Damocles by S.G. Redling is a charming but flawed twist on first contact stories, the twist being that, in this case, the humans are the aliens who are landing on a faraway planet after a long period of cryogenic sleep. They are attempting to trace the origins of a mysterious message from an ancient race that claims to have originally seeded the Earth. Upon landing, the small human team discovers a humanoid race called the Dideto and becomes the subject of intense study.
August 14th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 2 | S.G. Redling | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Codex Born is Jim Hines’ follow-up to last year’s Libriomancer, his breezy love letter to fantasy and science fiction readers and writers. While the sequel didn’t charm me as much as its precursor, its quick pace, likable characters, and frequent allusions to some of my favorite authors, along with Hine’s trademark darkness underlying a lightly comical surface, meant that on balance I found more to enjoy than to dislike.
The series is set in a world where certain people — libriomancers — have the ability to magically pull objects,
August 13th, 2013. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3, 3.5 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Synthetic Men of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Synthetic Men of Mars is the 9th of 11 books in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ JOHN CARTER OF MARS series. It first appeared serially in Argosy Magazine in early 1939, and is one of the most way-out entries in the series. The book may be seen as a sequel of sorts to book #6, The Master Mind of Mars, in that Ras Thavas, the eponymous superbrain of that earlier work, here makes a return,
August 13th, 2013. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3 | Edgar Rice Burroughs | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Devin Jones is nearing the end of his sophomore year of college when he signs on for a summer job at Joyland in Heaven’s Bay, North Carolina in 1973. Joyland is an old-fashioned amusement park, not anything near as big as a Six Flags and definitely not anything like a Disney park. It’s staffed by a changing cast of college kids every summer, but has a backbone of old carnie folk, including Lane Hardy, who runs the Carolina Spin, that is, the ferris wheel, and Rosalind Gold, who acts the part of Madame Fortuna and thinks she might have the gift of the sight in real life.
August 12th, 2013. Terry Weyna and Jason Golomb´s rating: 4.5 | Stephen King | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Planetary: Leaving the 20th Century, Volume 3 by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday
In this third volume of PLANETARY stories we not only get to step back for a moment and have a bit of a look at the adventures of Elijah Snow in his century of existence trying to keep the world strange, but we also get more details on the Four and their intersection with the Planetary organization prior to the current story arc. Ellis is able to play in a lot of cool sandboxes as a result and the genre mashing continues much to my personal glee!
August 9th, 2013. Terry Lago´s rating: 5 | Warren Ellis | Comics | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Today we welcome Michael J. Sullivan who’s here to talk about how he became a reader. Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of his latest book The Crown Tower which I reviewed earlier this week. It’s a prequel to his popular RIYRIA books, so it’s the perfect book for both new readers and established fans. (We can send to U.S. addresses only.)
It’s probably not something that an author should admit but I wasn’t a “big reader” when young. In fact, I hated to read.
August 8th, 2013. Marion Deeds | Michael J. Sullivan | Thoughtful Thursday | 23 comments |
Skulduggery Pleasant: Scepter of the Ancients by Derek Landy
Scepter of the Ancients is the first book in Derek Landy’s children’s series called SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT. The story follows 11 year old Stephanie Edgley who inherits her eccentric uncle’s property after he dies. Stephanie gets involved with some supernatural goings-on when a thief breaks into her new house (the one her uncle left her) and nearly kills her. To her rescue comes Skulduggery Pleasant — a man who used to be alive but is now a magically animated skeleton.
August 8th, 2013. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Derek Landy | Audio, Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Time for the Stars by Robert A. Heinlein
Time for the Stars is one of my favorite Heinlein Juveniles, and I like his juveniles better than his books for adults, so I guess that makes Time of the Stars one of my favorite Heinlein works. It’s got everything that makes his stories so much fun to read, especially for kids. Likeable heroes, sweet relationships, real emotions, a touch of romance, a bit of physics, spaceship travel and exploration of distant planets. (And also, as usual,
August 7th, 2013. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Robert A. Heinlein | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination edited by John Joseph Adams
The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination is the latest themed anthology edited by John Joseph Adams — and it’s another good one. This time, Adams has collected a set of short stories featuring the hero’s (or often superhero’s) traditional antagonist: the mad genius, the super-villain, the brilliant sociopath who wants to remold the world in his own image — or occasionally, maybe, just be left alone in his secret lair to conduct spine-tingling experiments that,
August 7th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 3.5 | Alan Dean Foster, Austin Grossman, Ben H. Winters, Carrie Vaughn, David D. Levine, David Farland, Diana Gabaldon, Genevieve Valentine, Harry Turtledove, Jeffrey Ford, L.A. Banks, L.E. Modesitt_Jr, Laird Barron, Marjorie M. Liu, Mary Robinette Kowal, Naomi Novik, Seanan McGuire, Theodora Goss | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Crown Tower by Michael J Sullivan
The Crown Tower is the first book in Michael J. Sullivan’s RIYRIA CHRONICLES series. This series starts before the existing novels, THE RIYRIA REVELATIONS, and it lets us see how Hadrian Blackwater and Royce Melborn first meet.
Since I haven’t read any of Sullivan’s other books, in a way I was the perfect reader for this one. I didn’t have expectations. The Crown Tower is full of fast-paced sword-wielding fun from the first chapter.
August 6th, 2013. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Michael J. Sullivan | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Thanks for the kind words, Ira! Much appreciated!
Fine review
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!