C0smic Occurence

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

As I continue exploring whether or not horror is the genre for me, Stephen Graham Jones has flitted in and out of my orbit. I had mixed feelings about Mapping the Interior, but Buffalo Hunter Hunter not only had glowing reviews, but also has one of my favorite covers of all time. There’s a lot to love here, but I found myself wishing it were a lot shorter than its actual length. Mixed feelings overall, but Stephen Graham Jones is definitely an author I want to read more of, because the parts of this book that worked really worked.

Read if: you like epistolary horror and framing narratives, enjoy framing narratives and/or epistolary formats, don’t care if the dog dies

Avoid if: you prefer books that get to the point right away, want traditional vampire representation, have an aversion to graphic depictions of violence – including historical events

Comparable Works: The Route of Ice and Salt, The Black Hunger, The Woods all Black

The Paper Menagerie and other Stories

One of my 12 Must Read Books of the year, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is the type of collection that gets spoken alongside Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang. I think this is a classic example of when I need to divorce my own reading experience from the hype a title collects as it gets recommended and re-recommended. Ultimately, this was a good collection (especially in the midpoint and back half). However, it didn’t match the pedestal I had placed the book on. In fact, I don’t think it would hit my top 5 anthologies of all time, and I haven’t read that many. I think I was expecting a bit more magic, a bit less of a history lesson. And while history lessons aren’t bad, Liu’s approach in some of these stories felt less like storytelling and more like lecturing. It didn’t help that some of the weaker stories (in my mind) were placed up front, and that Liu is perhaps too fond of parallel narratives as a framing device for his shorter work. Not a bad technique, but tiring and predictable when they come in a constant stream.

The collection was at its most successful when it explored ambiguity, moral nihilism, and the complexity of family relationships. All of my favorites explored various familial ties (an estranged father and daughter, a woman navigating the grief of her dead daughter, a son’s reflection on how he treated his mother, etc. There’s some emotional gut punches, interesting thought experiments, and moments of wonder here. Had I entered the collection with no prior knowledge, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

Below are my short thoughts on each story. However, my highlights were Simulacrum, The Regulator, The Paper Menagerie, and The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary

Morally Bankrupt Protagonists I Fell in Love With

As a 6th grade English teacher, one of the first units I teach every year focuses on characters. We do a recap of things they should have learned in elementary school, how to cite textual evidence, and a few other basic skills they’ll need in middle school. My favorite part of the unit, however, is showing them stories where the main character isn’t necessarily a ‘good’ person. While I love a protagonist I can unapologetically root for, I’ve found that I often can’t stop thinking about characters who are a bit more complicated.

So, here are some of my favorite characters that kept me up at night. They’re complex, charismatic, and addictively readable. When thinking about my all-time top 10, four currently appear on this list. You’ll find redemption, unapologetic villainy, and everything in between.

An Inheritance of Magic – Featherweight and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy

An Inheritance of Magic has been buzzing around my circles as one of the better Urban Fantasy series to come out in the past few years. This isn’t a subgenre I spend a ton of time with, but I’ve found that widely loved series tend to be reliably enjoyable for me (other than Dresden Files), and An Inheritance of Magic certainly lived up to that premise. It’s not perfect, clearly wants to prepare you for a long series, and seems to be a solid and readable ‘zero to hero’ story.

Read if: you enjoy reading about plucky underdogs making it work, are in favor of Orca whales crashing billionaire Yachts off the coast of Spain, are looking for something tropey and simple

Avoid if: comedically evil villains put you off, you dislike explanations of magic, religious logic problems put you off

Comparable Media: Tarot Sequence, Arcane Ascension, Witch Hat Atelier

By Blood, By Salt – Slow and Nuanced Political Fantasy

I haven’t read a ton of the books in the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off competition. Some of the finalists I’ve liked(Wolf of Withervale) others I found supremely disappointing (By a Silver Thread), but the winners I’ve read have been universally good. By Blood, By Salt is the most recent winner. Its political and military pitch sounded very different from a lot of the self-published work I normally read, and there was enough in the blurb for me to grab a copy. The story feels surprisingly traditional and old-school, but Odom does a good job of layering fresh thematic elements on top of a tried-and-true framework. Imagine if Game of Thrones focused on a single storyline and was set in an Arabic-inspired society, and you’ve got a good portrait of By Blood, By Salt.

