Review of Mortis by John French

Titandeath, 53rd book in the Horus Heresy, was the BIG titan one. It's the one which properly put the massive war engines on the field of battle and turned them loose. Mortis (2021), fifth book in the Siege of Terra, turns what's left—horned or unhorned—toward the Emperor's Palace.

Mortis takes Horus' siege on Terra to the next level in bombastic fashion. World Eaters, Death Guard, Word Bearers, and Chaos continue their assault on the walls, and now, titans are unleashed from deep storage in the Emperor's palace to battle the Chaos titans Horus drops from space. The fields start to run slick, not only with blood, but also oil, prometheum, and all other manner of chemicals leaking from the damaged and destroyed siege engines. The war antes up.

Review of Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson

I am in the middle of my first re-read of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Memory of the first read of Midnight Tides (2004) is: the most organic story in the series to date. Erikson loves jumping between settings and characters as often as he can, but Midnight Tides felt more contained, more streamlined. Let's do a memory check.

The first four books in the Malazan series bounced between the continents of Genabackis and Seven Cities. Midnight Tides takes readers to an entirely new region: North Lether. The area is beyond Malazan imperial control. A different set of groups vie for power, meaning the reader gets a (welcome) break from the endless scenes of soldiers' gallows humor. The Tiste Edur and the Letherii take center stage. A savage history between the two, the Letherii antagonize through commerce (legal and illegal) while the Tiste Edur tend to more traditional values by forcing fealty and hierarchy, trying to keep the Letherii to heel. When the Letherii raid a Tiste Edur hunting ground, the king of the Edur decides to take advantage of the opportunity and bring to bear a power none on Lether have seen in millennia.

Review of The Fury of Magnus by Graham McNeill

After three straight novels of space marines attacking space marines, wave after wave, Graham McNeill's novella The Sons of the Selenar offered an excellent respite. Catching up with things beyond Terra, it looked at what was happening with the Shattered Legions on the outskirts, and told a compelling story in the process. McNeill's second novella in the Siege of Terra series, The Fury of Magnus (2020), likewise takes a look at a character who has largely been sitting by the side. Things, however, eventually get even closer to Terra—even more so than Horus has been able to achieve—to date, at least.

Magnus is aloof, perhaps the most cerebral primarch among the Traitors. As such, his involvement in the Siege of Terra has been ambiguous to date. He allowed the Shattered Legions carrying the legacy of the Selenar to escape without a fight, yet he appears to be loyal to Horus and the goal of tearing down the Emperor. Inherent to the novella's title, The Fury of Magnus cracks open the primarch to see what is boiling inside.

Review of Alas, Bablyon by Pat Frank

If there were ever a place to explore the potentialities of the Cold War, it was through fiction. Mushroom clouds in the imagination are a much better place to perform experiments of how things might turn out if somebody finally 'pushed the button'. And indeed there was a good chunk of fiction through the 50s and 60s exploring what nuclear world war might look like. One of the better specimens, at least of the six or seven that I've read, is Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon (1959).

Alas, Babylon is the story of several people, but none so dominant as Randy Bragg. Korean War veteran now attorney, he lives in Fort Repose, a rural area of inland Florida. Randy's brother Mark calls one day, telling him to start preparing for the big one in secret. Tensions with Russia are about to boil over. The H-bombs fly and Randy's world as he knows it is turned upside down. Miami, Orlando—the majority of the US blown to smithereens, Randy and his small town acquaintances must all take a new tack on life, one increasingly stiff by the day.

Review of Saturnine by Dan Abnett

The assault on the Emperor's Palace is in full swing. Horus throws his forces, wave after wave, at the kilometer high walls, looking for a breakthrough. The forces of Chaos have been unleashed, and now attack the walls along with the traitor legions. In Dan Abnett's Saturnine (2020) something has to give. But where?

Assault after assault, bomb after bomb, death after death. Horus' attack on Terra is starting to have an effect. Endless supplies of munitions becoming finite, Rogal Dorne's storage facilities are starting to run dry. And with The Lion and Guillaume still nowhere to be found, the manpower the Emperor can throw at the traitor legions is starting to come up short. Dorne cannot keep up with Horus' volume of men and materiel. Hard decisions now sit in directly front of Rogal Dorne, no avoiding them. Horus is attacking at four critical junctures, but only three can be defended. Does Dorne have one last trick up his sleeve for his nemesis Peturabo at Saturnine Gate, or is the writing on the wall?

Review of House of Chains by Steven Erikson

It's an understatement to say Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series is an acquired taste. It's a MASSIVE fictional world that seems to be constantly in flux. Every chapter, every book requires the reader to update their knowledge. Each book is also different in its own right; Erikson evolves his style volume to volume. It all makes for shaky footing that a minority of readers have the patience for. For me it's here, the fourth book in the series House of Chains (2002), that things solidified.

