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Monthly Archives: March 2025

When the Moon Hits Your Eye: A Review

Scientists around the world are absolutely baffled when they wake up one morning to find that the moon has turned into cheese.

No, seriously, that’s the premise of John Scalzi’s latest book, When the Moon Hits Your Eye, and it’s hilarious. The book follows people around the world as they try to cope with the change. Some are scientists being pressed to find out just what happened and why. Others are capitalists, hoping to be able to use the mysterious switch to gain themselves even more money and keep from falling into financial ruin. Others still are people of faith asking why God would do this/allow this to happen, and struggling to find a place on one side of that divide.

With a mix of (maybe somewhat dubious) science and his traditional humor, Scalzi has presented a fantastically fun glimpse of just how well we would or wouldn’t handle a major paradigm shift. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is out today, 3/25/25. It’s a fun, quick, and ultimately rather silly read, but in times like these, we can use a little more of just that. My utmost thanks to Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

His Mortal Demise: A Review

It’s The Last Bloodcarver sequel time! Vanessa Le’s duology comes to a spectacular end.

Beware, as unmarked spoilers for book #1 will follow!

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Okay, y’all. At the end of The Last Bloodcarver, Nhika died. Using the last of her strength, she healed Kochin and saved his life, passing along the bone ring that had belonged to her heartsooth ancestors in the process. Now, Nhika has woken up in one of the Congmi family’s other manors on the other side of the country. Kochin is nowhere to be found, and Theumas is now at war. Her entire world has turned upside down, and she’s desperate to find answers, but Mimi and Andao are hesitant to tell her the truth.

Six months ago, Ven Kochin almost died, but he was rescued by Nhika. Using technology developed by Dr. Sando during Sando’s attempt to resurrect his dead son, Kochin keeps Nhika in a comatose but stable state. With Theumas on the brink of war, he ventures home to see his estranged family and make amends before setting off on a fool’s quest to find a way to revive her. His own resources dwindling, he knows that he must make his way to the island of Yarong, from whence the heartsooths originally came. Who can he trust to keep Nhika safe while he searches for answers?

Vanessa Le’s writing is just as solid in His Mortal Demise as it was in The Last Bloodcarver. Nhika and Kochin’s split narrative is clever and well-managed, keeping the tension tight as his timeline ticks down and hers continues on into wartime. I’m thrilled to have gotten a chance to read this one. My utmost thanks as always to MacMillan and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. His Mortal Demise dropped on Tuesday, 3/18/25. Go check it out!

Rose/House: A Review

It should be well known at this point that I love haunted house stories. Arkady Martine’s new novella, Rose/House is no exception to this.

In China Lake, California, legendary architect Basit Desiau built his masterpiece. Rose House is an advanced artificial intelligence that is fully integrated into the entire structure of a solitary house built out in the desert, some distance from the town proper. The locals refer to it as a haunt, as the AI within Rose House permeates through the whole building.

There is a dead man inside Rose House. That has been true for a year. Desiau arranged for the house to take the carbon that remained in his body after his death and compress it into a diamond, which the house then put on a plinth for display. In that respect as well, Rose House has always been haunted.

Now, though, there is another dead man inside Rose House. That shouldn’t be possible, as the only person in the world who was supposed to be able to access the labyrinthine house and its collection of Desiau’s archived work was on the other side of the world when he died. Dr. Selene Gisil, a former student of Desiau’s, is the only living person allowed inside Rose House. Her permissions, set by Desiau before his death, are to ensure that she remains the sole human caretaker of his notes and unpublished works. Despite having publicly distanced herself from Desiau before his death (and diamond-ification), Gisil is still the person he wanted to serve as seneschal.

Twenty-four hours have passed since this mysterious man died, and so Rose House has fulfilled its obligation by notifying the China Lake police precinct, in accordance with its programming guidelines. In order to get inside to examine the decedent, Detective Maritza Smith must track down Gisil and convince her to come back to the United States. There’s no one else that Rose House will allow inside, dead body or no. But who is the victim? How did he get inside Rose House to begin with? What is really happening out in the middle of the Mojave?

This is the first of Arkady Martine’s works that I’ve read, and I was very impressed with my first foray into her writing. Rose/House is a tight, tense narrative with little room for embellishment that you typically encounter in similar, albeit longer, works. All of our narrators get a little time to shine, and will leave you questioning what any of them really saw or did. I’ll definitely be looking into A Memory Called Empire in the near future if this book is at all indicative of Martine’s writing. My utmost thanks to Tor and to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Rose/House is out in the world in hardcover tomorrow, 3/11/25. Go grab a copy, and let it grab you.