Fantasy and Steampunk

This is a short and inventive retelling of the story of Penelope (from the Odyssey). It is beautifully told, and well worth the short time it will take to read.

This interesting short story is about a worker in a factory in China, who doesn't know what the factory is making and doesn't really care, until things start getting weird. It is an enjoyable and quick read. I would have liked a little more from the ending, but even so, the story planted some things to think about. This is a good pick for you if you like magical realism and are looking for a diverting short story.

This is a really nice retelling/mashup of the Beauty and the Beast and Red Riding Hood fairy tales, told from the viewpoint of Beauty's teenage daughter. It is a well-constructed and well-told story, and I liked how it makes you think not just about what is left out of the traditional viewpoint of those tales, but also about what viewpoints we might be overlooking in our own world.

This short fantasy story is set in the same world as a longer book. As I read it, I suspected that it would make deeper sense if I'd read the longer book, but even without that background, the story is wonderful. The characters and the world feel real, and the writing is just beautiful.

This is a short story about a young woman whose is sent to join a group of assassins when her fate is foretold to be a sad one. From this premise, the story explores what it means to "have a choice." It is a well-written and thought-provoking story. The world in which it is set is so interesting that I wished the author had taken a little more time to explore it. Still, I couldn't stop reading this story once I started it, so I definitely recommend it.

The is an excellent re-imagining of the biblical story of the tower of Babylon, told from the viewpoint of a miner called in to help tunnel through to the vault of heaven once the tower has reached it. To tell you more would ruin the joy of this book, but I recommend it highly.

This is the story of a girl, a daughter of an Emperor, who is starting to learn how to navigate and survive palace intrigue, and the dragon who comes to help her. The story's pacing felt a bit odd to me at times, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of it, and I wondered if what was odd to me was normal in the Chinese culture in which this story is set. Pacing that feels odd to me is a small price to pay for expanding the perspectives I read, and the story itself is quite good.

This is an intriguing retelling of a Japanese fairy tale. A translation of the original tale is included, and reading it for comparison does add to your appreciation of the retelling, but the retelling also stands on its own as an interesting, if a bit odd, short story. It is set in a fascinating world, too, and my only complaint is that the world did not feel completely imagined. Even in a short ebook, the world-building can feel complete, if not completely explored. In this book, the world felt like a sketch of what it could be.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable novella about a young woman who buys passage on a small fishing boat with a rag-tag crew, and sets off on a quest we come to understand is incredibly important and dangerous. The characters are delightful, and the world is interesting and believable. It is not fully described, but that feels more like room for future exploration than an absence in this story. The plot is perhaps not up to the level of the rest of the writing, but it is not ridiculous, either, and overall this book is well worth your time.

What if your prayers were answered by a call center staffed with angels and demons? That is the premise of this charming short story. It is at times funny, at times achingly true about the human condition, and at times both at once. I can't tell you much about the plot without giving away part of the charm of the story, but it is short and just $0.99, so you can just buy it and see for yourself. Note that there is some strong language, sex, and other adult themes. It has a light-hearted tone, but is not really a light-hearted story.

This is the story of a young woman who has to find strength she didn't know she had to save her village and her people. Kai's village relies on the yearly harvest of dawn lilies, but that harvest is being decimated by mysterious cranes. Kai would normally turn to her mother, the Dawn Priestess for advice and leadership, but her mother is in the grips of an illness that only the dawn lily harvest can cure, so Kai must find her way on her own. It is a beautifully written and well-paced novelette that is a true joy to read.

This is a fun story about a woman who is the sole survivor of an apocalypse. Really! To tell you much more about the plot of this light-hearted short story would ruin some of the fun, so I won't do that. But if you enjoy speculative fiction at all, this short story is worth your time.

This is a fast-paced mystery set in Cairo, in a world in which a portal has been opened allowing magical creatures like djinn to coexist with humans. Fatma is an investigator with the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, called in to investigate a dead djinn. The plot unfolds from there much like a "regular" mystery/action story, but set in a world that is as interesting as the mystery. This story has some aspects of alternate history, some aspects of steampunk, some aspects of fantasy...

The most famous philosopher in the world wants to sell his soul to buy 20 more years for his work, and the demon sent to complete the transaction is suspicious that he's trying to pull a trick of some sort. But what? The "mystery" aspect of the plot is fun, and the fantasy world in which the action is set is interesting (particularly for the glimpses of the bureaucracy of Hell...) but the real joy in this novella is the character of the demon and what the attempt to understand the philosopher's motives does to him.

This story is set in a world where dancing can summon magic, and where both the dancing and the magic are banned. The story follows a young woman who loves to dance, and wants to bring it back into the world. Her first attempt to do this goes wrong, and she ends up in jail. There, she meets a fellow prisoner who makes her change how she thinks about her experience, which sets in motion events that will force her to confront her fears and find strengths she didn't know she had.

Once I started reading this wonderful story, I could not stop. It is set in the afterlife, with characters whose main goal is to avoid rebirth, because that is the ultimate end of their selves. The main character is a woman who died young, and who is married off to a wealthy long-time resident of the tenth court of hell. When her husband brings home a new bride, it sets a chain of events in motion that changes how she views essentially everything.

This is a beautifully told and heart-breaking story of a girl who has powers she does not fully understand. The powers run in her family, but most knowledge of them was lost when the family was brought to America as slaves. The story takes place during Reconstruction, and Wilson expertly weaves his fantasy into the all too horrific real events of the time—and although the story is firmly rooted in the past, it echoes into our time, as well.

