Prayers in the NICU – Thoughts on Child Mortality & Parenthood
It’s 2003 and there’s a baby in the NICU, the neonatal intensive care unit, at Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. He is very small and there are sensors attached to his…
“Here We Are, Alive” – Thoughts on the Post-Apocalypse & a Review of Silent City
Silent City by Sarah Davis-Goff is a post-apocalyptic novel set in Ireland. It takes place an unspecified number of years after most of humanity was somehow infected and turned into…
15 SFFH Books We’re Looking Forward to in January 2024
15 SFFH books coming in January 2024 that we are excited to read!
Swords, Pots, Noodles, Death – a Review of Blue Eye Samurai in 6 Fights
There are lots of reasons I love Netflix’s new animated series Blue Eye Samurai. Beautiful animation? Oh yes. Great soundtrack? That too. Intriguing character arcs? You betcha. The main characters—revenge-fueled…
Highway to Hel – 10 Rock and Metal Tracks for a Deathly Playlist
Rival Sons have been knocking my proverbial socks off since I first listened to their album Head Down over 10 years ago, and this wild-west flavored, death-defiant track from their 2023 album Darkfighter, is no exception. The lyrics always make me think of The Iliad, and how the reaper will eventually claim every one of us, no matter who we are and what we do.
Of Impossible Dragons and Slipstream of Realities – a Review of The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar
Indra Das’s fantasy novella The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar is many things, all at once. It’s a coming-of-age tale about Ru, a boy who grows up in Calcutta, India in…
“There’s Something Strange Here” – Tollund Man, Grethe, and Death in a Danish Bog
One day in late winter or early spring, sometime between 405 and 385 BC, a man in his 30s or 40s was hanged near a peat bog in what is…
Monstrosity and Divinity – a Review of Winter Harvest
Winter Harvest is Ioanna Papadopoulou’s darkly luminous and intensely original reimagining of the tale of Demeter, Greek goddess of the harvest, and what happens when her daughter Kore is abducted…
Katabases: 5 Journeys To the Underworld
A katabasis is a descent into the underworld, a journey to the realm of death. The word itself comes from the Ancient Greek κατάβασις, meaning “descent,” or “to go down.” Several stories…
“Start With the Wolves” – a Review of We Are the Crisis
We Are the Crisis is the sequel to Cadwell Turnbull’s award-winning book No Gods, No Monsters, and, like its predecessor, it’s a book that blends profound ideas about society, communities,…