Book Review: Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach is Kelly Robson’s successful  leap from shorter fiction into novella format, combining new ideas on the uses of a time machine with a strong character-focused milieu and story. Time Travel is one of the seminal ideas in all of science fiction. Going all the way back to Mark Twain […]

Book Review: The Trials of Solomon Parker by Eric Scott Fischl

Eric Scott Fischl grabbed my attention in a big way recently with his harrowing debut novel Doctor Potter’s Medicine Show, and only tightened his grip on it with this follow-up. But once again, caveat lector. Just as its predecessor held considerable peril for sympathetic vomiters and those triggered by sexual violence, The Trials of Solomon […]

Game Review: Timewatch, by Kevin Kulp

“History is not written by the victors, it’s written by the people with the time machines.” — Robin D. Laws Time Travel, as one of the earliest streams of science fiction literature, is similarly one of the earliest themes and modes in roleplaying games. From Timemaster to GURPS, to Continuum, and many others, characters acting […]

Review: The Liminal War by Ayize Jama-Everett

Earlier this month on The World in the Satin Bag, Shaun Duke posted on his increasing weariness of long novels, particularly those over 500 pages. I personally don’t mind a hefty volume, particularly in epic fantasy where simply being immersed in the world (even its bloat) is just as enjoyable as the story itself. But, […]

Short and Sublime: March 2015 Round-Up

March has been a month of unusual settings, stories of alienation and loss, and meditations on the nature of time. Tade Thompson’s “The Monkey House” (Omenana #2), dystopian horror, is a story about what it means to be trapped inside a system, and the horrors one must overlook to be a part of that system; […]

Mining the Genre Asteroid: Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague De Camp

In late 1930’s Rome, American archaeologist Martin Padway is having a holiday from his dig in Lebanon. Over dinner with his Italian friend Tancredi, a discussion of the nature of time and how a man might change the web of time becomes of eminently practical use when, a few hours later while studying the Pantheon, […]