This is a fun, well-written steampunk story. It has the action-packed plot and hint of romance that I've come to associate with the genre. The best thing, though, is the world the author has created, in which technology as well as much of the culture is based on plants. As much as I enjoyed the story itself, if I go on to read the other books in the series, it will largely be because I find this world fascinating, and want to spend more time in it.

This is a really enjoyable and unusual book. At first, I thought this was going to be a fairy tale like story, told as a reminiscence from a grandfather, but then it turned into a story of a young man finding his own place in the world away from his family, And then it turned again- one of the delights of this book is that you never really know what is coming next. The plot held my attention through all the turns, and I was rooting for the main character to figure it all out, whatever I thought "it" was at that point in the story.

This is an urban fantasy story, but at its heart it is a story about love and loss, and learning to move on. It is also beautifully written, with interesting and believable characters. In short, it is definitely worth your time.

This action-packed short story is set in a world in which people can learn how to inhabit corpses and others can learn to talk to the dead. The world-building is wonderful, particularly for such a short story, and the characters are interesting and believable. The plot follows a corpse-jumper and his assistant as they struggle to deal with the consequences when someone takes an interest in their most recently acquired corpse.

This is a wonderful, character-driven story, translated from the Japanese. It reminds me a bit of film noir: The main character is an average guy, trying to get by in a life that hasn't given him many advantages, but then a beautiful and somewhat mysterious young woman rents one of the small rooms in the apartment building he manages, and strange and disturbing things start happening.

This is another installment in the action-packed and fun Throne of Glass novella series. It has all of the same elements of the earlier books: fast-paced plot, likable main characters, and witty dialogue. If you've read and liked the earlier installments, you'll almost certainly enjoy this one, too. If you're new to the series, The Assassin and the Pirate Lord is the first book, although The Assassin and the Desert is still my favorite.

This is the fourth installment in the Flash Gold series. If you've enjoyed the other installments, you'll enjoy this one, too. If you haven't tried the series yet, and think that a fast-paced, fun, smart-alecky steampunk action adventure sounds like a good read, you could start here (the story stands on its own), but do yourself a favor and start with Flash Gold, the first book in the series. Don't worry, you'll find yourself reading this installment before you know it.

This is a fun steampunk short story set in an alternative history America in which phlogiston actually exists and powers all sorts of machines- even robots like one of the main characters. The story follows two Pinkerton agents in their attempt to bring in a fugitive. The characters are interesting, the alternative world is well-drawn, and the plot is paced such that you'll want to read the entire story in one sitting.

Magic and history combine in this engrossing story of two Jewish sisters who flee Poland to come to America, only to find that the demon they thought they'd left behind came, too.

This is a page-turner of a story, set in an intriguing world in which certain bartenders can nudge their patrons towards their fates. The story follows what happens when a mysterious stranger comes into the bar of one such bartender. The ending leaves you hanging a bit, but the story is fun enough that I forgave that, and will just look for the next installment in the series.

This story about a teenage girl struggling to fit in at a new school is also a beautiful story about learning to accept and cope with grief.

This is another fun and satisfying entry in the Flash Gold series. If you liked the earlier entries (Flash Gold and Hunted), you'll like this one, too. If you've never tried steampunk and are curious about the genre, this is an excellent series to try.

This is the second book in a series that starts with Flash Gold, and it is just as much fun as the first book. The characters introduced in Flash Gold continue to develop in believable ways, and the plot is fast-paced and full of swashbuckling fun.

This is an inventive story with an unusual premise: its characters are all insects, who have organized to survive in a post-human world. The story follows Fig, as a series of bad luck and bad decisions cause him to question his most basic beliefs. The world the characters inhabit is fully-formed and quite believable. This book is the first in a series of novellas, and the ending is a cliffhanger more than an end, but the writing was good enough and the story was enjoyable enough that I am willing to overlook that, and just move on to the next book in the series.

A story about a young girl who rises to the challenge posed by the presence of a magical visitor in her family's home. The author describes this as an introductory story about the lead character, who will go on to have greater adventures in future books, and the ending does feel like a pause more than an end to the story. However, the beautifully drawn characters and intriguing world-building more than make up for that weakness, making this a delightful short read.

This fun and funny story about a graduate student in magic is interspersed with excerpts from a research paper describing a study on improving slay times in the common dragon. The jokes will be especially resonant for people who have worked in research, but the story is likely to be enjoyed by even those who have never set foot in a lab.

A fun and fast-paced mash-up of fantasy and crime story, set in a fictional city in which the police force have goblins and other magical creatures to contend with as well the usual problems of crime.

A fast-paced and fun mix of fantasy and noir, set in an interesting alternative New York City populated with monsters and wizards.

A rollicking story of a young inventor who enters her "dogless sled" into a race hoping to win the prize and buy her way out of the Yukon, the stranger who shows up offering to hire on as protection, for motives that are not at all clear, and the adventure they have together.

An intriguing mashup of the classic myth of Scylla and Beauty and the Beast, reimagined into a modern setting in a telling that draws the reader in from the start.

An absolutely delightful story of a girl who just wants to keep to herself and study her magic, but who finds herself drawn into events and ends up fighting the king of Fairyland.

In the second in the Throne of Glass novella series, our heroine is sent to visit the Silent Assassins in the Red Desert as punishment for disobeying her master's wishes.

Celaena Sardothien is an accomplished and beautiful assassin, sent by her master to collect a debt from the Lord of Pirates. She is horrified to learn that the debt is to be paid in slaves, and feels compelled to act against her orders.

A story with the intriguing premise that young men and women with the right character are recruited to be fairies, with eternal life, paired with their true love. It follows the female half of one such pair through an incarnation in which her true love seems to be breaking the rules.