Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim
368 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication: June 2, 2026
Full review on the way...
Friday, February 27, 2026
Book Review: Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim
Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim
Book Review: The Jagged Orbit by John Brunner
343 pages, Hardcover
Published 1969 by Ace Books
Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel (1969),
British Science Fiction Association Award for Novel (1970)
Book Review: The Best of C. M. Kornbluth (Edited by Frederik Pohl)
Hardcover
Published 1976 by Taplinger Publishing Company, New York
Had I read this in a different year, when I had less going on, I would probably have written a much longer review of this book, which had waited for me on my shelf for years. Growing up in New York City, CM Kornbluth, Cyril to his friends, was a member of the famous first SF club in New York, the Futurians. Lots of famous voices in SF came from that circle: Fred Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Don Wollheim, and Judith Merrill.
Kornbluth might have been the most naturally talented writer of the bunch, who worked with Fredrick Pohl on two novels, including the classic Space Merchants. He wrote under the name Cyril Judd with Judith Merrill, and still published fairly prolifically on his own. Many short stories, some interesting (in hindsight), like Takeoff, which is a moonshot novel from the fifties. He had double digit number of pen names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond, and Scott Mariner. Some early issues of Stirring Science Stories, edited by fellow Futurian Donald Wollheim, would have three or more stories by Kornbluth under different names.
His S.D. Gottesman's story Dead Center was a massive influence on my man Philip K. Dick when he was a young reader. He wrote seven non-SF novels, including political thrillers like Presidential Year, crime like the Naked Storm, and a pulpy erotica called Sorority House, which I am sure is a lost feminist classic. (it was under a pen name for a reason)
That all being said, CM Kornbluth was a working writer who excelled at short science fiction and wrote several all-timers. After reading the Little Black Bag for the Science Fiction Hall of Fame series on my podcast, I decided I needed to finally read this collection from start to finish. I read The Marching Morons a few years back, and it felt like a new read in that light.
Kornbluth is a fascinating writer, and I consider him the Charles Beaumont of the East Coast, one of the most talented of a group of tight-knit writers who left a short but powerful catalog of work. His friends, like Beaumont on the West Coast, thought he was the best among them. A Jewish writer who was also a decorated hero of the Battle of the Bulge. A machine gunner who fought fascism in Europe but several times wrote about the folly of war. Two Domes - one of the best stories in this collection was an early tale of the Axis winning, written by a machine gunner just a few years removed from the battlefield.
This is a must-read collection for anyone interested in vintage SF, and while many of these stories are solidly golden age, the influence on the New Wave is clear. Politically sharp (for the time), creative, experimental in style, but with delicate prose that doesn't waste a word. Kornbluth is capable of expansive ideas that can be described as wild and weird, but he creates characters and settings that ground the stories that some of his friends just couldn't do.
Every single story in this collection had something worthwhile in it, and the stand classics earned their rep. The Little Black Bag is a truly great story that deserves a spot in the SF hall of fame. The Marching Morons, a tale about failed eugenics, is a 1950s take on Idiocracy, and sadly turned out to be very predictive as we currently watch morons lead the country (as I write this) into a war with Iran. This story was written to be the inverse of The Little Black Bag, with a man waking up in the future. I mean, it is about a future overrun by morons, a real estate guy declares himself a dictator and uses Nazi propaganda methods to maintain power…Impossible eh?
My favorite was “The Luckiest Man in Denvu” a socio-economic-based Sci-fi story that has folks in the future living in towers based on wealth and status, written twenty-three years before JG Ballard’s High Rise. This story is a great example of Kornbluth's economic style.
The mindworm might be the best horror or dark themes story in the collection, but the most powerful story of them all was Two Domes, which uses the alternate history setting to explore what could’ve happened if the U.S. hadn’t won the arms race. I am not entirely sure I agree with the point of the story, but it is a powerful one nonetheless.
CM Kornbluth’s place in the history of the genre is one increasingly lost to the march of time. His importance is obvious to anyone who studies the era or just takes the time to read his work. I would hate for it to take a movie to make him important again.
In other words, this should be on your shelf and read.
Book Review: Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin
196 pages, Paperback
Published August 5, 2025, by Tor Nightfire
Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin
The cursed film has become a treasured and often played in a subgenre of horror, with films like 8mm in film and Experimental Film by Gemma files in prose and most recently Paul Tremblay’s Horror Movie.
Black Flame is a unique take on the already crowded field by threading the film through a one-of-a-kind projector. There is only one Gretchen Felker-Martin, a transgressive writer who is Jewish, trans, and seemingly influenced by the erotic horror of Clive Barker and Poppy Z.Brite. There is a lack of fucks given that I find inspiring even if I don’t always agree with the takes. One of the best elements of GFM is that she is one of a kind writer, and even she is playing with stuff like a cursed film or a trans take on the Screwfly Solution.
