How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive (2024) – Craig DiLouie

I greatly enjoyed Craig DiLouie’s Episode Thirteen, and liked how he converted the found footage genre into a novel. So when I heard that he had a new one coming out I had to get my hands on a copy. How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive came out this week, released through Orbit…

Ancillary Justice (2013) – Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie delivers an interesting space opera read that uses the feminine pronoun she throughout, as a part of its language, not as a descriptor of the people themselves, who are predominantly genderless. It’s a great touch, and really plays nicely with the casting of characters in the mind’s eye. We are introduced to Breq,…

Lords of Uncreation (2023) – Adrian Tchaikovsky

Orbit Books delivers the final book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Final Architecture Trilogy, and if you dug the first two, the space opera in the third is going to let you enjoy every page as Tchaikovsky wraps things up while delivering a fast-paced, highly enjoyable tale. The Architects, strange planet-shaped beings that appear from unspace,…

Paradise 1 (2023) – David Wellington

Orbit Books takes the reader to a far-distant solar system and exposes them to fear in the new novel, the first in a series, by best-selling author David Wellington. An officer of the Firewatch, Petrova, and a doctor, Zhang, who may not be all there, are shipped off on an AI-controlled ship, accompanied by a…

Episode Thirteen (2023) – Craig DiLouie

Orbit Books brings me my first real creepy novel of 2023, Episode Thirteen. Using the familiar structure of the found footage genre, something that has been co-opted successfully for all of the ghost-hunting shows that seem to plague reality television, DiLouie compiles a literary found footage film, offering up video transcripts, EVP recordings, text messages,…

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy (2022) – Megan Bannen

I’ll be honest, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, available now from Orbit Books hit me like a sucker punch. I didn’t know what I expected from this whimsical, playful tale, but what I did not expect was a genre mash-up that at its heart (or Hart) riffed on the classic tale told in Shop…

The Monsters We Defy (2022) – Leslye Penelope

Orbit Books conjures a magical and engaging tale with Leslye Penelope’s The Monsters We Defy. While arguably a supernatural heist story, that descriptor merely scratches the surface of the tale as we are introduced to an array of characters, united by Clara Johnson in the vibrant setting of 1920s Washington, D.C. Clara was born with…

Eversion (2022) – Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds takes the reader on an epic journey across time. Tinging his new tale, Eversion, with hints of Verne, Lovecraftian cosmic horror, O’Brien, and 50s sci-fi Reynolds introduces us to Silas Coade, ship’s doctor, We slide through time, across a variety of vehicles, sailing ships, airships, and spacecraft, but it is always the same…

August Kitko and the Mechas from Space (2022) – Alex White

Orbit Books delivers a loud space opera with Alex White’s new novel, August Kitko and the Mechas from Space. The first in a new series known as the Starmetal Symphony, August Kitko is a fantastic tale that plays like a jazz fusion anime in the mind’s eye. Combining giant robot action, with a joyously crafted…

Eyes of the Void (2022) – Adrian Tchaikovsky

Orbit Books hooked me with Tchaikovsky’s Shard of Earth so I was very eager to dive into the second novel in the series Eyes of the Void. Once again I was swept up in the fantastically told tale, as Tchaikovsky built on what had already happened in the first novel continued delving into the worlds…