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The Route of Ice and Salt by Jose Luis Zarate was published by Innsmouth Free Press, a micropress run by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

This book really GETS the eroticism and similarities of eating/death/sex, which is an idea that isn't exactly uncommon, especially in vampire novels, but it's so well done here. It is very sensual, in the sexy way but mostly in the detail and description of all the senses. It is wonderfully aware of and concerned with the body in a way I'm not sure I've read before. Zarate's writing and David Bowles' translation are gorgeous.

As far as plot goes, this is more of an "atmosphere and themes" book, but those are done well. I would have liked a bit more plot, but then maybe we wouldn't have got the same atmosphere. The climax was really well done as a moment of character catharsis. I'd love to read more by Zarate.

This is last month's Small Press Spotlight

Who are they?
In their own words: "Founded in 1995, Tachyon Publications LLC is a publisher of smart science fiction, fantasy, and horror, as well as mysteries, memoirs, young adult, and literary fiction. We champion the creative storytelling of authors who inspire us through intelligent prose and imaginative worlds. Our titles are consistently unique, thought-provoking, and entertaining."

Tachyon Publications is based in California, and while they do publish a variety of genres, their specialty is SFF, especially anthologies and short story collections. They have a number of award-winning authors publishing with them.

Website and Store
The website is clean and slightly old-fashioned looking, and while it's not super interesting too look at, it gets the job done.

The store has options to search by All/eBooks/New/Forthcoming/Originals/Anthologies/Bestsellers. "All" is sorted alphabetically, with good-size covers of each book and the author, title, and price listed below each. When you click on a title, it takes you to a description of the book, options to buy, and other details about the book and author.

Have I heard of/read any of their books?
A bunch of them! The Peter S. Beagle books, Apocalypse Nyx, the Patricia A. McKillip books, Falling in Love with Hominids...They're pretty good at picking books.

Anything else?
There's not a lot about them online that I've seen, which I think is kind of weird, but they definitely exist and I don't have much to add.

The Liminal People by Ayize Jama-Everett was published by Small Beer Press. I actually got this as a remainder when I bought Redemption in Indigo, which I read earlier this year. It just took me a while to get to this.

This book had some interesting ideas, and Taggert is a well-developed main character with a cool backstory and room to grow in multiple directions. Tamara is also a solid character. The writing is often vivid and wonderfully (and sometimes upsettingly) descriptive, especially when it comes to how Taggert's powers work. In under 200 pages, Ayize Jama-Everett managed to pack a lot in and set up for the sequel.

Despite the book's strong points, however, I just...didn't care. Whatever it is that makes me connect to a story was missing, and I'm not quite sure what it is. I think this story would work better as a comic book, and I don't mean that as an insult to the core story at all. I just found myself imagining how certain scenes might be laid out and drawn, and thinking it would work really well.

I don't know if I'll read the sequel. I don't think I'll go out of my way, but if we cross paths, then sure, why not??

(I didn't do a Small Press Spotlight for September so I'll do two in October)

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado is a short-story collection published by Graywolf Press.

I've wanted to read this book for ages- possibly since it first came out and I first saw the title- but only got around to it now. I'd read "The Husband Stitch" before (thanks, ling!), but everything else was new to me.

Machado's writing is so atmospheric and evocative, and it's very absorbing. I don't think any of the protagonists were named in this collection ("Especially Heinous" aside) which was an interesting choice that I really liked. I was mildly disappointed there wasn't a story actually titled "Her Body and Other Parties," but the collection title really worked with the themes of the stories within- the concept of bodies and women's bodies and being a woman having a body.

"Especially Heinous" was really well done- SVU where they are literally haunted by the ghosts of girls who were not saved. The episode summaries and seasonal arcs were fantastic and haunting. "The Resident" was also deliciously creepy and upsetting. "Inventory" and "Mothers" were tragic and hopeful. I think "The Husband Stitch" is probably my favorite of the stories in the collection, with "Difficult at Parties" being my least favorite, but the biggest strength of the book is how the stories all fit together so well, I think.

