The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie: A Review

This piece originally appeared in the Washington Independent Review of Books:

Marya Salomea Sklodowska is better known to the world as Marie Curie–a double Nobel winning scientist whose discoveries influenced the scientific field forever. “Although much has been written about Marya, this younger period of her life is vaguely known” leaving the contributors to this anthology to take “liberties for the sake of entertainment” in stories and poems that blend fact and speculative fiction.

Editors Schmidt and Herz gather an impressive assortment of contributors including award winners, bestselling authors, and newer voices in The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie (2023)–a collection of stories and poems imagining Marya’s youth and adolescence. An introduction and historical overview help to contextualize the stories alongside significant life events that will come up in multiple stories notably including the death of Marya’s mother and her older sister Zosia.

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With stories ranging from horror (like Jonathan Maberry’s “The Night Flyers” where Russian double-headed eagles guarding the obelisk in Saxon Square terrorize those who might act against Russia’s occupation of Poland) to lighter-hearted fantasy like Alethea Kontis’ “Marya’s Monster” where a monster helps Marya acknowledge the grief she still carries after her mother’s death.

It’s no surprise in stories centering one of the greatest scientific minds of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries also include a lot of real science as seen in stories including Seanan McGuire’s “Uncrowned Kings” where a sinister illness gripping Warsaw is grounded in real science with the actual phenomenon of a Rat King and Marya’s own scientific investigation of the outbreak. As Marya tells her sister: “When a thing makes no sense, look to the data people have left behind. If it still makes no sense, the fault is either yours, or the world’s.” Many other stories in the collection are followed by Science Notes that help clarify real science versus speculative elements as in Stacia Deutsch’s “The Beast” where radium is used for time travel.

The stories presented are at their best where Marya is able to use her burgeoning knowledge of science and the scientific method to investigate and face obstacles as seen especially in “The Magic of Science” by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and G. P. Charles where Marya has to prove that there is a logical explanation when a classmate at the current site for the Polish Flying University turns blue and in “Experiments with Fire” by Sarah Beth Durst where Marya faces the mythical and extremely dangerous Wawel dragon with help from scientific experimentation.

With most stories focusing on or narrated by Marya herself, Steve Pantazis’ “The Prize” notably centers one of Marya’s classmates Adela instead with the two girls vying for “The Arcanum Prize, the most coveted prize in metallurgic arts” at their Warsaw high school.

With a shared protagonist and common themes, the element that comes through most in this anthology is the thirst for understanding and an abiding respect of knowledge. As Durst’s Marya says at the close of “Experiments with Fire:” “Some things are unknowable. But all the rest … I will know.”

Note: Readers should be aware that slurs are used when referring to Romani people in “The Cold White Ones” by Susanne L. Lamdin

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything: A Review

It’s been three years since Sia Martinez’s mom disappeared.

Sia wants to move on the way a lot of her tiny town in Arizona has. But she isn’t as willing to gloss over the horrible rift in her family as an “unfortunate incident” to let things go. She knows her mom is probably dead. What else could have happened after her ill-fated attempt to cross the Sonoran and avoid an ICE raid?

Still every new moon finds Sia driving to the desert to light San Anthony and la Guadalupe candles to help her mom find her way home.

It feels like a meaningless ritual. Until one night when Sia’s candles aren’t the only lights in the sky. When the blue lights crash right in front of Sia she finds a spacecraft. Carrying her mom in Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything (2020) by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland.

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Vasquez Gilliland blends speculative fiction into this story about family, growing up, and the specific dangers and challenges of the immigrant experience. Very short chapters and numerous twists make this book a quick read despite the high page count and ideal to draw in reluctant readers. The genre blending can make Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything feel like two stories mashed together but usually in interesting ways rather than discordant ones.

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything is a fast-paced genre-blender where the enduring power of love–both for family and first love–might be able to change everything.

Possible Pairings: Lobizona by Romina Garber, Butterfly Yellow by Thanhha Lai, Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza, When Light Left Us by Leah Thomas, The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Remember Me: A Review

Something is not right on Blue Owens’ seventeenth birthday. Her art teacher seems mad at her. Her grandmother and best friends are oddly gentle, timid. Her backpack is filled with orange juice which everyone keeps reminding her to drink.

Then there’s the note to meet someone on a little shuttle bus outside of her small ski town Owl Nook, New Mexico.

