Sean Guynes

Sean Guynes is a reviewer, critic, and editor who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is co-editor of Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling (2017) and Unstable Masks: Whiteness and American Superhero Comics (2020), and editor of SFRA Review.
Of Botany, Hacking, Biosurveillance, and Boredom; Or, Pola Oloixarac’s ‘Dark Constellations’

Of Botany, Hacking, Biosurveillance, and Boredom; Or, Pola Oloixarac’s ‘Dark Constellations’

Pola Oloixarac's Dark Constellations is what the late Michael Crichton might have written if he had grown up in Argentina and fancied himself a high postmodernist.

The Long, Troubled, and Redemptive History of Latinx Superheroes

Selling Afghan Authenticity with Jamil Jan Kochai’s ’99 Nights in Logar’

Selling Afghan Authenticity with Jamil Jan Kochai’s ’99 Nights in Logar’

Jamil Jan Kochai's 99 Nights in Logar is a fine novel about an Afghan-American boy returning to Afghanistan that reminds us where the publishing industry puts it money.

Motherhood and Soviet Life in Nora Ikstena’s Latvian Novel, ‘Soviet Milk’

Motherhood and Soviet Life in Nora Ikstena’s Latvian Novel, ‘Soviet Milk’

Nora Ikstena's autofictional history, Soviet Milk, exposes the violence of the Soviet institutionalization of motherhood as a civic duty that was incorporated into the ideological and social structure of Soviet life.

The Art of Typography and Design in Science Fiction Film

The Art of Typography and Design in Science Fiction Film

From its inception as a blogging project to its culmination into a beautiful art book, Dave Addey's Typeset in the Future is a wonderful but expensive look at typography and design in popular science-fiction films.

On the Queer Millennial Greenlandic Novel, ‘Last Night in Nuuk’

On the Queer Millennial Greenlandic Novel, ‘Last Night in Nuuk’

Niviaq Korneliussen's third novel, Last Night in Nuuk, tackles homophobia, coming out, millennial malaise, finding love, being a shit friend, and so much more.

Fracturing to Survive: Tanya Tagaq’s ‘Split Tooth’

Fracturing to Survive: Tanya Tagaq’s ‘Split Tooth’

Inuk musician/writer Tanya Tagaq’s first novel, Split Tooth, tells a magical, fucked-up story about teenage girls’ adolescence in the Arctic.

‘She Would Be King’, an Afrofuturist Novel of Nation-Making in Liberia

‘She Would Be King’, an Afrofuturist Novel of Nation-Making in Liberia

Wayétu Moore's She Would Be King is an important exploration of power, identity, and belonging at a major historical junction in African diasporic and Liberian history.

Saving Acid Communism: The Essential Leftist Critic Mark Fisher

Saving Acid Communism: The Essential Leftist Critic Mark Fisher

Mark Fisher’s posthumous k-punk showcases the depth of his critiques, insight he brought to the humanities, and a glimpse into where he was going with the unfinished work, Acid Communism.

The One About the One About ‘Friends’

The One About the One About ‘Friends’

Kelsey Miller's I'll Be There for You, on the production and cultural legacy of Friends, is a must-read for fans and anyone interested in understanding TV culture over the past 20 years.

The Book About Geek Triumph You Probably Don’t Need

The Book About Geek Triumph You Probably Don’t Need

Neoliberalism offers the illusion of choice. The triumph of geek culture is an illusion of triumph; it's just another way to be bought—and to like it. A critique of A.D. Jameson's I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing.

Alyson Hagy’s ‘Scribe’ Is Gloriously Artful, but Something Is Missing

Alyson Hagy’s ‘Scribe’ Is Gloriously Artful, but Something Is Missing

Hagy's new novel, Scribe, a beautiful work clearly rooted in the ethos of the Program Era, seems the very example of a return to the bourgeois novel of art for art's sake.