Famous Men Who Never Lived is published by Tin House Books.

I love the premise of this book- refugees from another universe, similar to ours but markedly different, who can't go home but also can't grow in number because their world is probably destroyed. And I think it did a pretty good job of living up to the premise- I especially enjoyed the interviews with UDPs. The things like slang being different, or people forgetting the topography of the city is different, were great. And I think the book dealt well with the concept of grieving a world gone. It helped, also, that the UDPs weren't instead of refugees, but rather a specific kind of refugee, and were compared to more "traditional" refugees.

While I really enjoyed the plot, however, I found that I didn't particularly care about any of the characters. It felt like it could have been about any of the 156,000 and we could have hit the same ideas. I feel like I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if it was a bunch of ephemera discussing the differences and experiences of the UDPs and this world.

(Side note: I do feel my reviews have been getting shorter. It's hard!)

Love Is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar is published by Catapult Books.

Love Is an Ex-Country is a great title for this memoir, and fits perfectly with the content on multiple levels. It has some excellent chapters- "Inside the Yellow Line," "Imagining Myself in Palestine," and "Love is Neither Slave nor Pharaoh," especially.

This book also reminds me how much of reading is subjective. Jarrar is technically skilled, and has some wonderful turns of phrase, and it's clear that a lot of thought and emotion went into this memoir. I just didn't click with it. I don't need to feel like I'm in someone's head, or have life experiences in common with the author for a memoir to click with me. I'm not sure if it was the writing style or just where I am at the moment.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca is published by Weird Punk Books, which specializes in weird/dark horror.

I'd never heard of this book until last week, when I saw it face out in the Horror section at the bookstore. Since then, I've seen three different people talking about it. Life is weird like that sometimes! I was intrigued by the cover, with the blurred, meaty face and the ending line of the summary: "What have you done today to deserve your eyes?"

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is short and dark and about two women who enter into a fucked up 24/7 D/s relationship after meeting online, told through emails and chatlogs compiled by an unnamed author following an implied crime. It promised body horror, and it delivered in ways I found deliciously creepy and ways that just kind of grossed me out, but thankfully not in the ways that viscerally upset me (I know it's horror but there's a type of body horror that makes me panicky, which I do not enjoy).

I don't really know how to review this book, though! It was creepy! I love epistolary fiction, and seeing the back and forth between Agnes and Zoe was fascinating. I wouldn't recommend this to someone unless they explicitly wanted fucked up f/f. I don't think I'd read it again but also...I really want to know more about them. It was the perfect length for the story it was telling but I wanted more, which is a good thing!

Not quite the last day of the month, but cutting it close!

Who are they?
In their own words: "Graywolf Press is a nonprofit literary publisher of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and work in translation."

Graywolf Press is a Minnesota-based independent publisher. It started publishing poetry, but has grown to publish nonfiction and fiction as well. It has been very successful, with a lot of critical acclaim and awards. The company is small, but offers paid internships and fellowships every year.

It also has two prizes- the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, offered to American authors; and the Graywolf Press Africa Prize, for African authors "primarily residing in Africa."

Website and Store
The website is clean and clear, with bold font and a general color scheme of black/gray/red on white. The front page gets a little busy as you scroll down.

The store is divided by genre (fiction/poetry/non-fiction) and "featured" books. The cover for each book is prominently displayed, with the title, author, and date of release under each cover. Graywolf doesn't do direct distribution, but it provides links to purchase its books at various outlets. It doesn't advertise its ebook versions, but the outlets do provide links to them if they exist.

Have I heard of/read any of their books?
Boy, have I! This year I read In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, and it's one of my top books of the year. I've also heard of Her Body and Other Parties, also by Carmen Maria Machado; The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson; The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott; Blackass by A Igoni Barrett; and more.

Anything else?
Not really! It seems like a solid press with a lot of good books.

The Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher was published by Argyll Productions, a teensy spec-fic publisher.

