Book Reviews / C- Reviewsclergy / diversity / elves / Fantasy / funeral / goblins / grief / investigation / LGBTQIA+ / loner / murder / mystery / opera / queer characters / steampunk / traumatic-past16 Comments
Dear Katherine Addison, I am a huge fan of your 2014 steampunk fantasy novel The Goblin Emperor. It was my favorite of all the books I read that year and I’ve read it three more times since. When the novel was nominated for a Hugo, I was thrilled; when it ... more >
B- Reviews / Book Reviews / C+ ReviewsAfrica / Alternate History / djinn / Egypt / Fantasy / Historical / LGBTQIA+ / Middle East / POC / POC author / steampunk6 Comments
Forty years ago in Egypt, the mystic and inventor Al-Jahiz pierced the veil between realms, sending magic into the world before vanishing into the unknown. Now in 1912 Cairo, humans brush elbows with djinn in crowded tramcars and airships sail the skies. In this new world the Egyptian Ministry of ... more >
A- Reviews / Book Reviews / Recommended ReadsAlternate History / djinn / Egypt / Fantasy / Historical / Middle East / novella / POC / POC author / steampunk6 Comments
Cairo, 1912: The case started as a simple one for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities — handling a possessed tram car. Soon, however, Agent Hamed Nasr and his new partner Agent Onsi Youssef are exposed to a new side of Cairo stirring with suffragettes, secret societies, and ... more >
B- Reviews / Book Reviewsdjinn / Egypt / Fantasy / female detectives / Middle East / POC / POC author / short-story / steampunk / strong heroine / turn of the 20th century / unusual heroine2 Comments
Egypt, 1912. In Cairo, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine. What starts off as an odd suicide case for Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi leads her through the city’s underbelly as she encounters rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, clockwork angels, and ... more >
B Reviews / Book Reviewsclass differences / Commoner Aristocracy pairing / Historical / inventors / LGBTQIA+ / London / m/m romance / short-story / steampunk8 Comments
In the automated Vauxhall Floating Gardens, high above the smoggy streets of London, Nightingale No. 48 is refusing to sing. Stern mechanic Shem Holloway brings in the Gardens’ brilliant but arrogant inventor, Lord Marchmont, to fix the broken automaton. But the clockwork nightingale has a secret, and soon both men ... more >
Book Reviews / C+ ReviewsAlternate History / Frankenstein / medical school / steampunk / Victorian4 Comments
Dear Alisa Kwitney: In the mid-2000s, I read five of your chick-lit books, and graded all but one A or A-. For me that marks you as a Very Good Author. (The fifth book, your last chick-lit Flirting in Cars, got a B+ from me, so, still a very good ... more >