Source for Fantasy / Sci-Fi book reviews?

[Sermil]

About what the title says -- what's a good place to find some reviews of the latest fantasy and/or science fiction novels? I want to find more books to read, but I'd also like to avoid wasting time on bad stuff.

[DavidSh]

The various science fiction magazines usually have a section of book reviews. For more concentration on reviews, there is always Locus, which has online presence at locusmag.com . That one also has a lot of other SF/F industry news.

[GreenDragonPage]

Quinns Ideas on Youtube does some reviews for various sci-fi properties. He does often go on deeper dives into the lore of the books though. It was from him that I learned about the Three Body Problem, which was a fun read.

[gomipile]

Strange Horizons is an online SF magazine which does some reviews, along with other SF related content.

http://strangehorizons.com/

Quinns Ideas on Youtube does some reviews for various sci-fi properties. He does often go on deeper dives into the lore of the books though. It was from him that I learned about the Three Body Problem, which was a fun read.

I'll second Quinn's Ideas.

I also like Book Odyssey.

Both channels bring a fairly unique, personal perspective to their reviews. Definitely in a good way, in my opinion.

[MetroAlien]

I don't think you'll get a better answer than "magazines", tbh
That's a big part of their business model.
As a bonus you'll likely get short stories and maybe even some exclusive releases if you're lucky.

If you seek out magazines with an online presence, you could snatch up some english language magazines from abroad, even.
Personally, I like UK and Irish sci-fi/fantasy authors, but for some reason they don't get as much "coverage" in the US/Canada audience.

Also you can check there's have a book club or something in a local library of university.
If you get to know the people, they could give you more personalised recommendations.

[dan.meme]

One good place to find reviews of the latest fantasy and science fiction novels is online, on websites dedicated to books and reading. There are many such websites, and they often have sections devoted to specific genres, so you can usually find reviews of new fantasy and science fiction novels by searching for them on a book-related website. Another good place to look for reviews is in magazines devoted to fantasy and science fiction, such as "Locus".

[Algeh]

If you're not afraid to wade into the occasional pile of SF fan drama, you can always start following things related to the Hugo Awards and the various reviews and summaries that people post trying to convince other people to nominate stuff for them. You might find https://hugoclub.blogspot.com/ useful if you go that route and want book reviews, and once nominations open in January there'll probably be lots of people posting suggested nominees on Twitter and such. If you want a list of past nominees and winners without the review aspect, the website for the awards themselves is at https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/

I've enjoyed being on the edges of the Worldcon community and reading through the Hugo packet every few years to help me discover more stuff to read. For about $50, you can buy a what used to be called a supporting membership and is now called a WSFS membership for that year's Worldcon, which comes with voting rights for the Hugo Awards. That in turn means you tend to get access to a lot, but not all, of that year's prose nominees as ebooks of various kinds in the voter's packet and get a lot of stuff to read that at least SOMEBODY thought was pretty good that year. (It's up to the publisher/rightsholder whether to include the full work or an excerpt in the packet, but every year I've had more things to read than time to read them before votes are due.) I've found several new authors to read that way, as well as lots of things that weren't my jam even if I could see why they were someone else's. (2023's Worldcon is in China and has some logistical issues where, last I checked, they still hadn't figured out how to take US currency so it's hard to buy a membership right now unless you have accounts within the Chinese baking system, but 2024 will be in Scotland and is likely to have less trouble with US banking systems.)