• Book Reviews

    Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

    I bought Ascension because of some review I read somewhere on a blog (which I can’t find now), because I love scifi and I love space stories and I’m tired of scifi space stories with straight white people in them. Ascension, while not a perfect book, has a LOT of exciting things in it that should make any scifi fan happy to read it. It started off very strong. The first half of the book was fantastic; it introduces us to the world of Ascension and the people who navigate through it. There are alien planets! Creepy aliens with creepy alien technology! Spaceships and space pirates and also psychics who…

  • Book Reviews

    REVIEW: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

    Read for The Women of Fantasy Book Club I’ve written and rewritten this review three times now, and I’m getting really sick of it. So this review is now going going to be short, to the point, and AWESOME. It’s always good to start on a positive note, right? So: I loved The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I love the writing, the themes, how it doesn’t gloss over important issues that pop up in the relationship between humans and gods or humans and humans. I like the action, the intrigue, the characters, the setting. I loved the language, especially in the parts that tell stories about the mythology of the world…

  • Book Reviews

    REVIEW: Empress by Karen Miller

    I got this during last month’s $1 Orbit sale, and then somehow forgot about it until last week. I started reading it and couldn’t stop, even though I had a paper to write for school. It’s seriously good! I wasn’t really expecting anything when I started reading, but honestly, the first chapter alone shocked me. It’s got rape, domestic abuse, child abuse, slavery, and many other messed-up things, and it gets worse as the book goes on. Religion plays a huge part, and it’s the kind of religion with blood sacrifices and self-flagellation and smitings, and while it hasn’t escalated into human sacrifices (that I remember, anyway), it does seem…