finally read SJM's new Crescent City series, plus a wildly entertaining Dark Academia and more.
The Best and Worst of 2021: For Readers Only
Among other things, 2021 was a great year to read. Reading is an activity ready-made for COVID: it's done alone, often at home, but it also creates communities—both on the page and around the world. Featuring dark academia, science fiction, and reading slumps.
Book Review | A Memory Called Empire
Arkady Martine has, with one stunning novel, cemented herself among the Science Fiction greats. Plus, A Memory Called Empire is *fast*. Fast like a heart-pounding, adrenaline-rich action thriller, not to mention genuinely funny, emotional, and meticulously constructed.
Science Fiction Is Not About the Aliens
Science Fiction is scary because it asks readers to cast their minds forward into the unknown, rather than, say, backward into fantastical versions of human history. But good science fiction isn't actually about the aliens and the robots. It's about universal problems we all have intimate knowledge of—love and hate as transcendent emotions; grief and … Continue reading Science Fiction Is Not About the Aliens