Book Review: When the Moon Hits Your Eye, by John Scalzi

I have a confession to make: when I first heard of When the Moon Hits Your Eye I was *deeply* skeptical. I’ve been riding with John Scalzi since day one (to be transparent, I didn’t find out about the self published Agent to the Stars until after Old Man’s War) and I’ve truly enjoyed just about everything he’s had published. Scalzi’s science fiction is a lot of fun, I’ve really dug his move to standalone work with The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain and if I hated the cover for Starter Villain it’s probably not Scalzi’s fault (my wife liked the cover, so maybe I’m in the minority here).

Despite that, finding out that this book was about the moon turning into cheese still gave me a visceral reaction that could best be described as a cringe. The cover didn’t help.

Friends, I’m here to tell you that When the Moon Hits Your Eye is as delightful as you might hope it would be. It’s Scalzi, with everything that entails. Scalzi gives us the big concept and then treats it seriously (well, mostly). The moon has turned to cheese. Okay. What would that actually mean? Well, if the moon keeps its mass then it would be much larger. It’s brighter in the sky. It would be a bit of an existential concern on earth and there would be plenty of doubters and mockery and those trying to take advantage of the situation.

Would there be a moon mission? How would this impact the space program? What about the cheese mongers?

When the Moon Hits Your Eye has John Scalzi’s typical light touch and humor. Are there cheese jokes-a-plenty? There are. The obvious puns, of course, and ones that you need to be a bit more cheese invested to have thought of.

Does it work? Your mileage will vary, but as someone who really likes bad jokes (they’re all good jokes, Brent) and who typically gets on with Scalzi - When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a truly fun time with a ridiculous idea that I’m sort of surprised hasn’t been played with more often and more popularly.

There isn’t a true narrative arc to the novel in the sense of following one or two characters through their story. When the Moon Hits Your Eye follows a wide ranging cast of characters from astronauts to retired scientists to top level government officials to a rich asshole (aren’t they all) to competing cheese mongers to just regular people going about their lives and figuring what/how/or if they need to deal with the moon having been turned to cheese. We all still have to go to work even in the moon is cheese, after all.

The novel is a slice of life, if you will (I’m having a lot of restraint here, people). During a period of time when the moon first turned to cheese, this is how some people and the United States government reacted and responded. That's ultimately what we're working with here. Progressive snapshots that move forward in time and there is an overall arc to the world's and the reader's understanding of what happened and more or less what it means for their lives and the lives of those they love. 

The novel's hook is the concept. If you're down for a not really plotty examination of what happens when the moon turns into cheese that's funny and occasionally emotionally touching - this is the book for you. If you've read Scalzi before and his stuff works for you, this is an absolute winner. If Scalzi isn't your thing and you've tried, I'm not sure this will convince you. From my perspective, it's a delight. 

It’s a cheesy good time. It’s really grate and I truly brielieve that it couldn’t have been cheddar than this.

I’m not sorry. 

It's all gouda. 

--

Joe Sherry - Senior Editor of Nerds of a Feather, Hugo and Ignyte Award Winner. Minnesotan.

Book Review: A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang

 A vividly stylised tale of a woman pulled from her homeland and all she knows into a baffling and hostile new world.

A Palace Near the Wind, the new novella from Ai Jiang, follows Lufeng as she is required to leave her homeland of Feng to marry the king whose palace encroaches ever closer onto their lands. Her grandmother hopes to use this marriage to limit that encroachment - halting it for a decade - but Lufeng has little hope, as she follows not only her mother but two of her sisters into marriage to the king, whose relentless industry is destroying the land that Lufeng and her people hold dear. The story follows her into the palace, and uncovering what the world outside Feng is truly like, and the extent of the trouble she finds herself in.

The bare bones of the story - girl must marry for political reasons to save her home, and then use her smarts/gutsiness/curiosity/magic/other redeeming quality (delete as appropriate) to find out what's going on and save those she cares about - is not a new one or a particularly exciting one. So go many of the stories I grew up reading. What matters here is how Jiang has presented it, both in the creation of the setting and in the crafting of Lufeng's point of view.

Focussing on the setting first, Jiang eschews obvious tracts of exposition, and so it takes a little while of immersion to grasp quite what's going on in this world. Lufeng's people, the Wind Walkers, seem to be a predominant part plant. They have sap instead of blood, trichomes on their bodies, possibly some sort of pine needles for hair, and bark for skin. Because the narrative is told very firmly from within Lufeng's perspective, these are only revealed through the words she chooses to use for herself and her actions, and so while the difference is obvious from the start, the full extent of it only resolves as she has others against which to compare herself - the difference only resolves via that comparison.

