I am of two minds about Leech. On the one hand, the book explores some classic horror/sci-fi tropes (body-snatching, hive mind, and contagion) from a different perspective; Ennes studies infection diseases and pathology, so there is a more medical/scientific bent to this iteration of these tropes than some of the other ones I've read. On the other hand, despite some unique additions and more nuanced worldbuilding, the plot ultimately concludes very traditionally. While there is space for an interesting conversation about bodily autonomy, I found myself troubled by some of the comparisons being made and the insistence on humanist individualism. In the 21st century, can we not have stories that give us alternate configurations of what "human" encapsulates, especially when race and class are important components of the book? 

I find it hard to express my thoughts and feelings about this book. I walked away from the book with a feeling of bittersweet vindication. I've described the book as compulsive, meandering, ephemeral, and evocative, but it is also none of those things. Rather, it exists in some space between all of those where we drift between the harsh reality of a small mining town trying to fight an uncaring corporation and the main character, Orchid's, enchantment with the fen the corporaiton is trying to destroy and her husband, Jack, who is intimately connected to the fen literally and in her mythos of him.

The book follows Orchid, a young Romany woman, who lives in Carminetown, a mining town in Canada. In part because of her name, she has an affinity for orchids. In the fen, she meets Jack, a non-Romany man, falls in love, and marries him, against her mother's wishes. This summary does nothing to capture the spirit or atmosphere of the book which is where its power comes from. The reader is walking through Orchid's dreams and mightmares as she navigates a situation beyond her control, in a town that will only conditionally accept her, along with the normals up and downs of young love and early marriage.

This book is a feeling: a feeling of loss, of love, of survival, of despair, of heartbreak, of resurrection, of resentment, of anger. There is definitely a plot, but the importance of the plot only registers in terms of what matters to Orchid. And that deep investment in a singular character will leaves enduring marks on you, the reader.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I bought this book to preview to see if I wanted to assign it for a science fiction course I'm designing. As a possible assigned reading, I decided not to use it because so much of the book is focused on the pulps and classic science fiction/Golden Age science fiction writers and editors and shoves women authors and authors of color and queer authors into a metaphorical corner (the last few pages of the book). I was disappointed in the angle the book took because I wanted something that connected the past to the present a little bit more for the purposes of my course. 

That said, this is an interesting read if you don't know much or anything about the history of science fiction. The comic format is unique and fun, and I think could make a pretty accessible entry point for someone looking to get some more information about the field and genre, but just be aware that this is very focused on the earlier parts of the history with less consideration of the present movements or the work of marginalized authors throughout time. 

The true crime podcast/documentary has been a gimmick in quite a few thrillers I've read or seen in the past few years (for good reason), but I thought this was an interesting implementation because the question the reader is presented with is less about the ethics or morality of the true crime genre and more about the different stories people tell about the same incident within their limited frame of reference and information--and how that is even more complicated when people are lying, or are they? 

I was also pleasantly surprised that this gave more of a mystery vibe than a thriller vibe. I've recently realized that I'm significantly more into mystery than thriller, but the two genres are often classified similarly, if not identically. But a mystery involves the reader more, sometimes very actively and directly, in the narrative, walking with the detective character to figure out what happened. The twist in this book is that there is no detective character; the reader themself is the detective. So you're presented with all the information and have to figure out your own answer to the questions. 

Do not read this review if you haven't read the previous two books. It will not contain spoilers for The Will to Battle but will reference events in Too Like The Lightning and Seven Surrenders.

Somehow, the third installment of this series has gotten even crazier. Palmer manages to answer a bunch of questions the previous two books raised but only by giving us even more things to be concerned and confused about. Mycroft is increasingly getting disconnected from reality, and his reliability as a narrator is tenuous at best. The deeper we get into the book, the more we have to wonder if anything Mycroft tells us is true. My personal theory (based on very little) is that Mycroft is, for sure, crazy, but crazy in a different way than he presents himself in the book. In other words, he's entirely in control of the narrative and manipulates everything and everyone, including the reader. 

The narrative so carefully weaves together so many different threads, showing all the ways war is built and how ridiculous it is. The story focuses so much on the elites of this world, showing how they are the ones who force people into war. Conflict and combat from the everyday person is revolution; when the elites declare conflict and combat, it is war. The reasons they are all going to war are faintly (extremely) ridiculous. 

