The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman

Irene and her team face the most dangerous question of all in 2021’s The Untold Story. With this book, the overarching plotline of the INVISIBLE LIBRARY series is resolved, although Genevieve Cogman has tweeted that there may be different stories in the future.

This review may contain spoilers for earlier books in the series.

Like all the INVISIBLE LIBRARY books, this one plunges us straight into danger and action, as librarian Irene and her Great Detective friend Vale enter a secret undersea base in search of a letter. The letter should contain vital information about worlds that have suddenly disappeared. In Irene’s universe, realities range between two poles: Order, represented by the Dragons, and Chaos, represented by the Fae. Both the Fa... Read More

Justin: I’ve had an absolutely crazy last week or so. We’ve battled the flu, spent some time in New York City, and lost a beloved family dog (Norman) at 17 years old. He’s been a part of my Bio here at Fanlit since I started. Going to miss him terribly. On a positive note I have been reading some very light hearted stuff by Scott Meyer. His MAGIC 2.0 series has been really fun and cathartic during these crazy weeks. The series starts off with Off to be the Wizard (review incoming) and has 6 titles released so far. I’m currently in the second book titled Shell or Highwater.

Bill: The past few weeks have been rough here as we gradually lost my mother-in-law, a remarkable woman who lived an amazingly full and influential life and whose absence will leave a gaping hole in our lives.  Amongst many other ... Read More

Part-Time Gods by Rachel Aaron

Part-Time Gods (2019) is the second book in Rachel Aaron’s DFZ (DETROIT FREE ZONE) series which is a spin-off of her HEARTSTRIKERS saga. You don’t need to read HEARTSTRIKERS first, but you’ll want to read the first book in the DFZ series, Minimum Wage Magic, before picking up Part-Time Gods.

After successfully solving a mystery and surviving the danger in Minimum Wage Magic, Opal and Nik have decided they work well together, so they’ve teamed up on their cleaning efforts. Each of them is so skillful that, under normal circumstances, they’d be raking it in.
... Read More

Time for another "Rename This Horrible Cover" contest.

We like Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, but wonder if you can come up with a better title for this particular cover? (Click to embiggen.)

The creator of the title we like best wins a book from our stacks. 

Got a suggestion for a horrible cover that needs renaming? Please send it to Kat. Read More

Reposting to include Sandy's new review.

The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs

You gotta love Edgar Rice Burroughs. He underperformed in life until, as a pencil sharpener salesman who spent his free time reading pulp magazines, he figured he could be paid to write “rot” at least as good as the “rot” he read in the pulps. And thus started the illustrious career of the man who brought us Tarzan, John Carter, and David Innes... And who inspired a generation of fantasy and science fiction writers.

The Land that Time Forgot, a lost world story set during World War I, is the first in Burroughs’ CASPAK trilogy. It was originally serialized in Blue Book Magazine in the fall of 1918 and then published as a novel in 1924.

Bowen Tyler is on a boat that’s torpedoed and sunk by the Germans. He saves a beautiful drowning young wom... Read More

Writer David B. Coe blogs about clueless writing advice. There’s not any actual writing advice but it’s an entertaining column, and I’m pretty sure we’ve all had some version of this experience.

You can be famous a number of ways. YA SFF writer Kass Morgan, (aka Mallory Kass) author of The 100, competed on Jeopardy last week.

From last week, fantasy writer Patricia A. McKillip Read More

Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron

My teenage daughter (Tali) and I enjoyed listening together to the audiobook editions of Rachel Aaron’s HEARTSTRIKERS series, so we were pleased to learn that Aaron wrote (and self-published) a spin-off series also set in the Detroit Free Zone (DFZ), which takes place a couple of decades after the end of Last Dragon Standing.

But you don’t need to read the HEARTSTRIKERS books first, so feel free to jump in right here with Minimum Wage Magic (2018).

The DFZ series, beginning with Minimum Wage Magic, stars Opal Yong-ae, a young mage who ekes out a living in the DFZ by working as a “Cleaner.” This nasty, bu... Read More

Phasers on Stun! by Ryan Britt

Phasers on Stun!, by Ryan Britt, is a breezily informative and fun look at the many (and I mean many) incarnations of Star Trek over the decades since it first appeared on television in the late 60s. While it’s true there isn’t a lot new to say about the original series, and to a lesser extent The Next Generation, Britt still manages for find a few nuggets to offer something fresh to fans, while the later materials covers ground that is far less trodden.

Moving chronologically, Britt begins with several chapters on the original series — its creation, the writing, its politics, and finally its cancelation and the “birth of Star Trek fandom.” From there he moves between the creative output of the franchise and its relation to American society (each being shaped by the other). Included in the discussion are ... Read More

The Best of Walter Jon Williams by Walter Jon Williams

The Best of Walter Jon Williams (2021) is a 663-page tome containing, as its name implies, twelve of Walter Jon Williams’ best stories spanning four decades of his writing career. Fans will appreciate Subterranean Press’s beautiful hardcover edition of this collection (there’s also an audio edition). And for readers who aren’t familiar with this prolific writer, The Best of Walter Jon Williams is a good place to start getting to know him.

The book begins with an endearing introduction by fellow author Daniel Abraham who credits Williams with teaching him more about writing than “any other single source” in his career. After describing the breadth of Walter Jon W... Read More

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth (vol. 9): The Reign of the Black Flame by Mike Mignola (writer), John Arcudi (writer), James Harren (art), Dave Stewart (colors), Clem Robins (letters). 

At the end of last issue, Liz regains her powers and returns to the B.P.R.D., and Fenix, too, returns to the base. Both of them are in time to join the teams going into New York, so this issue starts with them on the ground, on a fact-finding mission. Kate Corrigan gave them orders to assess the threats in New York and, if possible, reduce those threats. Theirs is not a rescue mission, though that doesn’t seem a possibility anyway, since they don’t seem to be able to find anybody left in New York as they make their way in on foot.

There’s a secondary team coming in through New Jersey, and they are working with the Russians, so Iosif is leading that mission. Without Fenix, they are unable to avoid dangerous situations, and th... Read More