Category Archives: sf/f

#TBRChallenge – Unusual Historical: Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Victoria Janssen

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark is a novella set in 1922 Georgia, mostly in Macon with a set piece at Stone Mountain. It’s a dark fantasy that includes body horror, in which white supremacists use the initial release of … Continue reading →

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My March Reading Log

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction: The Iron Princess by Barbara Hambly is her first fantasy novel in about a decade and a half. To me, it had elements that reminded me of both the Darwath books and the Windrose Chronicles; it’s likely meant to … Continue reading →

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My February Reading Log

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction: The Iron Children by Rebecca Fraimow will be out in early April; I read an ARC via Netgalley. In this novella, two countries are at war. The larger and more powerful Levastani want to take back the smaller country, … Continue reading →

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I Heart SapphFic Reading Challenge Week 4: Spaceship / Space Station

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Victoria Janssen

Finding Refuge is featured this week in the I Heart SapphFic Reading Challenge Week 4: Spaceship / Space Station! I’ll be visiting the I Heart SapphFic Reader Group on Facebook on and off all week, and will be giving away … Continue reading →

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#TBRChallenge – Starting Over: A Paradigm of Earth by Candas Jane Dorsey

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Victoria Janssen

A Paradigm of Earth by Candas Jane Dorsey is a 2001 book which begins with several traumatic events told in a lowkey voice of depression. Morgan Shelby works with children who have severely disfiguring birth defects. Despite the first sentence … Continue reading →

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#TBRChallenge – Lies: The Conductors by Nicole Glover

Posted on November 16, 2022 by Victoria Janssen

I chose The Conductors by Nicole Glover for the “Lies” theme because it’s a murder mystery. However, it turned out to fit the theme in other ways as well: many of the suspects rewrote themselves and their lives to some … Continue reading →

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#TBRChallenge – Exile by Lisa Bradley

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Victoria Janssen

Exile by Lisa Bradley is a post-apocalyptic, character-driven science fiction novel which I bought because I had met and liked the author. The apocalypse in this novel was local, affecting people living nearby with uncontrollable, violent rage. The federal government … Continue reading →

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Romancing the Beast – Embracing Monstrousness in Romantic SFF

Posted on September 23, 2022 by Victoria Janssen

I have a post up at the SFWA blog: Romancing the Beast – Embracing Monstrousness in Romantic SFF. Because the Romance genre is based on plot structure, it can easily be merged with a Speculative Fiction setting. Magical secondary worlds, … Continue reading →

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My August Reading Log

Posted on September 9, 2022 by Victoria Janssen

Fiction: Prisoner of Midnight by Barbara Hambly is eighth and most current of the James and Lydia Asher series about vampire hunters and their uneasy vampire ally, Don Simon Ysidro. I was excited to find it’s set in 1917, with … Continue reading →

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#TBRChallenge – Blue Collar: Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart

Posted on August 17, 2022 by Victoria Janssen

Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart is one of those books I pre-ordered and then kept on my TBR for years afterward. Stewart is one of my all-time favorite fantasy writers, but he has gotten away from writing novels in recent … Continue reading →

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