For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] The idea of the multiverse—an infinite array of alternate worlds that differ from ours, minutely or dramatically—has exploded into popular consciousness in the last decade or so. It’s a concept that has been frequently explored by physicists, philosophers, and science fiction for quite some time, and now features prominently in large multimedia franchises such … Read more
[ad_1] Stories about story-telling itself always risk a kind of self-congratulatory triteness. As lovers of narrative, we’re already aware of the power of story, and hopefully self-aware enough to see how stories change our perception of ourselves, of the world; breathless paeans to the medium itself generally leave me, pardon the pun, uninspired. Tautology bordering … Read more
[ad_1] An appropriate response to biosphere collapse is screaming, and Ned Beauman’s Venomous Lumpsucker is screamingly, bleakly funny. Beauman has a superlative knack for quotable, witty, and wince-inducing lines, stuffing every page with the kind of exhilarating humor borne of both despair and empathy. A thriller motivated by deep-sea mining destruction and mass extinction, a … Read more
[ad_1] It’s a relief, sometimes, to read science fiction that is a straightforward political allegory. Tolkien’s famous “cordial dislike” for allegory is good guidance for creating believable, durable fantastic worlds, but there’s also a space and a need for works that have their sights set on current issues: less perennial, perhaps, but no less pertinent. … Read more
[ad_1] Five years after the death of her husband, visual artist Feyi Adekola is starting to come out of her shell, wondering if it’s possible to love again. After some casual dating, she starts a mostly platonic—but possibly more serious—relationship with Nasir Blake, a well-connected consultant. Feyi’s personal and professional lives are suddenly thrown into … Read more
[ad_1] We are surely—hopefully—nearing some kind of peak of cultural reboot fatigue, awash as we are in retellings, re-adaptations, and perpetually rebooting expanded cinematic universes. So it’s either an odd or an apt time to recommend a new entry in King Arthur stories, much-reinterpreted and pieced together from older traditions as those legends are. Fresh, … Read more
[ad_1] It’s a tricky thing to infuse a story set in our actual, current world with giant supernatural problems and potentials. Call it “the problem of allegorical interference.” If we’re aware of actual injustices in the world—and their often-thorny causes—then it becomes, at best, weird to blame them on vampires or aliens, to focus on … Read more
[ad_1] John Darnielle’s latest novel, Devil House, is a fascinating hybrid of gothic horror, the true crime format, and something stranger. It’s keenly attuned to how people change, how we bring our pasts with us, how the spaces we enter shape us, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes violently. The novel is intensely (if circuitously) invested in the … Read more
[ad_1] It’s always challenging to sum up a short story collection: each story can be as idea-rich as a novel, and good collections show off an author’s range at least as much as they gesture towards recurring themes. Charlie Jane Anders is an inventive writer with a dazzling skill for short stories, and her new … Read more
[ad_1] A while ago there was that obviously bad take that “horror cannot be set in space,” which, if nothing else, gave folks an excuse to revisit the space-horror splendors of films like Alien and Event Horizon. Space is a great setting for written horror, as well—the brutally unforgiving vacuum, the possibility of alien monsters, … Read more