Book Review: A Brilliant Ecological Disaster Fantasy From Martha Wells

City of Bones (Updated and Revised Edition) by Martha Wells (Tor)

This is an updated and revised, “author’s preferred” version of a novel by the same name that was published by Tor in 1995. Somehow, I missed the earlier edition, but this one is a long, intricately detailed story that is part ecological apocalypse, part mystery, part fantasy, part racial conflict in a rigidly hierarchical society, and pure adventure.

In a world like Earth, and yet unlike, an ecological cataclysm has reduced human life to a chain of cities on the edge of the Waste, an immense desert that is all that remains of once-mighty oceans. Water and food are scarce, and poverty ensures starvation, except for the nonhuman semi-marsupial krismen, whom legends say were bred by the Ancients to withstand desert conditions. The story begins with Khat, a kris, and his human partner, Sagai, who deal in relics in the bottom tiers of the city Charisat, trying to stay one step ahead of the dreaded Trade Inspectors, for Sagai has a measure of protection as a human, but Khat has none. When Khat is approached by Elen, a magic-wielding Warder, to find relics hidden in a deep-desert artificial structure called a Remnant and believed to be part of one of the Ancients' arcane engines, he really has no choice. What begins as a reluctant expedition quickly turns into a struggle for survival, a deepening mystery, betrayals upon conspiracies, a fanatical cult bent on transforming what remains of human civilization, and revelations about the technology and nature of the Ancients.

Although City of Bones was first released three decades ago, this version represents Wells at her best. Her characters are vividly drawn, especially Khat, and the gradual way she peels back layers of past and personality is superb. The world-building, contrasting the rigidly hierarchical Charisat against the lawlessness of the Waste and the utter chaos of the looming cataclysm, is intricate, well-thought out, and revealed without ever overwhelming the reader with a mass of details. There’s enough context and backstory to fill an entire series.

And then there’s Khat, as human emotionally as he is alien in physiology. I loved his combination of confidence, physical prowess, inner wounds, capacity for tenderness, and courage. Most of all, his integrity shines through the story so that in the end, his choices ring true. Wells created a character I cared deeply about and then refused to cheapen him with a too-easy solution.

This is a long book, worthy of being savored, and sure to inspire readers to return to it for all the nuances we missed the first time.

Highly recommended.

 

Personal Statement Regarding Marion Zimmer Bradley and Sexual Abuse of Children

In light of the Epstein Files revelations, the charges against Rep. Swalwell, and my past association with Marion Zimmer Bradley:

I am a survivor of childhood sexual assault and adult rape. I stand unequivocally with my fellow survivors. I believe their stories, because mine is one of them. Overcoming the pain, self-blame, and paralyzing shame often requires time for those stories to come to light, but they are no less true. In my case, as for many others, survival meant shutting off my gut reactions to dangerous people and situations. What happened to me as a child was only the first incident, but it left a lingering conviction that I was never allowed to say NO. When I look back at my association with Marion Zimmer Bradley, which also involved contact with her ex-husband, the convicted pedophile Walter Breen, I knew on some level that the household was profoundly unhealthy. I wish I had been able to listen to my instincts and sever all contact when I realized what he was and that, although divorced, they remained close. I am horrified that Breen had any contact at all with my children. I assisted the police in their investigation of him that led to his incarceration, but that does not alter my responsibility.

I was overwhelmed by the revelations about Bradley herself.  It was not until later, when I grappled with my own history of assault and denial, that I was able to face the truth. I deeply regret that I did not come forward sooner or add my voice to those of other writers in condemning the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. I am doing so now.

The violation of children (and adults) – both by the perpetrators and those who enable them – is a betrayal of the most fundamental human trust, that of children for the adults who ought to care for them. Those like Bradley who know of such crimes and do not take action, or who participate by procuring children for pedophiles, are just as guilty because they could have stopped the abuse, they could have protected the innocent and spared them decades of nightmares, and they failed to do so.

If anything I have said or done in any way excuses Bradley or any other pedophile or pedophile enabler, I truly regret it, and I ask for your understanding.

