Book Reviews

Award-winning comic book writer Paul Jenkins tries his hand at the novel with Curioddity, but this quirky tale of imagination and innocence regained is smothered in smirking self-consciousness.

A new translation of the 14th century Egyptian scholar Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri's magnum opus, The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition, is a priceless glimpse at the medieval Muslim world.

Kij Johnson's new novella follows an unlikely adventurer (and a small black cat) through a world built of dreams. It's a wonder-quest that will hold you spellbound from start to finish.

Shari Lapena's novel about a couple whose baby daughter goes missing while they're at a dinner party next door strikes at the heart of parenting fears — but falls down as a police procedural.

Beth Cato's new book is set in an alternate version of San Francisco where geopolitical intrigue and homegrown unrest complicate a young earth magician's attempt to head off the great quake of 1906.

Mary Robinette Kowal's new book imagines a version of World War I where mediums serve in the British Army, and newly dead soldiers are vital sources of information about what's happening at the front.

N.K. Jemisin continues the story of the Stillness — a world constantly rocked by quakes, and the rare, gifted people who can control them — in a second volume even more engrossing than the first.

Drew Magary's new novel is the strange story of average guy Ben, whose business meeting at a old country hotel turns into a bizarre odyssey through the woods, full of giant crickets and talking crabs.

The RITA awards are the Oscars of romance writing — but of more than 90 RITA finalists this year, only a handful featured heroes and heroines of color. We have a roundup of the ones that did.

Drawn & Quarterly has reissued a compilation of strips from Lynda Barry's Ernie Pook's Comeek, starring irrepressible eight-year-old Marlys Mullen. Barry's sweeping lines are instantly recognizable.