Review of Extremophile by Ian Green

The names of a few counter-culture/beat writers from the 60s still echo—Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Ken Kesey among them. But the novel which captures the espirit of the era the best is perhaps Jack Kerouac's On the Road. More rhythm and melody than plotted story with waypoints, it tells of a young man who sets aside his day job to live the moment—sex, drugs, and jazz concerts. It's been thirty years since I read the novel, but I don't remember much political ideology. It's thus interesting that Kerouac's novel kept springing to mind reading Ian Green's (wildly different) Extremophile (2024).

Extremophile is cyberpunk through and through. Body augmentation, cyberspace, corporate dystopia, dark streets, hackers, loads of neon, evil CEOs, etc., etc. You're familiar with it. Charlie, punk rock bass player by night, gene artist by later night, sleeps during the day. She and her band mates enjoy carousing with fellow musicians, just as much as they enjoy mucking with the system—ecoterrorism, DNA hacking to help their friends avoid corporate watchdogs, and generally sticking their middle-finger up at the man as much as possible. When an opportunity to hit a particularly vile corporate suit comes along, the band are all over it. Trouble is, the suit has his own private security.

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.