 

Regarding my posthumous Darkover novel collaborations:

Under the auspices of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Literary Trust, I wrote nine Darkover novels. The writing is mine, but because she created Darkover, her name also appears on the cover. After the allegations came out, I fulfilled my existing publishing contracts. There will be no more Darkover novels written by me. The decision to reject works by an author who has done reprehensible things is a personal one. However, it was and remains my hope to make the Darkover series available to readers who loved it, written by someone other than Bradley.

Short Book Review: Penric and Desdemona Tackle Possessed Ox

The Adventure of the Demonic Ox, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Subterranean)

The Demonic Ox is yet another enchanting adventure featuring cleric-scholar Learned Penric and the centuries-old chaos demon, Desdemona, who has taken up residence in his mind. In past adventures, Des has given Pen supernatural powers of healing, perception, and strength, and she has a wicked (literally, since she is a demon) sense of humor, but her long existence through many hosts has made her extraordinarily powerful, a fact that Pen never forgets. Now Pen is summoned to investigate a different sort of demonic possession, the host being a valuable ox. Under the quite reasonable expectation that this will be a simple enough matter to resolve (is the ox actually possessed or crazed with a natural illness?), Pen brings along a small coterie of youngsters from his household. He expects the outing to be pleasant and instructive, but unfortunately, he is mistaken. A series of increasingly disastrous turns of events risks not only Pen’s life but those of his young charges.

Like previous adventures, Demonic Ox begins in a slow-paced manner, focusing on everyday family relationships. The sudden reversals spin the story at a breakneck pace, and the increasingly desperate conditions reveal new aspects of the central characters. Although Demonic Ox is not a good entrance point into the series, for established readers, it offers a richly rewarding journey.

I can hardly wait to read what happens next!

Short Book Review: The Return of You Sexy Thing

Devil's Gun, by Cat Rambo (Tor)

At the end of You Sexy Thing, the crew of the space yacht found themselves on the run from a vengeful pirate king. Not only that, but each of them is left grappling with wounds old and recent. The most poignant of these is Talon, a teenaged were-lion whose twin brother was killed by the pirate, and who can barely function alone. A captain grieves the loss of a love, her second-in-command can’t forget his lost daughter, a cloned princess searches for meaning in her life, and the ship itself tries to figure out emotions. Their next step involves transit through an intergalactic Gate, or so they hope. The Gates, created by the mysterious, vanished Forerunners, are supposed to be eternal, yet rumors abound of them dying. When a xenoarchaeologist claims to be able to fix the problem, the captain suspects a con. Nevertheless, the Gate opens as promised, taking them to the most dangerous place known, the corpse of a gigantic space moth, where they might be able to find the one weapon that can put an end to the pirate king.

Rambo’s writing is inventive, sympathetic, and full of vivid imagery. Best of all, her characters invite the reader into their lives and thoughts, weaving together a diverse crew bound by respect, affection, and suspicion. This novel, like the one before it, is a joy from one page to the next.

But wait, there’s more…

Recommended.

Reprint: Whiteness and Gender Inequalities in Protest

 When civil rights protesters are killed, some deaths – generally those of white people – resonate more

Posters memorialize Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two white Minneapolis residents killed by federal agents. AP Photo/Ryan Murphy

Aniko Bodroghkozy, University of Virginia

Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two white Minneapolis residents killed in January 2026 by federal agents while protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policy, have become household names. National media outlets continue to focus on their deaths and the circumstances around them.

Neither of them was the first person to be shot and killed by immigration enforcement officials over the past year. There have been numerous shootings and some deaths.

In September 2025, Silverio Villegas González was killed in Chicago under circumstances similar to Good’s death. Ruben Ray Martinez was shot multiple times by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Texas in March 2025, but their involvement was not revealed until nearly a year later. Neither Martinez nor Villegas González has become a household name, and their deadly encounters with federal agents have not drawn nearly the same level of media attention as Good’s or Pretti’s.

As a media historian, I’ve been struck by the similarities between the media’s coverage of Minneapolis and its coverage of Selma, Alabama, in 1965, when voting rights protests led to violence that left three people dead, including two white victims.

I’ve written about the Selma campaign, as well as the media’s treatment of white female activists killed during racial justice protests, in my books “Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement” and “Making #Charlottesville: Media from Civil Rights to Unite the Right.”

These two events reveal that the deaths of white activists often draw and sustain far more attention than the deaths of Black or Latino people in similar contexts. But the Selma and Minneapolis events also show that male and female white activist victims aren’t necessarily treated the same way.