When a stranger named Adam gets on the bus, Blue starts to put the pieces together. The boyfriend–Adam Mendoza–she doesn’t remember, the painful loss she’s desperate to forget.

Following the clues brings Blue to a doctor to who can help her get back the memories she asked to have removed. But Blue will have to move through the memories herself–process the joys and the sorrows that have been erased–if she wants to get back to herself in Remember Me (2022) by Estelle Laure.

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Blue and her family are white. Adam’s family is Latinx and one of Blue’s best friends, Jack, is nonbinary. The linear story includes a larger story within the story as Blue rediscovers her lost memories making for an interesting structure and unique reading experience.

Laure’s prose is imbued with a deep and abiding love for Blue’s New Mexico landscape and its natural wonders. The speculative fiction framework is used well to tell Blue’s story although the greater ramifications of memory erasures are not fully explored in the story outside of Blue’s immediate circle.

Blue moves inexorably toward the memories she’s tried to forget as she and readers put together the pieces of Blue’s past. Moments of sweetness with Adam and her friends contrast against the sharper loss–and grief–as Blue understands everything that has been lost.

Set in 2031 Remember Me is an eerie and powerful story about moving through grief and making it to the other side.

Possible Pairings: The Leaving by Tara Altebrando, No One Here is Lonely by Sarah Everett, Loud Awake and Lost by Adele Griffin, Edited by Barry Lyga, The Program by Suzanne Young, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

You Sexy Thing: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

Captain Nicolette “Niko” Larson knows better than most that leaving the service of the Holy Hive Mind is no small thing. It’s easy enough to join the ranks with promises of vast earnings to come. But once you’re in, it’s funny how the debt keeps mounting and  those payments never come.

For a moment, Niko thought she could work within the system but now, known throughout the system as the “Ten Hour Admiral,” Niko knows better.

Luckily for Niko and her crew, the only thing the Hive Mind values more than conquest is art. Including culinary art.

After proving their artistic prowess with food, Niko and her crew have settled at TwiceFar station where they try to make a go of their restaurant, The Last Chance. With a reservation book for a prestigious food critic empowered to award a coveted Nikkelin Orb to worthy restaurants, it seems like things might finally be looking up.

Until the station blows up, of course.

With their past reduced to a smoldering pile of space rubble, Niko and her crew escape onto a sentient ship called You Sexy Thing. Unfortunately, the bioship thinks it’s stolen and steers them towards a prison planet. And that isn’t even the worst of Niko’s problems as the crew tries to fend off sadistic space pirates, deliver an intergalactic heir safely to the seat of the empire, and keep Niko’s other plans alive all while still chasing that elusive Nikkelin Orb in You Sexy Thing (2021) by Cat Rambo.

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You Sexy Thing is a standalone space opera that hints at more to come. The story is told in omniscient third person following Niko and her motley crew. The cast of characters includes humans, humanoid aliens, and other alien characters with a range of skin tones, presentations, and gender identities. Vivienne Leheny narrates the audiobook and ably navigates the large cast during shifting perspectives and dialog.

Pragmatic strategist Neko is complimented well by the ensemble cast here including my personal favorite characters Dabrey, Niko’s four-armed former-sergeant responsible for the restaurant’s culinary achievements, and Lassite–a lizard-like priest who joined the crew to follow Niko on her journey along the spiral of destiny. Although the plot focuses squarely on Niko and her own plans, no character is given short shrift as the entire crew has moments to shine. The madcap journey of the first half of the story shifts to something darker and grittier (including moments of mental and physical torture that while not explicitly described are unpalatable–particularly in audio) before the novel’s denouement.

You Sexy Thing skillfully combines moments of sci-fi absurdity with action and high emotion as Niko and her crew face numerous obstacles after escaping TwiceFar station. Rambo delivers a story filled with adventure, found family, and ultimately with hope for the future to come.

Possible Pairings: Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, Space Battle Lunchtime by Natalie Riess, The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz, Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

The Ones We’re Meant to Find: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

In a world that has been ravaged by climate change, eco-cities guarantee clean air, water, and shelter. They also require all residents to live sustainably. By living less.

Kasey Mizuhara has always thrived in the eco-city. She doesn’t mind the close quarters or spending a third of her life in stasis. She prefers it. Everything is so much easier when she can focus on science instead of people.

Kasey isn’t sure she can ever forgive her older sister Celia for hating the eco-city enough to leave it three months ago never to return.

