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From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions …
The #SFFBookClub book for August 2025.
(Please feel encouraged to read along and post your thoughts to the hashtag!)
In this an enthralling Filipino-inspired epic fantasy, a nun concealing a goddess-given gift is unwillingly …
Content warning spoilers
Despite the overt themes of colonialism and religious imperialism, Saints of Storm and Sorrow feels primarily like a story about toxic relationships - Catalina's abusive partnership with Lunurin, Alon's self-destructive infatuation with Lunurin (and Lunurin's knowing, cynical usage of it), Alon's father's abusive treatment of Alon, even the goddess's relationship with Lunurin.
The hollywood ending feels good, but I have to wonder if any of these characters is undamaged enough to live Happily Ever After.
In this an enthralling Filipino-inspired epic fantasy, a nun concealing a goddess-given gift is unwillingly …
The sea breezes keened of death in Lunurin’s ears, a cacophony of voices urging her to act.
— Saints of Storm and Sorrow by Gabriella Buba (Stormbringer Saga, #1)
In this an enthralling Filipino-inspired epic fantasy, a nun concealing a goddess-given gift is unwillingly …
Saints of Storm and Sorrow is the #SFFBookClub book for July 2025. If you're at all interested, please read along and post your thoughts to the hashtag! See sffbookclub.eatgod.org/ for more details.
Saints of Storm and Sorrow is the #SFFBookClub book for July 2025. If you're at all interested, please read along and post your thoughts to the hashtag! See sffbookclub.eatgod.org/ for more details.
In this an enthralling Filipino-inspired epic fantasy, a nun concealing a goddess-given gift is unwillingly …
I added this to the July poll for #SFFBookClub.
The SFFBookClub is our informal fediverse science fiction and fantasy book club. Everyone reading this is welcome to participate. More details: sffbookclub.eatgod.org/
If you're interested in reading along, please help choose a book for next month: weirder.earth/@picklish/114683873892058550
I added this to the July poll for #SFFBookClub.
The SFFBookClub is our informal fediverse science fiction and fantasy book club. Everyone reading this is welcome to participate. More details: sffbookclub.eatgod.org/
If you're interested in reading along, please help choose a book for next month: weirder.earth/@picklish/114683873892058550
For fans of Emily St. John Mandel and Kelly Link, a profoundly imaginative debut novel …
The #SFFBookClub pick for June 2025
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
I found this to be enjoyable, but it jumped around between the genres too much for my liking.
It really irked me that the MC never gets named. It was at least bearable due to the perspective being almost entirely from her point of view, but with how much she interacts with the other characters, it drove me a little bonkers that she was never called by any name.
I'm glad that I read this still, but it's not one that I'm ever going to have an interest in revisiting.
#SFFBookClub May 2025
I found this to be enjoyable, but it jumped around between the genres too much for my liking.
It really irked me that the MC never gets named. It was at least bearable due to the perspective being almost entirely from her point of view, but with how much she interacts with the other characters, it drove me a little bonkers that she was never called by any name.
I'm glad that I read this still, but it's not one that I'm ever going to have an interest in revisiting.
#SFFBookClub May 2025
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
For fans of Emily St. John Mandel and Kelly Link, a profoundly imaginative debut novel …
The #SFFBookClub book for June 2025.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
I really enjoyed The Ministry of Time.
I was frustrated with the protagonist for big chunks of the book for not realizing obvious things. The author repeatedly tried to defend this with "I bet you're thinking 'I would have realized this right away', but" and in a world where I know time travel exists, I absolutely would!
However, the writing is very good, and it kept me engaged. The combination of themes around time travel, colonialism, and refugee life really worked, and I feel like it allowed them to be explored from different angles.
I'm kind of let down by the inconclusiveness of the ending, but on the other hand they avoided most of the cliché time travel tropes, so overall I guess it balances out.
I really enjoyed The Ministry of Time.
I was frustrated with the protagonist for big chunks of the book for not realizing obvious things. The author repeatedly tried to defend this with "I bet you're thinking 'I would have realized this right away', but" and in a world where I know time travel exists, I absolutely would!
However, the writing is very good, and it kept me engaged. The combination of themes around time travel, colonialism, and refugee life really worked, and I feel like it allowed them to be explored from different angles.
I'm kind of let down by the inconclusiveness of the ending, but on the other hand they avoided most of the cliché time travel tropes, so overall I guess it balances out.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
Overall, I love this novel's ideas but the genres it mixes together work against each other rather than being stronger for the combination.
(also please name your protagonist, it's so awkward, thank you)
I found the writing here to be surprisingly funny and engaging. The dialogue between the protagonist and Graham continually made me laugh, and the book is peppered with delightful drive-by analogies like "he looked oddly formal, as if he was the sole person in serif font" or "I lay in my own body like a wretched sandbank".
The strongest part of the book to me (and the part that I found the most engaging) was the relationship and dialogue between the protagonist and Graham. A 19th century sailor is a great foil for modern London life; however, it also does a good job of making both the protagonist and Graham real, fallible characters who …
Overall, I love this novel's ideas but the genres it mixes together work against each other rather than being stronger for the combination.
(also please name your protagonist, it's so awkward, thank you)
I found the writing here to be surprisingly funny and engaging. The dialogue between the protagonist and Graham continually made me laugh, and the book is peppered with delightful drive-by analogies like "he looked oddly formal, as if he was the sole person in serif font" or "I lay in my own body like a wretched sandbank".
The strongest part of the book to me (and the part that I found the most engaging) was the relationship and dialogue between the protagonist and Graham. A 19th century sailor is a great foil for modern London life; however, it also does a good job of making both the protagonist and Graham real, fallible characters who each make incorrect assumptions about the other. One other way this relationship also works for me is that it lets the book delve into the parallels of being an expat forced into a new time versus a new place work really well, or of not being be able to go "back".
However, the construction seams of this novel show, and that's where it gets weak. The more "serious" time travel and time war shenanigans feel tacked on, and thematically don't really integrate with the rest of the story (tonally or thematically). As a time travel story, it's not doing anything particularly novel here, and these bits weaken the rest of the novel.
(This was the #SFFBookClub book for May 2025.)
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
Never tell a workplace or a lover anything that might cause them to terminate your relationship until you’re ready to leave.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
Content warning alcohol
She came back with a glass of chilled red wine, which I hadn’t realized was a drink you could get on purpose.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
Perhaps he’ll die this time.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …
The #SFFBookClub selection for May 2025