Read if: you appreciate minority cultural groups not being written as monoliths, scarily competent protagonists are up your alley, you want complex fantasy cultures influenced by West Asia

Avoid if: you like your books fast paced, want heavy supernatural elements, or are hunting for fight scenes, you want a breadth of female characters

Comparable Media: Game of Thrones, Traitor Baru Cormorant

Wynd – A Casual and Delightful Middle Grade Adventure

I picked up the first book in this series as I collected books for a class on Queer Comics and Cartoons. It didn’t end up making the cut as a whole-class read, but it quickly found its way into my classroom library and has become quite popular. While the series isn’t quite finished – final book is releasing this year! – I figured finishing book 4 was enough to write a review about the series more generally. It won’t tickle the fancy of anyone looking for serious or deeply thematic fare, but it’s fun and quick and a truly delightful kids book that I think many adults would enjoy as a casual read.

Read if: you love classic fantasy tropes, comics with vibrant illustrations are your style, faeries-as-bugs sounds fun

Avoid if: simplistic morality will bug you, you dislike chosen ones & prophecies, fantasy racism isn’t a worldbuilding trope that works for you

Comparable Media: Fablehaven, Septimus Heap, Cece Rios, Amulet

The Memory of the Ogisi – A Haunting Conclusion to the Forever Desert

I’ve been chewing on the Forever Desert Trilogy since 2023. Books that are interested in the art of storytelling are candy for me, and this trilogy takes a different approach than most. I actually use the first book in the Speculative Fiction course I teach to high schoolers. This series benefits from gaps between each book in the series: the way Utomi plays with history in this trilogy works best when your memory of the past book is a little bit fuzzy. I liked the first two books in this series a lot, but this book is by far my favorite of the three. It’s pretty bleak, and probably not for everyone, but it really worked for me.

For reviews of the first two books in this series, see The Lies of the Ajungo and The Truth of the Aleke

Read if: you’re looking for a blend of folkloric storytelling and epic fantasy, you’re interested in darkly thematic explorations of truth, power, and history

Avoid if: you dislike books that lack hope,you want worldbuilding to feel consistent and explainable

Comparable Titles: 1984, A Conspiracy of Truths, The Giver Quartet

January & February Comic Mini Reviews

It’s been a slow month of comic reading. While I had some fantastic reads in early January (see the mind bending Tongues and the emotive Shadow Life), an awful lot felt fine, but not meaningful enough for me to keep investing in comics as aggressively as I did at the end of 2025. I’ve got a bunch waiting on my bookshelf, and I can see exploring them more deeply once r/fantasy’s bingo challenge resets in April.

The Strength of the Few – An Addictive & Hollow Sequel

The Will of the Many was a bit like fast food. I was unable to put it down, burning through the book in little more than a day. I loved every second of it. Afterwards, I began to notice that the story wasn’t as filling as I thought while reading. I knew I wanted to read the sequel, but I entered with reservations. The Strength of the Few was almost exactly what I thought it would be: fun when little thought was applied, but very difficult to ignore some glaring issues that kept rearing their heads. Will I buy the final installment when it comes out? As with the Pokemon games, my answer is always no. As with Pokemon, I’ll probably break that answer as soon as the book releases and end up disappointed.

While this review doesn’t focus on specific plot points, it will spoil the nature of the twist revealed in the Epilogue of Book 1. This information is also located on the back cover of the book, but I figured I should give a heads up.

Read if: You want to see Vis keep being awesome in three worlds instead of just one, expansive scope is important to you, there’s even more noble women falling in love with Vis

Avoid if: You were hoping for a political plotline of Vis working from the inside, exploring his moral qualms with Will is important to you

Comparable Titles: Red Rising, The Name of the Wind, Ironbound, Mistborn

Asunder – An Episodic Eldritch Fantasy

I think I’ve taken Asunder off my TBR about three times as I try to keep it at manageable levels. Invariably, I see a review that piques my interest enough for it to go back onto the pile. If I’m honest, the cover art put me off. It’s unfair, I know (don’t judge a book by its cover and all that), but Asunder’s cover is as beautiful as it is misleading. When I opened the pages, I assumed I’d be walking into a well-written romance with a teenage year old lead. Instead I walked through the dreams of dead gods as a 29 year old woman scrabbles to retain her personhood in the face of uncaring worlds. It will make you feel small and wonder and disgust and hopeless. If you’re willing to give it the space to breathe, it will take your breath away.

Read if: you like eldritch beings who bend reality to their will, episodic horror/fantasy hybrids, you want to feel the weight of selling your soul

Avoid if: you want a quick moving plot or dynamic action scenes, agreeable protagonists, straightforward romantasy

Comparable Media: The City of Stairs, Spirited Away, Wizard of the Pigeons