The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent

At first it seems like The Unnaturalists, Tiffany Trent’s young adult fantasy, is a relatively light-weight paranormal romance. In the opening chapter, Vespa Nyx, the rebellious daughter of the curator of the New London Museum of Unnatural History, meets an annoying new Pedant named Hal Lumin. In fact, he rescues her when something goes wrong with a containment field holding a live Sphynx. It seems that Vespa’s biggest problems will be learning to be “ladylike” and facing an arranged marriage. In fact, the stakes for Vespa and the entire city are much, much higher than that.

The city of New London exists in a different world that ours. Saint Nicola Tesla opened a portal and transported the city to a world where magic exists. On the surface, New Londoners revere science and abhor magic, calling famous scientists in history “saints,” but their ... Read More

Subterranean Online’s summer issue is devoted to young adult fiction, but the authors seem to have taken that directive as license to be subversive. It’s been true for a while now that the only thing “young adult” about most “young adult” science fiction, fantasy and horror is that the protagonist is not an adult. The stories just as entertaining for 50-year-olds as for 15-year-olds, and the themes are by no means limited to the worries of teens. This issue makes it clear why so many genre readers pay no attention to the labels slapped on books these days, but browse around the entire bookstore for the best stuff. But it’s more than that: many of the stories in this issue are exceptional.

“Queen of Atlantis” by Sarah Rees Brennan is one o... Read More