Book Review: Time's Rabbit Hole by Lord Running Clam

 

Time's Rabbit Hole by Lord Running Clam

101 pages, Paperback
Published July 25, 2026 by Wide Books

Lord Running Clam, that’s Mister Clam if you're nasty. Sometimes at the Oscars they say it was just a certain filmmaker's year. Winner of both the lifetime Achievement award and Best Book for the Pink Beam Companion was Lord Running Clam. In PKD circles, you might know LRC under his third variety title, David Hyde. In the 90s, when Paul Williams fell out of doing the PKD society newsletter, Lord Running Clam (named after the slime mold character of Clans of the Alphane Moon ) picked up the mantle of keeping PKD fandom/ studies going in a variety of ways. His role in writing Pink Beam Companion (or the online version) alone makes him important, and it deserved recognition for the level of research that went into it.  Well, I know LRC as a deep student of PKD who has been obsessed with his work since the 90s, I didn’t know he wrote fiction.

So it was a surprise when Lord Running Clam was passing out an entire novella he had written at the 4th International Philip K. Dick Fest in Fullerton.  In the introduction, it is mentioned that the guests of honor at the 2026 had all written novellas. That was true-ish: Sarah Langan and Brian Evenson, two of the three guests of honor, did, and LRC was close enough (since he was getting a Pink Beam award for lifetime achievement, he figured he would get in on the fun). 

Great idea. In Time’s Rabbit Hole is a work of what we call Pink Beam fiction, a work that plays with Phil Dickian concepts; in this case, the meta-reality time-travel novel in which LRC becomes a character in the story. Not only that a sorta meta-trip where LRC gets lost on a time-travel trip trying to get to the fest.

Along the way, he goes back and forth in time and meets a robot named Asshole. “I went closer to see a grease-stained and grimy, once-shiny, large egg-shaped machine sitting in a hoop atop a ball-wheeled metal tripod. Under the dirty surface was painted in faded red letters the word Asshole.

I yelped, “Asshole? What? You're not…”

“yes, your lordship, it is indeed I, Asshole, which is what you named me long ago after your Ukrainian friend.”

“Well, I'll be cornswaggled ha, that's great. Now you're a robot; tell me what's going on these days?”

 It is not long before the two try to go back in time to destroy the orange spray-tanned Form Destroyer from ever being born. The journey is funny for sure.  There are Dickian easter eggs, tips of the hat to members of the PKD community, but other SF writers are referenced, like the chapter called Time is the Simplest Thing. “Yes, sir! Time, as the great Clifford D. Simak wrote Time is the simplest thing; everything that has motion leaves a trail, a trace of its activity. And time, as you doubtless know, is defined by characteristic motion. Time passes it never stops. Ever since its initial expansion in the Big Bang, time has been going outwards as a part of the expanding universe of matter…”

This is a raw book; LRC admitted in the introduction that he did limited editing in part to keep the secret that it was happening. It adds to the unhinged nature. I think folks who know LRC, and will hear the book in his voice, will enjoy this the most. I had fun reading it and laughed several times; what more can you ask for in a one-sitting novella?

I am not even sure if this one is for sale, or was just a giveaway at PKD Fest, but I am very happy to have it on my shelf.

Book Review: An Empire in The Clouds by Ai Jiang

 

An Empire in the Clouds by Ai Jiang

384 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication: September 8, 2026 by Titan Books

I may or may not finish this novel poolside at a fancy hotel I was not staying at. If anyone asked, I am there for an education conference, visiting from, uh Ohio; I mean, I am not lying if I say I am Indiana.

Ai Jiang is an important new voice, and I have enjoyed her short stories for a little while. It was her appearances in Clarkeworld that first got my attention; she is an excellent writer, and I dipped my toe into her first novel, A Palace Near the Wind.  Her bio says Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Nebula, Bram Stoker Award winner, Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist, and an immigrant from Changle, Fujian, currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She is greatly influenced by Chinese fantasy, Peking Opera, and you can see hints of the classics of Western genre. All this gives Ai Jiang the tools to write novels you can´t really compare to anyone else. Every author has their own alchemy, but Jiang’s personal mix is singular. As a long-time reader of Louis Cha translations, I recognize some of the elements, but there are not many of us around. This novel is like court intrigue mixed with Dune, Princess Mononoke, Wuxia, and Peking opera. But that combo is a bit reductive. This novel feels like it is in the same universe as Natural Engines Duology; since it is from different publishers, they may not be considered one series. I may be mistaken, but that is my impression. 

The Ai Jiang short stories that I have read have a bit more standard horror or SF, but I reading that first novel really felt like nothing I had read before. As a lifelong Wuxia fan, I was interested in what the novel was offering up. The thing is, I enjoy Wuxia and fantasy more as a movie guy than reading. Fantasy novels don't reach me as much these days, but these books are not exactly pure fantasy. They have a fantasy feel, but hints of technology are the primary way the novels force you to acknowledge the SF elements. 

It is easy to go pages feeling like you are in an ancient world and then a scene like this one whips you back. “Next to the man sits a child without the blue outline glow to his mask. Smog filtration off.

