Erin Larson: Book Reviews & Essays

A Desolation Called Peace By Arkady Martine   I received an ARC of A Desolation Called Peace from Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review.   When I finished reading A Desolation Called Peace, I thought of something Bilbo says in The Fellowship of the Ring: “I feel thin. Sort of stretched, like butter scraped … [Read More]

Remote Control By Nnedi Okorafor   I received an ARC of Remote Control from Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review.   Remote Control was my first experience with Nnedi Okorafor (an author I’ve become increasingly guilty for not having read over the years), and I am pleased to say it was a positive one. … [Read More]

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower By Tamsyn Muir   I received an ARC of Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower from Subterranean Press in exchange for an honest review.   Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A princess is locked in a tower. The tower is guarded by a dragon. A prince … [Read More]

Ring Shout By P. Djèlí Clark   I received an ARC of Ring Shout from Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review.   Roll back the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer seventy-five years to 1922, a year which was still chilly in the shadow of the Great War; replace the vampires with Lovecraftian … [Read More]

The Once and Future Witches By Alix E. Harrow   I received an ARC of The Once and Future Witches from Redhook Books in exchange for an honest review.   Alix E. Harrow’s debut, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, made it clear that she was a writer to watch. Her follow-up, The Once and … [Read More]

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue By V.E. Schwab   I received an ARC of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue from Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review.   I love Faustian bargains. Adeline LaRue, a young woman living in early 18th-century France, desperate to escape her impending marriage, makes one with “a god … [Read More]

Ashes of the Sun By Django Wexler   I received an ARC of Ashes of the Sun from Orbit in exchange for an honest review.   When I read Django Wexler’s Shadow Campaigns series, I knew he was an author to watch: his writing was crisp, his storytelling was kinetic, and he put female and … [Read More]

The Best Books I Read in 2019   I won’t bother you with a lengthy preamble, but I would like to clarify a few things before I begin:   This is a list of the best books I read in 2019, not a list of the best books published in 2019 that I read. Although … [Read More]

New Releases: 2019, Part Three Four Mini-Reviews   Exhalation – Ted Chiang   I was perhaps the only person on the planet who was less than enamored with Ted Chiang’s debut collection of short fiction, Story of Your Life and Others (you are likely familiar with the title story because it was adapted into Denis … [Read More]