Hello and how are you doing, dear readers? I hope you’re all staying safe, healthy, and practicing self-care during these times. As always, fantasy and science fiction are portals where can escape your present world in exchange for vivid, imaginary ones, so now is a perfect time to seek comfort in the extraordinary by cracking open an book. And if that’s not your cup of comfort, I hope you have something you rely on to make life a little easier right now. With that in mind, we’re talking a lot of new worlds and varied locales this week. Read on for our Weekly Roundup!
Monday
This week our special guest for My Favorite Things is Brenda Cooper, and we’re celebrating her novel Post, about a world recovering from disaster. What’s better than brown paper packages tied up with strings? How about the vast, varied stories of Valdemar, and some true science that’ll help save the world? Different worlds are the name of the game in this post, so grab your passport and dive in!
Tuesday
Kristina continues her Resolution Project, the first half of which is giving a detailed review of every season of Voltron: Legendary Defender. We’re up to Season Two now, and she covers everything from animation and acting to plot and character, rounding it all out with the highs and lows of the season. Hop into your Lion and Form Voltron here!
Wednesday
Lane reviews one of the latest sci fi works to come out of Serial Box, Machina. Taking a look at all of Season One, she discusses creator Fran Wilde‘s story of two scientific teams competing to create AI that can settle Mars for human occupation. Full of twists, turns, and plenty of surprises, take a closer look here.
We’ve also got a friendly reminder that we’ve started reading our new Book Club selection for April! Nancy has chosen Paul Krueger‘s Steel Crow Saga, a fantasy described as “Pokémon combined with Avatar: The Last Airbender — clever, stylish, and gloriously fun.” We’re going to talk about this book April 24th, so get ready and read up on it here.
Thursday
Nicole crosses another book off the list in her ambitious Resolution Project this year. This time she reviews Rhonda Mason‘s Exile’s Throne, the third and final book in the Empress Game series. With arena battles, the struggle for political domination, a technological plague, and so much more, read about the thrilling conclusion here.
Friday
Sherry reviews the historical fantasy The King of Next Week by E.C. Ambrose. You’ve got a 19th century sailing fantasy set in Maine with a captain who’s a veteran of the civil war…willing to trade his ship’s precious cargo for the transport of a bride who happens to be a djinn. For a story ful of surprises and shades of history, read on here.
Book Club
In addition to Thursday’s post, here’s another friendly reminder of the Book Club selections coming up over the next couple months:
Rounding out the rest of the spring months are our other picks:
- May — The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso, hosted by Lane Robins
- June — Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber, hosted by Kelly McCarty
If you want to know more about the book choices above, read here and here, and we’ll see you next week for our discussion!
It looks like the unofficial theme of this week has been “saving the world” — preventing destruction and apocalypse, or dealing with its aftermath and trying to save the new world from a similar fate. Restoring order, ensuring survival — that seems to be the state of the world we live in now, and all of our selections this week. Interesting coincidence, don’t you think? We’ll see you next week for another recap of everything happening at Speculative Chic!
Image by Javier Rodriguez from Pixabay
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