For those paying attention—which can be difficult given the plethora of plotlines and endless-endless strings of characters running through the series—Sha'ik's rebellion in Deadhouse Gates was unresolved. The desert folk found a new Sha'ik in Helisin, but the Whirlwind didn't actually whirl. At the beginning of House of Chains, Adjunct Tavore arrives on the Seven Cities continent with a rebuilt Malazan army to finally put an end to the Whirlwind, and maybe patch ends with her sister, Helisin. Memories of Ice revealed that the Crippled God was looking to take down the system, and in House of Chains he recruits more servants to achieve this goal. Everyone's goals—the Whirlwind's, the Crippled God's, and the Malazan Empire's—come to a crashing, massive head that leaves the series wide open.

Close But No Cigar: Response to Library of America's Nine Classic Science Fiction Novels of the 1950s

A decade ago, the Library of America released the set Nine Classic Science Fiction Novels of the 1950s. The series was edited, or perhaps more accurately, curated by Gary Wolfe. Wolfe is a genre personage who I often disagree with, but a person who I respect, particularly his knowledge of 20th century science fiction. Wolfe is a proper scholar and a person to be trusted when looking to curate such a series. Nevertheless, differences in opinion there are, and it's in those differences that my views have been percolating for ten years, waiting until I've read enough sf from the 50s to have an informed rebuttal. With more than thirty-five novels from the decade under my belt (and this post sitting in my drafts folder for all that time) I think I've reached that point. In the very least I will introduce you to some old school science fiction that perhaps wasn't on your radar before.

For a bit of historical context, the 1950s was the time science fiction made itself respectable in the US. Writers like H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Olaf Stapledon and others had been writing a more literary style of science fiction for decades, but they were based in Europe. (Yes, you Brits, you are European.) To that point America had almost exclusively driven down the road with signposts like: damsels in distress, men in tight jumpsuits, slavering aliens, laser blasters, and Pulp Ahead! A difficult era to take seriously (save for collectors and connoisseurs, natch), the Golden Age of scientifiction in the US is stinky cheese at its worst and fun escapism at its best. It took writers like Ray Bradbury, James Blish, Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Bester and several others in the 50s to inject the genre with a bit of rigor and raise standards—to comb the genre's hair, brush it's teeth, put on clean clothes, and teach it a little etiquette. In real terms, this meant improving technique, cleaning up syntax and diction, interweaving metaphor and theme with plot, device, and character, etc. They pioneered what most now refer to as the Silver Age of science fiction.

Review of Sons of the Selenar by Graham McNeill

The first handful of books in the Siege of Terra have steadily ramped pressure. The Solar War, The Lost & the Damned, and The First Wall saw Horus attack the solar system, land on Terra, and assault the Emperor's palace with everything he has. And each book featured varying perspectives on the brutal, relentless assault. Graham McNeill's novella Sons of the Selenar (2020) offers readers a break in the Siege of Terra action—a Meanwhile, back in the galaxy... moment to catch up with what's happening with the so-called Shattered Legions

The Iron Hands, Salamanders, and Raven Guard are aboard the ship Sisypheum. But without a primarch to command them, opinions abound as the group decides whether to chase rumors of a resurrected captain or return to Terra to join the fight. While they eventually decide on one of the two options, it is far from their ultimate destination. The third way forcing itself upon the group, what they must do has repercussions far beyond Horus' assault on Terra.

Review of Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson

Gardens of the Moon, first book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, was a bit of a false start. Whether due to publisher pressure or Erikson's unwillingness to jump feet first into the fire, the novel is limited. It doesn't know how to properly set a scene for maximum impact and distinguishing the plethora of characters is a challenge. Deadhouse Gates, second book in the series, was a clear step forward. Scenes hit harder and characters started to pop. But it had a large amount of content, not all of which felt value-add. I think it's here at the third book, Memories of Ice (2001), that Erikson finally hits the series' stride. There are still issues, but at least they are by design.

The story of Memories of Ice occurs in parallel to that of Deadhouse Gates. While the Whirlwind rebellion builds in the Seven Cities in Deadhouse, a tyrant of the Pannion Domin threatens the city of Capustan in Memories. The Domin are a massive foe,, heedless of life or civility, who force an unlikely alliance between the Malazan Empire, the warlord Caladran Brood and his army, and the Tiste Andii led by Anomander Rake. An uneasy truce, the band nevertheless know they have no recourse but to take on the tyrant, discover which god is backing him, and stop the takeover of the Genabackis continent.

Review of Fairyland by Paul McAuley

Paul McAuley is in that late stage of a career so many science fiction writers unfortunately find themselves: decent production but without the fanfare it once received. His most recent books have received middling media coverage—a far cry from 90s' McAuley, a McAuley who was one of the top dogs of British sf. One of the reasons, if not the biggest reason, was 1995's Fairyland. Standing up to the winds of time even in 2025, let's take a look.

Fairyland is the story of middle-aged, overweight biohacker Alex Sharkey. At least it begins that way. Author of many popular street drugs, he spends his days in a dim apartment cooking up bioengineered narcotics and his nights trying to repay the debts he owes a local London gangster. Stuck in the cycle, Sharkey finds himself in the unenviable position of having to create a gene splice that goes far beyond the legality of his already illegal drug manufacture. Kick starting an evolutionary leap he knew was likely but couldn't stop, London proves to be only the beginning of Sharkey's story, as soon enough the world will know of his creation.