The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, author of the remarkable The Centenal Cycle, is a many-layered book that becomes more and more interesting upon closer examination. On the surface, it is a very good mystery about the search for a missing man. It is also a fine relationship story about the investigator, Mossa, […]
Self-Portrait with Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka
Self-Portrait with Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka is a psychological mystery-thriller that uses a fascinating approach to multiple universes that can be crossed through the impact of art. At the opening of the story, we learn that Ula Frost, world-renowned artist whose work is compared to that of Frida Kalo and Georgia O’Keefe, is missing. At […]
Eversion by Alastair Reynolds
Eversion by Alastair Reynolds is a masterful surprise in this author’s work, and I found myself reading it straight through. Instead of opening in one of Reynolds’ future worlds, the action starts on a sailing vessel, the Demeter, in a stormy sea off the coast of Norway in either the late 18th or early 19th […]
The Art of Unseeing in China Mieville’s The City & The City
The City & the City by China Miéville takes the form of a murder mystery amplified by Miéville’s unique ability to find richly suggestive fantasy metaphors about our world. This one is about the art of unseeing or seeing only what you are permitted to recognize in the midst of the doppelgänger cities of Besźel […]
