Coming Home Changed: Review of Dead Country by Max Gladstone

Coming Home Changed: Review of Dead Country by Max Gladstone Misha Grifka Wander Under Review:Dead Country. Max Gladstone. Tordotcom, March 2023. Tara Abernathy is a master necromancer. She has faced down gods. She is friends with a gargoyle, a goddess, an immortal skeleton king. She walked through a cursed desert to learn her craft, and … Continue reading Coming Home Changed: Review of Dead Country by Max Gladstone

Fantastic Manners: A Guide to Mannerpunk

Misha Grifka Wander Urban fantasy, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery: there are plenty of well-known fantasy subgenres. But my favorite one seldom graces a bookstore sign. Mannerpunk is sometimes described as “Jane Austen with magic,” fantasy zoomed in to focus on conversation, status, etiquette, and intrigue. It’s interpersonal fantasy, the snide insult at court that … Continue reading Fantastic Manners: A Guide to Mannerpunk

Fantastical Acceptance: A Review of A Strange and Stubborn Endurance

Fantastical Acceptance: A Review of A Strange and Stubborn Endurance Misha Grifka Wander Under Review:A Strange and Stubborn Endurance. Foz Meadows. Tor Books, July 26, 2022. One of the thrills of writing fantasy is making worlds unlike our own—worlds where, for instance, queerness is commonplace and people have the guaranteed right to declare their own … Continue reading Fantastical Acceptance: A Review of A Strange and Stubborn Endurance

Life in the Future: Plants, Children, and More in Sim Kern’s Real Sugar is Hard to Find

Life in the Future: Plants, Children, and More in Sim Kern’s Real Sugar is Hard to Find Misha Grifka Under Review:Real Sugar Is Hard To Find. Sim Kern. Android Press, August 1. I read the first story in Sim Kern’s Real Sugar Is Hard to Find, and had to put the book down and walk … Continue reading Life in the Future: Plants, Children, and More in Sim Kern’s Real Sugar is Hard to Find

Layers of Choice: Discussing The City Inside with Samit Basu

Layers of Choice: Discussing The City Inside with Samit Basu Misha Grifka Wander As the world grows more complicated, and for many people, more dangerous, it also becomes more tempting for those with privilege to turn their gaze away. Samit Basu’s new novel The City Inside explores this temptation from the perspective of two residents … Continue reading Layers of Choice: Discussing The City Inside with Samit Basu