At which point it becomes clear that this is a world of at least three people - the Wind Walkers, humans, and Water Shifters, possibly with a fourth that have some effect on the earth. Lufeng's people can see further, hear more and be carried by the air itself, and as she moves into a world far apart from nature, she feels the absence of her gifts in the stifling confines of a human palace. Again, the extent of her abilities is not explained, and again this is due to the depth of the perspective immersion within her point of view - if one were to hold this up against "show don't tell" as a standard, Jiang could not be found wanting on the show end of the scale. Such limits or rules as there are must be gleaned from witnessing Lufeng in her use of her abilities. In general, this is an approach I prefer in worldbuilding and magic "systems" - magic for me feels more magical when it occupies a more inuitive space than a scientific one, and Jiang absolutely embraces that approach, even in a world that clearly contains scientific elements. 

However, in the extremity of approach and of immersion within Lufeng's worldview, there is a downside, at least when paired with another noticeable feature of Jiang's writing. It is a somewhat hackneyed criticism of fantasy to suggest it will use a high falutin synonym at any possible opportunity - why an eye when one could have a pellucid orb, right? It's been quite a long time since I've read anything that justified that critique (though my teenage and early twenties reading was absolutely rife with it), but it does, at times, feel like A Palace Near the Wind strays in that direction. In some places, it does feel justified - Lufeng isn't human and so it is natural that the way she talks about her body doesn't align with how I might. But there are times, especially early in the narrative, where it just feels like it goes too far. One specific example that stood out was how Lufeng, at the start, never talks about her eyes - it's always lids and sight instead, even when the phrasing heads into awkwardness like "When my lids fell slack". Perhaps the wind walkers don't have eyes then? Except, just the once, later in the story, she does switch to "My eyes refused to shut". So it's a stylistic choice. But I'm afraid it's one that doesn't work for me, because there are just a few too many awkward synonyms, clunkily talking around things that could be handled more simply. I am not one to call something overwritten, but this... this might be, just a little.

And perhaps it wouldn't be a significant issue, except that it dovetails with yet another aspect of the storytelling, and they both exacerbate each other, to the detriment of the whole.

When I say that the narrative perspective is deeply rooted in Lufeng, I should also say that this means the reader's knowledge of the world is severely closed off with it. Lufeng is an intensely naive character, with a very restricted knowledge of the world outside Feng. It is a success of Jiang's writing how thoroughly this infects the narrative - it thoroughly colours everything. However, it also means there are often moments, pieces of information, sights and sounds, where it is evident I as the reader would understand, but Lufeng doesn't, and so my understanding is occluded by hers. When this happens because of a naive protagonist, I find this approach maddening - the feeling of information artificially kept from my grasp is just something I cannot cope with. It is the exact same experience I had when recently rereading Nona the Ninth. Nona herself is so thoroughly limited in what she can see and understand in the world, and the narrative perspective is so successfully wedded to that understanding, that it's like watching the events of the story through misted glass. The feeling of wanting to take an intellectual cloth to wipe off the condensation persists, and taints the narrative for me.

I am not always against this sort of approach - having the narrative infected with the protagonist's worldview in a way that limits the reader's understanding of the world. Indeed, it's present in the other two The Locked Tomb books and I find it very effective in both. But there's something about tying it to a character so naive that their understanding is lower than me, an outsider to the narrative but with plenty of metanarrative understanding of the genre. There's a tension between the protagonist's ignorance my metaknowledge that just doesn't work because I have all the understanding and none of the information through which to fuel it, while the protagonist has the opposite. In Nona, at least on the first reading, this is mitigated by the puzzlebox nature of the narrative - I come into the story armed with information from the preceding two books, and can try to treat it as a riddle to be solved with prior knowledge. It is only on the second go, when all mysteries that can be solved have been solved and I am left with only Nona's internal monologue and processing, that the absence becomes a troublesome one. The lack of understanding, of specifically mature emotional processing and contextual response to the world, is not a fun place to be for me, without mitigation.

And while not to the same extent, I have the same problem with A Palace Near the Wind, and Lufeng's perspective. She is more emotionally mature than Nona, but very sheltered, and without a great deal of contextual information and worldliness that would allow her to process how people act outside of her expectations of behaviour and the world. And so she too is limited, and finds those around her most of the way through the story a black box. And so I too am cut off from them as emotional and realised people, because the information I would need to form those impressions never makes it through the filtering lens of Lufeng.

This is the first book in a series, and while Lufeng only shows a little growth over the course of the book, it is possible that her scope of the world will expand in the subsequent stories. I hope so, in fact. But within the bounds of just A Palace Near the Wind? I think it's a significant problem. I cannot get over how artificially obfuscatory it feels to be limited like this, even as I recognise the skill in how well Jiang has committed to the immersion.

