Review of A Different Kind of Tension: New and Selected Stories by Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem has somehow been writing fiction for more than three decades. I say 'somehow' as his recent novels remain relevant, fresh, and off-center of typical mainstream genre fluff. Those decades also include almost one-hundred short stories, some of which have been collected, some which have not. A Different Kind of Tension: New and Selected Stories (2025) brings together almost a third of said output, but rather than a 'best of' or 'greatest hits', Lethem himself seems to have chosen what made the cut—'author's picks' the better descriptor.

A Different Kind of Tension is organized chronologically 1990 - 2024, starting with the earliest published work. Tone-setter more than story, “Walking the Moons” is a very short piece about a man in a virtual reality simulator walking a treadmill on a moon of Jupiter. Human nature ensues until mother nature comes knocking to highlight the absurdity of his attempts at experiencing reality in a sim. Unfortunately prognostic. “Program's Progress” is a Rudy Rucker or Paul Di Filippo-esque (bizarro) tale of an uploaded man (thing? consciousness?) who abuses his position for pleasure drugs and gets demoted back to stationary (immobile) life. He has "adventures" in clever, subversive fashion.

Review of A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett

When a writer hits a groove, it's tough not to hope they can stick it for a while. Robert Jackson Bennett put the needle in with The Tainted Cup, first book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series, then settled in, letting the turntable sing with A Drop of Corruption. Just a year later, the third book in the series, A Trade of Blood (2026), is hitting shelves. Still spinning?

A Trade of Blood drops the unlikely detective duo, Dinius Kol and Ana Dolabra, into the middle of Sapirdad, a frontier agricultural land where two families, the Armentas and the Buravs, are engaged in a clan war. The Armentas raise cattle while the Buravs harvest the crops needed to feed the cattle. They feud despite this symbiosis. Din and Dolabra are called to the scene when the eldest daughter of the Armentas is found disemboweled on a hotel room floor, the scion of the Buravs, her ostensible lover, covered in blood in the forest. What they uncover turns the clans on their heads, leaving the land in tatters.

Review of A City Dreaming by Daniel Polansky

That thimbleful of Speculiction's readers are aware this blog has no love for fantasy which elicits a vibe of anything is possible therefore nothing is interesting. The kitchen sink is a mess, not art. Reading back cover copy for Daniel Polansky's A City Dreaming (2016) is not promising in this regard. I paraphrase: An immortal, charmed man visits the surreal side of New York City, a place full of monsters, pirates, shifting cafes, witches, aliens, zombies, Mister T, and much more. But it's Polansky, a writer who is one or two novels away from taking a place on Speculiction's (unenviable, unpublished) Top 10 Underrated writers' list. Let's dive in to the milieu...

Indeed, A City Dreaming is the story of a modern mage in an urban world—at least some of the time. His name is M, and at the outset of the story he leaves Paris for NYC to stay with a friend. In the course of his daily life—going to cafes, walking the sidewalks, and trying to pick up girls and/or narcotics—he finds himself slipping in and out of alternate realities. But the chump lifestyle has its price. Maybe those occasional rewards are worth it?

Cardboard Corner: Review of Sorcery: Contested Realm

I held off for two years. I had the game in the basket on more than one occasion, only to delete it. We already have enough TCGs... I would just be giving in to FOMO... Ignore the algorithm!!! But voices I trust, voices that have steered me away from simple, speculator-friendly TCGs and toward rich, unique card game experiences, slowly mounted to a chorus. I gave in. I loaded the cart, again, but this time clicked Buy on Sorcery: Contested Realm (2022). Mama was right; it's important to choose good friends in life.

On the surface, Sorcery is like the other TCGs out there. You build a resource engine to play cards, permanent and temporary, in order to knock your opponent's life total to zero. And there are further similarities to Magic: one land per round, minions and spells, summoning sickness, twenty-health start, Dungeons & Dragons motif, etc., etc. So much richer and more thematic is Sorcery, however, that it is actually Magic³.

Review of Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb's debut trilogy, The Farseer, is one of the most mixed bags I've ever encountered in a fantasy series. It starts good, gets better, then kills the momentum in a streeeeeeetched 700+ page conclusion. Good intentions, but incongruous execution. It didn't put me off Hobb, however. Something else did (more to come). But when the stars aligned, and I finally read Hobb's next offering, it had me asking: has a new arc of quality begun? Lets' look at Ship of Magic (1998).

Ship of Magic takes readers to a new location in Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings setting: the Pirate Isles. First book in a trilogy, it shifts away from kings, queens, wizards, dragons, and pseudo-Medieval villages, and moves toward pirates, treasure, slavery, sea serpents, plunder, trade, and port city ribaldry. It also anthropomorphizes calling ships “she”--making bowspirits of bowsprits. And it's a massive success. But I get ahead of myself.

