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"The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport" by Samit Basu (2023)

 **The author himself admits that this started out as a simple retelling of Aladdin, but then quickly got out of hand . . . don't you care close your eyes* I learned that even the “original” Arabian Nights Aladdin was a last-minute anthology insertion by a French collector based on a folktale he’d heard from a Syrian Christian storyteller, set in a generic China that was somehow also Muslim and Arab and featured a villain from generic Africa. And then I rewatched the animated film set in Hollywood exotic Arabia featuring classic American cinema/pop-culture references. And I knew that some day I needed to give this roaming orientalist classic yet another temporary residence to call its own. So this book started out as a retelling, a new house for a fable that I could see was tired and lost, but then the place I set the new story in, and the people who lived there, started demanding to be let in. This book is what happened after they took over and invited their friends. I think it st...
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"Your House Will Pay" by Steph Cha (2019)

 **A powerful and important story about race relations in the United States** Ok.  To start with, you need to know the story of Latasha Harlins, a story that is known by far too few people: In March of 1991, just 13 days after footage of Rodney King's beating was released, a Korean corner store owner thought that 15-year-old Harlins was shoplifting a bottle of orange juice.  There was a scuffle, in which Harlins struck the shopkeeper.  As Harlins was walking away (the orange juice left behind), the shopkeeper fired one shot, perhaps on accident (in the trial, it was revealed that the handgun had been illegally modified to have a lighter trigger), hitting Harlins in the back of the head and killing her instantly.  When the cops arrived, they found $2, the money to pay for the orange juice, in her hand The store owner was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years, but the sentence was suspended.  In the end, she was placed on probation for...
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"The Singing Hills Cycle" (starting with "The Empress of Salt and Fortune") by Nghi Vo (series; 2020-)

 **Simple put, a modern masterwork that's still being written.  Some of the most wonderful 'stories about stories' you'll ever read** This is actually the first time for this blog that I've reviewed two works by the same author (I reviewed "Siren Queen" as one of the inaugural posts!).  It's fitting that it's Nghi Vo, who is arguably my absolute favorite modern author.  And well, simply put, I've had this blog for too long without talking about The Singing Hills.  As we start off Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, it's time to change that The Signing Hills Cycle is a series of novellas, each one more or less standalone.  While it makes sense to jump in with the first one as it was written with the assumption that the reader would be coming in cold, you really could pick up any of them.  The only constant throughout the novel is the main character, Chih, a cleric from the Singing Hills Monastery (although they are almost alw...
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Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2026 Reading List

Hi everyone!  Sorry this is late, been traveling and juggling other things.  But it's time for my favorite month of the year, absolutely binging a bunch of specfic by Asian and Asian Diaspora authors.  This year's list is way too long, I was definitely overly ambitious.  But there were too many books that seemed interesting, or have been getting great press, or have just been sitting on my "to read" list for too long.  Oh well, let's see what we can do Before that, though, here are some books that I can  promise are great.  Or at least, books that I loved: * * * "Beware of Chicken" by casualfarmer (series; 2022-) **In which our main character walks away from the power and the Taoist magic and the drama in order to live a simple life as a farmer.  Hilarity ensues** "Where the Wild Ladies Are" by Aoko Matsuda (short fiction; collected 2020)  **Modern, feminist stories inspired by traditional Japanese folk tales, kabuki plays, and general myths ...
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2026 Hugo Novella Nominations ("The River Has Roots", "What Moves the Dead", "Cinder House", "Automatic Noodle", "The Summer War", "Murder by Memory")

 Hi everyone!  Ok, this is a fun one.  A few weeks ago, the list of nominees for the Hugo's Best Novella award were announced, and I realized that I'd already read three of them and owned the other three.  Meant to put this post up last week, but I've been travelling, life got in the way, you know how it goes.  But these books were a joy to read, and I'd love to share them with you all In general, I've honestly really embraced the novella in recent years.  Credit to Tor and Tordotcom in particular for pushing here.  But especially for speculative fiction, novella-length is a really fantastic size to build a world and tell a story.  In particular, novellas allow for character development in a way that short stories don't, while not being overly concerned with complicated plotting like a full novel or series must be.  It flexes muscles not normal flexed, and I really do recommend it for anyone who's short on reading time.  In addition to t...
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"One for the Morning Glory" by John Barnes (1996)

 **Delightfully meta fantasy.  Our heroes are pretty certain that they are in a fairy tale, and just hope that it has a happy ending** "In time to come, when the magic is draining so far out of the world that a vampire can be banished by crossed sticks and a sprinkle of water, when all that we do and say here will be spoken of in the brightest daylight or the darkest, wildest night without fear of bringing anything to pass, wise men will debate why there is any pain or suffering at all, and will say many foolish things and a few wise ones about it, but is it not enough for us to say 'pain has come this way,' and let it be?  We do not yet belong to the gray, dull generations, or to times without meaning, or to times when meaning drains even from stories." Though more well-known for his more traditional science fiction, in 1996 John Barnes decided to write a fantasy novel, and what came was a charming, unique, and delightful little piece of fantasy that has stuck with m...
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"Some Desperate Glory" by Emily Tesh (2023)

 **A very well-done YA-ish space opera set in a fascist State.  Unfortunately, sadly, shamefully relevant these days** Honestly, I don't know why I have to write a review, when Shelly Parker-Chan (the author of "She Who Became the Sun", which will probably get a post on this blog at some point!) summed up the book already in a single sentence: "This book is for everyone who loved Ender’s Game, but Ender’s Game didn’t love them back." . . . I don't really know how to get much better than that.  But I can try to add on at least, here we go Let me back up a little bit and give the setup.  In the far far future (this is very much not "hard" scifi, Tesh didn't bother to work out the technology.  She admits in the Afterword that "the technology of shadowspace runs on purest narrativium."), humanity has lost a war to an interstellar empire.  However, hidden in the far reaches of space, the last survivors of humanity live on Gaea Station and ...
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