Okorafor is a master of brevity who portrays rich, immersive worlds and characters with spare, head-spinning strokes. In a future Nigeria populated by tribes – many bearing animosities, suspicions, and resentments, as well as advanced technical and digital technologies – lives a woman named AO (for Artificial Organism) who is physically half cyborg. Forced to …
I met Greg Bear thirty years ago, in early 1992, when I was a clerk at Half Price Books in Seattle’s University District. I’d been a fan since high school, and when he handed me the credit card for his purchase, I froze with my heart slamming in my ears. “You’re not the science fiction …
[Talk about] unexpected: Silva Moreno-Garcia zigs after zagging with Velvet was the Night, her crime drama about student uprisings in Mexico City. Her new book is The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, and it’s a bit more Mexican Gothicy than Velvety Nighttime. We’ve got genetic hybrids. We’ve got secret research facilities. We’ve got rich patrons who …
A book this fun has no business being so interesting and thought-provoking. Hella is a low gravity world home to massive wildlife ( a.k.a. giant dinosaurs) and even larger weather patterns, a combination that forces the colonists trying to build a home there to adapt to their surroundings in profound ways. Seasonal migrations, strong communal …
You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll despair about climate change. You might even be inclined to think about your carbon footprint. You might also consider not waiting for the billionaires to save us, because, you know, one of these days, they’re going into space and they’re not coming back. Watch how much luggage they pack on …
It’s time for a Thursday Theme, when we shine a spotlight on some of the titles featured in this week’s Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association regional bestseller list. Maybe it’s a stretch, but we couldn’t help but notice that Becky Chambers has two books on the bestseller list, the French word for rooms is “les chambres,” and hearts …
Of course I was captured right away by the wonderful world building in “The Book Making Habits of Select Species,” and while this book of short stories is perfect for any “Black Mirror” fan, fascinated by technology’s impact on humanity, it is also so much more. This book is a fantastic blend of sci-fi, speculative, …
Battle of the Linguist Mages is a mad bastard of a book, and that is high praise. On the one hand, it’s a pretty familiar story (young woman learns that magic in a video game has real power) with familiar elements of course there are nefarious forces arrayed to exploit them AND her)… but they …
Kevin Emerson’s newest middle grade novel, Drifters, is a mystery/sci-fi about a 13-year-old girl searching for her missing friend on the Washington coast. While a tale with multiple timelines and universes, Drifters is also a simple story about holding onto friendship. It is also a love letter to the PNW coast. RK: What was your …
Janelle Monáe returns to the dystopian cyberpunk world of her Dirty Computer album with The Memory Librarian, a collection of five long stories that further the narrative set forth in the album. While the New Dawn is intent on standardizing and homogenizing the future, a band of gender-nonconforming rebels persist in retaining, remembering, and celebrating the stories of …
