If all goes as it should, this blog post goes live on Christmas Day. However you're spending it, I hope it's a lovely one.

I also want to take this opportunity to promote small and indie press going into 2025. I appreciate the large publishing houses reaching out and sending me ARCs, and I will always believe that good books can come from absolutely anywhere. But between the ongoing difficulty of getting seen on social media and the growing difficulty of navigating AI-generated content, we need your help more than ever. If you read a book and loved it, leave a review on your book buying/reviewing platform of choice. I do the same for everything you see here, because every little bit helps.

And with that PSA out of the way, it's time to review books I've had recommended to me and been putting off reading. There are only two for this update, but one of those two books is actually several books in one, so I hope that's all right.

See you all in the new year!

James Bojaciuk of 18thWall recommended this collection of books to me after introducing me to Fabius Bile via a Star Trek/Warhammer crossover campaign.

Fabius Bile is, even by the standards of modern Warhammer 40K, a complicated person. Once the chief Apothecary, he has now taken it upon himself to remake humanity, ushering in a new age of Man. But as he pave the way for homo novus, he leaves other atrocities in his wake: twisting flesh and bone to create bizarre mutants, remaking figures from his own life, and preserving himself for as long as possible so he can preserve his grim work.

In this collection of three books and three short stories, we follow Bile as forces greater than himself (a thing he refuses to acknowledge) attempt to weave him into their plans. Daemons attempt to bend him to their will, including his gene-father and the woman he would dare to call "daughter." Harlequins attempt to guide him and his allies into their proper roles in the great story of the universe. And by the end, Bile will have to face down his own mortality... just not in the way he expected.

I admit that my knowledge of Warhammer does not expand into 40K, but lack of knowledge has never scared me off a Josh Reynolds joint. These books are dense with both lore and gore, and someone better versed in the setting will likely find all sorts of familiar things to enjoy. Appropriately, the visuals are disgustingly vivid, to the point that Melusine's demonic presence feels almost like a respite amidst vivisection and barely-aware human experiments. But even with the lack of knowledge, and occasionally feeling like I was neck-deep in information I'd never fully parse, I love this extended character study of Fabius Bile. He's a hideous man with something akin to good intentions buried deep down, and it's refreshing to see a character like this presented warts and all, rather than artificially glorified by the author. He's a fascinating, Frankensteinian figure, and if anything this book makes me want to know more about the eras of 40K in which he had a hand.

Two people—housemate Phoenix and friend Rob—both recommended and lent me this book. I first discovered Becky Chambers via her Monk & Robot series, the first book of which I reviewed for the now-defunct Sci Fi Magazine.

Rosemary is starting a new life far from her home of Mars, with a new last name and a new job. On board the Wayfarer, a ship whose job is punching holes in the fabric of spacetime to make interstellar tunnels, she'll be in charge of paperwork. But her interspecies studies courses, while making her an excellent fit for the job, haven't fully prepared her for everything ahead of her.

The crew of the Wayfarer has only a few other humans aboard—including captain Ashby, engineers Kizzy and Jenks, and algae specialist Corbin. Reptilian pilot Sissix brings with her a very different view of family and affection. Ohan, a Sianat Pair, is a navigator whose mind has been altered by lethal virus their species believes to be sacred. And then there's Dr. Chef, the cook and medic, whose endangered species is foreign even to Rosemary. As they take on a new job paving the way to a warlike planet, Rosemary connects with her crew and learns more about them than her classes could ever have taught.

Becky Chambers is an exceptional writer, and this introduction to her Wayfarers series is no exception. Many stories that attempt to address issues of diversity will insist on setting up a "good" and "bad" side—and while in some cases that's a valid approach, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is much more circumspect in its view of meeting and acknowledging other cultures. Everyone is strange to everyone, and in some cases deep-seated ethical views complicate important decisions. For example, is it okay to save a person's life if it goes against their beliefs? This story acknowledges that, in most cases, there's not a single right and perfect answer to be found and achieved—rather, we're all here to help each other, and it's all right if we make mistakes along the way in that attempt.