Articles by: Mary Woodbury

LaGuardia, Nnedi Okorafor

Illustrated by Tana Ford, LaGuardia is being republished as a deluxe edition in hardcover and Kindle formats. Boingboing states: Laguardia is a contemporary story of immigration, identity, and dignity in the context of not-so-futuristic conservative fascist forces. The art of speculative fiction can illuminate alternative paths out of the violence of […]

Read More

Backyard Wildlife – Crickets and Harvest

Back to Series I got nervous around the end of July when I had not yet heard any crickets yet. I read an article in The Conversation about how insects are declining—some reasons being loss of habitat, increased wildfires, and farming. I asked my team at work one day about […]

Read More

Spotlight – Dennis Mombauer

Click here to return to the series About the Book This month we head to Sri Lanka, where we explore a creepy old mansion at the edge of a creepy forest. I’m already getting in the mood for autumn and haunted places, can you tell? Reading Dennis Mombauer’s The House […]

Read More

The Last Quarter of the Moon, Zijian Chi

Translated by Bruce Humes, this novel, first published in 2005, is being re-released by Penguin Random House, re-categorized in the genre of eco-fiction. In The Last Quarter of the Moon, prize-winning novelist Chi Zijian, creates a dazzling epic about an extraordinary woman bearing witness not just to the stories of […]

Read More

Lark Ascending, Silas House

As fires devastate most of the United States, Lark and his family secure a place on a refugee boat headed to Ireland, the last country not yet overrun by extremists and rumored to be accepting American refugees.

Read More

Indie Corner – Arlene Mark

Back to the Indie Corner series Arlene Mark’s The Year Without a Summer (August 2022, SparkPress) is a heartwarming and relevant novel for middle-grade and YA readers. It’s certain to provoke thoughtfulness and discussion about the climate and empathy for those around us. For two eighth-graders, disasters erupt—natural, man-made, and […]

Read More

Review of Michael Rothenberg’s In Memory of a Banyan Tree

Review by Mary Woodbury In Memory of a Banyan Tree by Michael Rothenberg (Lost Horse Press, 2022) American poet Michael Rothenberg’s newest collection of poems travels backward and forward on an important journey, encompassing poems written between 1985-2022. The reason I say forward is that nowadays writers speculate more than […]

Read More

Noor, Nnedi Okorafor

Now in paperback, from Africanfuturist luminary Okorafor comes a new science fiction novel of intense action and thoughtful rumination on biotechnology, destiny, and humanity in a near-future Nigeria. Read more at Penguin Random House.

Read More

Shifting Earth, Cecil Castellucci

In a not-so-distant future, a freak particle storm has landed botanist Dr. Maeve Millay on an idyllic yet strange parallel Earth, with no way back home. Here, two moons rule society, and nature outshines science. But just like her own climate ravaged planet, this verdant Earth has a sinister side. […]

Read More

The Most Important Comic Book on Earth, Cara Delevingne

The Most Important Comic Book On Earth: Stories to Save the World is a global collaboration for planetary change, bringing together a diverse team of 300 leading environmentalists, artists, authors, actors, filmmakers, musicians, and more to present over 120 stories to save the world. Whether it’s inspirational tales from celebrity […]

Read More

Denial, Jon Raymond

A futuristic thriller about climate change by the acclaimed screenwriter of First Cow, Meek’s Cutoff, and HBO’s Mildred Pierce. Denial is both a page-turning speculative suspense novel and a powerful existential inquisition about the perilous moment in which we currently live.

Read More

Synopsis of Men, by Mary Woodbury

  The following article contains spoilers. Alex Garland’s Men is a fascinating folk horror classic that, while exalting the English countryside’s nature and beauty, also gazes sternly at patriarchy and religion. The cast is incredible. Jessie Buckley’s range of emotions and Rory Kinnear’s many faces enhance the weird and wonderful […]

Read More

Backyard Wildlife – the Bonefire

Back to Series Deep summer embraces us. The foliage around the house and meadow are wild, with tendrils creeping along the grasses or climbing the old shed. Wild grapes wave from behind the spruce trees. My hawthorn fairy tree, with its solar owl light, wind chime, and fairy sits silently, […]

Read More

The Moonday Letters, Emmi Itäranta

A gripping sci-fi mystery wrapped in an LGBTQIA love story that bends space, time, myth and science…An effortlessly rich and lyrical mystery wrapped in a love story that bends space, time, myth and science, perfect for fans of Octavia Butler and Emily St. John Mandel…Part space-age epistolary, part eco-thriller, and […]

Read More

Arboreality, Rebecca Campbell

This book looks amazing, yet another out by Stelliform Press (coming this fall). This novella is an expansion of the 2021 Theodore Sturgeon Award winner, “An Important Failure” by Rebecca Campbell. A professor in pandemic isolation rescues books from the flooded and collapsing McPherson Library. A man plants fireweed on […]

Read More