Recent Posts

Orbital: A moving elegy to our environment and planet

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital (2023) will, for some people, barely qualify (if that) as a novel, leaving them crying “Where’s the plot? Nothing happens!” And you know, I can’t argue with them. If you define a novel as a series of plot steps from a to b to c such that change occurs, then yes, Orbital probably won’t squeeze in under that definition. Its focus is less on “what is happening” and more on “what am I feeling about what is happening?” or “What am I thinking about while things are happening?” And if you’re looking for conflict or fleshed out and distinctive characters who are different at the end than when we first meet them,

Somewhere Beyond the Sea: A pleasant escape that didn’t completely satisfy

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune

2024’s Somewhere Beyond the Sea continues the adventures of Arthur Parnassus and Linus Baker and their six magical children, in a second world similar to ours, with a government kind of like Britain’s. The Amazon blurb for this book says, “This is Arthur’s story.” While I enjoyed the book and found it a much-needed escape from real life current events, this tale left many of Arthur’s issues unaddressed in its rush to show us fun, bantering scenes with the children, and let Arthur and Linus match wits with another government inspector and a government minister,

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories: The eerie, the surreal and the beautiful

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott

I loved GennaRose Nethercott’s novel Thistlefoot, one of the best books I’d read in a long time, so I followed it up with 2024’s story collection, Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories. This collection displays the beautiful, the eerie, the surreal, and the terrible, written in Nethercott’s precise, poetic prose that reminds me of the writing of Kelly Link.

The books contains fourteen stories.

Undersea Fleet: Release the Craken!

Undersea Fleet by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson

At the tail end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson’s Undersea Quest (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, has been reinstated into the U.S.S.A. (U.S. Sub-Sea Academy), after having been forced to resign under mysteriously trumped-up charges. The authors’ fans would have to wait a few years to find out what, if anything, might happen next, but ultimately they were rewarded with a follow-up volume that was, if anything,

January 30th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

WWWednesday: January 29, 2025

I will read two short fiction works on The Story Hour tonight, at 7 PM Pacific Time. The readings are store on the Facebook page, if you want to catch up later.

The Centers for Disease Control have downloadable data available to the public. Check their site here.

In Reactor’s List of Five column, James Driscoll shares five books about gods causing trouble for humans.

Award Season! Speculative fiction is well represented on the ALA’s Alex award list this year.

January 29th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |

Bringer of Dust: The worlds of the Talents collide

Bringer of Dust by J.M. Miro

2024’s Bringer of Dust, J.M. Miro’s second book in the trilogy of THE TALENTS, finds our survivors from Book One, Ordinary Monsters, scattered across Europe. Maybe “scattered” isn’t the right word, because their locations are purposeful, as they seek to find an orsine they can open, to return to the world of the dead and rescue Marlowe, the Shining Boy.

A quick review of the magic: Clanks can manipulate their own flesh,

January 28th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | J.M. Miro | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Tegan and Sara: Junior High by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin (An Oxford College Student Review!)

Tegan and Sara: Junior High by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin (writers) and Tillie Walden (artist)

Sophia Waite is a second-year student at Oxford College and she is considering majoring in English and Creative writing and Psychology. Her home is Dartmouth, MA, where she lives on a small family farm about five minutes away from the beach. Sophie’s favorite writers include Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, and Rick Riordan, and her favorite book is Nevernight. Her other interests include horseback riding, skiing, and writing.

You may or may not know the names of authors Tegan and Sara,

January 25th, 2025. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Elfhome: Tinker gets more confident

Elfhome by Wen Spencer

Elfhome (2012) is the third book in Wen Spencer’s ELFHOME series, and it’s definitely not where you want to start if you’re new to the series. You’ll need to have read Tinker and Wolf Who Rules first to fully grasp what’s going on and why the stakes are so high.

The story kicks off with Tinker recovering from a broken arm and being cornered by a persistent reporter who,

Undersea Quest: A very fine intro to a fun trilogy

Undersea Quest by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson

In 1947, Robert A. Heinlein, after almost a decade of producing high-quality science fictional short stories and novellas for adults, came out with his first novel, Rocket Ship Galileo. The book was geared to younger readers, and would prove to be just the beginning of a landmark series of 12 “Heinlein juveniles,” all published by the U.S. firm Scribner’s. Heinlein – who, in 1974, would be proclaimed the first Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America – would come out with at least one such book for younger readers every year until 1958.

January 23rd, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

WWWednesday: January 22, 2025

Reactormag shares a couple of forthcoming 2025 releases, among them the latest by Charlie Jane Anders and a dragon book by Cherie Radke.

They also shared an excerpt from T.J Klune’s latest, The Bones Beneath my Skin.

Best Of Lists, Recommended Reading lists, nomination suggestions… it’s that time of year. Nerds of a Feather starts with their recommended list of fiction and visual work categories.

