Hunted by those who want to study his gravity powers, Jes makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon. Here, everyone just wants to be lost in the party. It doesn’t take long for him to catch the attention of the crime boss who owns the resort-casino where he lands a circus job. When the boss gets wind of the bounty on Jes’ head, he makes an offer: do anything and everything asked of him, or face vivisection.

With no other options, Jes fulfills the requests: espionage, torture, demolition. But when the boss sets the circus up to take the fall for his about-to-get-busted narcotics operation, Jes and his friends decide to bring the mobster down together. And if Jes can also avoid going back to being the prize subject of a scientist who can’t wait to dissect him? Even better.

I’ve been in a weird place so book reviews have been hard for me BUT!! I’m back with a review of The Circus Infinite. Because it’s my stop on the book tour! I’ve also got a post up on Instagram about it today. Thank you Angry Robot Books for the review copy and for including me on this book tour!

Quite a while ago I shared a publisher recommendation for TorDotCom, and I’m here to continue the publisher rec series with a new installment. Angry Robot has quickly become one of my favorite publishers for many reasons. They are, in their own words, “dedicated to the best in modern adult science fiction, fantasy and WTF?!” Which I mean, how can you resist that?

Life goes on for the billions left behind after the humanity-saving colony mission to Proxima Centauri leaves Earth orbit ... but what's the point?
Julie Riley is two years too young to get out from under her mother's thumb, and what does it matter? She's over-educated, under-employed, and kept mostly numb by her pharma emplant. Her best friend, who she's mostly been interacting with via virtual reality for the past decade, is part of the colony mission to Proxima Centauri. Plus, the world is coming to an end. So, there's that.
When Julie's mother decides it's time to let go of the family home in a failing suburb and move to the city to be closer to work and her new beau, Julie decides to take matters into her own hands. She runs, illegally, hoping to find and hide with the Volksgeist, a loose-knit culture of tramps, hoboes, senior citizens, artists, and never-do-wells who have elected to ride out the end of the world in their campers and converted vans, constantly on the move over the back roads of America.

Thank you so much to Angry Robot for sending me a copy for review. And for including me on the tour!

Reading this right now felt particularly timely, as I am nearing a cross country roadtrip myself! However, I’m really hoping mine isn’t nearly as stressful as Julie’s haha. Most likely that will be manageable, seeing as how I’m not living in the bleak future that she is. I would classify this as a dystopian, but honestly the future Julie lives in seems more and more likely given the way our planet is going. I was afraid it would be too depressing to read, but R.W.W. Greene has infused this book with humor and good people, making it a lovely read.

It is your eighteenth birthday and one of your parents must die. You are the one who decides. Who do you pick?
In a dying world, the Offset ceremony has been introduced to counteract and discourage procreation. It is a rule that is simultaneously accepted, celebrated and abhorred. But in this world, survival demands sacrifice so for every birth, there must be a death.
Professor Jac Boltanski is leading Project Salix, a ground-breaking new mission to save the world by replanting radioactive Greenland with genetically-modified willow trees. But things aren’t working out and there are discrepancies in the data. Has someone intervened to sabotage her life’s work?
In the meantime, her daughter Miri, an anti-natalist, has run away from home. Days before their Offset ceremony where one of her mothers must be sentenced to death, she is brought back against her will following a run-in with the law. Which parent will Miri pick to die: the one she loves, or the one she hates who is working to save the world?

Thank you so much to Angry Robot for sending me a copy for review. And for including me on the tour!

This book was such an interesting mix of science fiction, dystopian, and climate fiction. It was a really bleak look into the drastic measures that *could* happen if we don’t save our planet. I think the actual things in the book (the Offset, the prisons, etc) were a bit exaggerated. I mean this in the sense that I don’t know if they would happen in reality, though don’t quote me on that. With the way current events are turning out…anyway. These things just helped to intensify the point that the authors were trying to make. For this reason I can’t say that I really “enjoyed” the book, but I think it was really well done.

When you are all out of heroes, all that's left are the villains.
Black Herran was a dread demonologist, and the most ruthless general in all Essoran. She assembled the six most fearsome warriors to captain her armies: a necromancer, a vampire lord, a demigod, an orcish warleader, a pirate queen, and a twisted alchemist. Together they brought the whole continent to its knees... Until the day she abandoned her army, on the eve of total victory.
40 years later, she must bring her former captains back together for one final stand, in the small town of Tarnbrooke - the last bastion against a fanatical new enemy tearing through the land, intent on finishing the job Black Herran started years before.
Seven bloodthirsty monsters. One town. Their last hope.

Firstly, thank you so much to the lovely folks at Angry Robot for sending me a copy for review! And for including me on their tour for this book!

After I started reading this book, I realized that I don’t think I’ve really read a grimdark fantasy before? Okay I guess I’ve read Joe Abercrombie’s Shattered Sea trilogy, but that still felt a bit toned down (maybe because it’s young adult?). Anyway, I was kind of nervous. What if it’s too dark? Too gory? I was worried about liking it BUT it turns out I didn’t need to be worried. Yes, it was dark and gory and gruesome, of course. But it was also filled with humor and super interesting characters and scheming and so much more.