There won’t be any spoilers for Star Wars in this review. This book also contains no spoilers for the movies. Canto Bight is a new location to the Star Wars universe. It is a planet that is relevant only because on it rests the city of Canto Bight. Canto Bight, the place, is Las Vegas and Dubai but more extravagant. Canto Bight, the book, is a collection of short stories follows a several minor characters, heretofore unknown to the greater Star Wars universe. So, […]
A novel, if predictable science-fiction adventure
For one of my teaching gigs, I’m at an Islamic college in my nearest big city, and it’s been a rewarding and enlightening experience already. My boss has asked if I wanted someday to teach a Muslim-American literature course, and I obviously said yes, I would. That day, when I got home, I did a ton of Googling and Goodreads digging. I’m fairly widely read, but I wanted to see what scholars and publishers counted as Muslim-American, so that I could be fair in my […]
A promising new fantasy series (without a single white character!)
3.5 stars Resorting to the blurb for a plot summary, because I need to get my reviews up to date, and trying to come up with my own synopsis takes too long: The Crescent Moon Kingdoms are at a boiling point. A struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious Falcon Prince is reaching its climax. In the midst of this brewing rebellion, a series of brutal supernatural murders strike at the heart of the Kingdoms. Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, three score and more years old, […]
1001 Nights, for Beginners
Engraved on the Eye is a collection of 8 short stories told in various settings of Fantasy Middle East, drawing on Islamic and Middle Eastern folklore. It’s an extremely quick read. The stories are entertaining and the characters are lively, jovial, and diverse. Every story has some sort of supernatural creatures; ghuls feature prominently, along with ghul-hunters, martial artists, gunslingers, supervillains, rogues, dervishes,bounty hunters, and shaykhs. As with many short story books, there’s a range in subject matter and quality. I particularly enjoyed Mister Hadj’s Sunset Ride (about a gun-slinging Muslim wizard in […]