Category: Science Fiction

Book Review: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin

personby Amy Casey
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The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ursula is beyond time, and will keep teaching us indefinitely, it seems.

THE LATHE OF HEAVEN is spooky and superb, an exploration of human ethics and fault, a playful but nightmarish interrogation of the power of the unconscious mind to shape our thoughts, our plans, and therefore the world. It will have you looking around at your reality, disoriented and asking “Who dreamed this one? Was it the best they could do?”



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Book Review: We Are Dreams in the Eternal Machine by Deni Ellis Béchard

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We Are Dreams in the Eternal Machine by Deni Ellis Béchard

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


WE ARE DREAMS IN THE ETERNAL MACHINE by Deni Ellis Béchard is a grieving. It’s a labyrinth, it’s a lullaby, it’s a night terror. The way this novel looks at the explosive potential of technological innovation, political violence, censorship, and human ingenuity is a lasting, stalking presence. I love the way this book asks what we as human beings might one day build, break, or think we deserve, and what the thing we built might decide to do instead. Left me uneasy, but in awe.



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Book Review: I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

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I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


One for the Great Lakes Gothic shelf! I CHEERFULLY REFUSE by Leif Enger spins a tale that imagines how our world might disintegrate or regenerate in the years just beyond our own horizon. The characters in this book are recognizable, for their flaws, their oversights, their confusions and convictions. Culture and circumstances change quickly, but perhaps people don’t, and in that reality lies a balancing act for morality when the chips are down. Enger’s book celebrates the stubborn and trusts Lake Superior as a rarely forgiving (but always honest) setting on which to prove oneself. An entrancing sail through the dark.



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Book Review: Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead

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Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What will we leave the world?
Also: will we leave the world?

–Two central questions at the heart of this boundary-pushing novella that imagines human history’s farthest-reaching future through its oldest written literary form. Unforgettable, weird, and wonderful stuff from Oliver K. Langmead.

We haven’t seen the end of epic heroes. History has more waiting for us. I think, in the end, that’s the idea that made this book so touching to me.



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Book Review: Orbital by Samantha Harvey

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Orbital by Samantha Harvey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


ORBITAL is one of so many, many books that I’ve read which are set in space. But it is the very first book I’ve read which, in the reading of it, feels like actually being in space. Dreamlike, cyclical, removed, focused, questing, massive and tiny, lost and tethered. More like a poem than a novel, it’s a view from above. A unique read that takes its own strange time to say what it has to say.



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Book Review: Venomous Lumpsucker by Neal Beauman

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Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ned Beauman’s VENOMOUS LUMPSUCKER is a bold, scathing, and brilliant commentary on the impact of human industry on the natural world. It’s funny, incredibly dark, and grusomely incisive. 0% lyricism, 100% wit. But always with an honest love that you can tell is probably still alive, way down there, somewhere in the brackish depths.



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Book Review: Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier

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Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


SINGER DISTANCE by Ethan Chatagnier is a story that recognizes how incredible minds approach problems from angles that are anything but straight-on. Much the same, Chatagnier gives us a story of mathematical brilliance focused not on the genius herself, but on the complementary mind most oriented to her despite all her human failings, resulting in a propulsive scientific mystery that is also a generous love story, one that contends with personal histories in a way that feels radically like home even within an alternative historical timeline a few hops over from our own. What a book.



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Book Review: The Museum of Human History by Rebekah Bergman

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The Museum of Human History by Rebekah Bergman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Rebekah Bergman’s THE MUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY is a spellbinding study of how people reckon with the most powerful force in our lives: time. Through touching and inventive vignettes spotlighting a handful of households inhabiting the same town, Bergman asks what any of us might risk or leverage to stop time, and the roles of our bodies, our memories, and life’s artifacts in the attempt.



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Book Review: The Seep by Chana Porter

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The Seep by Chana Porter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


THE SEEP by Chana Porter is quiet and strange, a new utopia for a new era with new discomforts and new questions. Porter’s questing, soft narrative explores the burdens and the wisdom of resistance to easy solutions. Humor, otherworldliness, fantastic worldbuilding, and open-ended possibilities abound.



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Book Review: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

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All Systems Red by Martha Wells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Science fiction at its absolute finest, the first book in the Murderbot Diaries series ALL SYSTEMS RED is downright delightful. A solid adventure-rescue story in its own right is enhanced into something really special with the narration of its genderless, socially anxious, reluctant hero–a robot designed to kill stuff who really just wants to binge watch a show called Sanctuary Moon.



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