Kasey knows that her sister is gone. Dead. Logically, leaving the safety of the eco-city only ends one way. She’s known that for a while. But Kasey is still desperate to retrace Celia’s steps to try and understand.

Cee has been alone on an abandoned island for three years. She has enough food to survive and a long-vacant house for shelter but not much else. She has no memory of how she got there or who she was before.

She knows she has a sister. Kay. She knows that Kay is waiting for Cee to find her.

Cee will do whatever it takes to get back to her sister. Even if it means cracking open all of the secrets from her past–including the ones Cee has been too afraid to confront.

In a world founded on logic and numbers, there isn’t a lot of room for love. Or choice. But Kasey and Cee will choose how to find each other. And how far they’ll go to get there in The Ones We’re Meant to Find (2021) by Joan He.

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The Ones We’re Meant to Find is a quiet, character driven story. Chapters alternate between Cee and Kasey’s narrations (Cee’s in first person, Kasey’s in third person). Both sisters grieve for what they have lost and, in their own ways, cope with that finality against the backdrop of imminent global catastrophe.

The less you know going into this story, the better. He expertly doles out all of the information readers need to unravel the story–and the secrets–alongside Kasey and Cee as the novel builds to its staggering and affecting conclusion.

The Ones We’re Meant to Find is an eerily plausible sci-fi thriller where sisterly love is leveraged against the greater good. Come for the intense emotions and taut pacing, stay for the intricate world building and ethical quandaries. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray, More Than This by Patrick Ness, War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi, Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick, Extras by Scott Westerfeld, All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin

All Systems Red: A Review

In the Corporate Rim everything has a price. Even scientific research requires Company-mandated safety measures including hired SecUnits. As human-android hybrids, SecUnits are human enough to make you uncomfortable if you see them without their armor. They’re also robotic enough to kill anything that threatens their clients. Who needs strategy when you can brute force your way out of any situation?

SecUnits are very, very dangerous to anyone who is not a client or the Company. But not to worry, every unit is equipped with a governor module to make sure they stay in check. No chance of mishaps when every SecUnit’s governor module is set to fry their processors if they step out of line. It’s the Company so obviously all tech, equipment, and security measures are well-maintained.

Yeah, you’re right.

Everything the Company hires out is junk.

Most SecUnits haven’t been properly updated in years. Armor is out of date. And, with the proper motivation, even one chance to hack a governor module can be enough.

Murderbot could have become a mass murderer after it hacked its governor module, but then it realized it could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. That was about 35,000 hours ago and there has been surprisingly little murdering since. Which is fine by Murderbot as phoning in its job leaves even more time for media.

All of that changes when Murderbot’s latest mission brings it into contact with scientists from a planet outside the Corporate Rim’s influence. When a nearby mission goes wrong, the scientists want to help no matter how often Murderbot tells them it’s a bad idea. Stranger still, the more they learn about Murderbot the more they want to help it–whatever that means in All Systems Red (2017) by Martha Wells.

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All Systems Red is the first novella in Wells’ Murderbot Diaries series. The series is narrated by Murderbot. If you enjoy audiobooks be sure to check out the audio version narrated aptly by Kevin R. Free.

For a series centering a self-named Murderbot, All Systems Red is pleasantly free of violence. Instead this character-driven novella focuses on Murderbot’s enlightment as it realizes that there could be more to life than media and avoiding humans. High action chases and battles contrast well with Murderbot’s reluctant introspection and growing investment in keeping its clients alive.

All Systems Red is the rare story that is a perfect combination of humor, action, and classic sci-fi worldbuilding. Murderbot may not start as the hero anyone would want, but this rogue SecUnit is definitely the protagonist we all deserve. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: A Psalm For the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, Last Day by Ruta Domenica, Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh, The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz, Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Light From Uncommon Stars: A Review

Shizuka Satomi has spent years building up her reputation as the Queen of Hell. It’s a name fitting for someone with her reputation of building up violin prodigies–more fitting than most people realize.

Shizuka made a deal with the devil forty-nine years ago. Now, if she wants to keep her own soul–and her own prodigious success–she has to deliver seven souls. With six delivered and one soul left, Shizuka should feel secure. But she doesn’t. She wants her last soul to belong to someone special. Someone she’s been struggling to find for years already.

