Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: October 2012


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Batman: The Dark Knight #0

Batman: The Dark Knight #0, “Chill in the Air” by Gregg Hurwitz

Batman remains my favorite character in comics much the same way the sonnet remains my favorite form in poetry: I know what to expect, what the conventions are, and I like to see an author play artistically with those expectations to produce a mixture of familiarity and surprise. Today’s review focuses on a Batman story I read recently that does both of these things by building off the familiar initial murder that shaped Bruce Wayne and offering a new look at his shifting philosophic view as it was influenced as a young man by his memories of his father’s words and by his professors at his boarding school.


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Death Sentences: Award-winning Japanese science fiction

Death Sentences by Kawamata Chiaki

How to describe the copy of Death Sentences, by Kawamata Chiaki (translated by Thomas Lamarre and Kazuko Y. Hehrens) I recently received? Take a heaping helping of Philip K. Dick, a dollop or two of Ray Bradbury, layer into a pan, then frost liberally with my undergrad survey course in artistic movements — particular the week or so on surrealism. Let sit for a few decades (it was originally published in Japan in 1984) — you can pass the time by watching the Japanese horror movie The Ring,


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After: Like panning for gold

After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia by editors Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling

When I saw the new Datlow and Windling anthology After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia, I was so excited. I love YA fiction, I love dyslit, I love short story anthologies and I love Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling as editors, so I figured it was a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, my reading experience didn’t live up to my expectations.

After is an anthology of short stories set after.


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The Dog Said Bow-Wow: Short stories by Michael Swanwick

The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick

I must first off state that I am generally not an avid lover of the short story. There are a few writers that I think really excel in the genre and whose stuff I will read without hesitation (Edgar Allen Poe, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Fritz Leiber), but in general I am often underwhelmed by the format. Keep that in mind when I say that Michael Swanwick’s collection The Dog Said Bow-Wow was quite good,


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Thoughtful Thursday: On the Road or In Your Head?

Today we welcome Annie Wilder, author of Trucker Ghost Stories: And Other True Tales of Haunted Highways, Weird Encounters, and Legends of the Road, a perfect book for this Halloween season. Like all of us, Annie wonders whether these stories are really true, and maybe you can help answer that question. One commenter will win a copy of Trucker Ghost Stories. I’ll be interviewing Annie sometime soon, so stay tuned for that.

I write true ghost story books, and one of the things I’m most often asked is how I respond to people who don’t believe in ghosts.


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As the Green Star Rises: Will what’s-his-name ever find the princess?

As the Green Star Rises by Lin Carter

I picked up As the Green Star Rises, fourth in the five-book GREEN STAR series by Lin Carter, only because it was cheap at Audible. The last book, By the Light of the Green Star, was mildly entertaining but I didn’t feel compelled to go on. (At this point, probably nobody is reading further in this review, but for the sake of a sense of closure, I’ll go on just a bit.


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The Wee Free Men: A humorous quest with serious themes

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

Tiffany Aching is a young witch-in-the-making on the DISCWORLD, Terry Pratchett’s flat world which is carried along by four giant elephants who ride on the back of the Great Star Turtle A’Tuin. Tiffany’s young brother has been kidnapped by the Queen of the Fairies. In her quest to save him, Tiffany ends up with some odd allies. The Nac Mac Feegle (six-inch-high tattooed blue guys who self-style themselves as “The Wee Free Men,” and who could give the Fremen of Arrakis from Frank Herbert ’s Dune a run for their money in a fight) are with her in her quest,


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WWWednesday: October 17, 2012

Welcome back to the weird and wonderful world of my brain. I’ve got all sorts of goodies for you today.

Featured Authors:

Gail Carriger gets the Sword and Laser treatment.

Hugh Howey got featured over at SF Signal.

Cassandra Clare wrote a personal post about anti-bullying month and discovering hate blogs about her. And to counteract the hate, here’s a few of her fans talking about why they like her work and here’s our reviews of her work.


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Ashes of Honor: A must-read for urban fantasy fans

Ashes of Honor by Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire has caused me to abandon work and kept me up nights more than any other author I’ve read recently. Her work is so compelling that I absolutely must find out what happens next. Ashes of Honor (2012) was no exception to this rule. It’s the sixth and latest in the OCTOBER DAYE series, and offers up new surprises about the knight and hero of the Court of Shadowed Hills, Toby Daye.

Toby is surprised herself when Etienne,


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Fire on the Mountain: Alternate history with a political flavor

Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson

What if America’s Civil War had been, not a war of unification, but a war to end slavery? What if John Brown had succeeded at Harper’s Ferry?

In his short utopian novel Fire on the Mountain, Terry Bisson contemplates those questions.
Bisson’s story is simple and human, but he uses it to muse on how the Civil War could have gone differently. Yasmin Abraham Martin Odinga is an archeologist recently back from a dig in Olduvai,


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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