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Happy Friday, friends! This week I’m reviewing Warcross and Midnight Crossing and talking about our newest podcast, awkward robots, Star Wars-inspired corn mazes, and more.

This newsletter is sponsored by The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein.

Anointed the must-read sci-fi thriller of the summer by Barnes & Noble, The Punch Escrow is a genre-busting debut—part hard sci-fi thriller, part love story, and part high stakes adventure through a world where teleportation is the norm. After he’s accidentally duplicated while teleporting, Joel Byram must outrun the most powerful corporation on the planet and find a way back to his wife in a world that now has two of him.

The Punch Escrow is currently in development for film at Lionsgate. Paperback and ebook copies are available wherever books are sold.

In the first episode of our newest podcast Recommended, Robin Sloan puts forth a case for the actual Great American Novel, and it’s a science fiction title! Find out what he picked right here.

Syfy Wire is doing a series of “best of” lists for its anniversary, and this one of 25 creators of color that changed SF/F as a genre is excellent and useful. Not only does it include the usual suspects (Octavia Butler! Hayao Miyazaki!), but it has a few that might not be on your radar.

Who doesn’t love awkward robots? And Tor.com has a review of two new titles that focus on said socially-impaired androids, Martha Wells’ All Systems Red and Annalee Newitz’s Autonomous.

What might a queer family in space look like? One Rioter talks about how the SFF of her adolescence gave her room to imagine beyond a mom, a dad, and 2.5 kids.

For fellow Trekkies who have lost track: Here’s a video discussing the timeline of Star Trek: Discovery, based on current canon (who knows what the show will change).

Today in whimsy news: someone made a Princess Leia corn maze!

Would you enjoy some cheap ebooks? I thought you might. The Real and the Unreal by Ursula Le Guin, which collects some of her best short stories, is only $2.99 this month. Also on deep discount ($0.99) are the first three installments in Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch series: Night Watch, Day Watch, and Twilight Watch. I can verify that that is a solid price for a lot of very INTENSELY BANANAPANTS Russian sci-fi!

And now, onto our reviews, which have nothing in common with each other aside from the word “cross.”

Warcross by Marie Lu

I devoured this novel in one Sunday afternoon, friends. Cover to cover with barely a break!

It kicks off with 18-year-old hacker and bounty hunter Emika Chen, who’s tailing a gambler. She’s about to get evicted from her crappy NYC studio apartment (which she already shares with a roommate), she’s got no friends, no family, no money, and very little hope. When her bounty gets taken out from under her, she figures that’s it; with her criminal record, her job prospects are severely limited. Then she “accidentally” hacks into the biggest virtual reality game in the world during its annual Opening Ceremonies — the accident is that she gets caught doing it. The next thing she knows she’s flying to Tokyo to meet with the game’s billionaire creator and tech genius, and everything in her life changes. But life definitely isn’t easier, and Chen finds herself neck-deep in a plot that includes corporate espionage, hacking, the Dark Web, and family secrets.

With an excellent and highly inclusive cast of characters — LGBTQ, disabled, and POC characters all show up on the page — Warcross gives us a page-turning first installment in a new series from YA powerhouse Marie Lu, who already has two other series under her belt. I deeply appreciated that in this first book, there’s enough resolution to satisfy as well as a cliffhanger that will have you counting down the days to Book 2. Fun, smart, and fast — let me know when the video game companion is in production! (Surely someone will do one? Surely??)

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

I didn’t pick this up until I had already watched the pilot for Midnight, Texas (which is indeed delightful magical trash), but now I’m glad I did! This is, believe it or not, my first Charlaine Harris, and it won’t be my last.

Set in a tiny, dusty town called Midnight in (you guessed it) Texas, the book starts off with internet psychic Manfred Bernardo (yes, that really is his name). He’s just moved to the area, purportedly to find somewhere quiet where he can do his work and not be disturbed. He’s an actual psychic as well as a con artist, but that’s fine — Midnight is already populated by quite a few supernatural beings. We meet Lemuel, a vampire, and Fiji, a witch, almost immediately and they’re just the most obviously paranormal of the other residents. A local woman turns up murdered and there are few leads, so Manfred ends up trying to help out the investigation.

With a few clear exceptions, the first book and the pilot stick pretty close together, which means I’m already getting them mixed up in my head. What really struck me about Midnight Crossroad is that it’s a timelier plot than I was looking for; the story revolves around the actions of a group of white supremacists, and the residents of Midnight are battling more than just things that go bump in the night. It’s not particularly deep, but it does incorporate a wide range of characters and it moves quickly. If you’re looking for a fantasy escape, this one is a quick read but one with more weight than you might expect.

And that’s a wrap! If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

Long days and pleasant nights,
Jenn