Gerhard's Reviews > Beyond the El

If you like short-form genre fiction, tor.com now has a fantastic option whereupon you can subscribe and receive a bimonthly ebook containing everything published on its website for that period. The website has quickly established itself as a leading publisher of genre fiction that pushes boundaries, and which also gives up-and-coming writers a fantastic platform to reach a wider audience. I looked for this compilation on Goodreads, but I see that all of the tor.com novellas are listed as standalone titles. Ah well, at least that is going to boost my reading target … I love the fact that SF/fantasy still actively promotes short-form fiction, to the extent that if you want a good barometer of the state of these genres, you just have to read Lightspeed, Asimov’s, and tor.com, among others. ‘The Book of El’ by John Chu continues in the vein of excellence that has distinguished the tor.com line-up for so long: delicate, bittersweet, with just a hint of otherworldliness, and such a deft grasp of those quotidian details that make characters pop off the page.