Sci-Fi Archives - The Litertarian

Book Review:: Awake in A Floating City | Susanna Kwan

Awake in the Floating City is a story of a woman torn between two choices: to stay in the city slowly being engulfed by water, where her mother disappeared during a storm, or move abroad with what remains of her family to try to find a more successful life.

Awake in a Floating City by Susanna Kwan Book Cover

The story is based in a reality not far off from our own but stretched by science fiction. The biggest difference is the human longevity. It seems to be quite normal for a person to live well into the mid-hundred ages in the world of the floating city. 130, 160, not unheard of.

This novel is quite brilliant. There are many almost abstract ideas layered into a very straightforward story.

Bo is a caregiver for the very young or very old. She finds a new client just as she’s about to leave the city for good, looking for any excuse to stay in case her mother miraculously returns. She is also an artist, but stopped her art long ago. Through this client, Mia, she is confronted with humanity in a way she’s almost forgotten. In a way, her broken spirit begins a renewal process. She finds a level of acceptance for herself, and the world around her.

Through Bo’s experiences in this story, you will find yourself pondering the deeper ideas of family bonds, tradition, culture, aging, immigration, relationships with others, adapting to climate changes, art, and the meaning of life itself. It’s not that the story has its own ideas on these topics, it somehow skillfully evokes the hard thinking from the reader, seemingly without effort.

I’m quite impressed with Susanna Kwan, and will be looking forward to her next novel.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: Awake in the Floating City
Author:: Susanna Kwan
Genre:: Speculative Fiction
Publisher:: Pantheon
Length:: 320 pages
Audio Length:: 9h
Audiobook Narrator:: Catherine Ho
Published:: May 13th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 4-Stars

If you liked this book, check out…

The City in Glass | Nghi Vo
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife | Anna Johnston
All the Water in the World | Eiren Caffal

Book Review:: Love and Other Paradoxes | Catriona Silvey

Love and Other Paradoxes is just another run-of-the-mill woman-comes-from-the-future-to-change-the-past-and-boy-gets-caught-up-in-the-crossfire situation.

Love and other Paradoxes by Catriona Silvey Book Cover

Joseph Greene wants to be the next great poet, so much so that he’s had poet’s-block (like writer’s-block for poets, get it?) since he started at Cambridge. Now in his third year, it’s time to shit-or-get-off-the-pot, poetically. Suddenly he starts noticing people looking at him strangely in the streets, and a chance encounter with a girl who claims she’s from the future changes everything he thought he knew and the course of his future at the same time.

It’s a book about time travel, the choices we make, questioning the things we thought were important, and second chances. It’s an interesting concept, but for me, this book really struggled to accomplish its goals.

I’m not an expert on time travel, but these characters are the opposite of experts on time travel when they really should know something about it since the entire plot hinges on the facts. The whole concept is a little messy…as in I had a lot of questions as I read, and not the good kind. The kind that should have been answered far earlier than they were. I didn’t feel grounded enough. I realize it kind of had to be that way for the plot, but that fatal flaw is why I’ve only rated this book two stars.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: Love and Other Paradoxes
Author:: Catriona Silvey
Genre:: Sci-Fi Romance
Publisher:: William Morrow
Length:: 320 pages
Audio Length:: 9h
Audiobook Narrator:: Nicholas Ralph
Audiobook Publisher:: Harper Audio
Published:: March 11th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 2-Stars

If you liked this book, check out…

Ghosted | Sarah Ready
Wish I Were Here | Melissa Wiesner
The Unmaking of June Farrow | Adrienne Young

The Season of Sci-Fi/Fantasy

I have been hustling, y’all. Launching this blog has been important to me, and though it’s still unknown, I wanted to get plenty of content up to make it a worthwhile place to stick around a minute and explore. With 70+ reviews up now, I feel like I can say it is. Now, I’ve made plenty of commitments already for books that I need to read coming up over the next year, but I’ve also had an idea brewing at the back of my mind for a while.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books I want to read. The Green Bone Saga, The Dandelion Dynasty, the Red Rising Saga, the next installments of The Stormlight Archives & The Empyrean series, and more! — The physical books I want to read.
There are more on audio & ebook too 🙈

I have a big fat stack of sci-fi and fantasy novels I reeeeally want to read. They’re not the kind of books you can read in a weekend (probably), but more importantly, they’re books I don’t want to just blow through. I want to take my time, annotate, immerse myself, and really experience them.

So I’m going to. This will be my season of sci-fi/fantasy! I’ve already started. Right now, I’m (slowly) making my way through A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, which I had no idea I’d want to read until watching the television adaptation (I thought to myself, wow, this would make a great book, and what do you know?!). I also want to read The Green Bone Saga, The Dandelion Dynasty, the Red Rising Saga, the next installments of The Stormlight Archives & The Empyrean series’ (both of which have new books coming out this winter), along with a dozen more I’d love to get to in the next 100 days or so.

Tis the season, am I right? And it’ll help me chip away at my TBR Challenge, too!

I’m starting a fable book club too, as I work through my list. Feel free to join in if any of these are on your near-term list too!

Is there a better time to dive into big sweeping stories taking place in entirely fictional worlds? Not for me!