Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: February 2014


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WWWednesday: February 5th, 2014

Lists and awards

An award for every man, woman, and child! First up, the British Science Fiction Association has announced their shortlist, which includes such near-to-my-heart things as Vandermeer’s Wonderbook, Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, and Sofia Samatar’s “Selkie Stories are for Losers.” Then there’s the Quantum Shorts flash fiction competition, which has released their shortlisted stories. Locus Magazine also has their reader’s survey and poll open for voting. And Strange Horizons has the results of their poll of reader’s favorites up on their site.


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Dreams of the Golden Age: Better than first book

Dreams of the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

Dreams of the Golden Age is the follow up to Carrie Vaughn’s After the Golden Age, to which I gave only a middling review thanks to issues of plotting and characterization. While the sequel suffers from some of the same problems, they crop up less frequently and are less problematic. The main character, meanwhile, is a more active and engaging voice and so I found Dreams of the Golden Age to be more successful and thus far more enjoyable.


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The Puppet Masters: Somewhat icky

The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein

Unfriendly aliens from Titan have arrived on Earth and are planning to conquer us. To do this, the slug-like beings latch onto the backs of their human hosts and take over their bodies and minds. The aliens are rapidly spreading in the Midwest and they’ve managed to infiltrate the Treasury Department. To make world domination go even faster and easier, they’re planning to get the President of the United States. That’s why Sam Cavanaugh, secret agent, has been called in from his vacation. He’s teaming up with Mary,


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After the Golden Age: The perils of being human

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

After the Golden Age, by Carrie Vaughn, is a likable enough novel that takes the world of comic book superheroes and filters it through a more realistic prism, focusing more on a family and character, with the usual superhero action scenes playing more in the background. Unfortunately, what could have been a truly fun read is marred by issues of weak plotting and characterization, making After the Golden Age a somewhat pallid and on balance a slightly disappointing novel.


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The New Space Opera 2: All-New Tales of Science Fiction Adventure

The New Space Opera 2: All-New Tales of Science Fiction Adventure edited by Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan

The New Space Opera 2: All-New Tales of Science Fiction Adventure is, as its name implies, the second of Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan’s themed anthologies attempting to put a modern spin on space opera, a subgenre of science fiction which causes many of us to think of big metal spaceships crewed by handsome blaster-wielding men who protect us from evil aliens that want to destroy the Earth,


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Magazine Monday: Apex Magazine, Issues 55 and 56

The most recent two issues of Apex Magazine give us a chance to say goodbye to one editor and hello to the next, and offer an interesting contrast between two strong voices.

Issue 55 is Lynne M. Thomas’s last issue of the 26 she has edited. It is a strong issue, with stories that are beautifully angry — at disease, at societal expectations, at clichés.

The first story, “What You’ve Been Missing” by Maria Dahvana Headley, is about the losses everyone suffers when a man is stricken with Alzheimer’s Disease.


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The Night Land: Quite gripping

The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson

William Hope Hodgson‘s epic novel The Night Land was chosen for inclusion in James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock‘s Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, and yet in this overview volume’s sister collection, Horror: 100 Best Books, Stephen Jones and Kim Newman surprisingly declare the novel to be “unreadable.” No less a critic than H.P.


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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