“Smog eaters,” he wrinkles his nose. “Tasked with literally consuming the smog in hopes of lessening the amount in the atmosphere.”

“Does it…affect their bodies? Negatively?”

So you see it is actually set in a far future; these characters are bioengineered for this. In Ai Jiang’s first books, I got the sense that there are memories of technology; a few survive into this future, but this feels just as cyberpunk-influenced as Peking Opera. The story follows an opera trope in this sometimes ancient-feeling, sometimes far future land; it is very Chinese, but it is a fantasy kingdom, Piāo, the floating empire of lotuses. The emperor's sister escapes to a high-tech land called Opera where she joins the performers there, and an outcast No Face. 

The question then becomes: is this a debut novel as it is marketed, or a third novel, a second novel? The Natural Engines books clearly felt like a novel broken in half, and each were longer than many novels considered complete works. The only problem I have with this novel is not the fault of the author or the story, but I don’t think it is fair to call this novel a debut. Might be a second or third; either way, you cut this is a fantastic work that feels like it was a 10th or 12th work by the author.

In the end, An Empire in the Clouds balances feeling fresh and inventive at times and comfortable and familiar at other times. Is it for everyone? Not sure I can say that. Jiang doesn’t compromise and Westernize all the languages. There is heavy use of Chinese terms, and that will lose some readers.  Fantasy readers should love the setting and vibe. Opera is such a richly described fantasy world; it feels like a tangible place, and it seems like Ai Jing has been dreaming about it her whole life. 

Book Review: 12 Hours by L. Marie Wood (Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena #2)

 

 
12 Hours by L. Marie Wood (Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena #2)

80 pages, paperback. 

Published January, 2024 by Raw Dog Screaming Press

My experience with this author is limited to one conversation at the 2024 Stokercon; she was moderating a panel or on a panel- not sure but we had a short conversation, and I decided I needed to check out her work. I am sorry it took me two years, but I was searching for novellas on my library app, and there it was. Took a month to get transferred but that is the state of things. 

I was a little worried when I saw this was a book two; it is actually stand alone story, second in a loosely themed series. All great authors, from a great publisher, Raw Screaming Dog Press.  The Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena series has some authors I really respect, like David Sander, so I will check them out. 

This novella is short on page count, but long in vibe and atmosphere. What makes it special is the very strange POV; that of a murdered corpse makes for a one-of-a-kind experience. A lesser writer would have cheated on this concept. Not here. The murdered cabbie is a fully realized character. I was drawn into the mystery, and there were a few really creepy moments.

I read this in the lead-up to PKD Fest, so I don’t have as many thoughts or pull quotes as I might normally have.  Very short novella, a one-sit read, and fully recommended.

Book Review: The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel

 

The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel 
149 pages, Paperback 
Published February 17, 2026 by Tordotcom

Join us for a live PKD hangout and interview about this novel on 9/15/26 at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST.

For most of Science Fiction’s history, novels were short and didn’t have to be a Stephen King-sized doorstop or an arm workout to carry. It is funny that books that have 50 pages more than Of Mice and Men and would’ve been considered a novel in the golden age of SF are just novellas these days.  Enter this classic-feeling short novel, The Rainseekers by Matthew, that feels like a warm blanket for lovers of classic SF. Don’t get me wrong, it is a modern novel, but the things that make it feel classic are subtle, in the same way that the best world-building is built on tiny moments.

While some recent Martian novels have taken the route of a retro Mars, like The Strange by Nathan Balligrud or Song My Enemies Sing by James Reich, they do a wonderful job of invoking the Mars of the imagination. The Rainseekers is closer to a hard SF take on Mars, although the details of terraforming get fantastical.

The book has several POV characters, and the narrative jumps POV often; for such a short book, it has a mosaic feeling. We mostly follow Earth-born Sakunja Salazar, who is an influencer trying to document the first natural rain on the terraformed Mars. 

The Martian-born character was a bit more interesting to me. “I was born on Mars and, unfortunately, I'm a brittle bone. I get bimonthly injections to boost my bone density and muscle mass. One day I hope to walk the same Japanese hills of Earth that mom did. But right now I can't walk in full Earth gravity without risking my spine. I flew to Luna once, and let me tell you there was no fucking masseuse on the crowded boats.”

Saki’s adventures around the solar system hint at a wider universe and more experiences. 

“On Enceladus, I leaped like a bird from a tall frozen Cliff into an enormous crevice, artificial wings spread wide, and no orgasm nor drug will ever approach that feeling spiraling down in low gravity on that shimmering and frigid alien world while Saturn’s majesty loomed over me.”

I like that Kressel is fully using all the colors of the rainbow of SF to paint a picture of amazing travels around the solar system. Wouldn’t Saturn ring diving for influencers be a part of this future? 
Kressel takes the Martian setting seriously. He seems to have researched and thought out how this Martian culture would work while humans worked to change it.  Consider how they thought about the deaths of the people trying to see this first rain on Mars.

