Review of When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory

Brain-in-a-vat is a common enough concept in science fiction. Do we exist in reality, or are our brains in vats attached to sensory stimuli simulating existence? The Matrix made a killing playing off this thought experiment. It features a main character who, after building a life, comes to learn his brain is in a vat—a battery for the machine gods. When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory (2025) posits something slightly different, a modern world scenario where everyone already knows they are living in a simulation. They know their brain is in a vat, no surprise, no red or blue pill. Gregory then takes a sharp social/psychological stick and begins poking this world (as if it needed it).

The frame of When We Were Real is a motley group of ~15 tourists taking a cross-country bus tour of 'impossibles'—flaws in their simulated reality. Stereotypes slowly coming to life, the group consists of four octogenarians, a pregnant influencer, a flat earther (he's not really a flat earther, but you get the vibe) and his teenage simp son, a brain cancer patient and his cartoonist best friend, an ageing, wheelchair-bound mother and her adult daughter, newly wed Austrians, a Chinese young lady, a researcher on the run, two nuns, a rabbi, their last minute-replacement tour guide, and the bus driver. Akin to video game glitches, the impossibles include invisible geysers, holes to the other side of the world, a 90-degree bend in reality, an atemporal tunnel, and so on.

Review of Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God by Steven Erikson

As they were conceived as a single volume, I will review Dust of Dreams (2009) and The Crippled God (2011) as a single volume, despite they were published as two separate books. No spoilers.

Fairly or unfairly, epic fantasy series are often judged by their closing volume. Throughout a series, things have been building, ramping up, and are ready to explode by the end—to provide readers the catharsis via fireworks they have been lead to believe will occur. The Malazan series has been a little different, however. Each of the eight books leading to the closing volume has been insular, closed off. Overarching threads of story and certain characters, bind the series together, but the concerns of a given volume remain inherent to to themes and characters to that volume. Which is what makes Erikson's decision to do what he did in Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God so... interesting? To explain.

All of the Malazan Book of the Fallen books to date have been massive. Each features ~1000 pages. Each features dozens and dozens and dozens, if not more than a hundred characters. Each features multiple, multiple storylines and settings. The reader has had to max their mental RAM keeping all of these pieces straight—who is who, where they are, and what they're trying to do. Add to this magic, warrens, gods, and characters who can shapeshift and it's a smorgasbord extremely few readers have any chance of digesting their first one or two times through the series. You almost have to take notes.

Review of The End & the Death: Volume III by Dan Abnett

This is it. The arrowhead striking home. The mushroom cloud rising. The supernova erupting from the Horus Heresy series. Sixty-four books into one of the most epic tales ever told, and we've reached the end. The third end. The absolute end. The End and the Death: Volume III by Dan Abnett (2024).

In reality, the expectations for the final-final-final volume of the Horus Heresy are even higher than that. The book must not only deliver the explosive showdown between Horus and the Emperor, it must also propel the reader into the 40^th millennium. It needs to resolve the demi-gods' conflict and set the stage for the thousands of stories that have been told, are being told, and will be told. It must answer the questions why the Emperor sits on the throne, burning through souls like cigarettes, rather than kicking ass around the galaxy. It needs to provide the impetus for the Astra Militarum, Sisters of Silence, Plague Marines, et al, et al. And it needs to ____(fill in your Warhammer jam here)____. The natural question is: does Volume III deliver on these expectations?

Review of The Ceres Solution by Bob Shaw

Utopia/dystopia is a popular science fiction theme. It would be hyperbole to say 'innumerable' books have been written on the subject. It's not as ubiquitous as other common sf themes like exploration, colonialism, xenomorphology, etc. But there is a healthy amount of books in the area. Nerdy Master's and PhD students do not lack for source material. One potential reference is Bob Shaw's The Ceres Solution (1981).

