Time Travel In the Mainstream (Prime Timeline?): Sea of Tranquility and This Time Tomorrow
As part of an ongoing trend known as literary speculative fiction, two of this year's most anticipated novels explore the consequences of...
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Matthew Stonecash
- Jun 26
- 1 min
Dead Astronauts
Vandermeer book gets weird in a whole new way. There is usually something strange going on in a Jeff Vandermeer book, that's why we love...
Matthew Stonecash
- May 23
- 1 min
New Books! Trust by Hernan Diaz
You should read Trust. You should NOT read the back flap or any summary of the plot of the book. I expect some will find the experimental...
Matthew Stonecash
- Apr 25
- 5 min
What do you mean, "free" ?
What's the most we can hope for from a book? What about alerting us readers to a slightly dopey assumption about the world we've been...
Matthew Stonecash
- Apr 22
- 2 min
Earth Day Reading List: Ten Books About Our Favorite Planet
You have time to read ten books today, right? Here are ten books to dive into for a big picture view of this big beautiful rock! 1. Under...
Matthew Stonecash
- Mar 28
- 2 min
Will civilization collapse and how?
Collapse by Jared Diamond Collapse is an incredible collection of histories tracing the rise, fall, and success of civilizations around...
Matthew Stonecash
- Mar 22
- 1 min
Preview: Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel, April Release
Kaikeyi is a reimagining of a Hindu epic called the Ramayan. Patel's title character is the daughter of a Raja. Despite her exalted...
Matthew Stonecash
- Mar 13
- 2 min
The Thomas C. Foster Challenge for People Who Like Literature but Majored in Something Else - Update
Ah, the TCFCPWLLMSE season is finally here. As a bookseller who spent a lot of time in college learning about Arrhenius, Laplace, and...
Matthew Stonecash
- Mar 4
- 3 min
Read it Before you Watch it! The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
My introduction to N. K. Jemisin came with her essay, How Long 'till Black Future Month, which demanded more representation in scifi...
Matthew Stonecash
- Feb 17
- 2 min
Come for the noir, stay for the pathos
2021 was a great year for page-turning noir. Colson Whitehead followed his 2nd Pulitzer with Harlem Shuffle, Silvia Moreno Garcia scored...
Matthew Stonecash
- Jan 18
- 2 min
This, They Name Empire- the Teixcalaan Series 1 & 2
Arkady Martine made a big splash in 2019 with A Memory Called Empire, a story of palace intrigue that takes place in the capital of a...
Matthew Stonecash
- Dec 21, 2021
- 1 min
Losing Time Wars, Winning Hearts
She (Red) is a lethal and merciless cyborg assassin created by the Agency. She (Blue) is a patient and cunning biological weapon grown by...
Joy Niu
- Nov 29, 2021
- 1 min
That Time Humanity Grew Up a Little Bit
Contemplating the impact humans have on the rest of the world can be a real downer. It's important to remember that we are capable of...
Matthew Stonecash
- Oct 19, 2021
- 1 min
Karen Lord's The Best of all Possible Worlds
Even the worst science fiction takes us somewhere extraordinary, a vacation from the everyday. Good science fiction asks us to ponder...
Matthew Stonecash
- Sep 30, 2021
- 2 min
The Climate Dystopia Novel we've been looking for was written in 1993- Parable of the Sower
It's a little embarrassing to admit that only a short time ago I had wondered why no one had written a gritty, realistic novel set in the...
Matthew Stonecash
- Sep 18, 2021
- 2 min
The First Days of a Better Nation?
Digital immortality has become a popular form of utopia in science fiction. In Walkaway, Cory Doctorow's characters undergo a brain scan...
Matthew Stonecash
- Aug 31, 2021
- 2 min
Great Female Protagonists and the Men Who Write Them
The diversity of heroines in SFF- through examples from Cory Doctorow, Jeff Vandermeer, and Kazou Ishiguro. The diversity of authors now...
Matthew Stonecash
- Jul 8, 2021
- 2 min
Why a Book Shop Now. Or: Why, a Book Shop! Now!
The rise of Amazon and digital media are closing bookstores. Would it be madness to open a new book shop in 2021? I hope not! I believe...
Matthew Stonecash
- Jun 27, 2021
- 2 min
James Bradley's China Mirage Gets a Little Blurry
I enjoyed reading this book, it represents some solid research and good ideas and it explored historical events I knew nothing about and...
Matthew Stonecash
- Jun 17, 2021
- 1 min
Between the World and Ta-Nehisi Coates
Thanks to my sister for gifting me this for Christmas. It's already been lauded by many more eloquent and distinguished than me, but I...