Empress of Forever
by Max Gladstone (Tor, 2019)
audiobook read by Natalie Naudus (Dreamscape Media, 2019)
Full marks to Gladstone for choosing long and self-contained over duology or trilogy. The story, however, is rather sprawling (even a batshit-crazy space opera should look beyond the moment and build towards emotional impact). Naudus’s audiobook reading adds significantly to the characterisation.
This is How You Lose the Time War
by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Simon & Schuster, 2019); audiobook read by Cynthia Farrell & Emily Woo Zeller (Simon Schuster Audio, 2019)
What seems at first a gimmicky homage to Spy vs. Spy turns out to be a serious piece of conceptual science fiction, greatly enhanced by the authors’ embracing of texturising vignettes within the time travel plot. Makes Philip K. Dick look ordinary.