We are proud to present this novelette-length short story by Sarah Hoyt set in the same universe as her recently released “Dark Ship Thieves” novel.
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Before the first burner singed the air, I had jumped. I didn’t know why. Perhaps I wasn’t truly asleep and heard strange steps in the hallway. Or perhaps a voice whispering […]

Dave Freer is one of my favourite authors - hence my pushing of Save the Dragons. He writes books that are fun to read and yet possess layers of plot, character and thought-provoking stuff to make you come back and reread. I have in fact read his latest, Dragon’s Ring, at least twice since I […]

In the opening of her new space opera novel, Darkship Thieves, author Sarah Hoyt immediately introduces us to her heroine, Athena Hera Sinestra, who is in the opening stages of a very bad day.  She wakes to the certain knowledge that someone has jimmied the door to her stateroom aboard her father’s.  This can only […]

There’s no better cure for a bad case of Weber than a good dose of Czerneda.
Rift in the Sky is the concluding third book of Julie Czerneda’s Stratification trilogy which is the second trilogy in her Clan Chronicles series (the first trilogy being The Trade Pact Cycle, a noteworthy collection of novels that not-so-coincidentally includes […]

Okay, we all know that there are no new ideas in fiction, right? Especially when it comes to manga.  The Japanese are absolute masters of running over the same opossum to the point that they’ll vary the positions of the entry and exit of the tire treads by millimeters just to see what changes on […]

 
Dragontrap
by Stefan Ingstrand
The black dragon swooped down toward the mountaintop, enormous wings beating frantically. With a muffled grunt, it half landed, half crashed into the eternal snow outside the cave.
That’s a pretty good disguise, Hrungie thought, stretching her own wings as she watched from the heap of gold and jewels inside. The human-sized halberd that […]

So, there I was, stuck in Rockford, Illinois. Not that much of a hardship, mind you, considering that I was sucking down a mocha while meandering through the science fiction and fantasy section of the local Borders.  In any event, the book whose cover caught my eye and whose jacket copy eventually opened my wallet […]

To truly appreciate the manga version of The Third, you really ought to seek out the anime version first.  So, for the purposes of this review, I’m going to discuss the both the anime and the manga.
The main character of both versions of The Third is Honoka.  With her self-aware AI sand tank, Bogie, she […]

Conventions.  Very bad for people who really shouldn’t be tempted with stacks and stacks of books for sale.
Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you.  However, when you’re a minor player at best with a paltry few panels to attend, you end up spending a lot of time amongst the books.  What’s worse, of course, […]

Doggy Paddling
by Casey Fiesler
Originally published in the Volume 1, Issue 2 omnibus.
“Why am I here?”
Jeremy, too shocked to form a coherent response, just blinked down at Benjy.
For Jeremy, dogs conjured up a set of expectations.  Eating, sleeping, playing, perhaps fetching the occasional newspaper, chewing on the odd slipper.  Therefore, he assumed that their mental lives […]