dawn.vogel | December 20, 2023
Resurrections by Ada Hoffmann (Apex Book Company, 2023) is a wonderful collection of speculative fiction stories and poetry, ranging through a variety of themes and lengths. Many of the pieces feature neurodiverse and/or queer characters, either explicitly or implicitly. The collection as a whole is brilliantly assembled, with many of the stories arranged in such […]
dawn.vogel | November 29, 2023
Skin Thief by Suzan Palumbo (Neon Hemlock, 2023) is a collection of dark and atmospheric stories, the majority of which have been previously published in major speculative fiction magazines. The stories contain a variety of themes including family (particularly sisters, but also mothers and daughters) and Trinidadian culture. Stories I really loved in this collection […]
dawn.vogel | November 22, 2023
A Spoonful of Malaysian Magic, edited by Anna Tan (Teaspoon Publishing, 2023), is a delightful anthology of short stories by Malaysian authors and featuring the legends and tales of Malaysia as elements of those stories. A handful of the stories are also themed around cooking and food, and others around family, though not all share […]
dawn.vogel | November 15, 2023
I reviewed one of the stories from Robotic Ambitions, edited by Lesley Conner and Jason Sizemore (Apex Book Company, 2023), prior to the Kickstarter for the project. Now I’m back with a review of the whole anthology, filled with stories of mechanical sentience. In addition to Elliot Wink’s “A Still Life,” this anthology collected many […]
dawn.vogel | November 1, 2023
Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology, edited by Wole Talabi (Android Press, forthcoming), is a collection of science-fantasy, shared-world/universe stories set in a universe created by African and African diaspora writers reflecting a combination of worldviews from throughout the African continent. The setting is also described as “Black Panther meets Wild Cards with all the rich spacefaring worldbuilding of Dune.” This […]
dawn.vogel | October 25, 2023
Mermaids Never Drown, edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker (Feiwel and Friends, 2023), is a wonderful collection of stories of a variety of creatures in the seas, including but not limited to mermaids. The stories range from humorous to dark, but frequently include fraught relationships between mothers and daughters, often as a part […]
dawn.vogel | October 18, 2023
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey, 2022) is a reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau, set in Mexico during a period of civil strife in the nineteenth century, and focusing on Doctor Moreau’s daughter and an overseer of his hybrid creations. Carlotta Moreau has grown up with a strange sickness, but […]
dawn.vogel | September 27, 2023
Tea Leaves by Jacob Budenz (Amble Press, 2023) is a collection of short stories with mostly queer protagonists and filled with a delightful surrealness across the various worlds and characters of the stories. I first became familiar with Jacob’s writing when he submitted the story “Seen” for DefCon One’s I Didn’t Break the Lamp anthology, which […]
dawn.vogel | September 6, 2023
Unlike most of the books I review, The Devil in the White City (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004) is a work of non-fiction. However, Erik Larson certainly weaves a narrative worthy of a fictional book. Intertwining the stories of the Chicago World’s Fair with that of serial killer H. H. Holmes, the story makes stops in […]
dawn.vogel | August 16, 2023
The Crane Moon Cycle by J.C. Snow (2023) is a wonderful epic fantasy novel duology filled with queer characters, slow-burn romance, and a deep historical world. Aili and Nora are preparing to ship out as military nurses, but before they do, they take opportunities to meet other queer women. In doing so, Aili meets an […]
