms) turned into a homophobic bully. After Hector discovers his power of invisibility while hiding from Blake, he encounters former pupil Orson, who’s been stuck there for years being invisible and pursued by the tentacled gelim, who entraps vulnerable students and feeds on their fears. As a gay boy and a Black boy (respectively) in a predominantly white school, Hector and Orson are easy targets. Wanting to save Orson and defeat the gelim, Hector finds allies in school librarian Mr. Morhill and Samantha, Mr. Morhill’s niece, a fellow student others perceive as a boy; Orson is also an active participant who supports Hector. Throughout his ordeals, Hector still hopes Blake will return to normal. This well-structured story is threaded with themes of misjudgment, misunderstanding, forgetting, and forgiveness. Both the visible and invisible worlds are evocatively described, and the characters are believably flawed. Despite mitigating circumstances, Hector’s swift forgiveness of Blake may sit uneasily with some readers, and while the gelim is suitably terrifying, the convoluted details about how it functions may be confusing.

Invisibility offers no protection in this well-paced, multilayered horror story.

Review: No One Will Come Back for Us by Premee Mohamed

Nov 012023
 

Interzone:Premee Mohamed’s debut collection…eschews genre fidelity with gleeful abandon – No One Will Come Back for Us (Undertow Publications, 2023) is a melting pot of horror, dark fantasy, sci-fi and the gloriously weird – but retains nonetheless a subtle but definite thematic thread. Mohamed’s microcosms are meticulously crafted little snowglobes populated by believable, interesting characters, and more often than not, utterly and cosmically indifferent gods. This theme runs the gamut from explicitly Lovecraftian (‘The Adventurer’s Wife’, which is nothing that you expect it to be) to the more folk horror flavourings of ‘Below the Kirk, Below the Hill’.

Another favourite story, ‘Four Hours of a Revolution’, spotlights the absolutely magnetic Whittaker, a punk-soul rebel fighting a civil war of some kind. Our POV character is Death – though, in a brilliantly imaginative twist, Death is merely one of a great many Deaths, a faintly corporate conglomerate of reapers whose job is the dispassionate dispatch of those whose time is due. It’s pacey, exciting and the worldbuilding strikes a beautiful balance between giving just enough information, and leaving you to intuit the rest. Mohamed says this story makes every mistake in the book; if that’s the case, perhaps more people ought to make mistakes more often.

Her craft and ability are without question, as is her ability to meld genres; title tale ‘No One Will Come Back For Us’ straddles horror, sf, the weird and even a little thriller for good measure. An oddly optimistic tale despite its near-apocalyptic cosmic horror setting, Mohamed seems to be asking whether sometimes, it is simply enough to survive. There’s also something wonderfully wry in the little digs at imperialist attitudes given cosmic horror’s tendency towards xenophobia; a truly twenty-first century take on the genre which I think is well warranted.

Premee Mohamed has staked her claim as one of the most versatile writers I’ve encountered in recent years. Her ability to evoke vividly a wide range of settings and write a wide range of characters whilst maintaining an integral authenticity and believability is remarkable. The bottom line is: Mohamed tells a cracking story, and this collection is as enjoyable a read as you are likely to find in any given bookshop, especially if you like your tales painted across a broad spectrum. The gods may be indifferent, but by the end of this book, I was anything but.

Review: Skin Thief by Suzan Palumbo

Oct 262023
 

Publishers Weekly: Drawing heavily from Trinidadian folklore, Palumbo packs her debut collection of 12 uncanny shorts with love, longing, and death. A recurring motif is a woman mourning a life with a lover that she has to leave, as in “The Pull of the Herd,” in which the shape-shifting protagonist has left her herd of doe to live as a human with her mate, but is called back to the wilderness by her doeskin. In “Apolepisi: A De-scaling,” the mermaid protagonist’s lover transforms from mermaid to human. At times these repeating plots can feel a bit redundant, though the stories are beautifully told. The collection really solidifies in its latter half, in which the tales move from Canadian settings to the Caribbean and draw a deeper influence from local legends. The standout closer, “Douen,” is a harrowing yet touching account of a dead child who just wants her mother to see her again, written entirely in dialect (“Mama wipe she own tears and stop crying den. But she smile was spoil”). Palumbo proves masterful at taking material from folklore and making it personal, letting those things that are meant to terrify speak for themselves. Readers are sure to be impressed.

Starred Review: System Collapse by Martha Wells

Oct 252023
 

Booklist: After the events of Fugitive Telemetry (2021), Murderbot, ART, and their colleagues remain on the alien-infected planet on the other side of the wormhole, combating the infection and trying to convince the planetary colonists to leave their world for their own safety. But corporate interests oppose their efforts, and it turns out there are more people on the planet than they realized. Meanwhile, Murderbot is having some issues and isn’t operating at full capacity. How are they supposed to successfully navigate everyone through a potentially hair-trigger standoff when they’re not sure they even know what they’re doing? This installment of the Murderbot Diaries is more a tale of political intrigue than violent action. Not that there aren’t pulse-pounding fights aplenty, but the balance has shifted. While Murderbot remains the main character, narrating their snarky take on every situation, Wells continues to build this universe. It’s a compelling setting, both in the conflicts that arise from the culture of the Corporation Rim and the deep history Wells has established. At the same time, she continues to evolve Murderbot in interesting directions. Readers won’t miss the wall-to-wall action that defined the series from its beginning. The characters and the world building remain engrossing and rewarding.

