Book Review: Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner

 

Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner

 263 pages, Hardcover
Published July, 2025 by Tor Nightfire

(Full review on the way) 

Book Review: Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin

 

 Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin

 196 pages, Paperback
Published August 5, 2025, by Tor Nightfire

(Full Review on the way) 

Book Review: The Hospital at the End of the World by Justin C. Key

 

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weaknesses of a first novel, in fact I suspect that even though it is his first, he cut his teeth on some rougher yet unpublished novels.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!

 

Book Review: The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

 

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

 224 pages, Paperback SF Masterworks Series
Published September 9, 1999 by Gollancz

First published January 1, 1959
 

Literary awards

Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel (1960), 

Seiun Award 星雲賞 for Best Foreign Novel (1973)

I am way behind on my book reviews, and Vonnegut’s 5th novel is not exactly dying for attention so I may not give this book its due. Let's face it, Vonnegut as genius as he is…how do you sum him up? It is hilarious and weird. 

There are space operas and there are Space absurdities that can range full on slapstick like Hitchhiker’s Guide, Fredric Brown  or Robert Sheckley and there is the surrealist Malzberg or PKD - that is always underrated for its humor.  Slaughterhouse 5 is, of course, just as much SF as this or say Martian Time Slip. Vonnegut often gets a pass out of the genre ghetto, but let's face that is where this novel was meant to live. 

Malachi Constant is our POV character. He gets around the solar system. Through Malachi Vonnegut is able to express some opinions on the human race, as he has a habit to do.  

 

“To hell with the human race,” Said Beatrice.

"You are a member of it you know," Said Rumfoord. 

"Then I would like to put in a transfer to the Chimpanzee..."

 

Many works of Vonnegut are about a desire to look at the human race from the outside, SOT is unique in that it is the one that was directly written to be marketed as Science fiction, with a desire to make money commercially and as such he is throwing grand ideas about good/evil, the universe, the importance of love and still nothing is taken so seriously that you won’t laugh throughout the books.

“There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.”

This line made me think about how the political figures with ethical standards kinda screwed us to have to deal with the ones who don’t care condemned us.  If the good people could act a little more shitty sometimes, maybe we would get balance. This is a story afterall about a rich guy traveling around the universe 

 

“The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.”

Malachi travels the universe and comments on the universe, and it is not much of a plot, but a frame for Vonnegut to express ideas and points of view. In lesser hands, this would be an absurdist mess, but in a master’s hands, this is an entertaining read. 

“. . . but the Universe is an awfully big place. There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things and still not agree.”