It also gives the story - clearly deliberately - a feeling more of a number of events befalling Lufeng, rather than something she is an active, driving participant in. This, I mind less, but it is noticeable how little impact she has on the story until towards the end. In many ways, it has the feeling of prologue to it, of this being the set up to get Lufeng to a place of action later on, from which she may have the understanding to start having an impact on the story she finds herself in, now she begins to have the context of it all. I would certainly be interested in seeing if that were the case. But purely on the bounds of this story as itself and only itself? I struggled with it.

Which is not to say the whole thing is a wash - there are moments, especially when Lufeng is in her homeland, where Jiang's skill at descriptive prose comes to the fore. In describing the natural world, especially tactile things, the immersion that bothers me so much for its limits comes good and makes something entirely wonderful. I also enjoyed the depth of that immersion when it is focussed inwardly - Lufeng's awareness of herself, her body, her feelings is fascinating and delightful, and I could happily read much more like that. Likewise, the descriptions of using the skills her people are born with captures some of the magic I love to see in the fantastical - unexplained but evocative and described with more feeling than explanation. And the setting is an interesting one - it begins with what feels far more traditionally high fantasy or mythic, before bringing in elements of science and technology that clash with those assumptions, making this something richer and more textured, more unexpected. But it never has the chance to develop into something truly exciting, because of the limitation of Lufeng's worldview.

Ultimately, there were glimpses of something wonderful, enough to tempt me to continue the series, but the problem of that perspective immersion never quite allowed me to settle in and enjoy them. I kept turning the pages, hoping, but finding what I wanted eternally out of reach.

--

The Math

Highlights:

• Evocative, beautiful descriptions of the physical and the natural
• Deep embedding in the mindset of the protagonist

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10

Reference: Ai Jiang, A Palace Near the Wind, [Titan Books, 2025].

POSTED BY: Roseanna Pendlebury, the humble servant of a very loud cat. @chloroformtea.bsky.social

Book Review: Idolfire by Grace Curtis

An engaging and entertaining novel that does most, but not quite everything, that it says on the tin

In a world of fallen empires, lost gods and the power to channel divinity, Kirby, a young woman from a dying village, sets off on a quest to find the stolen icon of goddess Iona. Kirby is convinced, with some solid evidence, that Iona’s absence is the reason why the community suffers under a curse that is slowly and steadily strangling it. Meantime, Aleya, the overachieving daughter of the current ruler of the powerful city of Ash, is finally given a quest (a Calling) to prove her worth, which sets her off on the road as well, to the same destination as Kirby: to a city that once ruled the vast and now fallen empire of Nivela.

This is the story of Grace Curtis’s Idolfire, a resolutely standalone fantasy novel.

I do want to lead off with that. In a world of trilogies, duologies (which appear to be especially popular these days) and other extended series, this is a story that wraps up everything in one volume. You will get a complete story here of the two (and then a third) main characters, complete and whole. Kudos to the author for managing that feat.

Idolfire is advertised and marketed as “A character-driven science-fantasy road trip book with sword fights and a slow-burn romance. An epic sapphic fantasy roadtrip inspired by the fall of Rome.” We do get most of that in this book.

First up, the characters. Our two main protagonists, Kirby and Aleya, do take their time to meet, and their sapphic romance is definitely a slow burn in the squabbling-squabbling-acceptance-sparks sort of affair. It should be said that this fantasy world is resolutely queernorm; their relationship is just an accepted part of human relations in this ’verse. And while Kirby may have been shy and barely kissed anyone before, Aleya definitely has had prior lovers (and we meet one while on the road). So the bones of all that are good, and a lot of the novel works on the engines of its characters, both when they are apart and then when they unite.

Their relationship and their natures are an excellent engine for drama and events that unfold during the course of the novel. While Kirby can’t fight her way out of a paper bag at the beginning (despite having what might be a magic sword she can barely swing), she has practical skills for living off of the land that Aleya does not. Aleya has trained as a fighter all her life (see the above mention of sword fights),  but also has diplomatic and administrative skills (after all, she does want to rule Ash, or thinks she does). Aleya is also the one that can use the titular Idolfire, using the belief and power of gods stored in relics and other items in which it resides. The power unleashed by this does degrade and use up the relic, and it is tied to the nature of the god/dess herself. If you use a statue consecrated to the God of War, you are going to get war and martial-based effects, not healing.

Let’s continue. It is definitely a road trip book of the first water, as they both are not only traversing the landscape; they are in many cases following the old straight-line implacable roads of the fallen prior civilization, the Nivelans. This is where the “Fall of Rome” inspiration comes in, as the Nivelans have built their roads in what many readers would recognize as a “Roman” mode: straight lines, and damn the geography that is in its way. Roads that most definitely do not harmonize and work with the landscape, but rather seek to dominate it. There are a couple of names and other things that also tag as Roman, but in the main, though, while the author was inspired by the fall of Rome (as she says in the acknowledgements/afterword), I saw a different model and inspiration that she does call out in the aforementioned back matter, but I think is a fairly more dominant influence overall in the book. You might have guessed it already with a city-state named Ur.

