Review: The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed

Cover of The Siege of Burning Grass, featuring a person with a crow's or raven's head, wearing a jacket.

The Siege of Burning Grass is a  book that rewards patient and slow reading rather than skipping merrily through it. The author is engaging with weighty subjects here and you want to take this patiently and think about the central themes again and what is going on.

“The World Science Fiction Convention of 2080”: An Exegesis

Cover of Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, Oct. 1980, featuring an illustration of "The World SF Convention of 2080"

I want to come to recent events in another way.  All of this reminds me of a story that  I want do a deep dive on: “The World Science Fiction Convention of 2080” by Ian Watson (published in 1980). This is a short, very inside baseball story of Worldcon, Worldcon fandom and science fiction, and it is quite revealing.

Review: She who became the Sun

Cover, She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan

The style of how Parker-Chan writes all of this is vivid, immersive and striking. She uses a variety of imagery and metaphors that describe individuals, gestures, actions and maneuvers that bring the writing to life. Everywhere, the text is rich in detail.