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Articles by Liz Bourke
The Dragon Has Some Complaints by John Wiswell: Review by Liz Bourke
The Dragon Has Some Complaints, John Wiswell (DAW 978-0-7564-2049-9, $29.00, 372pp, hc) July 2026. Cover by James Fenner. The Dragon Has Some Complaints is award-winning short fiction author John Wiswell’s third novel, after 2025’s Wearing the Lion and 2024’s Someone You Can Build A Nest In. I loved Someone You Can Build A Nest In unreasonably much, while I didn’t appreciate Wearing the Lion in quite the same fashion.
The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White: Review by Liz Bourke
The Fox and the Devil, Kiersten White (Del Rey 978-0-593-72443-9, $30.00, 368pp, hc) March 2026. The Fox and the Devil is the first novel by Kiersten White I’ve read, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected to.
Nobody’s Baby by Olivia Waite: Review by Liz Bourke
Nobody’s Baby, Olivia Waite (Tordotcom 978-1-25034-226-3, $24.99, 114pp, hc) March 2026. Cover by Marcos Chin. Olivia Waite’s Nobody’s Baby is another second instalment in a series. In this case, the novella sequel to the short and – mostly – elegant Murder by Memory. Murder by Memory introduced us to Dorothy Gentleman, and to the starship Fairweather, journeying across the stars to settle a new home.
The Poet Empress by Shen Tao: Review by Liz Bourke
The Poet Empress, Shen Tao (Bramble, 978-1-250-40681-1, $32.99, 386pp, hc) January 2026. Cover by Kelly Chong. The Poet Empress is an astonishingly accomplished debut. I’m a very jaded reader. At this point in my life – and at this point in the cyclical trends of the publishing industry – I don’t have high hopes for a fantasy novel where a peasant girl becomes concubine to a cruel prince.
Enchanting the Fae Queen by Stephanie Burgis: Review by Liz Bourke
Enchanting the Fae Queen, Stephanie Burgis. (Bramble 978-1-250-35961-2, $19.99, 304pp, tp) January 2026. Cover by Mike Pape. I’m not a huge fan of romance. The disconnect between what it’s primarily interested in as a narrative form, and what satisfies me as a reader, is often too wide.
Green & Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons: Review by Liz Bourke
Green & Deadly Things, Jenn Lyons (Tor 978-1-25043-005-2, $30.99, 360pp, hc) March 2026. Green & Deadly Things is Jenn Lyons’s second standalone epic fantasy. It’s also the second of her books where I read the first chapter and looked up several hours later to realise I had read the entire novel: It’s a compulsively readable book.
Bloodtide by Sophie Burnham: Review by Liz Bourke
Bloodtide, Sophie Burnham (DAW 978-0-75641-962-2, $30.00, 368pp, hc) October 2025. Bloodtide is Sophie Burnham’s second novel, sequel to 2024’s Sargassa. The same cast of viewpoint characters continues to face the problems that empire and its inhumanities have caused for their lives: the secrets, lies, griefs, and conflicts that underwrite (most of) their determinations to break it down and build something better.
Bloodtide by Sophie Burnham: Review by Liz Bourke
Bloodtide, Sophie Burnham (DAW 978-0-75641-962-2, $30.00, 368pp, hc) October 2025. Bloodtide is Sophie Burnham’s second novel, sequel to 2024’s Sargassa. The same cast of viewpoint characters continues to face the problems that empire and its inhumanities have caused for their lives: the secrets, lies, griefs, and conflicts that underwrite (most of) their determinations to break it down and build something better.
Aragorn's Tax Policy and Other Weird Shibboleths - Reactor
In a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, George R.R. Martin had the following exchange with his interviewer: A major concern in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones is power. Almost everybody—except maybe Daenerys, across the waters with her dragons—wields power badly. Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper.