Yes, this book and its world very much run on lines inspired by Ancient Mesopotamia. We have a world that is mostly city-states (with a fallen empire for good measure). We have a world where there are a ton of local deities, and those deities and their worship are tied directly to the land, and can be, in fact, stolen. Curtis relays an incident in the back matter where this actually happened in real-life Ancient Mesopotamia, and that incident shapes Kirby’s life and story profoundly as a result. And Mesopotamia, with its palimpsest of prior civilizations, fallen cities, ruins, and more, is very much the model for the landscape of the road trips that Kirby and Aleya go on, separately and together. Even the realm that the city of Ash sits in is called Ur, after a famous Mesopotamian city state.

Mesopotamia, the Land Between the Rivers, is an inspiration and a model for fantasy that gets a lot less play than Greece or Rome or Egypt. The author is not unique here: Harry Turtledove’s Between the Rivers is very much in the mold of this book. That book uses a godly point of view, but the whole idea of this fractured Mesopotamian landscape of rising and falling civilizations, tons of deities, and a city-state-based mentality with the occasional and irresistible eruption (and then decline) of empires resonates between Curtis’s work and Turtledove’s. I can also find resonances in L Sprague De Camp’s Novaria novels and stories, and the Godserfs series by N. S. Dolkart. Also, Kirby’s home village of Wall’s End, at the edge of the huge ruined city of Balt, reminded me strongly of Pavis, a massive ruined city in the RPG world of Glorantha, which itself as a setting takes a lot of its notes from ancient Mesopotamia.

But in the main, Ancient Mesopotamia is a rich (and underused) setting for all this, and one that more authors could definitely take ideas from and claim as their own. Thus, Curtis takes advantage of that and uses it effectively and deeply to give a real richness to the road trip. A road trip across the fallen Roman Empire? Tired. A road trip across Ancient Mesopotamia? Wired.

Where the novel doesn’t do what it says on the tin, then, is the phrase “science fantasy.” For me, and I think, as is commonly accepted in the fields of genre, science fantasy is a fusion of the ideas, concepts, trappings and motifs of fantasy with science fiction. It is the original “peanut butter in my chocolate / chocolate in my peanut butter” subgenre, and discussing it in full detail might be beyond the remit of this review.. But while Idolfire has some excellent fantasy elements, as outlined above, there is no science fiction in this work whatsoever. There is, unusually, a moment of *science* that recalls a real-life remarkable event in ancient history, and it delighted me that Curtis slotted it in there. But that doesn’t make it science fantasy either.

Instead, a different subgenre of SFF fits this novel better. It’s a well-made and cromulent sword-and-sorcery novel, not a science fantasy novel. Sword and Sorcery fits as a much better label for this book. Swordswoman (and her companion), fighting, adventure, road trip, strange gods, weird magic, and the like. Could I see Kirby and Aleya and Nylophon (I’ll get to him in a moment) wandering around Hyperborea, or Lankhmar, or Ranke or, even more recently, and really on the mark, the sword-and-sorcery world of Howard Andrew Jones’s Hanuvar? Absolutely. I think the label “science fantasy” does this book a disservice, and “sword and sorcery” reflects more accurately what this world and its characters are like, and what the reader can expect as they navigate the book. Is Sword and Sorcery a limiting label? Possibly that is a subject beyond the remit of this review.

But enough of that. Let’s dig back into this book and what it does. So, aside from our two protagonists, we are given two additional characters and points of view. The first is a mysterious one, where Curtis uses a second-person point of view to inject mystery into this character, whose identity and nature is only slowly revealed in the course of the novel. That character provides some parallax to the events and backstory of the novel, and to reveal more would be spoilery.

The other character is Nylophon. Nylophon is a mercenary soldier from the mercantile realm of Carthe. It’s not quite Carthage, although that is clearly meant to be a bit of an inspiration; the Carthe hire themselves out as mercenary soldiers and make bank on it. Nylophon has clawed his way to a small command by luck and perseverance and making the right friend (lover, implied; Nylophon is queer as Kirby and Aleya) to basically save his life. After a disastrous encounter with our two main protagonists, he takes on a Javert-like role, and also his is a story of redeeming himself and coming to terms with who he is. Even if he is rather a prat for a lot of the novel, he does in the end get better.

