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 …
Whenever your local librarian highly recommends a book that TJ Klune (author of The House in the Cerulean Sea) calls a transformative marvel, you should probably read that book. I immediately did, and as someone who has access to whatever she wants to read, this will be a book I come back to over and …
From Third Place Books’ blog: We asked the booksellers at all three of our locations for their favorite books of 2021. These are the top 10 books that made it onto the majority of those lists. Check out the list below. All books are also available as digital audiobooks here. My Monticello: Fiction by Jocelyn Nicole …
From Jim Ryan and Jamie Hale for The Oregonian/OregonLive 10/28/21: A new film adaptation of classic science fiction novel Dune has opened in U.S. theaters, bringing audiences back to the desert planet Arrakis, home of sand worms, spice, politics and war. While set on an alien world, Dune was inspired by a very real place: …
Librarians are gifts to the community, even after the apocalypse. Nina, Dani, and Maya have scavenged the wreckage of cities long dead for tech, data and content, to share with their community and help everyone survive. It’s a dangerous job, and all three of them have a shadowed past, so it’s no surprise when disgraced …
From Oregonlive.com July 31, 2021: The Ursula K. Le Guin stamp, the 33rd in the U.S. Postal Service’s Literary Arts series, was released Tuesday in a ceremony at the Portland Art Museum. Among those who spoke at the event was Portland arts critic Martha Ullman West, a longtime friend of Le Guin’s; Oregon Arts Watch published her remarks. Other …
An astronaut wakes up with amnesia, and discovers he is on a mission to save the world. This book is a return to what made The Martian such a great read. There’s a sarcastic but earnest narrator, many a life-threatening disaster, and so very much clearly and cleverly explained science. Once I started reading it, I could …
Sometimes the right book comes along at just the right time. Hollow Kingdom was easily my favorite book of 2019, and its sequel, Feral Creatures (publishing this August) just f***ing ravaged my entire heart. Holy crow, apocalyptic fiction never hurt so good! Brb, I have to go snuggle my perfect tiny wild child baby and …