The Ceres Solution is a story of world's (metaphorically) colliding*, as told through the eyes of two unlikely people. One world is Mollan, a former Earth colony, now evolved into a quasi-utopian society. World peace exists, people live for hundreds and hundreds of years, technology like magic exists, and the individual is free to pursue their interests. This includes Gretana, a young woman who goes to Earth to act as an observer for Mollan society. And the other world is indeed, Earth. An unevolved version of our Earth, crime, depravity, and vice run rampant. Hargate is a bitter young man who grows up in these conditions, exacerbated by the fact he is confined to a wheelchair. But upon completing his education, he receives the opportunity of a lifetime—to go into space, a place where his lack of legs means significantly less. Eventually, Gretana and Hargate meet, and that is where The Ceres Solution attempts to come to terms with its utopian/dystopian dichotomy.

Review of Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson

Gardens of the Moon, first book in the Malazan series, was centered around Darujhistan. A city featuring an Arabian vibe, its streets glowed with blue ether fire, politicians built cabals behind wooden doors, and assassins had secret wars on dusty rooftops. But the series never returned to the setting. Until now. Toll the Hounds (2008), eighth book in the series, goes back to the exotic city to see how things have fared since a Jaghut tyrant nearly razed it to the ground.

In Darujhistan, several retired Bridgeburners have found a new home. But when assassination attempts start targeting them, they can't relax, and begin fighting back. Separated from Icarium, Mappo has heard rumors his old friend has tried to kill the unkillable Tiste Edur ruler in Letheras, and sets out on the long journey with the help of the Trygalle Trade Guild. Since defeating the Seerdommin in Memories of Ice, Anomander Rake has destroyed his massive, airborne island and taken up residence in the city of Black Coral. But the cult of the Seerdommin remains, and a new secret hand has been found trying to manipulate it. And in perhaps the most interesting setting of all, Anomander Rake's sword Dragnipur, the great wagon being hauled by the souls the sword has slain begins to slow. Losing power, the god Draconus tries to prevent the realm from losing all its power.

Review of Grendel by John Gardner

As a teen, I would amuse myself with the classic thought experiment of observing life on Earth through the eyes of fictional aliens. Undoubtedly this lead to my agnostic “beliefs”, but it likewise lead to a lifelong appreciation of viewpoints which examine life from abstract angles. Perhaps this is the attraction to John Gardner's Beowulf-inspired Grendel (1971).

Grendel is Beowulf through the eyes of the eponymous monster. It tells the tale in first-person, tracking the hairy beast's observations, feedings, and musings on the villages and tribes he terrorizes. His encounters with dragons and priests likewise come under the story's lens, all before the monster meets his known fate.

But the script is flipped in more ways than one. Rather than a paean to heroism, Grendel is an evisceration of human behavior, mundane to ethereal. Gardner takes the piss out of our social hierarchies, religions, and methods for blowing off steam—aka sex, murder, drunkenness, etc. It's an expose—a yin to Beowulf's yang, that not all is glory and honor and legacy.

Review of The End & the Death: Volume II by Dan Abnett

Volume I of Dan Abnett's The End & the Death was largely about setting tone and yes, getting the two Bigs off their idle asses. It was the quiet before the culmination of Horus' grand storm. In Volume II, drops start falling and lightning begins to flicker.

Indeed, in Volume II the pace picks up, tension ratchets up (somehow), and worlds begin to twist. Certain characters find themselves far out of their element as Chaos blurs the line between reality and dreams. The narrative rotates through a large fistful of characters—Malcador, Loken, Sigismund, Sanguinius, Horus, Horus, Ull, John, Vulkan, and several others. The dark king emerges from the shadows, but does he go further? The Dark King, a personage who has flitted through the shadows, finally reveals itself. And the BIG Chaos evil (finally) shows his (its?) face in theatrical fashion. Abnett seeming to relish these scenes, the Hansel & Gretel breadcrumbs that have been dropped throughout the series finally amount to a path.