Alexander Pyles's Blog, page 12

Hugo Finalists 2019: Novellette

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Below are the Hugo Novelette finalists! There wasn’t as much overlap with the Nebulas as there was in the short fiction category  before, but be sure to check out the new stories by Zen Cho, Daryl Gregory, Naomi Kritzer, and Simone Heller.  You really don’t want to miss these!

“If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,” by Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, 29 November 2018)

4 out of 5 stars

This was a sweet story about perseverance and how to not lose sight of your goals and dreams....

Review: The Adventures of the Incognita Countess & Dux Bellorum

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So, I’m doing something a little different with this post and I’m going to review two novellas here by the same author, Cynthia Ward. She was nice enough to send me a couple of e-book copies in order to review.

The Adventure of the Incognita Countess

This was a fun little novella set in an alt-earth steampunk-esque world, where Martians have invaded and been repelled, yet with the influx of foreign tech have changed the technological landscape. We find Lucy Harker, a dhampir (half human/half...

Review: The Immaculate Void

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This was one of the strangest, most unique cosmic horrors I have read.  Viscerally brutal and graphic, Brian Hodge skillfully conveys the existential of terror of pure existence, alongside an all-consuming nihilistic pathos.

Daphne has gone missing and it is up to big brother, Tanner to find her. Yet, Daphne carries far more scars on her soul than she is willing to admit, and neither of them are willing to admit the world as they know it may be ending. All the while a life-altering tragedy t...

Hugo Finalists 2019: Short Fiction

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So, the Hugo award finalists have been announced and I am continuing my review coverage of them this year. There was a bit of overlap in this category with the Nebulas, but the three stories that are new on this list are damn good, so please go check those out!

In case you missed my Nebula short fiction post, I have just re-posted the reviews of those stories below.

Keep an eye out for these posts moving forward!

“The Court Magician,” by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, January 2018) 3 out of 5 st...

SYNTH #1: An Anthology of Dark SF

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The blurb compares this to Blackmirror but I’ll be honest, I think anthology wins at being more bleak, more strange, and more relevant. Edited by C. M. Muller, SYNTH: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction is exactly that and does it ever deliver on that promise. All of these stories circle existential issues, while also embodying the sense of weird, horror science fiction. There’s plenty for anyone who is interested in those sub-genres as well as stories that embody genre fiction done with a...

Review: Educated

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This book was something, truly something. And as thought-provoking as everyone who had told me about it had said. Educated by Tara Westover, is a shockingly vulnerable memoir of a woman, who takes what could be described as “beyond unorthodox” path to university. Meanwhile, she carries an incredible weight of psychological and physical abuse on her shoulders. It’s a memoir immersed in family, perception, and education.

Westover’s family live on a literal mountain out in Idaho. They are mile...

Review: NEON&CONCRETE Stories – Part 2

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By Ozhichige

And as promised here is Part 2 to this series with my reviews of the CONCRETE stories by Richard Galbraith. The theme that is centered around these narratives is brutalist architecture but with the aid of the artist, Jon Ojibway aka Ozhichige, the stories embody some of the conceptual existentialism that Galbraith works into his fiction.

I’m a huge fan of these stories, because they show a different sort of range and tone that is entirely at the other end of the spectrum from the...

Review: NEON&CONCRETE Stories – Part 1

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By Beeple

So, I’ve been following this series for awhile and since stumbling on it and falling in love with it’s theme and mission, I became friends with the author behind it all, Richard Galbraith. He’s a pretty cool guy, who has a lot of creative projections going on across several different social media platforms & sites. Check them out if like what you see from him. He’s one of my favorite writers of short, flash, and micro fiction right now.

This is a cross discipline collaboration, sinc...

Review: The Sun Temple

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A new first for my blog…B.F. Späth reached out to me and sent me his book, THE SUN TEMPLE, and asked for me to review it. This is the result of that agreement and my review of Späth’s trippy, dreamscape of a narrative follows.

THE SUN TEMPLE follows a narrator who navigates the streets of an older New York City, than the one we know, all while imbibing cannabis, which is considered a holy part of his worship of the sun. His quest twists and and turns down the city’s streets and down into his...

Review: How Not to Get Shot: And Other Advice From White People

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What a bittersweet read.

Hughley holds nothing back in this witty, clear-cut take on the USA and our culture of racism. This book made me both chuckle and cringe as he unpacks numerous injustices and incidents that have taken place over most recent years, along with his own personal stories.

This isn’t a book for someone to change their biases or even by convinced of Hughley’s position. There is a simmering rage underneath the satire and there are times the reader can’t help but read into th...