I purchased Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song because it showed up in my Goodreads “recommended” list with a ton of 5-star reviews. I’m usually suspicious, however, when the reviews so overwhelmingly endorse the greatness of a book. Based on my experience with Blood Song, I was right to be suspicious.
While Blood Song is not horrible — I probably would’ve slid it 3 stars had I finished — I’m totally clueless as to how it earned so many 5-star reviews.
May 23rd, 2013. Greg Hersom and Tim Scheidler´s rating: 0.1, 3 | Anthony Ryan | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Book of Lost Tales 1 by J.R.R. Tolkien
My first attempt to read The Book of Lost Tales 1 was made way too early in my life and made certain that my response was to put it on the shelf and decide that all of this background stuff, especially taken from this early phase in Tolkien’s life as a writer, was way too different from the Middle-Earth stories that I loved for me to waste any time on it.
Looking at where the bookmark from my first attempt still sat when I picked it up again,
May 23rd, 2013. Terry Lago´s rating: 3.5 | J.R.R. Tolkien | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The things you should read edition:
“‘We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” by Kameron Hurley
10 Novels That Are More Action-Packed Than Most Summer Movies
The Nina Allen 101 Women to Read Meme
M.L. Brennan Looks Beneath the Veneer of Escapism
2013 Hugo Voter Packet Now available
2012 Nebula Awards winners announced
MIND MELD: What is the Literary Appeal of Gods,
May 22nd, 2013. Ruth Arnell | World Wide Wednesday | 6 comments |
The Goddess Inheritance by Aimée Carter
Aimée Carter’s GODDESS TEST series has always been a bumpy ride for me, with its sometimes baffling take on Greek mythology and its focus on petty bickering even in the face of potential worldwide catastrophe. Yet I always felt there was enough of a seed of a good story here that I wanted to see how Carter would finish it out, so I decided to read the final book, The Goddess Inheritance. I’ve now gotten a little over halfway through the book and am giving up.
May 22nd, 2013. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 0.1 | Aimée Carter | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Hex and the City by Simon R. Green
Hex and the City is the fourth novel in Simon R. Green’s NIGHTSIDE series. I’ve been listening to NIGHTSIDE on audio lately because I’ve been doing a lot of home improvements, especially painting, and NIGHTSIDE is such an easy read that I don’t ever have to stop and rewind, which is something you don’t want to do when you’ve got paint all over your hands. Audio readers know what I mean.
In Hex and the City,
May 22nd, 2013. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Simon R. Green | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Fury by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore
1946 had been a very good year indeed for Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, with a full dozen stories published plus three fine novels (The Fairy Chessmen, Valley of the Flame and The Dark World), and in 1947, science fiction’s preeminent husband-and-wife writing team continued its prolific ways. Before the year was out, the two had succeeded in placing another 15 stories into the pulp magazines of the day,
May 22nd, 2013. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Human Division by John Scalzi
The Human Division is a fast-paced roller coaster of a book. At the Nebula Awards this weekend in San Jose, California, John Scalzi politely informed me that this was the fifth book in a series, which starts with Old Man’s War. I haven’t read the other four (which I will be correcting soon) but I understood pretty well what was going on in this universe, although I may have missed some nuance.
The Colonial Union left earth to colonize space about two hundred years ago.
May 21st, 2013. Marion Deeds and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | John Scalzi | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Kalimpura is the third and supposedly concluding book in Jay Lake’s series about Green, the young girl who becomes enmeshed in both worldly and godly politics, much to her dismay. I had lots of issues with the first book, Green, fewer but still some issues with the follow-up, Endurance, and I have to say that Kalimpura, while better than Green, didn’t wrap up the series in any way that would have me recommend readers pick up the trilogy.
May 21st, 2013. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2 | Jay Lake | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
K.W. Jeter’s Morlock Night (1979) is often cited as the first novel to be categorized at “steampunk.” In a 1987 letter to Locus magazine, Jeter coined the term in an effort to describe the types of stories that he and his friends Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock were writing:
Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers,
May 21st, 2013. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | K.W. Jeter | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Nightmare Magazine has been very good from its first issue, but the May 2013 issue, the eighth, is extraordinary.
The magazine opens with “Centipede Heartbeat” by Caspian Gray. Lisa believes that centipedes have invaded the home she shares with Joette, her lover. Worse, she believes that the centipedes have actually invaded Joette: “Each time Lisa rested her head against Joette’s breats, she heard the centipedes. In between heartbeats there was the tiny sound of hundreds of chitinous footsteps against bone, of miniature mandibles tearing at organs.” It’s a horrible situation, especially because Joette refuses to admit what is happening — or is Lisa insane?
May 20th, 2013. Terry Weyna | Caitlín R. Kiernan, Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…