The Doors of Eden is an unambiguous celebration of difference. The collective of interspecies heroes is suitably woke in its approach to saving the world and the many-worlds set-up promotes multiplicity and co-operation.
This round table marks twenty years of Strange Horizons reviews. The Reviews editors gathered together a group of reviewers past and present and asked them to discuss what reviewing is, why it matters—and why they bother with it.
It would be wrong to say we were surprised when this discussion eventually stretched across twenty-seven pages—and also untrue to say we edited proceedings with anything but a heavy heart. What follows, though, is as lightly edited as possible while keeping it within the confines of the magazine.
We may eventually publish a coffee table book, who knows.
Rachel Cordasco has a PhD in literary studies and currently works as a developmental editor.
The Wall's characters represent a multi-faceted resistance to societal conformity and make its utopia different from its antecedents. What makes the novel a better story, though, is that it understands the possibilities inherent in a messy world of rules designed to achieve dogmatic perfection.
As characters and symbolic figures, both Fee and Cyn become possible ways in which to view the menopausal experience, and still keep it magical and powerful.
The Supernova Era is a hopeful book, one that suggests that humanity can not only overcome devastating shifts in society but, in adapting to the new world, create something better.
Speculative fiction is perhaps our only real hope of transforming those hierarchies, but only when it is willing to grapple with how they actually work in the world.
