Samuel Delany, The Ballad of Beta-2, Ace Double, 1965 (original publishing).
Reprinted in A, B, C, Three Short Novels by Vintage, 2015.

Some classic scifi stories are very much stories of their times. Some have aged well; others... less so. When I picked The Ballad of Beta-2, a Samuel Delany novella I had never read, for my series of classics reviews, I didn't really know what to expect.
But I suppose this is how you recognise a true master of scifi, when their story, more than fifty years later, still feel incredibly modern.

Fourth in the series of "Stories published before 1978."

Aliya Whiteley, The Loosening Skin, Unsung Stories, 2018.

Once upon a time, if you had told me "weird fiction", I'd have run screaming. It conjured images of ick and ick-ier in the vein of Burrough's Naked Lunch. But a couple of writers have reconciled me with the genre until I finally read Aliya Whiteley last year. I would now cross a sea to buy her latest books and this latest novella of hers is another brilliant story.

Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Expert System's Brother, Tor.com, 2018.

Tor.com's novellas can be hit and miss. But... What am I seeing in the distance? It is a Tchaikovsky scifi novella at Tor! Obviously, this one goes into the "hit" category.

Peter Watts, The Freeze-Frame Revolution, Tachyon Publications, 2018.

The Freeze-Frame Revolution is a hard scifi novella whose title is actually pretty self explanatory once you start reading. It's a clever mix of good concepts and old concepts, though some more allusive aspects may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Sue Burke, Semiosis, MacMillan, 2018.
Audio version available on Audible.

Semiosis is science-fiction novel, spanning generations on an alien planet. Called "A First contact story", it announces its ambitions very early on. Though I had some niggles with it, I very much enjoyed it.

Sam J. Miller, Blackfish City, Orbit, 2018.
Audio version available on Audible.

Blackfish City is a near-ish future scifi novel, built upon climate change disasters and a socially conscious discourse. I've had some issues with it, but it's nonetheless a well written story, with interesting character dynamics.

Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz, J.B. Lippincott, 1960 (original publication), SF Masterworks, 1997 (reprint).
Audio version available on Audible.

I couldn't remember if I had read A Canticle for Leibowitz or not. But the fact is that if I did, it was in my early teens, almost thirty years ago, so it was as good as if I hadn't. Cue my "Novels published before 1978" series, a wonderful opportunity to (re) read it.
But I ended up realising that this classic scifi novel was actually highly problematic.
Why am I reviewing it then? It's an interesting novel to debate and it should also be a warning to anyone being told that it's a classic to not go into it blindly.

Third in my series of novels published before 1978.

Nalo Hopkinson, Midnight Robber, Grand Central Publishing, 2000.
Audiobook available on Audible.

I was recently reminded that I often talk about Midnight Robber but that I still haven't reviewed it. I'm delighted to finally being able to as this scifi novel, artfully blending an intimate narrative with a thoughtful take on the power of words and fiction, and an intriguing planet, is definitely not one to be missed.

Hari Kunzru, White Tears, Penguin, 2018.
Available as an audiobook on Audible.

White Tears isn't a fluff and easy read with endearing characters. Nonetheless, it is an engrossing and important fantasy/horror story about cultural appropriation, with a writing style bordering sometimes on the vertiginous.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Beautiful Ones, Innsmouth Free Press, 2018.

The SCKA shortlist keeps on taking me out of my comfort zone and The Beautiful Ones, a fantasy novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a writer I've been wanting to read for a long time, is another story which shouldn't work for me at all but actually does.

Juliet McKenna, The Green Man's Heir, Wizard's Tower Press, 2018.

I had fallen in love with McKenna's four series of epic fantasy, all set in a fascinating and diverse secondary world. So I was eagerly waiting for this new novel of her which, while still remaining fantasy, is set in our contemporary world, in the English countryside. It didn't disappoint.

Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad, Oneworld Publications, 2018.
Translation: Jonathan Wright.

In more ways than one Frankenstein in Baghdad is a novel in conversation both with a literary context and a historical context. And, strangely enough, this fantasy story has common points both with The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and with Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Leigh Brackett, The Long Tomorrow, SF Masterworks, 2014.
Audio version available on Audible.
Originally published by Doubleday in 1955.

The Long Tomorrow had been sitting on my to-be-read piles for ages. One of the few recognised female writers during the so-called "Golden Age" of science-fiction, Brackett intrigued me. This novel proved to be interesting to read some 70 years later and also, sometimes, irritating.

Second in my series of reviews of novels published before 1978.

Paul Cornell, Chalk, Tor, 2017.
Audio version available on Audible.

I have some very mixed feelings about Chalk, a fantasy drama written by Paul Cornell, relying on English folklore. And maybe this review is just me trying to untangle them...

John Ayliff, Belt Three, Harper Voyager, 2015.

Nothing I've read recently has quite made the cut for the blog. So here I was, wringing my hands, "What to review?", when I remembered Belt Three by John Ayliff. I read it a few months back, but at the time I was in a run of very strong stories and it fell off the podium despite some solid qualities. I'm glad this space opera got now its second chance because it is well worth a look.

Ellen Klages, Passing Strange, St Martin's Press, 2017.

I'm pretty sure there are many readers of this blog who will look at the cover of Passing Strange with raised eyebrows, wondering how come I'm reviewing a novella that, quite evidently, features heavily a romance, since romance isn't my cup of tea at all.
Let's face it: I'd never have read Passing Strange had it not ended up on the SCKA shortlist. And my initial reaction was "Meh". It took some conversation with fellow readers of the SCKA to go past my disinterest to consider the objective qualities of this fantasy story, which, in the end, make it a novella well worth reviewing.

Tade Thompson, The Murders of Molly Southbourne, Tor, 2017.

I had been very impressed by Rosewater, Thompson's previous novel (1), so I had to read this new story. Nonetheless, I was a bit wary of reading this novella that Tor, the publisher, presented as horror. It turns out that, yes, there is gore. But it's not so much the gore than the very dramatic story that makes it so striking.

Wendy Wagner, An Oath of Dogs, Angry Robot, 2017.
Audiobook version available on Audible.

Let's face it: after having finished An Oath of Dogs, I wasn't entirely convinced I would review it. But as I read other books, I realised that the characters and the story remained with me. To me, this is the sign that there is to a novel more than I first perceived, and it means that it is well worth a review.

Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds, Jo Fletcher Books, 2014.
Audiobook available on Audible.

I had enjoyed a lot Karen Lord's debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, and this one came highly recommended. Though the narrative structure was different from what I expected, it is a scifi novel filled with great characters and both thoughtful and funny moments that makes it one of the best quest for happiness I ever read. It is also a novel that I read completely wrong and after a brief exchange with Lord, I realised I had to radically shift my way of looking at it.

Chris Brookmyre, Places in the Darkness, Orbit, 2017.
Audiobook available on Audible.

I had enjoyed a lot Bedlam and even more Pandemonium, Chris Brookmyre's two fantasy novels. So it was with some eagerness that I was waiting for Places in the Darkness, his first scifi novel. It didn't disappoint, it was even much better than what I expected based on his previous novels.