Tag: Book Review

Review: Few and Far Between

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Title: Few and Far Between
Author: Jan Carson
Pages: 336
Release: July 28, 2026

A brilliant alternate history and a cracking read. An archipelago of small islands emerges from the depths after a local politician’s gambit to drain the largest lough in Northern Ireland in order to create more habitable space for those seeking sanctuary during the Troubles. The drainage scheme never got off the ground, but Jan Carson explores what might have happened if it had.

There’s such intriguing lore surrounding The Ark, this archipelago of islands. Each island has a unique flavor and distinct inhabitants—some grounded and wholly human, others suspended between worlds, ghostly apparitions caught between life and death. There’s an air of mystery among the residents, especially our sibling protagonists, Marion and Robert-John, who call The Ark home.

Carson paints a vivid picture of the setting and her characters, plumbing the depths of their psyches and the collective traumas that shape them. Marion and Robert-John are suspended in a state of arrested development. They can’t escape their past while they remain on The Ark, yet they can’t leave The Ark because they remain firmly tethered to that past. A rising tide will force their hand.

I had such a wonderful time with this novel. Between the dry humor, the family drama, and the unique island setting, Carson hits all the right notes.

★★★★½

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Hunger: A Novel

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Title: Hunger: A Novel
Author: Choi Jin-Young
Translator: Soje
Pages: 208
Release: May 12, 2026

A moving, melancholic love story – tender and full of heart, with just a dash of cannibalism. Soje’s translation is beautifully rendered, capturing the quiet intensity between Gu and Dam. The alternating pre- and post-mortem perspectives are both effective and deeply affecting, revealing how closely attuned they are to one another. A quick, sorrowful, yet ultimately love-affirming read.

★★★¼

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Republic of Memory

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Title: The Republic of Memory
Author: Mahmud El Sayed
Pages: 480
Series: The Song of the Safina #1
Release: May 5, 2026

A fantastic conceit, executed beautifully. A generation ship, halfway through a 400-year voyage to a new habitable planet, shepherding the last holdouts from Earth in cryostasis while their descendants man the ship, is hit with a power outage that ignites a tinderbox of factionalism and distrust in the ship’s leadership and way of life.

Mahmud El Sayed has crafted an expansive, living tapestry of cultures that span the Safina. Striated by language, there are a head-spinning number of factions, sectors, and POVs to keep straight, but El Sayed does an admirable job keeping everything on the rails. Some may be frustrated by sections written entirely in Nupol, an underground improvised Spanish-English hybrid introduced early on, but it’s used sparingly enough that it never becomes a major issue.

As dense as the book is, it feels like it has only scratched the surface of what’s possible in future installments. With plenty of runway ahead, I’m excited to see where things go next. It’s a terrific start to the series.

★★★★½

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Earthly Playing Field

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Title: Earthly Playing Field
Author: Radhika Singh
Pages: 320
Release: May 5, 2026

An engrossing and vibrant novel about family, love, revolution, and a strange plant growing in a basement in Queens.

Singh’s impressive debut is a timely and gripping tale about a woman caught between her life in America and the ripples of revolution abroad. Roma is swept into a multi-dimensional entanglement as the revolution gathers force. She longs to contribute while fighting off a deep infatuation for someone just out of reach.

It takes stock of our geopolitical present with a speculative twist, weaving big ideas about faith, homeland, and resistance into an intimate, character-driven story. I found it thoughtful and compelling from start to finish.

★★★★¼

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Ode to the Half-Broken

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Title: Ode to the Half-Broken
Author: Suzanne Palmer
Pages: 416
Release: April 28, 2026

A dyst-hope-ian novel about a robot outrunning their past, which is hard to do when someone has stolen your leg! Suzanne Palmer moves main character Be around the post-apocalyptic landscape, slowly building a ragtag found family along the way. A wise-cracking cyborg dog, a human mechanic, and a speechless drone all join the fray.

I enjoyed much of what Palmer is doing here. The writing is accessible and the pacing is swift. The plot is convoluted at times and the flashbacks halt narrative momentum, but the heart and humanity at its core make it a refreshing and winsome read.

★★★½

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Rabbit Test and Other Stories

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Title: Rabbit Test and Other Stories
Author: Samantha Mills
Pages: 256
Release: April 21, 2026

A diverse array of stories, each engaging and lively, brimming with heart and an urgent sense of purpose. In “Strange Waters,” a fisherwoman is lost to time. The currents sweep her centuries beyond her known present day. She seeks out new “timestreams” that might return her to what she understands as the present, while her arrivals and departures create ripples across time.

“Laugh Lines” is a lean tale about a translucent rabbit-baby, adopted by a spider-mother, which examines adoption and disability advocacy. “The Limits of Magic” explores, well, the limits of magic. It’s a beautifully constructed high fantasy about a woman bearing the weight of expectation amidst the tumult of war.

Samantha Mills’s stories run the gamut of SFF genres and subgenres. Not every story worked or kept me fully hooked, but the ones that did were truly fantastic.

Favorite stories: “Strange Waters,” “Rabbit Test,” “The Limits of Magic”

★★★½

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Antidote

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Title: The Antidote
Author: Karen Russell
Pages: 432
Release: March 11, 2025

Karen Russell uses the historic Black Sunday dust storm as the backdrop for her interwoven, intergenerational, and inter-temporal slice of American history – complete with a prairie witch who can unburden her patients from painful memories, a sentient scarecrow, murder, mayhem, dust, and basketball. Russell’s dust-choked world is perfectly rendered with beautiful prose and well-researched detail, the heavy dose of magical realism seamlessly woven into this historical-fiction tale and bringing unexpected life to a barren world.

She unpacks the “collapse of memory” in fascinating ways, offering the perspectives of the land and its collective inhabitants – each of them ill-informed, or at the very least, ill-at-ease, shaped by forces they cannot fully comprehend.

The Antidote has all the makings of a modern American classic, and I know it will stick with me for a good long while.

★★★★½

My thanks to my public library for providing me with a post-release copy in exchange nothing at all!

Review: Slow Gods

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Title: Slow Gods
Author: Claire North
Pages: 448
Release: November 18, 2025

From one novel to the next, Claire North effortlessly leaps across genres, crafting unique, engaging, and consistently satisfying stories. Slow Gods is no exception—an imaginative and fresh space opera fronted by a self-deprecating pilot with infinite lives, staring down a universe-spanning cataclysm.

I loved luxuriating in North’s language and her worlds: living ships, distinct gender systems, and the unknowable deep black of space that seems to lurk at the edge of our waking consciousness.

It’s less a tightly plotted, propulsively paced piece of fiction and more a high-stakes drama filled with expansive ideas and a singular protagonist. I enjoyed my time with it all the same, and I’ll gladly follow North wherever she jumps next. 

★★★¾

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Emergency

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Title: The Emergency
Author: George Packer
Pages: 416
Release: November 11, 2025

A compelling and creative spin on dystopian fiction, The Emergency is a prescient fable chronicling the collapse and reformation of a nameless city-state.

The novel works best in its opening section, depicting societal collapse through the eyes of one family within this contained “city by the river.” It is especially timely, with clear parallels to our present moment as characters grapple with conspiracy theories, backlash against wokeness, debates over immigration, cancel culture, and tribalism. 

Once the protagonists venture into the countryside and encounter the more feral responses to the titular “Emergency,” the story grows unwieldy and less narratively satisfying, with shifting alliances and more thinly drawn characters. A bit more focus and less sprawl might have made these undercooked elements feel richer. 

★★★

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.