Tak! commented on The Dragonfly Gambit by A. D. Sui
Nearly ten years after Inez Kato sustained a career-ending injury during a military exercise gone …
Nebula best novella 2024
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Tak! commented on Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
Discover this creepy, charming monster-slaying fantasy romance—from the perspective of the monster—by Nebula Award-winning debut …
Nebula best novel 2024
Tak! reviewed Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
Joanna Kalotay lives alone in the woods of Vermont, the sole protector of a collection …
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
5 stars
Ink Blood Sister Scribe is a fresh modern fantasy exploring a world where books are magical, in a literal sense. It's fast-paced, well-written, nuanced, and not too predictable or tropey.
Tak! reviewed The Tomb of Dragons by Sarah Monette
Thara Celehar has lost his ability to speak with the dead. When that title of …
The Tomb of Dragons
4 stars
The Tomb of Dragons is another solid Thara Celehar.
When I first read The Witness for the Dead, I was disappointed, because it had such different energy than The Goblin Emperor. After finishing The Tomb of Dragons, I went back to The Goblin Emperor again, but I actually stopped fairly quickly and went forward to Witness for the Dead instead, because this time what I wanted was the Thara Celehar energy. I have really come to enjoy how the pacing is very smooth and gradual, while being ultimately relentless. Celehar is never hurried or frantic - he just applies steady pressure to all his problems until they eventually crumble.
Tak! commented on In Universes by Emet North
For fans of Emily St. John Mandel and Kelly Link, a profoundly imaginative debut novel …
The #SFFBookClub pick for June 2025
Tak! commented on The Tomb of Dragons by Sarah Monette
Thara Celehar has lost his ability to speak with the dead. When that title of …
Every time I read Ulnemenee, my brain goes "doot doooooot do doo doot"
Tak! reviewed The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
The Ministry of Time
4 stars
I really enjoyed The Ministry of Time.
I was frustrated with the protagonist for big chunks of the book for not realizing obvious things. The author repeatedly tried to defend this with "I bet you're thinking 'I would have realized this right away', but" and in a world where I know time travel exists, I absolutely would!
However, the writing is very good, and it kept me engaged. The combination of themes around time travel, colonialism, and refugee life really worked, and I feel like it allowed them to be explored from different angles.
I'm kind of let down by the inconclusiveness of the ending, but on the other hand they avoided most of the cliché time travel tropes, so overall I guess it balances out.
Tak! reviewed Bunny: A Novel by Mona Awad
Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA …
Bunny
2 stars
A kafkaesque nightmare, a 200-page lsd trip, Fight Club for lit majors
Tak! reviewed Roadside Picnic by Аркадий Натанович Стругацкий
Roadside Picnic is set in the aftermath of an extraterrestrial event called the Visitation that …
Roadside Picnic
3 stars
Roadside Picnic reads like a love letter to functional alcoholism.
The basic premise is that there were a series of isolated visitations to earth by unknown aliens, who subsequently fucked off and never came back. However, the places where they visited are now strewn with various items and phenomena that behave inexplicably to modern science, in ways that are often extremely dangerous to humans.
In addition to scientists coming to study the visitation zones, this also results in a black market for harvested technology, with people ("stalkers") sneaking in to exfiltrate things at great personal risk.
It's clear that this is if nothing else a spiritual predecessor to Annihilation. Everything is focused around the weird and often brutally inscrutable, with no explanation required or given. It definitely shows its age (and possibly cultural origin), especially in terms of attitudes about gender roles.
The translation was very good imo. I was …
Roadside Picnic reads like a love letter to functional alcoholism.
The basic premise is that there were a series of isolated visitations to earth by unknown aliens, who subsequently fucked off and never came back. However, the places where they visited are now strewn with various items and phenomena that behave inexplicably to modern science, in ways that are often extremely dangerous to humans.
In addition to scientists coming to study the visitation zones, this also results in a black market for harvested technology, with people ("stalkers") sneaking in to exfiltrate things at great personal risk.
It's clear that this is if nothing else a spiritual predecessor to Annihilation. Everything is focused around the weird and often brutally inscrutable, with no explanation required or given. It definitely shows its age (and possibly cultural origin), especially in terms of attitudes about gender roles.
The translation was very good imo. I was a little apprehensive after having read a terrible translation of Metro 2033, but no complaints on that front.
Tak! reviewed Atlas Alone by Emma Newman
Atlas Alone is a 2019 science fiction novel by British writer Emma Newman. It was …
Atlas Alone
5 stars
Newman keeps me guessing as usual.
After Atlas follows Dee, an ancillary character from After Atlas, in her quest to figure out what the hell is going on.
This one gets very dark, but it's wonderfully written, and I devoured it.
Tak! reviewed Ghost Station by S. A. Barnes
A crew must try to survive on an ancient, abandoned planet in the latest space …
Ghost Station
5 stars
A psychologist volunteers to join a small research and exploration team on an extraplanetary mission, drama ensues.
Ghost Station reminds me of Before Mars in a number of ways, the most important being that I really enjoyed it and it kept me guessing.
Now I'm off to go find something else by S.A. Barnes
Tak! commented on Countess by Suzan Palumbo
A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial sci-fi novella, inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, in which …
I really dig the premise, but the execution bothered me a lot. Maybe they were just trying to do too much in a novella length, or maybe it's just me, but everything just felt rushed and clumsy. 🤷
Tak! commented on Drystone by Kristie De Garis
What’s that I see at the top of my reading pile?
Oh, NBD, just a copy of my book. Not its final form, but still, the first time I've held it in my hands.
A tangible version of something that’s existed in more abstract, emotional, and digital forms for years.
mastodon.scot/users/kristiedegaris/statuses/114319100705199265
Tak! reviewed Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Velvet Was the Night
3 stars
Velvet Was the Night is a little like if the video game Revolution 1979: Black Friday was written as a Tarantino screenplay.
It's loosely based on El Halconazo, and follows El Elvis, a member of Los Halcones, and Maite, a bored legal secretary, as they get tangled up in its aftermath.
It didn't really draw me in, I kind of kept waiting for the real story to start, but it felt like it never did.
Tak! reviewed Before Mars by Emma Newman
"Acclaimed author Emma Newman returns to the captivating Planetfall universe with a standalone dark tale …
Before Mars
5 stars
This is my third Emma Newman novel, and I am now down to read anything she writes.
Before Mars follows geologist and hobby painter/streamer Anna Kubrin, who has been sent to join a small group of scientists at Mars's only research station, at the behest of her employer.
As usual with Newman's novels, it's very difficult to discuss what I loved about it without stomping all over her masterful unfolding of the plot, but she has followed her previous pattern of weaving an engrossing scifi story through a handful of Serious Themes - postpartum depression, psychosis, coercion, betrayal, and surveillance capitalism. With this one, I was a bit less in the dark throughout because of my experience with the previous two, and because the universe is getting more filled in.
Go read Planetfall! Read them all!