No one else would dare write an erotic, and sometimes kinky tale about a lost horror film created in Nazi Germany. As such, this novel is one of the darkest possible mirrors to look at humanity, but hell, that is horror at its best.
More than once, I have been told we should cancel this author. I interviewed GFM, and her opinions are radical, sure, but her style of horror is transgressive by nature. It was surprising to me that an author who is clearly out to ruffle feathers was expected to hold back on her opinions. One of the opinions that got the most anger was that GFM supported the idea of a Free Palestine. As the author of a very Jewish horror novel who is horrified by the 75 October 7thś done to Palestine since October 7th, it was refreshing to see never again means never again to this author.
Black Flame is important right now because the message that the Nazis are bad guys is sadly too relevant. I wasn't expecting it, as it is a novel about a cursed film, but the film in the book the Baroness, comes out of Nazi Germany, and there are excellent world-building details involved the creation of the film which is excellently woven into the narrative through our POV Ellen who is working to restore the movie.
The moral shades of grey in this novel are thick when it gets real.
“What would it do to someone, to survive the Holocaust only to realize that the other side wasn't going to save you? To understand that you were as subhuman under the stars and tripes, or the hammer and sickle, as you had been under the swastika? That everyone else was going to the biggest celebration in the history of the world while you died of hunger because people found you uncomfortable to think about?”
Black Flame is a work of art that doesn’t blink in talking about issues or in pushing the ick factor. Most importantly, for horror to break new ground these days is always welcome. Gretchen Felker Martin is a writer whose superpower is creating discomfort. This probably makes her life tougher than it needs to be, but it makes her fiction like the sharp edges of a rusty can, and that is why you should read it.
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Book Review: Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner
263 pages, Hardcover
Published July, 2025 by Tor Nightfire
Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Novel (2025)
This book took me a long time to get to. I requested a purchase through our library, bugged two different librarians to get it, so I waited for that copy, and they took their time. I don't know that you needed to know that.
Wendy is an author I greatly respect, and when I had her on the podcast, she hinted that this book was coming, an ecological body horror crossover set in Oregon. Yep, 200% sold on this one. Fungal horror is not an entirely new subgenre that dates back to the early Weird Tales, but as it has gotten more sophisticated, we have seen excellent entries by Nick Cutter, Jeff Vandameer and of course, another PDX’er in Jeremy Robert Johnson. Video games and TV have The Last of Us, but the source of this fungus reminds me of Stanislaw Lem. If Wagner was not influenced by the Polish writer, she was downstream. Pun intended.
The word you are going to hear often is atmospheric, which is fair; parts of this touch on cosmic horror, while balancing that tone and vibe with vivid characters and a grounded setting. That balance can be tough to strike.
Our POV is Erin, who has traveled to the Mount Hood area east of Portland, writing a travel article on the area. The truth is, she has a deeper motivation, a missing brother whom she is trying desperately to find. She finds another body, but this body is more than just a dead young woman. This mystery involves a fungus on her body that is not of this world.
This novel is written from multiple points of view, some of which are very NOT HUMAN. The strangeness in these otherworldly moments creates much of the best atmosphere of the novel. “The Strangeness Tightened its Tendrils, Raised the volume of its humming to cut off the panic hurtling through the creek Girl’s body. Pleased, though, the hormones had begun working against her organs. She had been in the water so long, it hadn’t been sure she would come back with such things. Inside the girl’s heart, The Strangeness allowed the muscle to contract a little, stirring the sludge that replaced her blood.”
Wagner doesn’t waste energy on flowery prose. This I like. This is a readable novel that tells a story that is weird but not unclear. Takes wild swings and makes it feel natural. The body horror is woven into the characters in a way that makes the stakes feel real. “The creek girl’s toes twisted inside their shroud. A few neurons connected again, her inner voice activating. I’m dead, aren’t I. I’m dead, and this is hell. Mama was right about skipping Mass.”
Climate change-induced unknowable cosmic body horror combo, that is a lot of elements for Wagner to weave together, and it is done pretty smoothly. So yeah, I loved this. As always, your mileage may vary, but to me, this is an excellent horror novel.
Book Review: The Hospital at the End of the World by Justin C. Key
400 pages, Hardcover
Published February 3, 2026 by Harper
Hospital At the End of the World by Justin C. Key
Medical dramas are having a moment thanks to The Pitt, but let's be real every medical story is in a sense, Science Fiction. Medicine is a science, but Key’s novel is a medical thriller set in the near future, and in my opinion works even better as a work of SF than purely medical. This is a stunningly good debut, from a writer who clearly is more experienced than your average first timer.