Remembering Selma

Video footage of law enforcement beating and gassing marchers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge remains an iconic visual document of the Civil Rights Movement. John Lewis, who later became a congressman, was an activist at the head of the march on March 7, 1965, and was beaten in the head at the base of the bridge by Alabama state troopers. But he was not a household name in 1965, and media coverage at the time did not identify him.

Reporters also didn’t pay much attention to what had motivated the march: the killing of Black voting rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper during a nighttime march a week earlier.

Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a eulogy in Selma, Ala., for James Reeb, a fellow minister who was beaten to death. AP Photo

Still, the prime-time television broadcast of footage from “Bloody Sunday” at the Pettus Bridge shocked Americans, just as footage from Minneapolis has similarly distressed and disturbed many people today.

In 1965, a small number of white Americans from around the country, including numerous members of the clergy, descended on Selma to stand with the brutalized voting rights activists. They included James Reeb, a Unitarian minister from Massachusetts, and Viola Liuzzo, a wife and mother of five from Michigan.

Reeb, following a second aborted march across the Pettus Bridge two days after Bloody Sunday, was viciously beaten by a group of white racists and left lying on the ground, mortally wounded. His beating and subsequent death received plentiful media attention.

President Lyndon B. Johnson contacted Reeb’s widow. She gave media interviews about her husband. Johnson also extolled Reeb at the beginning of his joint address to Congress calling for robust voting rights legislation, four days after Reeb’s death. Johnson never mentioned Jackson’s death.

Liuzzo was ferrying people back to Selma from Montgomery on March 25 after the conclusion of the final, successful march to the state capital when a carload of Ku Klux Klansmen, one an FBI informant, chased her down and shot her through her car window. Her death received even more coverage than Reeb’s, keeping Selma in the news.

The Voting Rights Act passed five months later.

Smearing the victim

Book Review: A Flirtatious Fae Queen Takes on a Straightlaced General

Enchanting the Fae Queen, by Stephanie Burgis (Tor)

Enchanting the Fae Queen is the second installment in Stephanie Burgis’s “Queens of Villainy” series. We met all three in the first volume, Wooing the Witch Queen. (Read my review here.) Now Lorelei, the temptress fae Queen of Balravia who showers glitter and rainbow-colored sparkles everywhere she goes without the slightest regard for good taste, decorum, or royal dignity, takes center stage. Her love interest is the Evil Empire’s most famous (and virtuous) general, Gerard de Moireul. Because of escalating tensions between the aforementioned Evil Empire and a consortium of smaller kingdoms ruled by the Queens of Villainy, Lorelei decides to remove Gerard from the political stage. The two have various adventures, including as partners in a Fae Tournament, grow to understand one another, and fall in love.

In true “enemies to lovers” style, Lorelei and Gerard could not be more different at the beginning of the story. She’s an unrelenting, promiscuous, no-holds-barred flirt, whereas he is highly disciplined to the point of forsaking emotion and physical pleasure for razor-sharp analytical intellect. This is one of the many qualities that make him a formidable general. Lorelei’s powerful magic and her unpredictability likewise make her a daunting opponent. As the story progresses, we see that the two are not nearly as different as they seemed. Both are still grappling with unhealed childhood rejection, and both have difficulty trusting others. But where Lorelei’s loyalty to her fellow Queens of Villainy is founded in respect and common purpose, Gerard harbors an unsuspecting, naïve allegiance to his Emperor.

One of the book’s strengths is the gradual revelation of the characters to the reader, to each other, and to themselves. The tournament is full of inventive detail and suspense, providing ample opportunity for Lorelei and Gerard to demonstrate the depths beneath the masks they show the world.

My concern arises from the initial scenes when Lorelei holds Gerard prisoner. Since I didn’t like Lorelei to begin with (from her appearance in Wooing the Witch King), it was uphill going to stay with her as a sympathetic character. She thinks she’s using playful seduction and bedroom banter as a weapon, and he’s doing his best to ignore the highly suggestive way he’s tied up and how his body is acting. In the current awareness of the devastating effects of sexual coercion and power inequality, these scenes held implications of rape, psychological if not bodily. Consent is fundamental for men as well as women, and a visceral response does not equal willingness, desire (or love). Readers who are survivors of sexual abuse might find this material disturbing and miss out on how the relationship develops.