The Lore of Silver by Ruth Francis Long: Review by Liz Bourke
The Lore of Silver, Ruth Frances Long (Hodderscape 978-1-39973-161-4, £22.00, 416pp, hc) November 2025. Cover by Micaela Alcaino. The Lore of Silver is the second novel in Irish author Ruth Frances Long’s Feral Gods trilogy, following on from 2024’s The Book of Gold.
Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall: Review by Liz Bourke
Hell’s Heart, Alexis Hall (Tor Books 978-1-25039-495-8, $29.99, 480pp, hc) March 2026. Cover by Lydia Ortiz. Hell’s Heart is Alexis Hall’s latest novel, and something of a departure from the last novel of theirs that I read. The marketing copy calls it ‘‘Gideon the Ninth meets Moby Dick,’’ I suppose because ‘‘horny queers doing Moby Dick in space, or at least in Jupiter’s atmosphere’’ doesn’t roll quite as trippingly off the tongue.
Volatile Memory - Reactor
“You want stories?" Thom Merrilin declaimed. "I have stories, and I will give them to you. I will make them come alive before your eyes.” Robert Jordan, The Eye Of The World
The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman: Review by Liz Bourke
The Wolf and His King, Finn Longman (Gollancz 978-1-39962-099-4, £20.00, 350pp, hc) November 2025. (Erewhon 978-1-64566-311-9, $32.00 368pp, hc) January 2026. I read Finn Longman’s first trilogy, The Butterfly Assassin and its sequels, soon after encountering Longman discussing their research on the medieval late Ulster Cycle on Bluesky.
The Last Soul Among Wolves by Melissa Caruso: Review by Liz Bourke
The Last Soul Among Wolves, Melissa Caruso (Orbit 978-0-31630-394-1 £17.99, 400pp, hc) August 2025. The Last Soul Among Wolves by Melissa Caruso is the second novel in the Echo Archives, which began with last year’s excellent The Last Hour Between Worlds. The Last Soul Among Wolves is a very different novel, but just as good in its own way.
House of Dusk by Deva Fagan: Review by Liz Bourke
House of Dusk, Deva Fagan (DAW 978-0-75642-010-9, $29.99, 448pp, hc) August 2025. Deva Fagan has a track record as a writer of middle-grade novels. House of Dusk is her first novel for adults. It’s a fantasy in the epic mode, involving prophets, dead gods (and resurrected ones), god-killing weapons, reincarnated heroes, religious orders, spies, and other classic entertainments of the genre.
The Adventure of the Demonic Ox by Lois McMaster Bujold: Review by Liz Bourke
The Adventure of the Demonic Ox, Lois McMaster Bujold (Spectrum Literary Agency, $3.99, 140pp, eb) July 2025. The Adventure of the Demonic Ox is the 14th and latest instalment in Lois McMaster Bujold’s long-running and generally excellent Penric and Desdemona series (14th in both publication and chronological order).
The Mercy Makers by Tessa Gratton: Review by Liz Bourke
The Mercy Makers, Tessa Gratton (Orbit 978-0-31657-879-0, $19.99, 560pp, tp) June 2025. Tessa Gratton’s The Mercy Makers is a peculiar, meditative fantasy novel. It’s concerned, as many recent fantasy novels are – as many recent queer fantasy novels, especially, have been – with empire and its discontents; with what is forbidden, secret, or unspoken; with hidden histories, and with the difficult truth that love does not make differences of ideology or religion or power any easier to bridge.
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri: Review by Liz Bourke
The Isle in the Silver Sea, Tasha Suri (Orbit US 978-0-316-59508-7, $29.99, 496pp, hc) October 2025. The last time I was this excited – this thrilled, this transported – reading a novel for the first time, it was the summer of 2013 and the novel was Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice.
A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde: Review by Liz Bourke
A Philosophy of Thieves, Fran Wilde (Erewhon 978-1-64566-194-8, $28.00, 368pp, hc) September 2025. Fran Wilde’s A Philosophy of Thieves is a novel I wanted to like much more than I did.
Seth Haddon's Volatile Memory Explores Identity, Masks, and Intimate Desire - Reactor
Volatile Memory by Australian writer and game designer Seth Haddon is a transhuman love story set in a dystopian and restrictive corporate-ruled interstellar future.
