-
1 month ago | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke |Judith Tarr |Vanessa Armstrong |Martin Cahill
The Reactor newsletter is the best way to catch up on the world of science fiction, fantasy, pop culture, and more!
-
Jan 8, 2025 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
Vaishnavi Patel is the bestselling author of Kaikeyi, a retelling of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana focused on Rama’s stepmother Kaikeyi. Goddess of the River is Patel’s second novel. Rather than the Ramayana, this one reworks the Mahabharata, the second of the Sanskrit epics. Goddess of the River focuses on Ganga, the goddess of the eponymous river (the river which in English is usually rendered “Ganges”), and on her son by a mortal husband.
-
Jan 7, 2025 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
Ariel Kaplan’s The Republic of Salt is the second book in the Mirror Realm cycle, after last year’s The Pomegranate Gate. Written with an eye for the mythic, a set of characters who have the virtues of their flaws, and a deft hand with a turn of phrase, The Republic of Salt is a worthy successor to The Pomegranate Gate.
-
Oct 30, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
K. Arsenault Rivera’s debut trilogy was an epic fantasy and a queer love story that was interested in the apotheosis of its arguably human protagonists—larger-than-life heroes—into gods. Oath of Fire is a different beast, though it retains Arsenault Rivera’s interest in the interaction between mortal concerns and more-than-mortal powers. It sets itself in New York, and gives us a retelling of the tale of Eros (better known, perhaps, in the Latin form as Cupid) and Psyche.
-
Oct 23, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
The Scarlet Throne, Amy Leow’s debut novel, is inspired by the culture of Nepal and the tradition of “living goddesses.” It focuses on Binsa, a young woman who has been a “living goddess” since she was a child, who is supposed to be the ritual avatar of a goddess and dispense justice and mercy from the titular Scarlet Throne. Fortunately or unfortunately for Binsa, she’s not the avatar of the goddess Rashmatun that she’s supposed to be.
-
Sep 30, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
Joanne Harris is still, after many years, best known for Chocolat. A wide variety of other works have emerged from her pen, including the Norse mythology retelling/re-imagining The Gospel of Loki. In The Moonlight Market, Harris mixes the style and sensibility of the fairytale with urban grit of London past and present. Once, long ago, in a different world, the Moth King and the Butterfly Queen courted, fell in love, and had a child.
-
Sep 4, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
The Stars Too Fondly is Emily Hamilton’s debut novel. It’s a fast-paced, entertaining science-fiction romance romp, replete with pop-culture riffs and references. But underneath the smart-arse asides, witty banter, and sexual-romantic chemistry, I’m not sure it has any real core of meaning beyond the platitudinous. Not everything has to be deep and meaningful, of course, but it’s good to set your expectations appropriately.
-
Jun 4, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
James Logan is an open pseudonym for James Long, editor at Orbit Books in the UK. The Silverblood Promise is his debut novel, the opening volume of a trilogy (“The Last Legacy”) whose protagonist, Lukan Gardova, is the kind of man found in the remains of burned buildings explaining how that inevitable disaster couldn’t possibly have been his fault, no, seriously.
-
Apr 25, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
Sunbringer is Hannah Kaner’s second novel, sequel to the bestselling Godkiller, and the middle book in the “Fallen Gods” trilogy. I wish I liked it as much as its predecessor. But such is the fate of middle books that have a lot to live up to, unless they’re exceptional indeed.
-
Feb 29, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke
A Flame in the North is the latest novel by Lilith Saintcrow, and marks a departure from many of her recent efforts. This is a fantasy novel in a classic mode, reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Jordan in its form as much as its matter: one great big chunk of an even larger epic (in this case a trilogy), where the last page marks a cliff-hanging caesura rather than a conclusion.