And that's not even getting into the fact that J.E.D.D. fully believes he is a god. So much for the end of The Church Wars, huh? 

I'm not sure why I picked up this book, maybe just because I love novellas, because I did not like Tender Is The Flesh, but probably not for the reasons people might guess, but that's not what this review is about. I found the premise of this book significantly more believable and engaging. The narrator is a complicated and traumatized character who is living in survival mode. She does despicable things; at the beginning of the novella, we develop resentment toward her because of these things, but as we learn more about her childhood and experiences, the more her actions speak to trying to survive a horrifying life. A horrifying life leads to horrifying choices, especially for a child.

Berendt emerged, to me, as a dishonest, or at least myopic, writer. I ended up settling on four because I started looking at the book as a historical artifact, a specific construction of Savannah and that construction told a more interesting story than the one Berendt was intentionally telling. The picture of Savannah he gave us was one of the most idealized fantasies of the modern South: this hazy dream of hospitality, close-knit communities, delicious food, and beautiful houses. There's a romanticized notion of noblesse oblige that permeates all of Berendt's descriptions of the upper crust paired with the idea that the poor (read: Black) of Savannah are incapable of determining their own paths in life. While some of Berendt's observations provide some counter to this idea (for example, the absolute pettiness surrounding the restoration of different neighborhoods in Savannah but the final lines of his book gave me serious pause: 

He frames his tale with the idea of Savannahians not wanting to change, pointing to all the ways they've continued doing things the same way they have for decades. And this is why I call the book a historical artifact: this desire for things to stay the same is the material that has paved the path to where we stand in 2025. Berendt's depiction of benign conservativism hides the problems of inequality in Savannah—or tries to as he struggled to erase the racism pervading the city. No matter how much he tried to turn the white elites of Savannah into charming eccentrics, he could not fully obscure their rampant racism and that their wealth was built and continues to be built by poor people of color. There are only three significant Black characters in this story about a city he says multiple times is 50% white and 50% Black: Chabalis, the trans drag queen, Minerva, a root worker, and Dr. Collier, the founder of the Black debutante ball. Chablis is the only regular character whose accent gets written out in a way stereotypical of "flamboyant" queer folks and drag queens and Black women. Jim Williams, the sort of main character, has hired Minerva to help him with his legal battles. He complains endlessly about the hundreds of thousands he spends on his lawyers but only pays Minerva $25/day. 

There is more I could talk about, especially involving queerness and homosexuality, but I hope my point has been suitably made. As a 21st century reader, I would advise going into this book as a window into a different time, a breeding ground for things that were to come, and a cautionary tale of how the story we tell about a place and its people can easily and quickly be warped. 

One of the best things about climate fiction is the numerous ways that authors find to both destroy and save the world. The idea of a global cloud covering to protect humanity (and some other species) from the increasingly dangerous sun was one I had not heard before, so my interest was piqued. The immediate logical problem I saw with this plan was, in fact, the primary conflict of the book, but I was significantly more interested in the relationship between the two main characters, Mallory and Rein. The naive city-dweller and rebellious outlander dynamic is rarely one I like because I feel like the dynamic is too often flattened in boring stereotyping, but Mallory and Rein both gave the other space to be what their circumstances made them to be without blaming or accusing the other of willful ignorance or unnecessary disobedience. Their relationship was gentle and charming. To be clear, there aren't really romantic overtones to their relationship, and that's one of the things that made it all the sweeter. Platonic love can be (and often is) just as powerful if not more so than romantic love. And their motivations for each other were believable, sincere, and deep.

My biggest critique of the book was the ease with which the crisis was resolved. I can't say more without giving too much away, but I think the book needed about 50 more pages to more successfully manage the fallout of the characters' choices and the culmination of their relationship. I'd love to see what Pichette would do with a full-length novel.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I read this book in two sittings, all in one evening. I could not put it down. Not because the plot was especially gripping, rather the opposite is true, but because the world Hur spun was one I wanted to live in—flaws and all. I could feel each character's distress and desire; I could see the world they each wanted to build, but how hard, how impossible, those dreams were. But there is power in the dreaming. 

I keep trying to write additional paragraphs, but they all are flat. Or just aimless adulation for the book, waxing about some small aspect I adored: the poetry, the music, the world-building, the narrative style, the definition of humanity, the reconfiguring of the world, the way language and self are interwoven. For such a small book, there are so many things, and all executed gorgeously. 

I cannot wait to see what Hur writes next.