Katrina Nguyen is a transgender runaway with no one to turn to. She has her hormones, her laptop, and her violin and she knows no matter how bad things get she can survive if she has those things. When Shizuka offers to help life Katrina lift her up, it seems too good to be true. As Katrina comes closer to Shizuka’s secrets she realizes how true her initial doubts really are.

From a donut shop on a highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Lan Tran is slowly drawn into this Faustian drama. A retired starship captain with four children to support and protect, Lan has her own priorities. She wants to keep a low profile at Starrgate Donuts for herself and her family. Which is why her blossoming crush on Shizuka is so inconvenient–especially when Lan realizes it might be mutual.

As Shizuka, Katrina, and Lan are drawn into each others’ lives, the three women begin to realize that in order to overcome their separate challenges they might just need each other in Light From Uncommon Stars (2021) by Ryka Aoki.

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Light From Uncommon Stars is a blend of sci-fi and fantasy elements in a contemporary California setting. The close third person narration shifts between Shizuka, Katrina, Lan, and other pivotal characters.

Aoki expertly blends these seemingly disparate elements into a seamless story filled with heart and hope even as Katrina, particularly, deals with rejection, hate, and sexual assault. Katrina also spends part of the novel as a sex worker while she tries to survive on the streets–an element that is handled thoughtfully but is still, understandably, heavy.

This evocative novel is imbued with a strong love of music and filled with delicious food descriptions. Light From Uncommon Stars is a sprawling story of redemption and connection. Recommended for readers looking for a novel that defies both expectations and genre classifications.

Possible Pairings: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin, On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee, The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie M. Liu, Gideon the Ninth by Tamysn Muir, Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett, You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo, Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente, The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

Steelstriker: A Review

*Steelstriker is the conclusion to Lu’s Skyhunter duology. Start at the beginning with Skyhunter to avoid spoilers.*

Six months after the fall of Mara, the Karensa Federation works mercilessly to absorb the formerly free nation into its sprawling empire. Mara’s artifacts are carted to Federation museums and sculpture gardens, their heritage erased. Prisoners await execution or transformation into Ghosts–the hideous monsters the Federation uses so effectively against both its enemies and its subjects.

Talin Kanami watches helplessly. Once an elite Striker, Talin and her friends tried to stop the Federation’s invasion but they were too late. Now Talin stands at the Premier’s side as a Skyhunter–a human turned war machine with lethal strength and steel wings. Talin is the Premier’s unspoken threat against all who would defy him. She is also his hostage; her good behavior ensuring her captive mother’s continued survival until Talin’s transformation is complete and the Premier controls her completely.

Red escaped the Federation once, his desperate flight bringing him to Mara and to Talin. Her hope made him believe things could change. But now watching another invasion, his wings damaged in battle, the first Skyhunter knows he will need more than rage and regret to help his new friends–especially Talin in Steelstriker (2021) by Marie Lu.

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Steelstriker is the conclusion to Lu’s Skyhunter duology. Start at the beginning with Skyhunter to avoid spoilers.

Chapters alternate between Talin and Red’s first person narrations as the protagonists try to find their way back to each other and continue fighting the Federation. The strong link they shared in book one is weaker now as Talin struggles to contain her emotions before the Premier can use them against her. Isolated and worried about each other, this leads to repetition in the story as both Talin and Red wonder what has become of the other.

Seeds of rebellion and resistance spark action in this story which expands the sophisticated and nuanced world building from book one. Questions of who is fit to run a nation and how power is bestowed add further depth to the book’s political landscape while references to Talin’s tortuous transformation (which occurred between books) remind readers how very dangerous and cruel the Federation can be. As the Premier tries to harness (presumably nuclear) technology from the Early Ones, it becomes clear that sometimes mistakes are doomed to repeat.

Lu once again delves into the brutality of war and invasion as Talin–whose vocal chords were damaged in the invasion of her birthplace, Basea–and Red–who was recruited by the Federation as a child soldier–both reflect on what has brought them to this point. Steelstriker fast-paced and brutal but ultimately a satisfying conclusion to a strong dystopian duology.

Possible Pairings: The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow, Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray, Birthmarked by Caragh M. O’Brien, War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi, The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson, Scythe by Neal Shusterman, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

*A more condensed version of this review appeared as a review in an issue of School Library Journal*

A Psalm for the Wild-Built: A Review

“The human body can adapt to almost anything, but it is deceptively selective about the way it does so.”

