Alexander Pyles's Blog, page 13

Review: Neon Druid

[image error]
I wanted to change it up slightly with this post and have something fun/themed for St. Patrick’s day! But I can’t go any further without saying…what a fun romp through pubs, mythology, and alleyways. NEON DRUID is such a fun, pulpy anthology of stories that embody Celtic fantasy and mythology. Each story presents a strong grasp of voice, tone, and feel that I appreciate in a themed urban fantasy anthology.

I have made a list of the stories below that I really enjoyed and I made a list along...

Review: How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?

[image error]
If you couldn’t tell already, but I’ve been on a bit of an anthology kick this year and there was no way I was going to miss out on N.K. Jemisin’s new anthology of short fiction. There are some stories I have read or heard of before and there are even some stories in here that seem to be precursors to her BROKEN EARTH trilogy and others. Yet, what really proves that this anthology is worth your time is just how damn rich and versatile Jemisin’s writing is. (As if her three Hugos left any dou...

Review: How Long ’til Black Future Month?

[image error]
If you couldn’t tell already, but I’ve been on a bit of an anthology kick this year and there was no way I was going to miss out on N.K. Jemisin’s new anthology of short fiction. There are some stories I have read or heard of before and there are even some stories in here that seem to be precursors to her BROKEN EARTH trilogy and others. Yet, what really proves that this anthology is worth your time is just how damn rich and versatile Jemisin’s writing is. This woman can write!

Each story in...

Nebula Finalists 2018: Novellette

[image error]
And here below I have included most of the Novellette finalists. I could not get my hands on one of the stories, since it is out of a collection by the author, but oh well. I did link the ones that are found for free online!

Enjoy!

“The Only Harmless Great Thing” by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing) 4 out of 5

This was an incredibly engrossing read. Bolander remixes history a bit to connect the Radium Girls and the execution of Topsy the elephant. The prose is extremely poetic and enigmat...

Review: Children of Time

[image error]
What if the planet you are attempting to colonize is already occupied? This is the question that Adrian Tchaikovsky’s CHILDREN OF TIME attempts to answer, but while doing so asks so many more questions. When an ark ship, holding what remains of humanity, comes upon a long-forgotten project of Old Earth, a planet terraformed, what could be wrong? Instead of being a new hope, the planet has become occupied by another lifeform entirely, and one that is utterly alien to humanity, despite growing...

Nebula Finalists 2018: Short Fiction

[image error]

Award season is here and I am expanding my review coverage to include the Nebulas this year. I really just enjoyed reading the Hugo finalists so much, that I had another awards list, so here we are!

Also, this is my 70th post in the lifetime of my blog, which is crazy to think about.

Anyway, I’m structuring this like the Hugo posts from last year and giving short reviews to the short fiction, novelette, and novella lists. I will be doing standalone review posts for the novel category. And of...

Review: The Freeze-Frame Revolution

[image error]

It’s been awhile since I couldn’t put a sci-fi novella down and when I had to with this one, I did begrudgingly(darn kids!).  I really could have read this in one sitting, because Watts just makes everything so tense and so utterly readable.

We have our protagonist Sunday on a one way trip across the literal galaxy, that has been ongoing for an incredible amount of years. The crew is brought to life for a few short days, maybe even just two, and then are put away in “crypts” or what I starte...

Review: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

[image error]
Listened to this as an audiobook narrated by the author, J.D. Vance and boy do I have a lot of thoughts about this.

First, I’ll comment on the actual memoir portion, which he states a kind of disclaimer in the introduction, since he is self-aware that he is only in his 30s and how unusual it is to write a memoir at that age. This also leads into why he then “beefs” up his book with the asides about Hillbilly culture, hence the “Culture in Crisis” phrase in the title.

In some ways, this book...

Review: Broadswords & Blasters #8

[image error]
I had the pleasure of reading a recent issue of BROADSWORDS & BLASTERS for the post today and it has been awhile, since I was exposed to such a rich variety of pulp fiction! What a wild wild ride!

I’m going to post a “mini” review of each story below, since they are all too varied and different to really comment on the issue as a whole, but what I can say, is that editors Matt and Cameron really have excellent taste. They were also nice enough to send me this issue to peruse and I was pleasa...

2019: Writing Ahead

[image error]
This is another post that I have been dragging my feet on. It’s funny since I had conceptualized what my goals were in December, but then after the 1st of the year, I’ve had to already begin adapting and creating new targets as more hurdles emerged. I guess that’s just what happens right?

So, looking back at my writing/submission stats from last year:

I submitted 19 times to various venues. Out of those 19, I had two acceptances. This is a milestone, since I have pretty much only had 1 accep...