A young scholar explores and documents the House, an endless palace of vestibules, halls and statues lapped by ceaseless tides. As he tries to makes sense of his world, he finds himself increasingly driven to keep secrets from the Other. Does his only friend – the only other living person in the House – really have Piranesi’s best interests at heart?
Category Archive: Bite-size Books
Welcome to Bite-size Reads, my 2022 challenge to read (some of) the amazing anthologies on my shelves. I’ll be chiming in every couple of weeks with thoughts on the stories I’ve recently enjoyed – starting today with tales from Sinopticon, a curated collection of Chinese SF translated and presented by Xueting Ni.
June Vogel has no desire to return to Storm Break, but when her brother remarries she agrees to come home for the summer to care for her wayward niece. As strange events multiply and family tensions heighten, is it Storm Break or June herself that will destroy the Vogels?
When the House’s most prized courtesan is murdered, nobody says a word. When she rises from the dead to seek revenge, her friends must decide whether to stay silent or to secure their own safety by betraying her to the House. How do you decide what’s best when all your choices have been taken away?
I prioritised reviewing ARCs this year, but I also read books I bought, borrowed or received as gifts. Some I read alone; others with friends in read-alongs – and a few I never got round to reviewing. Today’s round up features thumbnail reviews for The Loneliest Girl In The Universe, The Bone Shard Daughter, and Winter’s Orbit.
Humanity spread out to the stars, abandoning our dying home world in waves. But Earth endured. Now it attracts scholars of ancient history and dilettantes seeking the violent delights only found on toxic backwaters. But the pit fights of the House hold danger for everyone in and out of the ring….
If love does not pin you down, if love is not heavy enough to keep you in place, what on earth could be? If love is not enough then guilt cannot be enough, duty cannot be enough. But what do they weigh?
This year’s Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards had what may be the strongest line-up of novella nominees yet. It’s been an absolute pleasure to read them, and a nightmare to try and choose between them to select our finalists. Today I’m looking back briefly at them all, because hell yes you should read them. All of them.
The month of May is made of good intentions, followed by a cascade of compromises. That is to say: I started Wyrd & Wonder with a stack of outstanding reviews …and I ended it the same way. Time to clear my conscience – let’s take a look at my last 2 Wyrd & Wonder reads and catch up on the third season of BookBurners.
It’s a new chapter for Murderbot! Now a resident of Preservation Station, the snarky SecUnit is half-heartedly looking for contracts and enthusiastically pointing out the inadequacies of Station Security. When a dead body is found, it’s time to show them how this is really done. Just like in the shows, yeah?
Pursued off Milu by GrayCris and their agents, Murderbot realises that its actions may have put Dr Mensah in jeopardy – and it can’t just leave its humans in peril, can it? It’s time to put a stop to the nefarious corporation once and for all, however big the risks.
Kim Bo-Young is a respected SF author in her native South Korea. I’m Waiting For You marks the first time her work has appeared in English, collecting two pairs of connected short stories exploring love, sacrifice and identity.
99.5% of humanity were wiped out in 3 short years after They arrived. 50 years later, a team of researchers sift through the ruins of a siege city to better understand the catastrophe. When Emerson finds a survivor’s journal, it feels like the jackpot. But can Eva’s account be taken at face value?
WANTED FOR FOUL NUMERICAL ACTS
“Mad” Malago Browne has retired with a saddle-bag full of stolen gold, but she can’t resist a cry for help from across the border. Is she right to suspect the West is beginning to turn against the Capitol and its repressive regime?
What do you do with a holiday weekend and various stages of lockdown? Read all the things! The SciFiMonth crew have been celebrating with a low-key weekend catching up on our SFnal TBRs. Time for a quick round-up of my reads and of posts from my crewmates before we call it a day…
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