Anthropocene Rag

It’s not often that I turn to Tor for challenging books. While their backlist includes truly amazing works like Maureen F. McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang, much of what they have on offer more recently, while entertaining and often progressive(ish), has made such a virtue of open, accessible writing that when I pick up one of their books I do so knowing that it will do less to challenge me structurally or linguistically than books I was reading as a teenager. Meatier than YA, but nothing that would alienate a reader who’d never yet gone beyond YA.[ref]There are exceptions. Brooke Bolander’s The Only Harmless Great Thing managed to try more new things in 92 pages than most of the other science fiction works I’ve read in the last two years combined.[/ref] Not bad books, by any stretch—I’m very rarely disappointed by a Tor title—but I know where to set my expectations.… Continue Reading →