Finally, a word about the writing, and especially the dialogue. The novel crackles when the characters engage with each other, and the descriptions of the world, their adventures and the landscapes come out well written and engaging. Combat and swordfighting, although present and a highlight in the book, isn’t as lingered over in the text as other things; the writing here is economical and to the point, much like Aleya’s own fighting style. Where the novel comes off the best of all is in the whole road trip, from sea voyages to the Nivelan road, to some of the truly strange things our protagonists encounter along the way. There is a great sense of atmosphere here.

Like I said at the start, the story is completed in one volume, with some fillips and twists as our two protagonists (and yes, Nylophon) make their way to the culmination of their quests, and find that the city of Nivela, their destination, is not quite what they expected at all. There are real moments of heroism and completion here, especially for Nylophon, who gets a “payoff scene” in the climax of the book that he clearly has been working toward ever since he was introduced in the narrative. The novel satisfies, in the end. The author promises more fantasy novels in the future, and I am quite reasonably happy to give them a go.

You can also read Roseanna's review of Grace Curtis’s Floating Hotel here at the NOAF blog.

Highlights:

• Interesting pair of primary characters on a road trip adventure

• Strongly imagined Mesopotamian-flavored fantasy setting

• Not a science fantasy after all, but very much worth reading

Reference: Curtis, Grace. Idolfire [DAW, 2025].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

TV Review: Severance season 2

After you've betrayed yourself, can you trust yourself again?

After its season 1 ended in a thrilling cliffhanger, Severance took its sweet time to return to screens. And it (literally) hit the ground running: now our protagonist, Mark, knows that Gemma, his wife, is still alive, hidden somewhere in the restricted levels of his workplace. Now he'll need to enlist the help of his other self, the separate identity the company created for his job, but he has his own budding romance to worry about. An added problem is that said love interest is Helly, the work self of the company's heiress, whose agenda appears to be not fully in line with her father's or her unwitting coworkers'. Meanwhile, the rest of the Macrodata Refinement team have to deal with the consequences of their escape attempt: Irving struggles to keep a sense of purpose now that Burt has retired (even though their external selves seem to be getting acquainted), and Dylan still hasn't gotten over the revelation that he has a full family—but what he learns from pursuing that route may not be the antidote to loneliness he's seeking.

One of the best things about Severance is the richness of levels of interpretation that it allows for. While Season 1 focused mainly on the corporate dystopia side of the story, season 2 aims inward and explores the personal trauma side. We knew that Mark's reason for undergoing the severance surgery was to avoid experiencing the pain of having lost Gemma, which creates the separate identity that lives during office hours in his stead. An implication that was not immediately obvious in season 1 is that this process resembles the survival mechanism that occurs in people with dissociative identities: to protect itself, the mind creates other selves who will bear the burden of trauma that the core self finds too much to face directly. As we discover Gemma's whereabouts, the reason she's being kept there, and how that relates to the real purpose of severance technology, we find more dots to connect that bring us nearer to the full picture: in fulfillment of the doctrine of its mythologized founder, Lumon plans to permanently subdue the Four Tempers.

A key step in this plan is Macrodata Refinement. In this season we learn what those funny numbers our protagonists spend endless workdays sorting mean, and the answer reveals yet another side to Lumon's unflinching cruelty. In fact, even those most loyal to Lumon can be tossed away without a thought. We saw in season 1 how Harmony Cobel went through a collapse of her entire worldview (and season 2 reveals the extent of how much she actually did for Lumon); this time it's Seth Milchick who gets pushed to the limit of his patience, not so much by the employees' already established rebelliousness but by the totalitarian capriciousness of upper management, whose disciplining methods start to grow increasingly degrading.

Another important shift relates to location. We get more episodes set outside of Lumon, some of which are the highlight of the season, which showcase how far and how deeply Lumon's reach has corrupted the world around it. These episodes help us better understand the motivations of Harmony, Burt, Seth, and even Gemma and Helly, but these are the kind of brilliant revelations that don't close off follow-up questions. Yes, now we know what those characters want, but why would they want that?

This insight into hidden motives and strange choices informs the central relationship of the season: that between Mark and his work self. Each half of his identity knows only part of the puzzle about Gemma, and they're going to need to work together in order to rescue her. But of course, it's hard to join forces if each Mark exists only while the other doesn't. The external Mark's efforts to communicate with his workplace half escalate in desperation until both versions of him realize how little they know each other and how incompatible their goals truly are. And here's where the story's various interpretative possibilities come into play. Rather than a separate character, office Mark can be seen as a part of Mark's mind that he's neglected and refused to acknowledge. It's a substitute self that helps him skip the necessary steps of his grieving process. After so much time spent nurturing such an unhealthy coping strategy, it shouldn't be surprising that the original act of self-betrayal becomes multiplied. Mark, who has been suffering intensely without the love of his life, should know better than to try to inflict the same pain on someone else. And yet, in his moment of need, that's exactly what he offers to his other half. The latter's response is shocking, but understandable.