“The old Mars tradition, going back to the first landings, was to put the dead body in cold storage until it could be flown back to Earth for burial. But that proved difficult and absurdly expensive. So most of the early settlers buried their dead in the Martian sand. There's a fair amount of graveyards spread around Mars; if you look hard enough, some have become shrines, with plinths, and obelisks, and monuments to those brave early pioneers. But you can't bury folks on Mars anymore. The NDC forbids it, doling out huge fines and penalties for any infraction. You might contaminate the protosoil with invasive human microbes and ruined decades of careful planetary engineering. So most folks are cremated now, or their bodies get donated to the ag farms, where you're slowly composted and turned into fertilizer. You can never have enough nitrogen if you live on Mars long enough; chances are you've eaten a meal containing matter from at least one recycled person. Number one rule of life away from Earth is that nothing goes to waste, not even waste."

A novella with this scope, nothing goes to waste either, and I love it for that. The Rainseekers is an excellent SF novel that sells the harsh Martian environment without sacrificing the characters. I believe these characters desire to see this first rain, and I was invested. 24 chapters in a short novel, and the story felt like it expanded to the wider Solar System.   

You have a few weeks to read it before I interview the author on a live Dickheads. This is A+ modern science fiction in my opinion.

Book Review: We Are Always Tender With Our Dead by Eric LaRocca

 

We Are Always Tender With Our Dead by Eric LaRocca (Burnt Sparrow #1)

 304 pages, Hardcover
Published September, 2025 by Titan Books

Podcast interview on the way...

Eric first got on my radar when we both had Clash Books releases near each other.  I kinda know that Eric LaRocca is like some Brundle-fly mix of Brite, Koja, and Barker, but since I have been reading more SF and retro SF, I have mostly been reading horror by close friends, folks who were already in my rotation. I kept meaning to return to LaRocca, and then Titan sent me an arc for this one. Perfect timing because I had peeped this on the staff picks shelf at Mysterious Galaxy only a few weeks before it arrived.

Right or wrong, the idea I got was that this was more gothic than most of LaRocca’s catalog. He has won the Splatterpunk award because he writes disturbing books that are known for weird transgressive energy that drag body horror through the pain of alienation and often give voice to marginalized characters.

This one has a small-town horror vibe, it feels extra uncomfortable in all the right ways. Burnt Sparrow is a subversive work, delightfully weird. Influenced by Malcolm McDowell’s Blackwater trilogy. LaRocca has the confidence to blend strong influence with finding his own voice.  So if you trust and don’t want to hear me get into the details know this a fantastic horror novel and comes highly recommended.

Burnt Sparrow is an isolated New Hampshire town (they all are right?) that in the early 2000’s is victim to horrific crime. We spend most of the book opening in the eyes of Rupert Cromwell. He is an awkward kid, who is surviving abuse at home from his father and the trauma of not fitting in to the small town.

Rupert is rightly shocked when he and his father are given the very surreal gig of watching over the bodies of the victims of the massacre. The town is reacting that way because the victims were killed by three faceless supernatural forces, leading to paranoid fears of angering god or the supernatural forces behind everything.

“Heart hammers away inside his chest, thumping like a brick being slammed against concrete again and again.

He's never seen a dead body before. Not even his mother's when she perished. His father was careful to keep her corpse hidden from Rupert's sight, and he was grateful for that.”

Rupert’s journey through the novel is paralleled by the greater mystery and the strange events that keep happening. Some subtle and some as LaRocca is known to do – Extreme. The balance is carefully rolled out. For all the talk of extreme transgression in LaRocca’s work this novel is carefully and thoughtfully constructed.

Consider the scene when he finds a bird with a human face.

“Before he talks himself out of it, he ladles the tiny bird from the ground. It's small enough to fit inside the palm of his hand. He gazes at it for a moment, wondering what's to be done. He could squeeze it tight inside his first and all of this would be over. He could pretend to be God like for a moment, to decide the fate of another living thing. But Rupert has never held such cruel aspirations before. Why would he start now?

He dumps a small bird with a human face into his coat pocket and allows it to settle there for a moment when it cries, eventually weakens, and it seems to soften inside the warmth of the comfort-lined pouch.”

Rupert’s relationship with his father makes up much of the emotional core of the novel, while the murder and the supernatural events will make the most noise in most reviews; that is not what hooked me. Sure LaRocca brings the gruesome, weird,. and ugly moments, but the novel’s most disturbing moment doesn’t work without that core.

“He knew his father was capable of horrific, monstrous things.

But nothing like this.”

Rupert watching his father’s necrophilia is the perfect example of this.

“Rupert's father holds her with such tenderness, such carefulness. A crude imitation of love and affection he once showed Rupert's mother. Rupert's hands tightened to fists, almost about to knock down the door and push inside to chastise and berate his father but he can't do it. He can't bring himself to even go another second gazing at his father while he lies there with his arms wrapped around a corpse that could never return the same love, the same fondness, the same softness and warmth.”

We Are Always Tender with our Dead is a fantastic opening part to a trilogy that likely, in the future, will be thought of as a single piece. LaRocca has written a transgressive gothic, small-town horror that honors those splatterpunk roots but does not rely on it. A shoo-in for a top ten read of the year when the dust settles.