Review of The Men in the Jungle by Norman Spinrad

By the time the late 60s rolled around, America had had enough of the Vietnam War (or what the Vietnamese call the American War). Unable to shit or get off the pot (same situation Russia currently finds itself in Ukraine), the US kept sending troops and armament to 'fight the war on communism' (Russians are 'fighting the war on Nazis') but never committed enough firepower to actually win the war. And the North Vietnamese, using their own brutal, ruthless methods, fought back, hard. From a certain viewpoint, it was animals fighting animals, killing for the sake of killing, ideology a far cry. Commenting on, or at least seeming to want to comment on the war, is Norman Spinrad's The Men in the Jungle (1967), a science fiction tale/allegory of dubious execution.

Ousted asteroid dictator, Bart Fraden, sets his sights for power on a new destination, the planet Sangre. He invites along his mistress, the power-loving Sophia O'Hara, as well as General William Vanderling, a strategist Fraden hopes will easily knock over the military dictatorship on Sangre. The trio's plan is to peddle pleasure narcotics among the elite and sow discord among the rural villages, then wait for the right moment to engage with uber-weapons. The drugs work among the Brotherhood of Pain, leaders of Sangre, but rousing the villagers runs into a little trouble, one of an atavistic nature.

Review of Dagger Key & Other Stories by Lucius Shepard

There are a number of waypoints in a science fiction and fantasy reader's journey. Some enjoy the latest published hype and never look elsewhere—the years the waypoints. Others branch out, maybe taking a look at what uncle Joe was reading or what an obscure blog (Speculiction, cough cough) recommends. If uncle Joe was reading in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and kept up with genre, there's an extremely good chance he knew the name Lucius Shepard. Writing almost exclusively in short form, story to novella, perhaps Dagger Key and Other Stories (2007) is something a reader looking to explore might find on his dusty shelves?

The collection kicks off with the novella “Stars Seen through Stone”. It begins with a man contemplating life on the steps of the town library. A record producer named Vernon, he recalls the events leading him to contemplation—a demo he'd received from a preternaturally talented blues musician. An emotionally immature, overweight teen who expects the world but is unwilling to put in the effort, Jason Stanky is not the most likable guy. But his music is, and Vernon attempts to reconcile his disgust to get a record deal that will earn them both a little cash. But it’s in relating the town’s history to Stanky one day that things begin to take a turn for the weird for Vernon. Escalating alongside the potential for the young man’s success, their small town of Black William, RI finds itself on the map in ways no reader can predict. This is cited as one of Shepard's best stories for a reason.

Culture Corner: Italy - Tuscany to the Dolomites: Part II

Continuing from Part I, here is the second half of our Italy trip, Lago di Garda to the Dolomites.

#B1 - Classic di Garda – starting at 800 euros per hour. We didn't go for a ride, just dreamed of James Bond.

Culture Corner: Italy - Tuscany to the Dolomites: Part I

As is annual tradition here at Speculiction, we like to take a break from cublicle life to post photos of our vacations - not as pseudo-Instagram fodder, rather as a celebration of the beautiful places and people there are to experience with our time on Earth.  As proof, you will not find my ugly face muddying the crystal blue waters.

The following is the first of two posts related to our Italy vacation.  We started in northern Tuscany, visited a few places in the region, moved to Lago di Garda for a few days, and finished in the Dolomites.  It was even better than the photos.

#A1 – The first week in Italy was spent in Tuscany at this villa, spending time under the sun, going for walks, swimming in the river, and otherwise relaxing.

Review of Strange but Not a Stranger by James Patrick Kelly

Nobody remembers now (due to the past couple decades of history feeling like a millennium), but once upon a time James Patrick Kelly's Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories was a major talking point in science fiction. The publishing sphere was contained enough that most readers were aware of the majority of what was happening, and the collection was a triumphant capture of one the genre's brightest new voices. An established name, Kelly followed it up with another collection, 2002's Strange but Not a Stranger.

The collection kicks off with a piece of Cold War Americana pierced by the uncanny: “10¹⁶ to 1?”. It's the 1950s and young Ray lives for superhero comic books. Playing in the woods near his Long Island home one day, he discovers an odd man, a man who seems to know the future. Ray's life twists sideways in the aftermath, and through that transition Kelly gives readers a twisted piece of Golden Age American loosely reminiscent of Jeffrey Ford's “Shadow Year” or Harlan Ellison's “Jeffty is Five” .