Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: July 2013

Feet of Clay: Golems, vampires, and succession

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett

The City Watch is growing, and its new members bring new skills and talents to help stop crime in Ankh-Morpork. Angua, a werewolf, can trace criminals by their smell, while Detritus, a troll, interrogates suspects by “screaming angrily at people until they give in.” Cheery Longbottom is Vimes’ newest recruit, an alchemist, and perhaps the only dwarf in Ankh-Morpork who does not enjoy rowdiness. The criminals had better be careful.

In fact, the Watch has become so effective that the rich and powerful are hiring assassins to kill Commander Samuel Vimes.

July 31st, 2013. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | Terry Pratchett | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

A Civil Campaign: Romance, politics and comedy

A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold

I was afraid I wasn’t going to like A Civil Campaign as well as the previous VORKOSIGAN novels because, according to the description, the plot takes place all on the planet Barrayar and it deals mostly with relationship issues for several of the characters. Most of the various editions of the book sport covers with couples dancing or getting married. So, yeah, I thought it was a romance novel.

Well, A Civil Campaign is a romance novel,

The Darwin Elevator: It’s not dumb

The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough

Karin Kross just posted an excellent piece on Tor.com about “dumb” action movies, nominally a review of Pacific Rim (which I haven’t seen) but with broader application to anything we tend to label as “dumb”:

Respectfully, I would like to disagree. Or at least, insist that we stop using the word dumb. Simple? Sure. Uncomplicated? Absolutely. Spectacular, in the truest sense of the word? Hell yes. But none of these things are dumb.

The rest of the article is worth reading for SFF readers,

July 30th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 3.5 | Jason M. Hough | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Hell to Pay: Takes a turn in tone

Hell to Pay by Simon R. Green

Hell to Pay, the seventh novel in Simon R. Green’s NIGHTSIDE series, takes a turn in tone. For the past few installments John Taylor has been dealing with his mother, Lilith, who brought an epic war to the Nightside. Now the war is over and there’s a power vacuum. Jeremiah Griffin, a rich powerful immortal man, plans to fill the void. During his machinations, though, his granddaughter disappears, having apparently been kidnapped. Griffin needs John Taylor, the man who can find anything,

Burn, Witch, Burn! Creep, Shadow, Creep!: Merritt proves himself

Burn, Witch, Burn! / Creep, Shadow, Creep! by Abraham Merritt

Having conquered the field of fantasy (with such classics as The Moon Pool, The Ship of Ishtar and Dwellers in the Mirage) as well as the field of the bizarre yet hardboiled crime thriller (with his wonderful Seven Footprints to Satan), Abraham Merritt went on, in 1932, to prove that he could master the field of supernatural horror, as well. That he succeeded brilliantly should come as no surprise to readers of those earlier works.

Graveyard Child: Extraordinary depth of character

Graveyard Child by M.L.N. Hanover

Warning: this review contains spoilers for the first four books in the series THE BLACK SUN’S DAUGHTER.

M.L.N. Hanover’s urban fantasy series, THE BLACK SUN’S DAUGHTER, gets better with every book. Graveyard Child has extraordinary depth of character and a plot that takes the series into ever more complicated waters. The voice of Hanover’s viewpoint character, Jayné Heller, is happy, angry, sad, confused, disappointed, frightened, determined and resigned in turn, but always clearly Jayné.

July 29th, 2013. Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | M.L.N. Hanover | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Extinction Point: A zombie-free apocalypse

Extinction Point by Paul Antony Jones

Emily Baxter is a news reporter for a large paper in New York City. Emily loves being in the city, surrounded by people, and finds the hustle and bustle to be comforting. Then, one morning she is sitting in a cafe writing her next article when the red rain begins. Within a few hours, everything Emily loves about the city is gone. Everyone is dead, and not only is she now totally alone, but the Earth is changing. The plague brought on by the red rain is all-consuming.

Witchblade Volume 2: Awakenings

Witchblade Volume 2: Awakenings (Issues 86-92) Writer: Ron Marz. Artists: Mike Choi, Keu Cha, and Chris Bachalo

I had to go ahead and immediately write a follow-up review to my first column on Ron Marz’s WITCHBLADE because I think he really hits his stride in this second collection. Basically, just like I think you need to stick with SANDMAN for the first two to three volumes before you give up on it, I think reading the first two volumes of Marz’s run is essential to even begin to know whether his take on the series might be of interest to you.*

In my first review of WITCHBLADE,

July 26th, 2013. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Library memories

I went to see Neil Gaiman read and sign books in Santa Rosa, California recently. After he read from The Ocean at the End of the Lane, he answered some audience questions. One question was “What did you read as a child, and what influenced you?” The question was not a surprise but the answer was, a bit. Gaiman said that he read “everything. “My parents used to drop me off at the library when I was a child, and they would go off to work,” he said. “I started in the Children’s Library and read everything,

July 25th, 2013. Marion Deeds | Neil Gaiman | Thoughtful Thursday | 15 comments |

The Master Mind of Mars: Extremely entertaining

The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Master Mind of Mars is book 6 of 11 JOHN CARTER adventures that Edgar Rice Burroughs gave to the world. It first appeared in the magazine Amazing Stories Annual in July 1927, and John Carter himself only puts in a cameo appearance near the book’s end. Instead, our hero is another Earthman, Ulysses Paxton, who mysteriously gets transported to Barsoom (Mars) after being critically wounded on the battlefields of WW1. Paxton becomes an apprentice of the eponymous mastermind Ras Thavas,

July 25th, 2013. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Edgar Rice Burroughs | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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