This was a cute, cozy book. Mona was a capable protagonist, and a blend of mature and sheltered that felt very 14 to me. I loved all the baking stuff (although I wanted more descriptions of food), and the way magic was done in the world was cool.

One repeated idea I really enjoyed was the idea that kids shouldn't have to be saving the day- that no one should, really, and being a 'hero' often means you've been put into a terrible situation, but that kids especially shouldn't. I liked that Mona was angry about that through the end.

Despite the fact that there was a rash of murders in the book, though, and the threat hanging over the whole city, the book felt very low-stakes, which was frustrating at times. I liked that it felt cute and cozy, but that feeling was kind of at odds with some of the events happening. It had some awesome ideas, but the execution didn't quite line up.

The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw will be published by Erewhon Books on September 7 of this year. I received a copy of it through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Also- finally done with the ARCs I requested and will never go on a spree again.

The All-Consuming World throws you into the deep end from the get-go. It's confusing at first, especially if, like me, you pick it up on four hours of sleep, but once you pick things up it's very cool. Khaw doesn't hand-hold you through a lot of explanations, which works on a meta level because this is not a story with a lot of holding hands.

The All-Consuming World is about getting the band back together for one last adventure, only the band does not want to get back together. It's about a woman realizing she's trapped in a toxic relationship and that there are other options. It's about a bunch of ex- and current mercenary assholes up against massive machines who want them dead.

I love the prose, which is very atmospheric (although the word I keep thinking of is 'flavorful' so maybe it's that, too?). It's violent and often stream-of-conscious in a way that works for the characters and world here. It creates an air of mess and violence and anger that really is half the story. I also liked the switching between pronouns for Verdigris!

There were some things I was less into- the book feels simultaneously too long and too short. I enjoyed the last scene, but I also didn't realize it was the last scene until I scrolled to the next page and it was blank. It felt like it could have been a tighter novella or a longer book. The mission was perhaps less important than the character work, but at times that lack of importance was more obvious than others.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the story, and I will look out for other stuff by Khaw in the future! Their tastes line up with mine a lot.

Who are they?
In their own words: "An independent literary publisher since 1917."

Usually I use the first snippet of a publisher's 'About' section, but the 'Our Story' is a timeline, and the 'Our Imprints' section isn't the overview I usually use for this part, so. The tagline it is!

Grove Atlantic is a literary publisher with a lot of notable authors and books in its catalogue. It has six imprints: Grove Press, which publishes literature, poetry, drama, translated fiction, and nonfiction; Atlantic Monthly Press, which...also publishes literature?; Black Cat, which publishes mass market paperback versions of classics; Grove Press UK, for UK publishing; The Mysterious Press, now defunct; and Roxanne Gay Press, announced in May 2021, which will publish a limited number of titles handled by Roxanne Gay.

Website and Store
The website is pretty clean looking, with spotlights on different authors and books. You can browse by category, imprint, and theme, which is pretty cool.

The store has links to buy the books in hardback, paperback, and ebook versions, all through third-party sellers rather than through the publisher itself. It's easy to navigate, though, with the cover, title, and author all visible as you go through the massive catalogue.

Have I heard of/read any of their books?
Boy, howdy. Just going to throw out a few: Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata; The Human Zoo by Sabina Murray; Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W Montiz; Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson; The Bird King by G Willow Wilson; and Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. And all that is just in the past few years.

Anything else?
They have a lot going on! Definitely one of the bigger 'small presses' on here.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata was published by Grove Atlantic.

What a weird, wonderful book.

Murata does such an excellent job at describing the life of a convenience store- all the little considerations, the sounds, the rhythms. Keiko takes her job seriously, and she loves it and it gives her a purpose in life. But, unfortunately, we live in a society.

I've only read Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman by Murata, but I wonder whether the rest of her stories have the same themes of alienation from society, of people who just want to exist but are constantly under pressure and scrutiny from family and friends and strangers.