After a stellar first season, Severance found a way to raise the bar even higher. Somehow managing to juggle the interpersonal tension of the panoptical workplace, the dark dead-ends of unprocessed grief, and the ever-worsening difficulty of staying true to oneself under a system of coerced devil's bargains, Severance continues to be a masterpiece of psychological intrigue and imaginative storytelling.

Nerd Coefficient: 10/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Video Game Review: Hollow Knight Voidheart Edition by Team Cherry

Before you enter the world of silk and song, fill your heart with the void.

For those of you who may have dodged the indie gaming scene since 2017, Hollow Knight is one of the sparkling gems that come up in conversation quite frequently. Partially because of its overall quality and difficulty, and partially because its sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong—announced in February of 2019—is not only highly anticipated but also missing in action. The most recent update from the developers confirms that “the game is progressing nicely” and that it really does exist. After finally taking the time to play Hollow Knight, I can understand the hype and the anticipation (albeit with a few caveats). Hollow Knight Voidheart Edition is the full package containing the base game and all of its DLC.

Hollow Knight is a beautiful, thrilling 2-D Metroidvania that focuses on platforming, melee/spellcasting combat, and exploration. The art is clean and crisp and manages to balance the contrast between adorable characters and infected monsters, with other intimidating friends and foes. Everything is hand-drawn, and the animations look and feel so precise and purposeful. The game has a charming aesthetic that is instantly memorable, and the style is consistent throughout all the biomes. Each level has a specific look and feel, a different history portrayed with a paintbrush instead of words. From the City of Tears to Queen’s Gardens, entering a new zone brings both a chance to enjoy Team Cherry’s beautiful aesthetic, as well as the chance to ponder the history of the new section of Hallownest.

Despite being a game of few words, Hollow Knight still tells a story. I’ll probably receive a lot of flack for this one, but I kept thinking of Souls-like games throughout my playtime. I’ve never played a Dark Souls game, but I’ve played Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and Sekiro, and I have to say, despite Team Cherry not using any Souls games for inspiration, Hollow Knight feels precisely like a 2-D version of one of those games (though I suppose it could be said that Souls games are 3-D Metroidvanias). This isn't to say that's a bad thing or that there aren’t distinctions between them, but the similarities are rather uncanny. Nebulous story: check, lose currency upon dying and have to reclaim it without dying or you lose it all: check, enemies reset after resting: check, high focus on bosses/minibosses: check (just to name a few). There are a ton of parallels that one can draw from the game. If you like both the Souls-like gameplay system and 2-D games, you may very much like Hollow Knight.

The gameplay is pure and simple, though mastering movement in intense situations is where the complexity comes in. The game has an incredibly high skill ceiling: easy to learn, difficult to master. The game focuses primarily on combat, with platforming as a close second. The combat is the most challenging part of the game, especially the boss fights and overcrowded areas. Bosses and challenges that require platforming and aerial maneuvers while fighting can be extremely frustrating and require a lot of patience and practice. I could tell when I hadn’t upgraded enough when I had a lot of difficulty in a specific zone, so I’d go off and explore or upgrade my abilities.

While I found it a delight to discover a new zone, I sometimes found the road to discovery a bit of a chore. Sometimes the exploration flowed, and I felt like the game had a perfect pace, but other times I would get stuck, unsure of my next move. The beginning hours felt like a bit of a slog, especially before I got the Dash ability. The fast travel system isn't the most convenient, and considering enemies respawn every time you rest, I sometimes found it tedious to explore, especially when my next move was limited to only two options. The game is mostly cryptic, making discoveries feel rewarding, but it also makes getting stuck feel irritating.

As someone who places a game's story on the same level as (or in some cases above) gameplay, I find the enigmatic story not rewarding enough for some of the sufferings that I endured (which is the same way I feel about Souls-like games). Some of the challenges were so overwhelming or poorly paced that I almost put the game down entirely. While the Trial of Fools is still causing me grief, at least it’s optional (though the only reward is a currency I no longer have a use for). The main offender was the White Palace. Oh boy. For a game that has mildly challenging platforming interspersed between/with combat segments, this was a complete turn (and unfortunately necessary to advance the game). This level is a 100% platforming segment that not only overstays its welcome but is extremely difficult and out of place. I sincerely hope the developer learns from this and either completely omits content like this or makes it optional.

But I feel like I’ve been complaining too much. While the game can be frustrating at times, for the most part it is challenging and rewarding. Fighting a boss and learning its patterns, substituting different charms (little boosts to platforming/combat abilities) to get through an area/enemy, and discovering new zones easily make this game worth a shot. Not to forget the charming aesthetic and accompanying soundtrack. I love the calming music that plays in the City of Tears. Nothing like feeling a sense of peace while being attacked by a bunch of aristocratic insects. There’s a wistfulness that’s weaved throughout the soundtrack that can haunt and entrance at the same time.

