It Came From The Archives: “The Luminous Dead: A Polarizing Horror Descent”
The Luminous Dead is perhaps one of the hardest reviews I’ve done in a long time. The nature of the work has clashed with my usual operations.
By Brandon Scott on Jul 15th, 2024
The Luminous Dead is perhaps one of the hardest reviews I’ve done in a long time. The nature of the work has clashed with my usual operations.
By Brandon Scott on Jul 1st, 2024
“Slow Time Between the Stars” has almost no plot. And that’s perfectly fine. If you try to read it expecting a plot—or really even conflict—to arise, then you’ll be disappointed. This is pure idea-based science fiction. It’s continuous interesting ideas. That’s it.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 12th, 2024
“Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach” is a fascinating, humanist piece of science fiction. Despite having almost no conflicts, barely anything that counts as a propelled plot, it’s intriguing all the way through. Reading it instills so many emotions: sadness, joy, wistful nostalgia, and the exact type of curiosity that incredible concepts have all the power to invoke.
By Brandon Scott on Jun 5th, 2024
“The Long Game” is actually a story about very short periods of time and the exploitation of a species. Its title refers to one idea in the story, among a few different, some related, some not, concepts—and the greatest strength of this one, like “How It Unfolds,” is how interesting those ideas are.
By Brandon Scott on May 22nd, 2024
“Falling Bodies” is an outlier, so far, in this collection. The concept of time does play a part in the story, but no more than any story that deals with someone’s past. There are plenty of sci-fi elements, but it takes place on a normal time scale.
By Brandon Scott on May 15th, 2024
“Void” is a murder mystery story, front and center. And, with as much forthrightness, I’ll admit to my lack of knowledge of the subgenre. I don’t know the conventions.
By Brandon Scott on May 8th, 2024
The Murderbot Diaries is one of those series that is super popular and well-regarded, but it was not really on my radar until I went into this review for its first book, All Systems Red.
By Brandon Scott on May 1st, 2024
“How Things Unfold” is beautiful, devastating, heartbreaking, hopeful, fascinating, imaginative, and yet so much more. It’s a short story that captures a human message while delivering a sci-fi concept that feels original. And all of that in such a short page count.
By Brandon Scott on Apr 8th, 2024
The Girls Are Never Gone is an interesting blend of concepts attached to a traditional ghost story. From The Twisted Ones to Horrid to even aspects of Harrow Lake, I already knew this story’s bones.
By Brandon Scott on Mar 27th, 2024
When you become a diehard fan of a type of media or genre (really any of them), you notice patterns. I’ve spoken before about storytelling patterns in the wider construct of narratives, but what I mean this time is tropes.
By Brandon Scott on Mar 18th, 2024
I had to wait a long time to get Family Business in hardcover—and I was a little disappointed when I did. Though it still contains some of the stronger elements that drew me to The Magnus Archives, including much-appreciated diversity in its characters, very creepy monsters, and a strong human understanding of its subject matter, Family Business never achieved the same level of scares as even the previous book, Thirteen Storeys.
By Brandon Scott on Jan 8th, 2024
Artificial Condition continues my internal war with how I feel about The Murderbot Diaries. Despite it being more technobabble than almost anything else, the story remains intriguing and engaging off the back of the main conceit: what if a rogue AI designed to kill wanted to be left alone to watch television?