Emma Newman’s latest novel, Before Mars, is set in the same science fiction universe as two of her previously published books, Planetfall and Clarke Award finalist After Atlas. Despite being the third book in this setting, it does stand alone as a complete story, although I did find myself occasionally wondering if I might have felt more connected to it had I read the others first and been familiar with the major events that were referenced. After having finished it, I believe […]

Today I’m delighted to welcome Karen Sandler to the blog! She’s the author of the Tankborn trilogy, a young adult science fiction series comprised of Tankborn, Awakening, and Rebellion. Tankborn, which I reviewed during Sci-Fi Month 2013, is a futuristic page-turner with some mystery/suspense and a little romance—and Karen Sandler is here today to share about the process of adapting screenplays based on this book and its sequels and the Recombined film project! Movie to Books to Movie to TV […]

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I discuss books I got over the last week–old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration (usually unsolicited). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included. Since last month […]

The Tethered Mage, Melissa Caruso’s Venetian-inspired fantasy debut novel, was one of my favorite books read during 2017. The worldbuilding is thoughtfully done, and it also features wonderful characters and relationships, mystery and political intrigue, and a little romantic development. It’s so compulsively readable that I ended up staying up until 2:00 one morning finishing it, and I could hardly wait to continue the story in The Defiant Heir—and now that I’ve also read the sequel, I can hardly wait […]

Thank you very much to last week’s guests for their essays! Here are links to the final pieces in this year’s series in case you missed either of them: Mary Fan (Jane Colt, Starswept) discussed writing female secondary characters who are not sidekicks to the male protagonist—and how she avoided this in her dark YA fantasy novel Flynn Nightsider and the Edge of Evil (coming out on May 15!). Ann Aguirre (Sirantha Jax, Razorland, Ars Numina) shared some of her […]