Sibling Dex begins to dream of hearing crickets in the wild. Sibling Dex is very good at what they do as a monk in Panga’s city-located monastery. But have they become complacent?

Thinking the answer might be yes, Dex decides to become a tea monk. There’s nothing arcane about it but there is still a learning curve as Dex figures out how to listen to peoples’ problems and offer them a perfectly brewed cup of tea. With a self-sustaining wagon and increasing experience, Dex has everything they need.

But it turns out crickets are extinct in most of Panga.

After years of traveling the same route between Panga’s outermost villages, Dex decides their last chance to hear those crickets is to travel even farther out. Into the wild.

Then Dex meets Splendid Speckled Mosscap in the middle of the forest. Mosscap is one of the many robots on Panga who, after gaining self-awareness a century ago, chose to abandon the city and travel into the wild.

Now, the robots feel it’s time to check in on the humans and see what they need. And Mosscap has decided that Dex is the perfect person to help it figure that out. But as Dex struggles to figure out what they want for themself, the monk doubts that they can help a robot answer such a large question for all of Panga. Maybe there will at least be some crickets along the way in A Psalm for the Wild-Built (2021) by Becky Chambers.

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A Psalm for the Wild-Built is the first novella in Chambers’ new solarpunk series, Monk & Robot.

Chambers turns her considerable world building talents to imagine a bright future for humanity where society is harmonious, sustainable, and sees robots as little more than the stuff of legend until Mosscap comes along.

The gentle, character-driven narrative gives readers ample time to get to know Dex and understand the nuances of their work as a tea monk (as well as Dex’s restlessness) as Dex travels alone and, later, when Dex and Mosscap begin to talk. Philosophical questions of how robots and humans can (or should) interact as well as discussions of where passions can fit into this future pepper the story as Dex and Mosscap begin to understand what they can accomplish together.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is the bright start to a series that promises to be as thought-provoking as it is cozy. Recommended for readers looking for science fiction with a little more tenderness and a lot of tea.

Possible Pairings: Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, Last Day by Ruta Domenica, Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh, The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz, Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente, All Systems Red by Martha Wells

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

Defy the Fates: A Review

*Defy the Fates is the third book in Claudia Gray’s Constellation trilogy. To avoid spoilers start at the beginning with the first book Defy the Stars.*

After their first unlikely meeting, Abel and Noemi Vidal have traveled the Loop together, saved Genesis forces from annihilation in battle, and stopped an intergalactic plague.

Now, to save Noemi one last time, Abel will have to risk everything including his own cybernetic body as he seeks help from his creator and potential destroyer.

Left for dead, Noemi doesn’t know what it means when she is saved thanks to parts that make her eerily similar to Abel. Not quite mech, but not quite human Noemi is no longer sure if she has a place on her home world anymore than she knows if she has what she needs to save Abel.

As Earth prepares for the final battle with its colony planets, Noemi and Abel once again find themselves at the center of the conflict. With the final battle looming, this unlikely pair will finally see if they’ve done enough to save the colony planets–and each other in Defy the Fates (2019) by Claudia Gray.

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Defy the Fates is the third book in Claudia Gray’s Constellation trilogy. To avoid spoilers start at the beginning with the first book Defy the Stars. The novel alternates between Abel and Noemi’s first person narrations.

Gray builds well on the tension and world building from previous installments in this fast-paced trilogy. The stakes are higher and the dangers are greater as the story builds toward its dramatic finish.

Because of the plot structure, numerous recaps of previous triumphs and battles are repeated throughout the story which diminish the tension. As Noemi and Abel continue to struggle with the question of where they each belong–both together and apart–some of this installment does start to feel like filler.

Defy the Fates is a solid conclusion to an action-packed trilogy perfect for readers who enjoy sci-fi and adventure with just a hint of romance. Fans of the series will appreciate the callbacks to pivotal moments and characters from earlier in the series.

Possible Pairings: Bound by Blood and Sand by Becky Allen, Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza, Beta by Rachel Cohn, The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He, Unearthed by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, Last of Her Name by Jessica Khoury, The Diabolic by S. J. Kincaid, Stitching Snow by R. C. Lewis, Skyhunter by Marie Lu, Wires and Nerve, Volume 1 by Marissa Meyer and Douglas Holgate, Ignite the Stars by Maura Milan, Rebel Seoul by Axie Oh, Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte, Scythe by Neal Shusterman, Partials by Dan Wells