I review nonfiction works in astronomy, history of science, and history of astronomy as well as works of speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy, with reviews published in Strange Horizons and Black Gate as well as elsewhere).

Please contact me if you have work you would like reviewed. Note that I’m a bit old-fashioned in that I do not read electronic copy on devices. I spend a good portion of my life in front of a screen, and I prefer to do my reading on paper.

Non-fiction
Journal for the History of Astronomy
Rebekah Higgitt, Maskelyne: Astronomer Royal in JHA 47 (4): 443–44.
William Sheehan and Christopher Conselice, Galactic Encounters: Our Majestic and Evolving Star-System, From the Big Bang to Time’s End in Journal for the History of Astronomy, in JHA 46 (4): 497–98.
Charles Mollan, ed., William Parsons, 3^rd Earl of Rosse: Astronomy and the Castle in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, in JHA 46 (3): 381–82.

ISIS (journal of the History of Science Society)
(with Michael Crowe) Michael Hoskin, Discoverers of the Universe: William and Caroline Herschel, in Isis 102 (2011): 780–1.

The Planetarian (journal of the International Planetarium Association)
Steve Fentress, Sky to Space: Astronomy Beyond the Basics with Comparisons, Ratios and Proportions (Sep. 2018)
William H. Waller, The Milky Way: An Insider’s Guide (Sep. 2016)
Athena Coustenis and Thérèse Encrenaz, Life Beyond Earth (Mar. 2016)
Thomas Hamilton, Dwarf Planets and Asteroids: Minors Bodies of the Solar System (Sep. 2015)
Thérèse Encrenaz, Planets: Ours and Others: From Earth to Exoplanets (Sep. 2015)
James Lequeux, Birth, Evolution, and Death of Stars (Sep. 2015)
James Mullaney & Wil Tirion, The Cambridge Double Star Atlas (Sep. 2009)
Helge S. Kragh, Conceptions of Cosmos: A History of Cosmology (June 2008)
Nick Kanas, Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography (Sep. 2008)
Nachum Dershowitz & Edward M. Reingold, Calendrical Calculations (Dec. 2008)

Fiction
Strange Horizons
“August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White,” (March 27, 2023)
“The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia and The Unbalancing by R. B. Lemberg,” (September 21, 2022)
“How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters, by Erica L. Satifka,” (June 27, 2022)
“Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky,” (February 28, 2022)
“The Tanglewood Palace, by Marjorie Liu,” (January 24, 2022)
“The Fall of Koli, by M. R. Carey,” (September 20, 2021)
“Busted Synapses, by Erica Satifka,” (July 26, 2021)
“That We May Live: Speculative Chinese Fiction,” (December 7, 2020)
“The Book of Koli, by M. R. Carey,” (November 9, 2020)
“Multiverse: An International Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry, edited by Rachel Plummer and Russell Jones,” (March 16, 2020)
“Mouthful of Birds, by Samanta Schweblin,” (January 27, 2020)
“The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow,” (January 13, 2020)
“Places in the Darkness, by Chris Brookmyre,” (January 14, 2019)
“The Green and Growing, by Erin K. Wagner,” (September 16, 2019)
“Starlings, by Jo Walton,” (July 9, 2018)
“Cosmic Powers, edited by John Joseph Adams,” (February 19, 2018)
“Wicked Wonders, by Ellen Klages,” (September 11, 2017)
“ODY-C: Cycle One, by Matt Fraction and Christian Ward,” (March 20, 2017)
“Summerlong, by Peter S. Beagle,“ (September 26, 2016)

Black Gate
“The Trials of Koli, by M. R. Carey,” (November 14, 2020)
“A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, by H. G. Parry,” (August 9, 2020)
“Silver, by Linda Nagata,” (December 23, 2019)
“This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone,” (July 14, 2019)
“The Deep, by John Crowley,” (May 13, 2019)
“Edges, by Linda Nagata,” (April 27, 2019)
“Vast, by Linda Nagata,” (September 9, 2018)
“Stay Crazy, by Erica Satifka,” (April 19, 2018)
“The Overneath, by Peter S. Beagle and The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen,” (December 21, 2017)
“Operation Arcana, edited by John Joseph Adams,” (September 23, 2017)
“The Man Underneath: the Collected Short Fiction of R. A. Lafferty, vol. 3,” (July 31, 2017)
“The Language of the Night, by Ursula LeGuin,” (May 24, 2017)
“Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones,” (April 11, 2017)
“In Calabria, by Peter S. Beagle,” (March 3, 2017)

Mysterion
“The Expanse, Season 4,” (March 16, 2020)
“The Man With Speckled Eyes: the Collected Short Fiction of R. A. Lafferty, vol. 4,” (March 12, 2018)

Grimdark Magazine
“Three Books to Get you Stuck into Warhammer 40,000,” (November 25, 2017)

MYTHIC
“What the #@&% Is That? The Saga Anthology of the Monstrous and the Macabre, edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen,” (Winter 2017)
“Press Start to Play, edited by Daniel H. Wilson & John Joseph Adams,” (Summer 2017)
“Federations, edited by John Joseph Adams,” (Spring 2017)
“The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Karen Joy Fowler,” (Spring 2017)