- The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi. Science fiction novel, second in the Interdependency series. The usual fun, but definitely a middle book.
- The Lost Steersman by Rosemary Kirstein. Science fiction novel whose protagonists think they’re in a fantasy novel; third book in the Steerswoman series. Kirstein’s worldbuilding levels up here.
- The Language of Power by Rosemary Kirstein. Fourth book in the Steerswoman series. The curtain is starting to be pulled back here. Desperately awaiting the next volume.
- The Starlit Wood edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe. Fantasy anthology reimagining fairy tales. I’ve been reading this off and on for more than a year. Not a weak story in the book; some are just superb.
- The Un-Discovered Islands by Malachy Tallack. Short book on islands that proved imaginary.
- The Phantom Atlas by Edward Brooke-Hitching. Longer, more substantive book on the same subject—geographical features later found to be false—but covers more than just islands.
- They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded by James Alan Gardner. YA superhero novel, sequel to the highly entertaining All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault (reviewed here); switches the POV to another character.
- An Agent of Utopia by Andy Duncan. Short story collection by one of my favourite authors. His first two collections—both of which I own—were limited editions from small presses and aren’t easy to find (all but three of the stories in Agent can be found in those collections); this book makes his delightful and idiosyncratic stories more widely available.
- Infinity’s End edited by Jonathan Strahan. Science fiction anthology; final volume in the Infinity series; I’ve read every volume (and reviewed three of them: here, here and here).
- The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. Fantasy novel, sequel to The Traitor Baru Cormorant. A saga of imperialism and colonialism, infiltration and revenge, and weaponized financial instruments. Most epic fantasy isn’t this politically or economically sophisticated.
- The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. First book in the Lady Astronaut series: former WASP and computer dreams of space in an alternate history where an asteroid strike threatens survival on Earth and kickstarts a desperate space program; Hidden Figures meets Promised the Moon.
- The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn. Reviewed here.
- Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow. France is its own thing and does things by its own rules and logic, and has been doing so for a very long time. This is something Anglo-American observers of the country find hard to understand, and treat France as a kind of broken Britain or America.
Books Read: 1Q 2019
Jonathan Crowe
Jonathan Crowe blogs about maps at The Map Room and writes and reviews science fiction and fantasy; his work has been published by AE, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Strange Horizons and Tor.com. He lives in Shawville, Quebec.
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