Trigger warning.

Reprint in Honor of Valentine's Day: Love is a Virtue

 

More than a feeling – thinking about love as a virtue can change how we respond to hate

Seeing hate as a feeling tied to love, rather than being its opposite, might help us choose how to respond. Lusky/E+ via Getty Images

Tucker J. Gregor, University of Iowa

Love and hate seem like obvious opposites. Love, whether romantic or otherwise, involves a sense of warmth and affection for others. Hate involves feelings of disdain. Love builds up, whereas hate destroys.

However, this description of love and hate treats them as merely emotions. As a religious ethicist, I am interested in the role love plays in our moral lives: how and why it can help us live well together. How does our understanding of the love-hate relationship change if we imagine love not as an emotion but as a virtue?

The 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas is a foundational thinker in the history of Christian ethics. For Aquinas, hate is not the antithesis of love, or even opposed to it. In his most important work, the “Summa Theologiae,” he writes that hate responds to love. In other words, hate is a reaction to threats against what we love, or what we deeply value. We can better understand the experience of hate by getting clear on what it means to love.

Greek roots

Today, scientists know that feelings of love are related to biochemical processes that release chemicals in the brain, increasing pleasure and excitement. Beyond mere biology or even emotions, some philosophers and psychologists contend that love is also a practice.

Love can also refer to a virtue: a habit or settled disposition that increases the likelihood of people thinking, feeling and acting in ways that promote happiness and well-being. For example, the virtue of courage can help people endure and thrive in the midst of fear and uncertainty.

Audiobook review: A BnB murder mystery with occasional witchcraft

 In the Company of Witches, by Auralee Wallace (Berkley)

I listened to the audiobook version of this cozy mystery with great delight. Part cozy murder mystery, part family saga, part sweet urban fantasy (witches, ghosts, you know the drill), the story invites the reader to contemplate deeper issues of generational trauma, loss, and healing. I say “invites" because the process involves sitting down with a cup of tea and scones.

The Warren witches have used their powers to help their neighbors in the quiet New England town of Evenfall for four hundred years. Currently, sisters Nora and Izzy, along with their niece Brynn, run a bed and breakfast, complete with a secret garden of poisonous plants used in magic. Brynn, too, has a secret: she once was able to communicate with ghosts, but that talent disappeared with her husband’s recent death. And Brynn has no intention of ever using her magic again. So when an unpopular heir to a historic mansion is found dead (aka, murdered) in the bed and breakfast, Aunt Nora becomes the prime suspect.

The story moves along briskly, with plenty of offbeat characters, revelations, and plot twists. If I had to name a fault, it would be how the aunts kept nagging Brynn to use her magic again and her drawn-out reluctance to tell them why she can’t. Otherwise, an entertaining book.

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Book Review: Librarian to a Wicked Witch

 Wooing the Witch Queen, by Stephanie Burgis (Tor)

Stephanie Burgis continues to delight readers with her playful twists on fairytale stories. In my opinion, her recent books have taken her skill to a new level.

In Wooing the Witch Queen, she combines magic, Victorian-esque politics, vivid psychological family drama (with attendant trauma), and a sweet, believable love story. Archduke Felix has spent his life as a political pawn and abuse victim of his ambitious relative. When he escapes and shows up at the doorstep of the wicked queen, Saskia, he has no idea of the parallels of their lives. Under her incredibly powerful magic, she’s insecure, convinced that she’s unlovable. A twist of coincidence lands him in the position of her masked librarian, tasked with setting to order the literary chaos of her collection. I’m a sucker for libraries and librarians, and Felix’s education, which has been restricted to poetry and the like, not swordsmanship, serves him well. Not only are their kingdoms on the brink of war, but Saskia has vowed to kill him on sight because of the lies told about his role in the war. His life depends on keeping his identity hidden behind his “dark wizard” mask.

Of course, they fall in love.

Over books.

And mutual sexual attraction, which is fine by me.

I admit that I have no idea how original the world of Wooing the Witch Queen is. I found it both familiar enough that I didn’t need a ton of explanation, and fresh enough to keep me entertained. As I said, I’m a sucker for libraries and librarians.

There are more books in this series. I’m looking forward to the adventures of the other members of the Queens of Villainy.

