RaveLos Angeles TimesGibson has published Agency, a sequel to The Peripheral that is, incredibly, even better ... a superb, plot-heavy, poetic, darkly hilarious heist novel ... Thirty-five years after Neuromancer, Agency uses that same McGuffin, which makes the two novels wonderful counterpoints. Both are philosophical meditations on the nature of intelligence and humanity, and both are relentlessly plot-driven noirs ... It’s not just Gibson’s plotting that has progressed over the years. His use of language, always incandescent, has passed through its own singularity, keenly tuned ... Each sentence is a hand-turned marvel of compact characterization, world-building and sardonic wit, all used to illuminate his vivid milieus ... Gibson has an inexhaustible supply of tricks, new stories and new ways of telling them that make him the most consistent predictor of our present, contextualizer of our pasts and presager of our possible futures.
Annalee Newitz
PositiveThe Los Angeles Times... simultaneously sillier and more serious than any of [Newitz\'s] other work. It’s like The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ... The premise that Newitz sets up is fairly madcap — a time-traveling Wikipedia-style edit war between Men’s Rights Advocates and Social Justice Warriors. While there’s plenty of light, fast-moving action here, the story also has a pulsing, claustrophobic, dystopian heart ... Newitz’s Comstockers are far too real and present to be mere satire. That’s because so much of their ideology is lifted verbatim from men’s rights message boards, murderous incel cults and \'Dark Enlightenment\' self-parody ... The upshot is a book full of heart, consequences, stakes, action and surprises. Newitz blends exquisitely rendered historical research with a complex science fiction, the time-travel premise whose internal logic is well-thought-through, throwing up all kind of hard puzzles for her characters to solve ... This is a hell of a book from start to finish and could not be more timely.
J. Michael Straczynski
RaveBoingBoing... in JMS\'s new memoir, Becoming Superman: My Journey From Poverty to Hollywood, we get a look at a real-life history that is by turns horrific and terrifying, and a first-person account of superhuman perseverance and commitment to the right thing that, incredibly, leads to triumph ... His story is a beautiful parable about how luck is made ... Equally vivid is Straczynski\'s imposter syndrome, depicted with a brutal and commendable honesty, woven into the trauma of his family life ... Taken together, this makes for a memoir like no other, a terrifying and exhilarating ride between trauma and triumph, with stops for dark family secrets and touching acts of friendship and loyalty, commitment to principle and a love of the writerly arts. It\'s an incredible book.
Richard Kadrey
RaveLos Angeles TimesKadrey can do hard-boiled like nobody’s business, like a Tom Waits ballad in novel form. And you know that he can do plot like hell, a fast-burning, violent and relentless storytelling mode that propels his gentleman loser antiheroes along with great energy, in the face of adversity, beatings and impossible odds. The Grand Dark is a miracle of the old and the new: a tale of Weimar decadence that is also a parable for our New Gilded Age, where war is inequality’s handmaiden, an incinerator that neatly removes the unnecessariat and fattens the purses of their social betters. It’s a fun and terrifying ride, gritty and relentless, burning with true love and revolutionary fervor.
Jo Walton
RaveThe Los Angeles TimesWhatever her subject, Walton\'s fiercest weapon is her delicious ambiguity ... opens with a beautifully rendered retelling of the life of Savonarola ... a cast of characters, each with the ringing verisimilitude of well-researched, real historical personages ... in Walton\'s hands, the idea of a life lived and lived again takes on a new, rich ambiguity ... Walton is a prodigious and talented literary critic, with a gift for showing how books reflect the personal strengths and weaknesses of their authors. Walton\'s friendship with Palmer is producing a literary legacy that future critics will celebrate.
