Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
So yeah. That was strange. You should read it.
Here endeth the review.
Uh…. Seriously? Try again, please, Bill.
What? It’s Kat, our managing editor, sticking her bold red italic text into my review! Oh, alright. Start over:
Loren Eiseley, Charlotte Perking Gilman, Sigmund Freud, and Franz Kafka have a literary baby. And it’s adoooorable!
C’mon, Bill….
A biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psychologist walk into a bio zone.
March 14th, 2014. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper and Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | Jeff VanderMeer | Audio | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
I have to admit that I have not read Clash of Star-Kings, but with a cover like this, I’m not likely to pick it up when I see it in my local used bookstore. (And that’s a shame because I’ve read other fine books by Avram Davidson.)
So, if I’m not going to read Clash of Star-Kings, at least I can help rename it with a title that better fits this cover.
Please help me.
March 13th, 2014. Kat Hooper | Avram Davidson | Thoughtful Thursday | 37 comments |
Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh
I was alone in the spare bedroom. Upstairs, where the light is good. Though not too good. No TV, no music, no family. It had me right where it wanted me. So yeah, I bit. Most guys woulda. Most girls too, no matter what you think.
Shovel Ready the flashy label said, and if you looked closer you could see a name: Adam Sternbergh. ‘Cept, this Sternbergh guy isn’t the story. First name you get never is.
March 13th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Adam Sternbergh | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Have Space Suit — Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein
More than anything, Kip Russell wants to go to the moon, and that means he needs to go to college first — the best college he can manage to get into and pay for. So, with the encouragement of his father, who has (gleefully) pointed out the deficiencies in Kip’s public education (and complained extensively about taxes), Kip educates himself and works hard to earn money. When he enters a slogan contest for a national soap company, he hopes to win the money he needs for tuition,
March 13th, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Robert A. Heinlein | Audio, Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
First, the Lambda Award nominees are up—this is a literary prize for LGBT fiction, which has had a historically friendly relationship with SFF. This year, I see that Nicola Griffith’s Hild has been nominated. Chant with me: HILD, HILD, HILD.
Next we have the Spectrum Fantastic Art Award finalists. I know almost nothing about speculative art, but I know Tor.com has a very pretty blog post of some of the finalists’ work. On the subject of art,
March 12th, 2014. Alix E. Harrow | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |
A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias
Ever since I was a kid stealing my dad’s sci-fi books the moment he laid them down for a minute (silly, silly man), I’ve loved First Contact stories and still fondly remember reading Murray Leinster’s classic, entitled, shockingly, “First Contact.” So when I was offered a chance to read A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias, which is at its heart a first contact story, I jumped. And I’m glad I did, as it turned out to be a mostly well-executed story with a fully realized alien race and a compelling story line.
March 12th, 2014. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3, 4 | James L. Cambias | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Well’s End by Seth Fishman
Mia Kish held the attention of the country when she got stuck in a well when she was four years old. Everybody knows about Baby Mia. Now, at age sixteen, Mia is a scholarship student at the elite Westbrook Academy. She’s one of the world’s best teenage swimmers, which is why she’s hated by some of her peers. When there’s a deadly virus outbreak at Westbrook and the teachers and students start rapidly aging, it’s Mia who may be able to protect her classmates. First they have to get past the quarantine guards to escape the school.
March 12th, 2014. Kat Hooper and Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Seth Fishman | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
Words of Radiance is book two in Brandon Sanderson’s huge STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE series, projected to be ten books. In fact, at 1100 pages, Words of Radiance is almost large enough to be its own series (at least once upon a time — I’m thinking say of Zelazny’s AMBER series, or Donaldson’s original COVENANT trilogy). With another eight thousand pages to go,
March 11th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Brandon Sanderson | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
I really like it when an author can keep a character from growing stagnant. It’s not always obvious that it’s happening, but it’s very impressive when the author has enough vision to avoid it. In Iron Night, the second book in the GENERATION V series by M.L. Brennan, Fortitude Scott is a wonderful example of a main character that keeps growing.
Fortitude Scott has not given up on remaining as human as he can for as long as he can.
March 11th, 2014. John Hulet´s rating: 4 | M.L. Brennan | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Weird Tales: The Magazine that Never Dies edited by Marvin Kaye
Marvin Kaye’s Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies anthology from 1988 takes a slightly different tack than its earlier sister volume, Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors. Whereas the editors of that earlier collection chose to select one story from each year of the magazine’s celebrated 32-year run (1923-1954), Kaye has decided here to not just limit himself to the periodical’s classic era of 279 issues, but to also include tales from each of the four latter-day incarnations of “The Unique Magazine”
March 10th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Arthur Machen, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Tanith Lee, Theodore Sturgeon, William Hope Hodgson | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
I believe you are missing the point of this book here. I don't believe the purpose is to tell a…
I love it!
Almost as good as my friend: up-and-coming author Amber Merlini!
I don't know what kind of a writer he is, but Simon Raven got the best speculative-fiction-writing name ever!
[…] Its gotten great reviews from Publishers Weekly (starred review!), Kirkus, Locus, Booklist, Lithub, FantasyLiterature, and more. Some of whom…