Alexander Pyles's Blog, page 15

Review: Station Eleven

Station Eleven by  Emily St. John Mandel, was one that I had heard a lot about and the first book I actually listened to as an audio book, narrated by Kristin Potter, who did an excellent job.

It is a beautifully written book, both literary and speculative. One of the best books I’ve read in easily this year. Honestly, a crime I did not get to this sooner.

This novel does not have a linear plot and tends to jump around years, if not decades both into the future and back, although it primarily...

Review: Kindred: The Graphic Novel

[image error]

I don’t even know where to start with this.

I will say that the art is awesome for the tone of the story and really brings you in, while also somehow translating the history of it. I often had to remind myself I was reading a fiction story rather than a non-fictional account. And of course, because of the content, which is of an African American woman in the late 70s being transported to the early 1800s, is not for the faint of heart.

We follow Dana, a young black writer who becomes dizzy on...

Review: Raven Stratagem

[image error]

 

Yoon Ha Lee does it again with creating another high stakes, complex, and very human story. This one misses my interest with the lack of o “on the ground” fighting that the previous book had. I’m a sucker for politics though and this book is chock full of it!

There’s a ton more intrigue and a lot more complexity in the first, especially as the reader tries to figure out what Jedeo has planned. This plot only becomes thicker when Cheris, fully possessed by Jedeo hijacks an entire fleet in o...

Review: The Mere Wife

 

[image error]

So, I had a review of Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife published in Three Crows Magazine! This is their first issue, so give them a read as well, I’m pretty excited to see where this mag goes!

Please go read my review here, otherwise a small excerpt:

Few stories published today feel as mythical as Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife. Not only does it tell an intimate tale of mothers struggling against one another and their sons, but it is a tale brought out from the fecund ground of...

Review: The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion

[image error]

What a killer cover, right?

So, this was an insane ride and one that I managed to finish in one sitting! (That doesn’t happen often for various reasons.)

I will say that Killjoy has created a tight story that achieves exactly what it wants: If you oppress or coerce others to do what you want, you get what’s coming for you.

We follow Danielle, a roving anarchist, one jaded and bitter with mainstream society, as she arrives in Freedom, Iowa to find answers as to why her friend Clay ended his li...

Review: The Void

[image error]

Talley writes a classic cosmic horror set in space, that truly unsettles and would please any lover of the genre.

Set in space, we find a crew, all hiding their own secrets, come across a strange derelict. They are unprepared for what they discover…

It begins with Aiden Connor, who is found drifting in an escape pod after his ship’s warp core fails, killing everyone on board, except for him. He is handed a second chance, after not having a place to go given his “bad luck” to be the navigator...

Review: Six Wakes

[image error]
There was a lot of good with this one, by Mur Lafferty, but by the end I was kind left with an “eh.”

The book begins with a big bang and lots of intrigue. The crew has been murdered, but this isn’t your mother’s “whodonit.” Maria is a junior tech who awakes in her clone pod but knows things have gone wrong when she can’t remember what put her there or why there’s blood on her pod. Never mind that they are on a colony ship heading to a new world and the crew is solely responsible for them.

Th...

Review: Uncanny Magazine #23

[image error]

Uncanny Magazine – Issue #23

I don’t read magazines like this often(I’d end up subscribing to too many), but I saw the cover of this one and I just HAD to get it.

This was a pretty strong issue, considering it was encirling a “shared world” where the writers came up with an alternative Earth that had tapped into a portal-multiverse where dinosaurs keep creeping into everything! I loved it!

There were three stories in particular that grabbed me No shock that they were all in the middle, but ha...

THE HUGOS: 2018

[image error]

So, I wasn’t able to do it guys. At the time that they were announced, I said back in April, that I would be reading all the Hugo nominated stories and post them here. I managed to get through the short fiction, short stories, and novellas on time. I even managed to get through a couple of the novels, but I’m still a roughly four behind, so sorry about that. Maybe next year, I’ll have it more together?

I do still plan on reading the last three or four I have left(I’m in the midst of reading ...

Review: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

[image error]

Finally got around to finishing this one. I set it down for a while, which I know isn’t great conduct for a reader, but interest waned for a bit and life got busy. I crushed the last 80 pages and I really enjoyed it. I think I’ll be coming back to this story sooner rather than later, due to all the themes and symbols PKD chooses to mess with here.

The story itself is pretty straightforward and after reading the novel, I believe I can fully appreciate BLADERUNNER & BLADERUNNER 2049. I think t...