Where Earthlings' distance from society was upsetting, here it's matter of fact and almost joyous. The ending felt triumphant.

The copy I have has several reviews describe the book as "unsettling," and I wonder- is what they found unsettling Keiko's distanced views of the world? Or how she feels pressured to conform despite being happy in her place in life? Or is in Shiraha, in which case, fair. Shiraha is garbage, despite holding similar views to Keiko.

Also, Ginny Tapley Takemori once again nails the translation.

Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel is published by Lethe Press.

This was a pretty solid collection of short stories. Some were very brief, only two or three pages, which I loved because I love flash fiction, and some were longer, like the title story, which was over 80 pages. You can tell the author spends (and probably has for a while) a fair amount of time on social media, from some of the jokes and stylistic choices. I liked it and thought it worked for the stories.

Multiple stories have an anger to them that was very satisfying to read, like "The Mark of Aegis," which begins "The first nice thing I ever did to my body was tear it open," and "Self Care," which was joyfully pissed off. I also really liked all the stories featuring a complicated relationship with bodies, especially "I Am A Beautiful Bug!".

The title story was probably my least favorite part of the collection, but it wasn't bad. Just not for me.

Who are they?
In their own words: "EREWHON BOOKS is a new independent publisher focusing on novel-length works of speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, and related genres.

At Erewhon, our mission is to publish thoughtful, groundbreaking, and unforgettable books that go straight to the reader’s heart, effortlessly strange stories that take readers on powerful emotional journeys. We embrace the liminal and unclassifiable and champion the unusual, the uncanny, and the hard-to-define."

Erewhon Books started publishing in 2020, and thus has a fairly small catalogue and not a lot of information about them compared to some of the other independent publishers I've looked at. Their submissions page occasionally opens to unsolicited submissions, and although they focus on adult SFF novels, they are apparently also open to graphic novels, nonfiction, and anthologies. They have a pretty experienced team. I haven't seen anything on authors' experience with Erewhon, but the staff did an AMA on Reddit about getting started during the pandemic.

Website and Store
The website is clean and mostly well designed, although they recently shifted from having all their books listed together to dividing them up by publishing year, which I'm personally not a fan of. Erewhon doesn't have its own store, so links to other sellers are listed with each book. It's a little unwieldy, but it is very easy to navigate. They do have a lovely logo, too.

Have I heard of/read any of their books?
The Scapegracers was on my list of anticipated reads for last year, even though I didn't get around to reading it until this year. And, of course, Erewhon published one of my favorite books of the year, Folklorn. I've also heard good things about The Midnight Bargain by CL Polk. They seem to have a pretty good catalogue!

Anything else?
I have one more ARC I requested through NetGalley to read, and it's for an Erewhon book. I'm really looking forward to the Scapegracers sequel. I hope the company continues to do well.

Please read Folklorn

A History of My Brief Body was published by Two Dollar Radio.

A History of My Brief Body is a collection of essays by Billy-Ray Belcourt about being NDN and queer, and his personal experience as both and what that means in the larger context of Canada and the world. While Belcourt often focuses on one aspect or another, none of these things can be separated from each other. Canada's history of colonialism and anti-indigenous violence is a constant presence, as is the AIDS crisis and homophobia, past and present.

Belcourt's writing is lyrical (he is a poet) and packed with theory and metaphor. It's complex and I'm not sure I entirely understood large portions of it (I struggle with both poetry and theory). It's also deeply emotional, and while I'm not sure I always understood his specific ideas, I do feel like I understood the emotions behind them.

The essays are full of trauma and joy and love, and the desire for a different, better world. They're about how being othered makes you view yourself and those like you, and what it's like to be free of that lens, even temporarily. They're intensely personal, not because they reveal the minute details of Belcourt's life but because of all the emotion and thought in them.

This is definitely the sort of book that I believe would bring something different on every reread.

In Calabria was published by Tachyon Publications, an independent sff publisher.

