From time to time I review books in the online science fiction & fantasy magazine Strange Horizons.
I was impressed, but not in a good way, about Paul Kincaid’s new study of Brian Aldiss. Kincaid: good. Aldiss: awful.
I reviewed the new edition of J D Beresford’s fascinating Edwardian pandemic novel A World Of Women. It’s definitely a novel worth reading, and its reappearance during the world Covid-19 pandemic was either canny marketing or a really amazing coincidence. (Its original publication was under the title Goslings.)
I could not like Rena Rossner’s The Light of the Midnight Stars, because it is a bad, bad novel.
I wallowed in praise for Katherine Addison’s The Witness for The Dead, the sequel to her glorious The Goblin Emperor.
I rightly prophesied glory and greatness for Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, which I read twice running in as many days.
I was stoutly positive about Alex Pheby’s Mordew, which was probably stronger stuff than I can manage.
Kate Macdonald 