This novel was on my radar ever since I first became aware of the author. Key was on a panel at the first SFAM in Los Angeles, and when I attended that panel, I did a very modern thing. I followed him on all socials as I was sitting there. It was soon after that he announced this novel. So when I was offered a chance to review this novel, I jumped at the chance. This was one of my anticipated novels of the year.
This near-future thriller is about a medical student and the changing technology, and speaking of the Pitt, that technology is at the heart of the second season of the Pitt. Not only are the doctors on the show rejecting AI, and having issues with how it interfaces with their jobs but the season involves technology failing. Just like every sector, the ripples of AI technology make sense to be in the air with medical stories. Hospital at the End of the World, with the near future setting, is even better at examining the ins and outs of this changing political dynamic.
Justin Key may be new to the novel format, but he has released plenty of stories a collection and a novella. This novel doesn’t have some weaknesses of a first novel, in fact I suspect that even though it is his first, he cut his teeth on some rougher yet unpublished novels. Maybe he is just that good.
The story is about Pok, a medical student who is turned down for placement in one of many medical schools in the unified AI-operated Shepard corporate system. Shepard is the most powerful AI in the world, running nearly everything, So it was crushing for Pok, whose only option is natural medicine and medical school (Hippocrates) in New Orleans, the city that has set-up a firewall to resist Shepard's control.
Once in New Orleans, he is brought in to the research looking for a solution for a mystery illness that looks like withdrawal from tech. ¨The scrollers¨ who are moving to NOLA and suddenly are cut off from technology. There are reasons why Pok was put into the position...
"I saw the beginning of their plan for you and for the New Orleans. They want to show the world that being separate is unsafe." The Emergency room went cold. "How are they going to do that?"Pok said.
"By making it unsafe. I don't know exactly how but this place, this city, it's their target. and once your TSO's target..."
The paranoid, future tech-driven dystopia elements make for a strong SF reading experience. I loved this novel, the medical stuff was as subtle as the world-building. I could follow it easily, the characters were well drawn, and the narrative was well paced. Most importantly for this novel, the themes and issues it addresses are timely and important. Not preachy, but woven perfectly into the mysteries.
What is chilling about the story is it how vulnerable our entire species feels during this story. A good medical drama will make you feel vulnerable, but the trick here is that this medical story is about an illness that can sweep humanity as fast as an actual disease.
Does AI inherently make for better medicine? The argument is that there is a lack of human mistakes, but of course, just like anything else, the human touch is important. This novel never takes such things lightly.
The SF elements are strongest in the way the technology and culture clash, when characters withdraw from tech, they use drugs like synth…
"Synth has been around a lot longer than Agrypria. And withdrawal symptoms are well defined and usually self-limiting. This isn't simple withdrawal."
A medical thriller writer might miss these types of speculative ideas, and this novel overflows with them.
Hospital at the End of The World is among the best new releases in genre fiction; the fact that it comes from a new voice might be the most exciting part. It is an excellent cross between a medical thriller and a paranoid techno-dystopia. Like many books in the genre, it could easily spin off into other stories set in this universe. It is ripe for sure. I suspect this will be on my best of at the end of the year, so yeah read this book...Doctor's orders.
Book Review: American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction by Robert Yeates
American Cities in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction by Robert Yeates
212 pages, Hardcover
Published November 2021 by UCL Press
This review is 200% a victim of my being behind 8 book reviews, and being ass deep with organizing the Global Time Slip/ PKD festival. Normally, this would be a longer, more intense review.
I read this book to prep for the LIVE PKD hangout interview, which I just conducted. And it was great. Yeates is a British-born researcher, and as such, this research about the depiction of American cities in decay is quite interesting. Starting with early SF prose, Radio, movies, and into Video games and streaming TV, Yeates paints a vivid picture of American cities in speculative decay over the decades.
The titles of the chapters give a great overview of the whole book.
1 Urban apocalypse in the magazines
2 Listening to ruins on the radio
3 Cinema and the aesthetics of destruction
4 Urban decay in the transmedia universe of Blade Runner
5 Playing in virtual ruins from Wasteland to Wasteland 2
6 Cities and sanctuary in The Walking Dead
I was really happy that Yeates spent a good amount of time on Jack London’s Iron Heel and The Scarlet Plague. I have read both, but Iron Heel only recently (see my Amazing Stories column about it). The history of the Radio shows was a thing I knew a little about, but was happy to learn more.
Chapter four about Blade Runner and urban Decay was the one I was doing an interview about, so perhaps I paid a little more attention to it. The information that crossed all Blade Runner media from PKD’s novel, the movie, the sequel novels, and video games was excellent.
What was new to me was the information about video games and the Walking Dead Universe. I learned about the extensive fan fiction community of The Walking Dead, for example. What happened in that space was fascinating, and I knew none of it.
This is a great academic book, it was published in 2021 by UCL Press in the UK and is expensive, but on the website there is an open-access PDF available.
PDF of the book here!
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