The first time I read this book, in the form of a borrowed ARC shamefully never returned, it totally blew my mind. I'd never come across something so compellingly atmospheric and unique, and I must have read it four or five times. Coming back to it now, certain elements look more familiar, in par...
A stand-alone SF book set in a post-Soviet Union Russia with a healthy dose of Russian myths.Elena Irinovna is an astrophysicist and she used to work in the U.S.S.R.'s space program. After the collapse of the Soviet government, the space program was ruthlessly cut down and Elena was one of the pe...
I wanted to love this book, I really did, but I am only giving it three stars instead of two because of the originality. I enjoyed some of it and hated other parts of it. I'm very frustrated with the author and can't believe it was written by an educated Western woman. But more on that later.The ...
2.5 stars I started out loving this book which was a real surprise as I didn't like the last one that much and was really on the fence about even reading further. My biggest complaint with the first one was how sexist it was both in a lack of women characters in general. Even the extras, those th...
The fate of a planet lies with an outcast woman and a mysterious visitor.... In this richly imagined and thought-provoking novel, Liz Williams tells the story of a world engineered to preserve the precarious balance between animal and human. To this world comes an emissary from a distant planet ...
Excellent gothic-sf set in the Winterstrike universe but earlier timewise. It was easier for me to get into this novel since I read first Winterstrike so I was familiar with haunt-space, kappas, the Matriarchies of Mars and the general setup of that universe. While Earth is mostly water and rela...
Detective Inspector Chen and Zhu Irzh are given a major assignment to escort an emissary from Heaven on a diplomatic mission to Hell. Zhu tries to dodge his demonic family’s overtures, but ends up embroiled in Hell’s political intrigues. At the same time, a young boy born to ghostly parents in He...
Chen said. “That’s ambitious.” Inari, still very pale, sat twisting her hands together on the couch in the main cabin of the houseboat. There was no question that Chen did not believe her, but he wondered whether this shaman-between-worlds had simply been lying. It seemed ...
she said, with a small, cool smile. “But only after I’m dead.” I have to admit that this was not precisely the answer I’d been expecting when I made my rather incoherent proposition, and if I hadn’t been a bit the worse for wear due to a combination of vodka and spray-on opiates, I doubt whether ...
Glyn Apt had offered her a pair of gloves but she said it made you soft. I didn’t feel like competing; I was bundled up in a slickskin over a woollen fisherman’s jersey. Sometimes you don’t need high tech, true enough. ‘This is a good land,’ Sedra said. &...
My world and Peto’s had shrunk to the distant glacial peaks, an icy green sky, the red ridges of the Plains as we progressed along the side cut of the canal. The only glimpse I’d had of Rubirosa in the last few hours had been a glint of eyes in the shadows of the hold. She was whittling something...
The night seemed to close around her like a glove. Shiv Sakai's teeth glimmered in the soft darkness. "I was thinking we'd borrow a boat." "Good idea." Jaya rubbed gritty eyes. "But they'll probably be looking for that. Here's what we'll do. Rakh comes with me, up into Goudalia. Shiv, you and the...
Pin, bonded uncomfortably to the sticky web, eventually drifted into a kind of doze that was closer to unconsciousness. Beside him, Mai's head also drooped and caught against the net. When Pin came round again, he saw that the sky above them was beginning to lighten, but this time it was boiling ...
They had made their way from the Ministry of Epidemics without incident. Inari, bundled up in the black silk coat with her face hidden, resembled just one more of the hordes of afflicted demonkind, and no one spared them a second glance. By the time they stepped through th...