Review: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Oct 242023
 

Tor.com: Brilliant wonderful amazing fantasy novel, and the second fantasy novel I have read this year (or ever) featuring UBI. The experience of reading The Saint of Bright Doors is a little like having a mild fever—it’s the atmosphere of the book and the way it makes you feel. Everything is slightly too big and too bright, and details keep piling up and slipping out of control, and it’s all stirred together with a dash of Kafka—but in a good way. This is a dense, powerful book with interesting metaphysics and worldbuilding, and very real characters. When I think about it I find myself slipping back into it.

There’s a lot here, and it’s coming from a lot of directions to flow together into a perfectly crafted whole. But when I think about trying to describe it—look, this book contains a support group for people who were almost Chosen Ones, and there are enough of them in the city to help each other recover. And the city—it’s complex and layered like a real place, and this isn’t our world but it has both email and magic. I recommend reading the first chapter, because if you like it, you’ll like all of it. Absolutely worth your time. I expect to see this on awards ballots next year. I very much look forward to reading it again now I know the shape of it and where it was going, because I really couldn’t tell. Stunning. I am still a little stunned by it myself.

Starred Review: The Olympian Affair by Jim Butcher

Oct 162023
 

Booklist: Two years after the events of The Aeronaut’s Windlass (2015), Spire Albion is hovering on the brink of war with Spire Aurora, which has been field-testing a powerful weapon that leaves no witnesses as to what could cause such complete destruction. Captain Mad Grimm and the crew of the privateer airship Predator manage to rescue some survivors of an attack on Albion territory—a tribe of kittens. But the felines refuse to identify the threat unless provided with a new home, which will require negotiations with the cats of Spire Albion. As that agreement is worked out, Predator is assigned to accompany a diplomatic delegation to Spire Olympia, where a summit between competing Spires is being held, a conclave to determine future trade patterns and ascertain alliances for the coming war. Grimm himself has been tasked with preventing any confrontations between Alex Bayard, the delegation’s deputy, and Aurora’s deadliest duelist. If he fails, his friend will die, and Albion will be deprived of allies as war is declared. Butcher’s fans will delight in the new characters and alternate Spires while enjoying favorites from the first book and will be eager for the next episode in the action-packed Cinder Spires series.

Review: System Collapse by Martha Wells

Oct 132023
 

Locus: The seventh of Martha Wells’s Murderbot long-form stories, System Collapse is a novel-length sequel to Network Effect, picking up within days of that novel’s conclusion. Murderbot fans are unlikely to be disappointed here: Wells is on form with the series’ trademark black humour, razor-sharp tension, Murderbot’s all-too-relatable interpersonal interactions, action, and high stakes.

But despite its action-adventure bones, System Collapse is a more low-key, introspective novel than many of the Murderbot stories have been so far. As is usual for Martha Wells’ work, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

If you haven’t read the Murderbot stories, I don’t advise starting here. But I do advise starting them: if you enjoy them, you’ll enjoy this one too.

Review: The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberly & Austin Siegemund-Broka

Oct 122023
 

Booklist: In their third adult contemporary romance, following Never Vacation with Your Ex (2023), married writing duo Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka explore the relationship between a famous pop star and the man who inspired her greatest hit. Riley Wynn has finally attained mainstream success with her newest album and its lead single, but everyone thinks the song is about her famous ex-husband. Determined to reclaim the narrative, she asks her ex-college-boyfriend, Max Harcourt, to go public as its real inspiration. Max agrees only if he can come on tour with her band, and soon he and Riley realize there may be more than break-up songs in their future. Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka prove they are masters of the second-chance romance, getting the essentials just right—lingering chemistry, intense longing, and two people who have regrets about the past and one more chance to make it right. Max and Riley are believable as both romantic leads and fully formed characters with conflicting desires, and readers will laugh and swoon as they find their way back to each other through music.

Review: A Second Chance for Yesterday by R.A. Sinn

Oct 112023
 

Locus: 

“provocative, assured, compelling debut novel”

“The romance that develops between Myx and Nev is indicative of the nicely divided dual priorities by which Sinn contours the book. Not only is the techno-riddle given full prominence, but so is Nev’s whole familial and adult backstory. She ends up on a path to solve not only the Glitch, but also all the little glitches in her life. The knockout ending knots off both threads nicely.”

“As with so much classic SF, that’s the glory of this suspenseful, fast-moving tale: the ratiocinative human mind pitted against the existential whirlpool of the cosmos.”

Review: It Takes Monsters by Mandy McHugh

Oct 102023
 

Booklist: McHugh’s dark, disturbing, and twisty sophomore thriller (after Chloe Cates Is Missing, 2022) features rich and privileged characters that readers will love to hate. When Victoria Tate’s husband, Warren, steals her family’s company out from under her and begins to control her life, she decides she is done with him. This time, he has gone too far, and she will not be told what to do. Victoria plans the perfect murder, but someone knows her intentions and beats her to it. After Warren’s gruesome death, Victoria becomes the focus of an investigation into a crime of which she is innocent. Taunted by cryptic texts from someone named X, Victoria must figure out who set her up before she loses everything. As a true-crime aficionado, she relies on her vast knowledge and attempts to solve the mystery herself. McHugh’s biting sarcasm and witty humor take center stage in this fast-paced domestic-suspense story full of secrets, lies, and betrayals.

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