There is something going on with George R.R. Martin, the author whose work forms the basis for the HBO series Game of Thrones. Or two things, really. His books are getting longer, and they are coming out even more slowly.

There are other books in the sea.

It is difficult to know whether the elegiac mood I felt while reading The Shepherd's Crown was due to the book itself or to the fact that the fifth Tiffany Aching novel (and forty-first Discworld novel) was in fact the late Sir Terry Pratchett's final work.

After reading The Girl at Midnight (out April 28), I knew I couldn't keep my love of this novel to myself. This story is infused with humor, originality and mystery, and I can't recommend it enough.

Women authors -- particularly those in fantasy -- are limited by the misperception that our novels boil down to stories about romance. It's an old-fashioned line of thinking, but what other agency could our female protagonist have beyond finding her prince and living happily ever after?

Every work of fiction is an attempt at inventing something better, something more textured and accommodating of the multiple possibilities of human experience than our present conditions allow. Sofia Samatar has upped the stakes of what is possible.