Is a tree red? Patricia Delfine, a six-year-old fledgling witch talking to the Parliament of Birds for the first time, struggles to answer. Please. I need more time, she pleads just before waking in her father’s arms. Is this a dream, a memory, or a figment of her imagination? She doesn’t know. Seven years later […]
Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
Theirs is a benevolent Dragon—kind really, though distant. He doesn’t eat girls. He simply takes them—one every decade. They return unharmed, but undeniably altered, only to leave soon after for larger spaces. In Agniesza’s opinion a fate that leads outside of her village of Dvernik, her family and friends, is a fate worse than death—worse […]
My Real Children, by Jo Walton
“VC” abbreviates very confused, making Patricia smile—”as if she was sufficiently confused to be given a medal for it.” Patricia is old and confused in 2015. She lives in an assisted-living facility that some days has an elevator, some days only stairs. The changes are subtle, inexplicable, a softened boundary allowing two worlds to bleed […]
Touch, by Claire North
“I want what everyone wants—something better.” “Better than what?” “Better than whatever life I happen to be living in right now.” Kepler performs an unusual job, for unusual clients—trading in bodies, lives, and possessions. Clients come, looking for a new life, and Kepler finds them one. Kepler was alive once. Centuries ago Kepler lived, breathed, […]
The Just City, by Jo Walton
“Nothing mortal can last. At best it can leave legends that can bear fruit in later ages.” -Athene, “The Just City” “The Just City” is an experiment in mixing genres. Greek mythology, science-fiction, fantasy, history, and philosophy collide in this fast-paced and thought-provoking novel about Plato’s Republic. Apollo, jilted and confused, decides to try mortality […]