Juliet McKenna, THE GREEN MAN'S CHALLENGE, Wizard's Tower Press, 2021.

The Green Man's Challenge is the fourth volume in a series of self contained cosy contemporary rural fantasy, and like the previous ones, it is a delight to read.

Below the review, you'll find a Q&A with Juliet McKenna. Although the review is as usual entirely spoiler free, the Q&A discusses what happens in the book. A large red banner will warn you that you enter spoiler territory.

Lorraine Wilson, This is our Undoing, Luna Press, 2021.

Take a near future with fascist states and extreme weather events. Take a woman in an Eastern European forest, hiding from her past. Add a sprinkling of unexplained events. Then you'll have an incredibly engrossing novel.

Ibtisam Azem, The Book of Disappearance, Syracuse University Press, 2019.
Translated by Sinan Antoon.

The Book of Disappearance is an extraordinary novel that gripped me from the start and that I found equally painful and beautiful.

Dilman Dila, The Future God of Love, Luna Press Publishing, 2021.

The Future God of Love is a short fantasy novella, with wonderful world building, about loneliness and the need for being loved.

Premee Mohamed, These Lifeless Things, Solaris, 2021.
Audio version available.

Mohamed's debut novel, Beneath the Rising, wasn't my cup of tea but I was happy to give her stories another try. These Lifeless Things, a horror novella, turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.

R. B. Lemberg, The Four Profound Weaves, Tachyon Publications, 2020.
Audio version available.

With incredible delicacy, Lemberg tells a story of change, hope and resistance in a wonderfully detailed secondary world.

Simon Jimenez, The Vanished Birds, Titan, 2020.

The Vanished Birds will take you away in an intricately built far future, you'll travel from planet to planet. But the most important in this novel, isn't what happens to the characters, it's the characters themselves.

Sheree Renée Thomas, Nine Bar Blues, Third Man Books, 2020.

I rarely review short stories collections or anthologies, so as you can guess, when I do it, it's because the collection or anthology is exceptional. Thomas' Nine Bar Blues, a collection of 16 short stories, is, indeed, exceptional.

Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians, Titan (UK), 2020.
Audiobook available.

I don't often read horror but the genre has become recently a do-not-miss area considering the high quality of the books published. Some writers particularly stand out for me, and one of them is Stephen Graham Jones whose latest offer, The Only Good Indians, is absolutely remarkable.

Edited by Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, Dominion: an Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora, Aurelia Leo, 2020.

Dominion is exactly as advertised: an anthology of short stories by writers who are African or from the African Diaspora. It boasts a total of 13 short stories, all remarkable in their own way.

Eugen Bacon, Claiming T-Mo, Meerkat Press, 2019.

Claiming T-Mo is a unique story blurring boundaries between scifi and fantasy and telling the story of three women-a mother, a lover, a daughter- and their relationship to T-Mo, a troubled man.

Priya Sharma, Ormeshadow, Tor, 2019.

This coming-of-age novella very much reminded of The Arrival of Missives by Aliya Whiteley in that it takes place in rural England in the past and has slight, but pivotal, SFF elements. It is nonetheless very much its own story and an engrossing read.

Simon Morden, Bright Morning Star, NewCon Press, 2019.
Audiobook available on Audible.

Bright Morning Star by Simon Morden is scifi novella successfully revisiting the trope of human society viewed by an outsider, an AI, arrived on Earth to explore it.

Alex DiFrancesco, All City, Seven Stories Press, 2019.
Audiobook available on Kobo.

All City is a near future apocalypse/post-apocalyptic (climate) novel told from different points of view. It deals with gender, class, race and mental health issues, and, to put it bluntly, I loved it.

Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire, Tor, 2019.
Audio book available.

To me, there are outstanding scifi novels that were published in 2019: The Outside by Ada Hoffmann, and A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. It took me some time to finally read it, but oh boy, did I enjoy it!

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow, Jo Fletcher Books, 2019.
Audio version available on Audible.

Mayan Gods, the Jazz Age in Mexico and a downtrodden young woman finding her voice and her strength in a world which is more full of magic than she ever thought.

Stewart Hotston, Tangle's Game, Abaddon Books, 2019.

Tangle's Game is fast pace, fun, near future thriller, that tackles efficiently themes that should concern us all about data and technology.

Bethany Morrow, MEM, The Unnamed Press, 2018.
Audiobook available on Audible.

MEM is a scifi novel set in an alternate 1920s Montreal. Though it lacks a little oomph, it has a compelling premise and is a thoughtful take on humanity.

Juliet Kemp, A Glimmer of Silver, The Book Smugglers, 2018.

Catching up on this scifi novella has been a delightful experience. It'll be a great read if you're looking for a relatively low-key, thoughtful and hopeful story.

Craig Laurance Gidney, A Spectral Hue, Word Horde, 2019.

A Spectral Hue is a remarkable story of hauntings. But it's not a horror novella. It actually deals more with the uncanny, the weird, and above all, it is about grief, art, and identity, particularly when you are oppressed.