I think I'm just not that into Peter S. Beagle's recent books, which is disappointing considering how much I love his older ones. But between In Calabria and Summerlong, it feels like the magic has been...not entirely lost, but lessened.

Everything with the unicorn was lovely- Beagle has a way of writing them that really makes me believe in their wonderful otherness. You can't see a unicorn without somehow being changed by it. The everyday farm scenes and descriptions of the farm and the little town life were charming. Bianchi and Gio were lovely characters.

The plot was fine. There wasn't anything wrong with it, and I do enjoy stories of people coming together to protect one another, but it didn't excite me either. And the romance. There are times I've enjoyed older man/younger woman romances, but they have to be pretty special and also not feature several moments in which the man recalls knowing the woman as a child. There wasn't anything skeevy about the relationship when it happened, but I just don't really like the dynamic.

Also: there is a short but graphic scene featuring cat death.

In Calabria wasn't awful! But it was just ok, and I am disappointed.

Lily by Michael Thomas Ford is published by Lethe Press, which specializes in queer genre fiction.

Staven Andersen's illustrations are absolutely fantastic- creepy and whimsical and detailed. I'm devastated that I can't find any online presence for him.

Onto the story- I don't really know how to feel about Lily- it wasn't bad! The atmosphere was good, with ghosts and Baba Yaga and creepy clowns and old school Revival preachers. The story was familiar, but well told. The ending was sweet, with some bitterness as well. Baba Yaga's chapters were excellent, and I loved Lily separating herself and thinking how she didn't trust the girl inside her.

It just felt thin. The romance wasn't bad, but it was very instalovey. The issue of faith felt shallow, which was disappointing considering how much of it takes place in a traveling Revivalist ministry/show. I wanted more depth and subtlety to some of the main themes. I also could have done without the creepy (implied) rapist clowns, especially considering Star is implied to be Lily's age (13). Definitely felt like the author forgot Lily was 13 at times.

I don't think it's a bad thing that there's a fairy-tale f/f story that deals with darker themes and is kind of tropey. It just didn't do a lot for me.

The Human Zoo by Sabina Murray is being release by Grove Atlantic, an independent publisher of literary fiction. It will be available on August 10 in the US.

(I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

The Human Zoo is not a tidy book- it's about a Fil-Am woman who travels back to the Philippines and avoids responsibility, while messy personal and societal politics play out around her. It reads as both a love letter to and criticism of the Philippines, specifically Manila, and even more specifically, the elite of Manila.

I'm not sure how to review this book, but here are my thoughts anyway, as best as I can put them together- Even though it felt, at times, that nothing actually happened in the story, it was nevertheless a compelling read, and full of complexity. Ting is simultaneously aware of her privilege and willingly blind to it. She's Fil-Am and has a lot of complicated feelings about it, especially as she considers staying in the Philippines while everyone assumes she will go back the the US. There is the whole Chet situation, which turns out to be even more complicated than it seemed. And through it all are scenes of everyday life for the well-off of Manila- drivers and trips and family and social cues.

Sabina Murray translates a few Tagalog words and concepts, but she doesn't translate everything, and she doesn't exoticize the Philippines. It's all presented as very normal, which seems to be becoming more popular in non-Western fiction, and I'm glad. I looked up what I wasn't familiar with, and I learned some new things.

Ting is not a proactive protagonist. I went back and forth as to whether I liked that, and I'm still not sure, but it needs to be said. She doesn't so much make things happen as have things happen around her. In the context of The Human Zoo, I think that worked, although I'm struggling to put together why I think it worked. It wasn't about her, even though it centered on her. It was more about Filipino society, and people who want to change it, and the system. She was the proxy by which those things could be explored, and her Fil-Am identity a way of making her simultaneously an outsider and insider. I worry this comes across as a criticism, but I think it was well done. However, I can see a lot of people getting frustrated with Ting, and the book in general, for that.

Gumboc seemed to be fairly transparently a Duterte expy. I can't speak for the accuracy of that, but the brashness and war on drugs and extrajudicial killings all seemed to point there.

