Book Reviews for August 2025
By Alan Dove
In August, I went through three fantasy novels, then read a bunch of short stories, and ended the month enjoying the first few novellas of a highly-regarded sci-fi series. This month’s reading companion is Cranberry, who’s now available for adoption if you’re in the Springfield, MA area.
Wiswell, J., Someone You Can Build a Nest In: The premise here is a fun twist on the classic monster-slaying fantasy or fairy tale, in that it’s told from the perspective of the monster. Shesheshen devours humans, and rearranges their parts inside herself to pass as one of them, making it easier to find her next victim. But even a shapeshifter capable of digesting whole squads of mercenaries has needs and feelings, and when she falls in love with the person she’d picked to host her brood of parasitic eggs, well, it gets complicated. The pacing is good until the slightly overlong ending, and many of Shesheshen’s problems are strangely relatable for anyone who’s ever been horrified by their own body’s quirks and limitations. I did find her disproportionate interest in pancreases odd for a being with no blood, but overall, this was a fun time and a very fresh take on an old trope. Well worth reading.
Chakraborty, S.A., The City of Brass: Nahri, a con artist living in the slums of 18th century Cairo, accidentally summons an ancient djinn during one of her scams. What follows is a fantasy escapade in which her swarthy new companion whisks her off to the magical city of Daevabad, as she learns that she is in fact the last descendant of a lost line of powerful djinn. It’s typical fantasy fare, but in an Arabian Nights-inspired setting. Chakraborty weaves in themes of ancient grudges and cycles of ethnic violence, which fit well within her richly imagined Middle Eastern world. Aside from a midsection that felt a bit too drawn out, it was an enjoyable trip, and the ending was enough to propel me into the second volume of this trilogy.
It’s nice to immerse yourself in a good book.
Chakraborty, S.A., The Kingdom of Copper: This starts as a decent continuation of the story Chakraborty began in the first book, but the middle bogs down even more this time. It’s longer than the first volume, and a lot of those words just feel like they’re dragging things out. Part of the problem is that with the worldbuilding and related exposition all laid out in the first book, the focus here is more on the plot, revealing that perhaps the author takes the Scheherazade analogy a bit too seriously. For hundreds of pages, it’s just one damned thing after another, and I was often checking how many pages I had left. The last third finally picked up the pace, and I thought the ending landed pretty well. Looking at the 750-page doorstop of the third book, though, I don’t plan to finish this trilogy.
Clarkesworld Magazine: Since I’d aborted my plan to read the whole Daevabad trilogy, I had no more books on the end table until my next batch of library holds arrived. It was a perfect time to catch up on short stories. For that, I turned to one of the best speculative fiction outlets on the planet. Clarkesworld has been online since 2006, under the capable direction of longtime sci-fi editor Neil Clarke, and has published numerous award-winning stories in its nearly 20-year run. It’s free to read, but I subscribe to support this outstanding platform. There’s also a podcast version narrated by voice actress Kate Baker. The stories lean heavily toward character-driven science fiction with strong literary elements. Though the pieces range from flash fiction to novella length, most are in the 3,000-5,000 word sweet spot of short stories: concentrated 15-20 minute reads. A section of nonfiction essays and interviews rounds out each issue. If you’re a fan of speculative fiction, you need this magazine in your feeds.
Wells, M., All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy: Yes, this is four books (or two, if you can find the combined editions), but the stories are novellas, so each is about a one-evening read. This series has won essentially every major speculative fiction award, and it’s been on my list for awhile. Believe the hype. The first story is my favorite, in which we first meet Murderbot, an AI-powered cyborg security unit, or SecUnit, who has become sentient and hacked his own governor module. No longer required to obey the commands sent to him, he nonetheless keeps protecting the team of human scientists who’ve hired him. But he’d rather just be left alone to watch his soap operas. He’s smart, cynical, and sarcastic, and I love riding along in Murderbot’s head as he tries to figure out the humans around him and the annoying emotions that keep popping up unbidden.