Linsey Miller Takes on Gruesome Student Debt in That Devil, Ambition
That Devil, Ambition is an extremely accomplished novel set in a queer-norm world that leans hard into the “dark academia” moment. It’s doing clever things with character and point of view.
Elizabeth Bear's The Folded Sky Was Well Worth the Wait
Holy shit, what a book. I’ve been waiting with unalloyed anticipation for Elizabeth Bear’s next White Space novel since 2020’s Machine. That novel is The Folded Sky. Part thriller, part murder mystery, and part Big Ideas Space Opera Adventure, it’s entirely worth the wait.
weird west - Reactor
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Love and Worship in Hannah Kaner's Faithbreaker
Faithbreaker is the third and final novel in Hannah Kaner’s well-received debut trilogy, concluding the story begun in Godkiller and continued in Sunbringer. I enjoyed Godkiller, and found Sunbringer moved away from some of the things that made Godkiller so much fun. Faithbreaker, fortunately, revisits some of what made Godkiller very enjoyable and adds some fresh elements. I confess I was worried about whether Kaner could stick the landing, but it works.
An Unexpected Road Trip: Anji Kills A King by Evan Leikam
Anji Kills A King, the first novel by Evan Leikam, one half of the “Book Reviews Kill” podcast, is a brutal road-trip of a novel with a compelling voice. It falls quite neatly into the genre of “terrible people making a series of disastrous life choices because it seemed like a good idea at the time” (which, as a genre I’ve just invented, explodes all marketing categories but is nonetheless as recognisable as science fiction and fantasy).
Wheel of the Infinite
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writing process - Reactor
The Reactor newsletter is the best way to catch up on the world of science fiction, fantasy, pop culture, and more!
Worlds Collide in Emberclaw by L.R. Lam
L.R. Lam is a writer with a wide range. They’ve written low fantasy and cyberpunk, near-future science fiction and (co-written with Elizabeth May) space opera that takes Star Wars as a model for its breadth and scope. Emberclaw is the second and concluding volume of Lam’s Dragon Scales Duology, after last year’s Dragonfall, a fantasy that mixes epic, caper, and romance in an odd but compelling tale of secrets, lies, and worlds colliding.
Familial Anxiety and Supernatural Heritage in Aunt Tigress by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin
All these young people writing books about young people! (Your correspondent exclaims, from the antique vantage of not-yet-forty.) Aunt Tigress, the Calgary-set debut novel of Canadian author Emily Yu-Xuan Qin, is a book about young people and their relationships to their families and their communities, about their experiences as immigrants, as First Nations, as white or white-passing, and about epic supernatural drama. Tamara “Tam” Lin is the daughter of Chinese immigrants to Canada.
Joyfully Revisiting Swordheart by T. Kingfisher
Swordheart was first published in 2018 by Ursula Vernon writing as T. Kingfisher. I adored it then. I adore it now.
Ambition Battles Morality in The Serpent Called Mercy by Roanne Lau
If I were twenty years younger, or maybe even ten, The Serpent Called Mercy might have struck me as a breath of fresh air, a vigorous indictment of systematic economic and social disenfranchisement viewed through the lens of a friendship tested by ambition, misunderstanding, and shame, with extra gladiatorial beast-fighting combat.
Grave Empire by Richard Swan Struggles With Its Worldbuilding
Grave Empire is the first novel in Richard Swan’s second trilogy, The Great Silence, which takes place in the same continuity as his first, albeit separated by some several generations. Peter is a young lieutenant in the army of the Sovan Empire. His posting takes him to an isolated frontier, in an area filled with recalcitrant tribes and near a contested border with the empire’s nearest rival, with whom they’re engaged in a hot war.
Grappling with Godhood: The Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel
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.
Complicated Choices and Torn Loyalties: The Republic of Salt by Ariel Kaplan
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.
Mythic Intimacy in Oath of Fire by K. Arsenault Rivera
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.