Reprint: The Joy of Mindful Reading

 

Deep reading can boost your critical thinking and help you resist misinformation – here’s how to build the skill

Just slowing down gives you time to question and reflect. Morsa Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images

JT Torres, Washington and Lee University and Jeff Saerys-Foy, Quinnipiac University

The average American checks their phone over 140 times a day, clocking an average of 4.5 hours of daily use, with 57% of people admitting they’re “addicted” to their phone. Tech companies, influencers and other content creators compete for all that attention, which has incentivized the rise of misinformation.

Considering this challenging information landscape, strong critical reading skills are as relevant and necessary as they’ve ever been.

Unfortunately, literacy continues to be a serious concern. Reading comprehension scores have continued to decline. The majority of Gen Z parents are not reading aloud to their young children because they view it as a chore. Many college students cannot make it through an entire book.

With their endless scrolling and easy reposting and sharing of content, social media platforms are designed to encourage passive engagement that people use to relieve boredom and escape stress.

As a cognitive scientist and a literacy expert, we research the ways people process information through reading. Based on our work, we believe that deep reading can be an effective way to counter misinformation as well as reduce stress and loneliness. It can be tough to go deeper than a speedy skim, but there are strategies you can use to strengthen important reading skills.

Counterintuitively, social media can make you feel more bored and lonely. Dmitrii Marchenko/Moment via Getty Images

Deep reading versus doomscrolling

People use smartphones and social media for a variety of reasons, such as to relieve boredom, seek attention, make connections and share news. The infinite amount of information available at your fingertips can lead to information overload, interfering with how you pay attention and make decisions. Research from cognitive science helps to explain how scrolling trains your brain to think passively.

To keep people engaged, social media algorithms feed people content similar to what they’ve already engaged with, reinforcing users’ beliefs with similar posts. Repeated exposure to information increases its believability, especially if different sources repeat the information, an effect known as illusory truth.

Deep reading, on the other hand, refers to the intentional process of engaging with information in critical, analytical and empathetic ways. It involves making inferences, drawing connections, engaging with different perspectives and questioning possible interpretations.

Deep reading does require effort. It can trigger negative feelings like irritation or confusion, and it can very often feel unpleasant. The important question, then: Why would anyone choose the hard work of deep reading when they can just scroll and skim?

Short Book Reviews: A Queer Lovecraftian School Mystery

The Afterdark, by E. Latimer (Penguin)

After her twin sister drowns under questionable circumstances, Evie questions whether the darkness she has always known lurks inside her was responsible. In the blink of an eye, she gets shipped off to an elite boarding school where her father is the principal. Northcroft, located on a remote island and surrounded by dense, old-growth forest. Spooky things happen, beginning with a nightly bell and shutters slamming down, to her father refusing to see her, to a masked cult and mysterious warnings. To make matters worse, Evie falls for glamorous film star Holland Morgan, not knowing that Holland was her dead sister’s old flame. Every day, it seems, Evie discovers another layer of creepiness. If the school and the members of the clandestine mask-wearing “honor” society weren’t bad enough, the woods themselves are a thousand times worse. Something is out there, something ancient and utterly inhuman, something that Evie is increasingly unable to resist.

The Afterdark hits so many story tropes: it’s a school story with a spooky cult, a lesbian romance, a tale of a teen struggling to break free from a highly dysfunctional family, a Lovecraftian dark horror story, and a murder mystery, all tied up with one cliffhanger plot twist after another. The story grabbed me right away and kept me turning pages, and although I’m not a typical horror reader, for me the dark fantasy elements enhanced and intensified the story in appropriate and emotionally manageable ways. So don’t pass up this marvelous book because of the genre.

 

Another rave review of ARILINN

Just spotted this on Goodreads:

Darkover is my favourite fictional world. It has held me captive through many volumes and through many years. I find it is a place I yearn for sometimes, and I will gladly pick up a favourite book to reread. Something that seldom happens with other books.

Arilinn snared me in from beginning to end. Fast paced and action filled with characters I truly came to care for. The now, to me, familiar world and culture of Darkover marvellously supports the story of hardship and growth of Leora Hastur.

I could not put the book down, and read well into the wee hours of the morning. An absolute must read if you love the Darkover world, and a good introduction to other world travellers.

-- B