When Hollow Knight is flowing, the game makes me feel like I’ve stepped into this microcosm of a larger world. Despite not being forthright with every historical detail, the few folks at Team Cherry made the world feel real, lived-in, and worth exploring. While I had the occasional disconnect because of uncertainty within the plot’s obscure framework, the overall feel was one of curiosity. What’s around the next bend? What’s behind that door? What do I get from defeating this boss and what does he have to do with the lore? Realizing a new ability would allow me to unlock a previously unreachable area was always a treat.

If you’re a fan of Metroidvania-type games, then you’ve probably already played Hollow Knight. To those who are fans of the genre and haven’t, I’d say it’s definitely worth a shot. To those who aren’t, you should answer a few questions before buying: Are you patient? Do you like a challenge? Is a sense of accomplishment from said challenge enough of a reward? Is discovery its own reward? Do you like backtracking and opening previously locked areas? If you answer yes to most or all those questions, Hollow Knight is probably worth your time. Its qualities significantly outweigh its flaws and make the wait for the sequel all the more exciting.

The Math

Objective Assessment: 9/10.

Bonus: +1 for beautfiul art and animation. +1 for worldbuilding, character design, and accompanying music.

Penalties: −1 for unbalanced difficulty spikes. −1 for exploration pacing issues. −1 for unrewardingly vague story elements.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Posted by: Joe DelFranco - Fiction writer and lover of most things video games. On most days you can find him writing at his favorite spot in the little state of Rhode Island.

Book Review: Sunrise on the Reaping

This Hunger Games prequel explores Haymitch Abernathy's backstory—a gift for die-hard fans, even if it follows the usual formula

In 2023, we got President Snow's prequel: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. And now, in 2025, we get the painful history of Haymitch and what he experienced during the 50th Hunger Games (which takes place about 24 years before the first book in the series).

Haymitch is reaped from his home in the coal-mining District 12, and as it's the especially evil Quarter Quell, joins 47 other teens from around Panem.

If you've read any Hunger Games books, you're well aware of the formula they adhere to: Homey Domestic Scene, Tramautic Reaping, Travel, Parade, Training, Arena, Brutal Fighting, Multiple Violent Child Deaths, and Victory. Yes, it's a format, but it's somehow always entertaining. Collins writes not only overarching themes well —rebellion, hope, sabotage— but also the small details of a character's inner world. That's what makes the books so different from the movies. Both are great, of course, but the novels are primarily one character's inner monologue as they experience horrific events.

Our boy Haymitch is footloose and fancy-free prior to his reaping, in love with a girl name Lenore Dove and working part-time for a bootlegger. It's interesting reading Sunrise on the Reaping when you know Haymitch will end up the sole survivor of his Hunger Games, and it's utterly tragic knowing that he ends up an alcoholic to escape the trauma that followed him out of the animatronic arena.

The best part of the book is also maybe what some people will complain of—the surprise appearance of other beloved characters. Other folks have called it fanservice, which is an exceedingly overused term when it comes to criticizing gargantuan works of IP. Personally, I loved it.

When my girl Effie Trinket turns up as a college student, it was like seeing a lost-long friend. I shrieked! And when Mags makes bean stew for the District 12 tributes, I wished I could have been in the kitchen with them. It's the small, memorable moments that make the world so lived-in and addicting to read.

Did the world need to see all of the various backstories of these and other characters, including a young Plutarch Heavensbee and a (younger) Beetee? Personally, I love every single glimpse into the Hunger Games world, so for me the answer is a resounding Yes.  One thing about me is: I'm always, always going to read a new Hunger Games book. But some of the things we learn about the featured characters also help subtly explain both their motivations and actions years later in Catching Fire—like how Haymitch knew about the rebellion and the plot to rescue Peeta and Katniss.

But the opposite argument is that we didn't necessarily need to be reminded that these games are brutal, that President Snow will absolutely destroy everyone you love, or that rebellion is somehow always brewing in the Districts AND the Capitol.

And yet we keep eating these books up. Every generation of these characters somehow carries on the flame of rebellion in the face of absolute brutality. And as for us readers, we'll continue to be here for every iteration with mockingjay pins on our bags and three fingers raised in salute.

The Math

Baseline Score: 7/10.

Bonuses: Effie Trinket, no one on Earth could ever make me hate you.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.