Living Goddesses, Demon Deals, and Power Struggles in The Scarlet Throne by Amy Leow
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.
The Moonlight Market by Joanne Harris is Full of Charm
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.
Too Much is Happening in The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
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.
A Fun Fantasy Makes for Light Reading: The Silverblood Promise by James Logan
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.
Hannah Kaner's Sunbringer Falls Short as a Sequel
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.
The Epic and the Domestic: A Flame in the North by Lilith Saintcrow
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.
Unapologetically Queer: Saara El-Arifi's Faebound
Faebound begins a new series from Saara El-Arifi: a fantasy set in a world of perpetually warring elves, where an exiled soldier stumbles across the hidden race of fae, who are cursed to remain in their underground kingdom on account of their eradication of an entire species. Yeeran is the youngest colonel in the history of her tribe, the Waning elves. They fight with the other elven tribes over a precious resource, the mineral known as fraedia.
“The Pattern of Life, and Built to a Purpose”: Menewood, Nicola Griffith’s latest masterpiece
Menewood is the sequel to Nicola Griffith’s magisterial novel of 7th-century Northumbria, the critically-acclaimed Hild. Like Hild, it focuses on part of the life of Hilda (the eponymous Hild) of Whitby. Unlike Hild‘s decade-plus sweep of childhood to young womanhood, Menewood covers only three years, 632 to 635, and begins very nearly exactly where Hild left off.
Wrath Becomes Her
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Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros: Golems vs. Nazis in War-Torn Lithuania
I feel the last few years have seen a flourishing in fantasy novels that explicitly centre the Jewish experience in European history. Or perhaps it’s just that I’m encountering them more in the scattershot sampling of fantasy that I read. Either way, Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros (The City Beautiful, Bone Weaver)is a book concerned with Jewishness and survival in the face of hostility. It’s also a book that speaks strikingly to queer themes.
Silent City by Sarah Davis-Goff: The Zombies Aren’t the Monsters You Really Need to Worry About
There are things that Sarah Davis-Goff’s Silent City does excellently well. And yet, on the whole, my response is one of ambivalence. It’s left me with a quiet sense of dissatisfaction at how it structures its meditations on dystopia, on isolation and belonging, violence and complicity, power and loneliness, that I’m still not entirely sure whether the difficulty lies with me as a reader or with how the novel goes about what it’s trying to convey.
Marvelous, Numinous and Strange: The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan
The extent to which Ariel Kaplan’s The Pomegranate Gate draws upon the Jewish experience (or its re-envisioned memory) of medieval Iberia cannot be overstated. This lush, vivid and atmospheric novel draws Guy Gavriel Kay to mind. Not only is Kay’s The Lions of Al-Rassan the only fantasy novel I know to draw so deeply and so directly from this well, but Kaplan’s world, like Kay’s, treads narrowly along the line between historical fantasy and fantastical imagination.
It’s Just a Job, Until It Isn’t: Godkiller by Hannah Kaner
Godkiller is Hannah Kaner’s debut novel. First published in the UK in January 2023, it received strong praise (including from Samantha Shannon and Tasha Suri) and rapidly became a UK bestseller. Despite my initial misgivings, I can see why.
The Salt-Black Tree by Lilith Saintcrow: Apotheosis in America
The Salt-Black Tree is the second novel in Lilith Saintcrow’s Dead God’s Heart duology, after Spring’s Arcana. It picks up precisely where the previous volume left off, and I don’t recommend starting here: Dead God’s Heart is one story in two volumes, rather than two linked narratives.
Prophecies, Cults, and Sapphic Romance: The Third Daughter by Adrienne Tooley
The Third Daughter is Adrienne Tooley’s third novel, and the first of hers that I’ve read. In this young adult fantasy novel, the first in a series, religion, prophecy, sentiment and ambition collide with a sapphic romance and tangled loyalties. In the country of Velle, a prophecy tells of the return of a godlike figure, the New Maiden. The New Maiden will return as the third-born daughter of a third daughter, and heal the world.
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