John Scalzi announced completion of The Shattering Peace,

January 22nd, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |

Ordinary Monsters: A dense, complicated, visual feast of a book

Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

…And the way a child looked at him in the harbor at Alexandria as he climbed down the gangway and into the haze. All this, all this and more, would vanish from the world with his ceasing, all this ineradicable beauty that now lived only inside him would be lost, moments as fragile as coins of light on water, and this more than any other part of it made him feel alone and sorrowful and frail…

2022’s Ordinary Monsters, Book One of THE TALENTS,

January 21st, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | J.M. Miro | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Voyage Home: Powerful, in a quieter fashion

The Voyage Home by Pat Barker

Amongst the flood of Greek myth retellings over the past number few years, three authors have stood out to me. Two are Madeline Miller and Claire North, the first for her fantastic Circe (not to mention the brilliant The Song of Achilles from a decade earlier) and the second for her excellent and just-concluded SONGS OF PENELOPE trilogy. The third is Pat Barker and her WOMEN OF TROY series,

Mother of Rome: An uneven book

Mother of Rome by Lauren J.A. Bear

Lauren J.A. Bear’s first novel, Medusa’s Sisters, was a sharp feminist retelling of the well-known Greek tale. For her second book, Bear has left the Greeks behind and moved on to the Romans, giving us in Mother of Rome a sort of prequel to the Romulus and Remus Found Rome story. Though I found Mother of Rome to be more uneven than Medusa’s Sisters,

Dark Feasts: Where’s the fun?

Dark Feasts by Ramsey Campbell

The last two books that I finished in 2024 had this in common: They were both collections that were chosen for inclusion in Jones & Newman’s excellent overview volume Horror: 100 Best Books (1988). I just loved Karl Edward Wagner’s In a Lonely Place (1983), as it turned out, and much enjoyed Lisa Tuttle’s A Nest of Nightmares (1986), although some of the stories in that latter volume had proven disappointing for me by dint of their ambiguity.

WWWednesday: January 15, 2025

The New York Times profiles Nnedi Okorafor and her forthcoming autobiographical novel. (This article may be behind a paywall.)

Thanks, File770, for introducing me to yet another “—punk” category: Incensepunk. Also, you can click on their submission guidelines if this is a market where your short fiction would fit.

At Reactor, Molly Templeton takes a thoughtful look at the nature of “escapism” in fiction.

Speaking of thing I wish I could escape… because I do cover stories of genre interest, I’m including a link to this week’s Variety article about the allegations about Neil Gaiman.

January 15th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |

The Spite House: First class cursed-house horror

The Spite House by Johnny Compton

Spite houses are real and I went down a shallow rabbit hole preparing for this review. With his 2023 novel, The Spite House, Johnny Compton takes on the concept of a house built solely to irritate and harass nearby landowners, and morphs it into something original and scary.

Eric Ross and his two daughters, Dessa and Stacy, are making their way through Texas, trying to keep under the radar. They have the normal concerns a black family in Texas would have,

An Instruction in Shadow: Goes down smoothly

An Instruction in Shadow by Benedict Jacka

An Instruction in Shadow is Benedict Jacka’s follow up to An Inheritance of Magic, his tale of modern-day magic and family intrigue set in London. The main character remains likably engaging, the magic intriguing, the family history labyrinthine, and if the story doesn’t perhaps progress quite as much as one would prefer, it all results in a smoothly enjoyable read.

Stephen Oakwood is continuing to hone his “drucraft” while working at locating magical wells for a big drucraft company,

January 10th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Benedict Jacka | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Wolf Who Rules: Pittsburgh gets weirder

Wolf Who Rules by Wen Spencer

Wen Spencer’s Wolf Who Rules (2006) is the second book in her ELFHOME series, blending urban fantasy and science fiction in an alternate Pittsburgh. In my review of the first book, Tinker, I explained that while I loved the premise and setting, I didn’t think Spencer fully capitalized on its potential. I wanted more weird Pittsburgh—the cultural oddities of a city stuck in an elven dimension were intriguing but underexplored. I found Tinker‘s plot overburdened with infodumps and the protagonist’s characterization leaning heavily into Mary Sue territory,

WWWednesday: January 8, 2025

John Scalzi announced some changes at Whatever, his venerable blog site.

Rosalind Franklin provided remarkable and invaluable data in the discovery of DNA, but Watson and Crick didn’t exactly steal her work—they were just clueless sexists. From 2015.

While reading The Spite House, I got interested and found a couple of interesting articles about the residences. Here’s one.

The BAFTA longlist for 2025 is out, with Emelia Perez and Conclave at the top. Wicked and Dune II also drew nods.

January 8th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

The Militia House: A cursed house reveals the horror of war

The Militia House by John Milas

2023’s The Militia House is the debut novel of John Milas. Set in Afghanistan in 2010, it follows a team assigned to a Landing Zone as they are drawn into an abandoned Russian-invasion-era “militia” house close to their base. The sense of dread grows as the story continues, veering into a surreal world, but as in real life, the greatest horror may simply be war.

Our first-person narrator is Corporal Loyette, and his team consists of Johnson, Blount and Vargas.

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Recent Discussion:

Paul Connelly on Orbital: A moving elegy to our environment and planetFebruary 4, 2025
I really enjoyed this book. The lack of melodrama (as "plot") was a feature, not a bug, I think. Parts…
Bill Capossere on Orbital: A moving elegy to our environment and planetFebruary 4, 2025
good points Mariion-. I actually had meant to talk about the ham radio but the review was getting long (I…
Marion Deeds on Orbital: A moving elegy to our environment and planetFebruary 4, 2025
You got your review up before I could even write one. I loved this book--one of my favorite reads of…
SofiS on The Player of Games: A space opera about board gamesFebruary 3, 2025
Games are interesting. I love different games, but now I give preference to gambling ones. I found interesting reviews on…
Jinwoo Sung on Dorohedoro (Volume 1) by Q Hayashida (An Oxford College Student Review!)February 3, 2025
hey