Anime Review: Sakamoto Days

A likeable action comedy with lots of found family and redeemed villain vibes

In the realm of anime, plots align on a continuum ranging from edgy intensity to pastel-colored comedy. Netflix’s new anime Sakamoto Days gives us more of the latter, but with just enough swirls of unexpected intensity to keep viewers guessing what will happen next. Sakamoto Days is the story of a stoic, top-level, lethal assassin who turns into a frumpy, mild-mannered family man, but has trouble keeping his violent past life at bay. Despite focusing on the more slice of life elements, the show leans into the fantastical, which means various assassin characters can shape-shift, mind-read, and become invisible. Like a sharp pinch of salt in a sweet dessert, this story infuses a contrast of drama, violence, and sci-fi to counterbalance the soft glow of family life and friendship. However, the series never dives too deeply into true seriousness and remains a likeable, found family action/comedy. For fans who are waiting for the next season of Spy x Family to drop, Sakamoto Days is a decent option to tide you over.

Taro Sakamoto is a notorious hit man working for the nation’s top assassin agency. He's a stoic, handsome, loner, with super-human reflexes and an impossibly high kill-count. His life changes when he meets an ordinary young cashier, Aoi, at a late-night convenience store, and all those years of repressed emotions implode into insta-love, marriage, and the birth of their adorable daughter, Hana. Sakamoto and Aoi open a convenience store and live happily in the neighborhood. Sakamoto also recreates himself from a sleek, muscular assassin to a (seemingly) larger, older, unthreatening, frumpy everyman. Of course, his past kill count and his abandonment of his elite assassin agency cause him to have multiple bounties on his head. Which means life will never truly be normal for him. While he busies himself stocking shelves or sweeping floors, vengeful assassins inevitably seek him out and are deceived, or at least temporarily confused, by his changed appearance. But Sakamoto is still very much a killer. He can easily dodge bullets, crush steel, and MacGyver ordinary objects into weapons. The thing that keeps the show and his life from turning into a bloodbath is not his physical abilities, but his willpower. Early in the series, we discover that his cheerful, unassuming wife knows all about his past and has made him promise not to kill again as a condition of their marriage. When cruel assassins come after him, Sakamoto has to figure out how to protect his family and stop, maim, or otherwise defeat them without fully killing them. Unfortunately, he still has his killer instinct and is often depicted imagining killing others (even allies).

As a result, one of the comedy elements is Sakamoto intellectually figuring a way around each person’s (technical) death. When pushed to his limits, Sakamoto reverts to his original youthful slim form, but can still fight with lethal power in either version of himself. Over time, Sakamoto attracts an extended found family, including telepath assassin Shin, orphaned mafia princess Lu, and quirky sharpshooter Heisuke. Each episode provides backstories of the various side characters and even the antagonists.

While the family vibe of the show may seem like a redo of Spy x Family or Way of the Househusband, Sakamoto Days has some fun plot elements that make it unique. First, the family dynamics are appealing. Sakamoto’s wife Aoi knows about his past and understands the demands he faces in trying to remain undercover. Their decision to keep his name as the store’s name seems to willingly invite trouble. Despite this, she insists that he not actually kill, and apparently views this as a form of atonement for his past murders. Aoi as the knowledgeable wife is reminiscent of Kagome’s informed and practical mother in Inuyasha, who pragmatically packed supplies for her daughter’s dangerous adventures. Having Aoi aware of the reality of the situation, instead of keeping her in ignorance, is a nice change of pace. Sakamoto Days also leans into the fantastical elements of the narrative. Like Anya in Spy x Family, former hitman Shin is an orphan with lab-created telepathic abilities. He often endures hilariously stressful moments sensing Sakamoto’s periodic and graphic desire to kill him when Sakamoto gets annoyed. Shin’s antagonist, Seba, can become invisible. Additionally, Sakamoto can change his body size like Choji Akimichi in Naruto. However, Sakamoto also magically changes his features, becoming younger, losing his facial hair, and changing the style of his hair.

Despite Sakamoto’s determination not to kill, the other assassins have no such reservations. There is plenty of on-screen killing in the show. The result can be a jarring influx of blood and slashing in the midst of funny or endearing scenes. In one episode, Sakamoto’s adorable little daughter Hana shows a strong moral compass by showing compassion to a defeated assassin.

Sakamoto Days doesn’t provide a great deal of deep philosophical introspection. Instead, we have a light, endearing journey from cruelty to kindness. The true internal struggle of the story is Sakamoto’s determination to keep his vow not to kill despite his clear continuing desire to do so. That honesty is refreshing, and Sakamoto’s own struggles mirror and support the misfit assassins he takes into his family. Not every anime needs to be powerfully intense, and Sakamoto Days gives us permission to laugh out loud even when the world is filled with cruelty.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

Highlights:

• light comedy adventure break
• found family and redeemed villain tropes
• simple storytelling with fantastical elements

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris - Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.