Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: November 2013

Runaways, vol 1: Pride & Joy

Runaways: Pride & Joy by Brian K. Vaughan (writer) and Adrian Alphona (pencils)

What do you do when you find out your parents aren’t who you thought they were? Brian K. Vaughan deals with ages-old drama of teenagers confronting the fallibility of their parents in an interesting and exciting way. Though most of us have never discovered that our parents are part of a super-villain syndicate that includes a couple of crime lords who put Kingpin to shame — as well as mutants, aliens, time travelers, sorcerers, and mad scientists — most people can remember the day they realized that their parents are human and fallible,

The Daylight Gate: On the Edge

The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson

[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]

Jeanette Winterson is the author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Sexing the Cherry and Passion. She writes beautiful prose about fascinating characters, some of whom really existed,

The Defiant Agents: Not one of Norton’s best stories

The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton

The Defiant Agents is the third book in Andre Norton’s TIME TRADERS series about a secret United States government program that uses time travel to solve geopolitical problems, especially those involving the Cold War with the Russians. In the first book, The Time Traders, we met Ross Murdock, a criminal who avoided his sentence by signing on with the Time Traders and discovering the source of the Russians’ new powers. In the second book, Galactic Derelict,

Thoughtful Thursday: Giving thanks and increasing literacy

Today we welcome Bradley Wirz, founder and CEO of GoneReading International, a non-profit organization that funds reading related charities. Since we first mentioned this wonderful organization, they have funded their first library in Ethiopia! You can support GoneReading by purchasing some of their gifts for readers such as the ones shown here. There are many more at their website and 100% of the profits go toward increasing literacy around the world. We’ll pick one commenter (anywhere in the world) who may choose up to $25 worth of merchandise from the GoneReading store!

November 28th, 2013. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 12 comments |

WWWednesday: November 27, 2013

There wasn’t a ton of action this week on the prize and list-making front, possibly because the entire commercial world is sliding into that pit of shame and horror that we call Black Thursday. That said, the British Science Fiction Award is now open for nominations, and I recently found the monthly book drop at Geek Exchange, which helpfully lists the important speculative fiction releases for the month. Oh, and here’s an all-time list of the best horror stories ever.

But there were about a bajillion (that’s a metric gazillion) interesting and awesome articles about the books we all love so much.

November 27th, 2013. Alix E. Harrow | World Wide Wednesday | 4 comments |

Just Another Judgement Day: A recycled review

Just Another Judgement Day by Simon R. Green

If Simon R. Green can get away with recycling his NIGHTSIDE stories and presenting them as new ones, I should be able to get away with recycling my reviews of them. So, here is my review of Just Another Judgement Day which is a copied and pasted and only slightly altered review of the previous novel, The Unnatural Inquirer:

John Taylor has been hired by The Unnatural Inquirer,

Cold Steel: A rousing and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy

Cold Steel by Kate Elliott

The third and final book of Kate Elliott’s SPIRITWALKER trilogy finishes with a bang, wrapping up most of its storylines and myriad of subplots, but also leaving enough room for Elliott to revisit this world and its inhabitants if she so chooses. Preceded by Cold Magic and Cold Fire, this final installment picks up right where it left off: with protagonist Catherine Bell Barahal (or Cat as she’s better known) is in the midst of a desperate search to rescue her husband Andevai from the spirit world,

November 26th, 2013. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Kate Elliott | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Tales from Earthsea: Fills in gaps in the EARTHSEA mythos

Tales from Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

In 1972 Ursula Le Guin completed The Farthest Shore and felt the EARTHSEA series was finished at three books. However, in 1994 she published Tehanu:The Last Book of Earthsea in an attempt to revise the gender and social roles she’d laid out in that original trilogy. Based on the title, this too was supposed to be the be-all, end-all. Apparently not satisfying enough; 2001 saw Le Guin publishing two additional books in the EARTHSEA CYCLE,

Magazine Monday: Beware the Dark, Issue 1

Beware the Dark is a new horror and dark art magazine currently scheduled to be published three times per year. A new horror magazine is always good news, as there seems to be much more horror being written than there are outlets in which to publish it (which explains why Beware the Dark is presently closed to submissions). This magazine suggests, however, that the reason there are so few outlets is that there is little good horror being written. I’m hoping that further editions of the magazine improve on the first,

Some of Your Blood: A very sad book

Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon

In the 1978 horror movie Martin, writer/director George A. Romero presented us with a young man who enjoys killing people and drinking their blood, but who may or may not be a so-called “vampire”; the film is wonderfully ambiguous all the way down the line on that score. Seventeen years before Martin skulked through the dreary suburbs of Pittsburgh, however, another unconventional vampire was given to the world, in the pages of Theodore Sturgeon’s Some of Your Blood.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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