‘Claiming T-Mo’ Is A Confounding, Mysterious Tour De Force – NPR Review

Bacon’s whole book feels itself like a fairytale, albeit one where mystical planets and traveling between stars take the place of castles and sorcery. That said, there is a peculiar witchcraft at work in Claiming T-Mo. It resembles the writing of N.K. Jemisin, particularly in the way it nests the human in the fantastic, and it incorporates the kind of galaxy-spanning scope of generations once used by Octavia E. Butler.

Simultaneously lean and lush, it’s a book that’s more inquisitive about the limitless thematic and tonal possibilities of science fiction than the genre of science fiction as such. “There is a magical quality about a man who steps through locked doors, unbroken walls,” Bacon writes of T-Mo. Likewise, there is a magical quality about a novelist who does the same — and Claiming T-Mo is vivid, pulsing proof. Read the full review.

–Jason Heller is a Hugo Award-winning editor and author of the new book Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded.