Author name: trishmatson

Educated as a physicist yet living as a journalist, Trish Matson is an award-winning writer and editor whose ever-expanding list of interests includes a lifelong love of SF/F, plus wordplay, libraries, games, music, dancing, audio drama, and podcasting. She’s listed as TrishEM on various fora, but you can find her most easily on Twitter.

Cover of The Asterist, by A.T. Sayre, featuring a man in a spacesuit walking on a rocky terrain; alien limbs are stretching out toward him. The astronaut, terrain, and alien are gray, but the sky is red.
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Book Review: The Asterist, by A.T. Sayre

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Knowing nothing about A.T. Sayre, I requested his new book The Asterist on NetGalley just because the description sounded interesting. Bill Jeffries was marking time at a remote outpost, there just in case there’s an emergency and a human was needed to give instructions to the computer that normally runs the relays, when an alien spaceship crashed on the asteroid: “Thrust into circumstances beyond his pay grade, Jeffries investigates the wreckage and makes the shocking discovery of a four-foot-long spider-like being inside. If the alien still lives, Jeffries and his superiors from light years away must decide if it should be treated as an ambassador, a test subject, or a threat.” This was an enjoyable read that reminded me a lot of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, except it was more focused (just over half as long), had lower stakes, and didn’t annoy me with misgendering of the alien. There’s a surly, isolated man as the main character, who ends up stepping into a bigger role than he ever imagined or wanted, there’s a very nonhuman alien, there is bonding, and there are hard choices.

Cover of A Wall Is Also a Road, by Annalee Newitz, featuring a woman's face and hear, tentacles, planets, and a spiral nebula, done with mosaic elements.
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Book Review: A Wall Is Also a Road, by Annalee Newitz

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I enjoyed reading A Wall Is Also a Road by Annalee Newitz, although the protagonist’s victories came a bit easier than I was expecting. The publisher’s description calls it “heartwarming” but, like Newitz’ Automatic Noodle, I would say its tone is closer to “cozy” despite a few passages where the protagonist feels fear, pain, and shame. It’s a science fiction/academia novel, but it’s also historical, since about half the book is spent in field-research visits to the Roman Empire. Science fiction, academia, research, and history are all interests of mine, and I did like the young protagonist’s curiosity, warmth, and, eventually, courage, despite a few stumbles, so I was quite satisfied with how it all turned out.

Cover of The Scarlet Ball, by Nghi Vo, featuring an Asian woman in a red ballgown holding a white mask, with spectral hands reaching out toward her.
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Book Review: The Scarlet Ball, by Nghi Vo

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If you’re like me, you should NOT do what I did and try to read a chapter or so of Nghi Vo’s new book, The Scarlet Ball, before bed. I ended up staying up into the wee hours reading this lush, sharp, scary, sexy, and utterly absorbing novel of manners and magic. It’s described as a historical dark fantasy, but it certainly verges on horror as well; however, it’s also amazing! If all you’ve read by Nghi Vo is the novellas from the Singing Hills Cycle, be aware that this book is very different from them. For one thing, it’s set in New York City in the Gilded Age; for another, it’s about desperate power struggles and making deals with demons. It has much more in common with Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful and its sequel, Don’t Sleep with the Dead. I adored both of those books, but they weren’t nominated for many awards, possibly because of being re-imaginings of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and what came afterward. (It’s even possible that they’re meant to be in the same universe as TSB, although later in this alternate history, since this book, like TCatB and DSwtD, refers to a drink called Demoniac.) I am hoping that The Scarlet Ball, with its completely original plot and characters, will win well-deserved recognition. From the publisher’s description:In exchange for enough wealth to outrun her past, Judith strikes a deal with the matriarch of the powerful Howard family: she will stand in for the missing Howard granddaughter, who was poised to make her debut when she disappeared. With Miss Iphigenia Marshall’s face stitched over her own, Judith is white, rich, and about to risk body and soul in the deadly games that determine which girls will find a match—and which will be devoured. If she can keep her wits and her life, her reward will be a husband with undreamt-of power who will be hers to command…so long as she can keep his infinite hungers fed. But to survive the season, Judith will have to seduce a storm in the shape of a man, before the night to which everything has been leading—the Scarlet Ball where the demons choose their brides.

Cover of Cassandra Khaw's Find Me Where It Ends, featuring an indistinct picture of a black dog with red eyes and a snarling mouth, against a gray background.
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Book Review: Find Me Where It Ends, by Cassandra Khaw

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I first heard of the Black Dog (of death), as a psychopomp rather than a terrifying hellhound, in a 2023 reading of Peter S. Beagle’s story, “Mr. McCaslin.” That’s a gentle, sweet, and occasionally funny story. Cassandra Khaw’s upcoming short novel, Find Me Where It Ends, has some gentle moments and occasional humor, even bits of beauty, but it’s far more brutal and harsh, too; maybe that makes it more honest. In the end, however, it’s a story that provides some solace and strength. Find Me Where It Ends demands some content warnings, but it’s well worth reading.

Cover of A House Between Sea and Sky, by Beth Cato, featuring a small house in a natural setting with a few pine trees.
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Book Review: A House Between Sea and Sky, by Beth Cato

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After the self-assigned inundation of reading to vote in the Hugo Awards this summer, I took a break and read A House Between Sea and Sky, by Beth Cato. This semi-urban fantasy turned out to be a perfect recovery book for me, a little bit mysterious, creepy, and suspenseful, but ultimately quite cozy and comforting.

Cover of Wickhills, by Premee Mohamed, featuring a bridge with several old-fashioned streetlights amid a blue-tinged cityscape; some minimalist faces adorn the bridgework.
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Book Review: Wickhills, by Premee Mohamed

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The last book I read by Premee Mohamed was The Butcher of the Forest, a dark fantasy that read very much like a fairy tale, in an extremely good way. But Mohamed has a huge range, so it’s not surprising that the next work of hers that I’ve read (I’ve missed several in the meantime, but I’ve been very busy), is something completely different, a spy novel. Yes, Wickhills also uses a dark fantasy setting, which is very important to the plot, but most of the book is about trying to outmaneuver other factions within a city-state, and figuring out whom to trust, so the main flavor here is espionage. It’s a complicated novel with complicated characters that grabbed my attention from the start and held it all the way through. From the publisher’s description on NetGalley:Looking after a defecting scientist should have been Vycol Ferec’s easiest mission. But now he’s on the run from the intelligence agency he works for, dodging a handler who might have gone rogue and relying on a secret patchwork of illicit resources and dodgy contacts. Turns out his defector might be carrying an apocalypse-level magical weapon — and protecting it requires Ferec and his team to go underground, literally. Down here, the rules are very different… and the tense peace between every city in the world will shatter unless Ferec can drag their darkest secrets into the light.

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