Laird. I guessed part of where that storyline was going, but not the whole thing, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending in general.

As I said, this was not a tidy book, and for all its strong points, I feel somewhat unsatisfied. I don't need stories to be neatly tied up in a bow, but it feels like there was too much going on, and too much left open-ended. It was like real life, full of things that don't go anywhere and questions that are never answered. I'm sure some people will love it, but I wasn't the biggest fan of that element. That said, I'm interested in seeing what else Murray has written.

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge (translated by Jeremy Tiang) is published by Melville House Publishing on July 13. It's already available in the UK.

I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Strange Beasts of China is an odd book, and fascinating in that oddness. Each chapter opens with the "known" story of a different type of beast, and closes with a slightly different version of the story, altered by what the narrator learned over the course of the chapter. Throughout the book is the ongoing mystery of the narrator and her past, one that I'm not entirely sure gets resolved (although, does it matter?). This is definitely a book that would benefit from rereading.

I really liked the different stories of the beasts, and the narrator's encounters with them. They were fascinating, and often tragic, and made Yong'an a rich and frightening city. The beasts are human, and inhuman at the same time, and I could have read another hundred pages about the different types of beasts living in Yong'an. The story of the sacrificial beasts was one of my favorites, in that it was devastating on several levels.

The relationship between the narrator and her professor carries through the book- they haven't seen each other in years, they fought often, they cared about each other deeply, there's more to either of them than meets the eye. Unraveling that relationship as the narrator did was both confusing and rewarding. On the flip side was the narrator's relationship with Zhong Liang, which was delightful- I love an older woman and a well-meaning rich boy.

While the mystery mostly came together at the end, I'm not sure how well it did. It may be I simply haven't read enough Chinese literature, and am not used to the format. Based simply off this book, however, the resolution seemed...loose. Not unsolved enough for true ambiguity, but not resolved enough for satisfaction. Rereading the book would very likely alter my perceptions of the ending, but I am writing this review based on one read.

Altogether, though, this book packs a lot in to under 200 pages, and does most of it very well. I would definitely not mind more about the Strange Beasts of China.

Who are they?
In their own words: "Two Dollar Radio is a family-run outfit founded in 2005 with the mission to reaffirm the cultural and artistic spirit of the publishing industry.
We aim to do this by presenting bold works of literary merit, each book, individually and collectively, providing a sonic progression that we believe to be too loud to ignore."

Two Dollar Radio is a Columbus, Ohio-based publisher specializing in literary fiction and nonfiction. They publish about 5-6 books per year, with a lot of those being debuts. They put out Frequencies Journal, collections of nonfiction essays, and distribute for another press, Sator Press, and its imprint Satyr Press. Together, Two Dollar Radio and Sator Press are doing a literary award, the Sator New Works Award, for trans/nonbinary authors.

They also take unsolicited submissions, and have a low read price for manuscripts to widen the socioeconomic pool of applicants.

Website and Store
The website is busy, but not uncomfortably so. It's fairly easy to navigate and features its books at almost every opportunity. I'm not a fan of the catalogue layout, which features a big blurb for each book and a much smaller description of what the book is actually about, and the description isn't always that clear (ex: "A melancholic and savage look at friendship.") You have to click on the book to get the actual synopsis. Great for clickthroughs, annoying

They sell both hardcopies and ebooks. The prices aren't immediately visible- you have to click on the book you're interested in to see the price. One nice thing they do is "Purchase with Purpose," in which all or part of the author's proceeds from the sale go to charities.

Have I heard of/read any of their books?
I think I'd heard of They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib before, but I'm not 100% sure- my memory isn't the best and it's one of their biggest books. The title is great, though, and I'm definitely interested in reading it. Other than that, I hadn't heard of any of their titles.

Anything else?
Two Dollar Radio also makes movies??? Good for them. Their brick-and-mortar store also has a full bar and a vegan cafe. They're a busy bunch, and seem super passionate about what they do. Also, a lot of their covers are super rad.