Baltimore City Paper | Books | Fiction | AAN.org

'The Chess Machine' Turns into a Soap Operanew

In his historical novel, Löhr's got an opportunity to lard his story with ideas about technology, deception, or gamesmanship, he instead settles for breathless and unsophisticated daytime-drama shenanigans.

Baltimore City Paper | Violet Glaze | 09-11-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Robert Löhr, The Chess Machine, Fiction Reviews

'The Interloper': Thoroughly Dark & Uncannily Disturbingnew

This debut novel may not make it into the literary canon, but it is definitely worth a close read -- Wilson has a promising career ahead of him.

Baltimore City Paper | Anny Hoge | 08-21-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Antoine Wilson, The Interloper, Fiction Reviews

'Later, at the Bar' Suffers from a Flat Narrative Arcnew

Barry's first novel is a series of interconnected short stories, each loosely based around regulars at an upstate New York dive.

Baltimore City Paper | Joab Jackson | 07-03-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Later, at the Bar, Rebecca Barry, Fiction Reviews

'The Killing Jar': An Unsparing Account of a Disastrous Childhoodnew

Why is it that we take such joy in reading fiction about the degradation of children?

Baltimore City Paper | Stephen Peterson | 07-03-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Nicola Monaghan, The Killing Jar, Fiction Reviews

Go Way Out With 'Space Opera'new

After falling on hack times in the 1970s, the space opera makes a comeback.

Baltimore City Paper | Adrienne Martini | 07-03-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, eds., The New Space Opera, Fiction Reviews

Portraits of the Fundamentalist as a Young Mannew

Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Yasmina Khadra's The Sirens of Baghdad take on the challenge of sympathetically looking through the eyes of the inscrutable.

Baltimore City Paper | Zak M. Salih | 06-26-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Fiction Reviews

The Go-Betweensnew

Writers dismantle and recombine genre in search of fresh modes of storytelling.

Baltimore City Paper | Adrienne Martini | 06-05-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss, Eds., Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing, Fiction Reviews

A Fine Novelnew

Horses is ultimately a testament to just how easily mellows can be harshed -- to life's hidden tripwires, strung everywhere and capable of catapulting anyone back down the bittersweet rabbit hole of stinging memory.

Baltimore City Paper | Raymond Cummings | 05-08-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson

Questions of Politics, Love, Sanity and Envynew

Theodore Gericault's 1818 painting "The Raft of the Medusa," a beautifully colored and affecting tableau that depicts survivors of a shipwreck off the African coast, is the subject of this novel.

Baltimore City Paper | Stephen Peterson | 04-24-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Arabella Edge, The God of Spring

Dennis Cooper Meets Osamu Dazainew

Ryu Murakami isn't afraid of the horrific side of contemporary life, which he renders in writing of an almost unbearable calm serenity.

Baltimore City Paper | Bret McCabe | 04-10-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Piercing, Ryu Murakami

A Dream-catcher Storynew

Cummins applies a sensitive skill to the slow movements of the characters peopling the arid landscape of New Mexico and a Navajo reservation in her first novel, Yellowcake.

Baltimore City Paper | Wendy Ward | 04-10-2007 | Fiction

Tags: Ann Cummins, yellowcake