The DC Infinite Crisis and the “Old” 52 (Part 1): The Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1
Previously, I’ve written about one of my favorite single DC events: Identity Crisis. It’s an excellent story contained in a single volume. In other words, it’s what I would call a graphic novel because it is unified in narrative and theme and is contained in a single volume, even though it was published initially as monthly comics. At the end of my Identity Crisis review,
September 12th, 2014. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Geoff Johns | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Released 39 years after his seminal sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds was published in 1898, and just two years before Orson Welles scared the bejeebers out of U.S. listeners with his radio play of that same novel, 1937’s Star-Begotten finds its author, H.G. Wells, returning to the Red Planet to tell us more about those mysterious and pesky Martians. Written when Wells was 71, this latter work — rather than being a tale of action and mayhem and a truly groundbreaking instance of the then-still-new science fiction (or,
September 12th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | H.G. Wells | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
So rumors are that this whole teen dystopia thing has almost run its course, just as the whole teen vampire thing did. Who knows what’s next? But before we bid a fond farewell to the genre that gave us The Hunger Games, Divergent, Matched, Uglies, and the granddaddy of them all (or grandmother, depending if one goes by author or character) — The Giver, how about we raise a glass, or a salute for you teetotalers/under-agers,
September 11th, 2014. Bill Capossere | Thoughtful Thursday | 15 comments |
Home from the Sea by Mercedes Lackey
Home from the Sea by Mercedes Lackey was a pretty enjoyable, fluffy fantasy romance. Set in coastal Wales, it combines the story of Tam Lin with selkie myths. Mari Prothero is a young woman who lives with her father, Daffyd, an unusually lucky fisherman. On her sixteenth birthday, Mari learns, to her great dismay, that she has been promised as a bride to one of the Selch, the seal-skinned people of the sea. This bargain has been in place for generations of the Prothero family;
September 11th, 2014. Kate Lechler´s rating: 3 | Mercedes Lackey | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Seed Seeker is the third book in Pamela Sargent’s Young Adult EARTHSEED trilogy (following Earthseed and Farseed), but you don’t necessarily need to read the previous two books to get up to speed — Sargent does a great job at catching the reader up without any info dumps. Seed Seeker fairly stands alone. Most of the characters are new, though Nuy, from Farseed,
September 11th, 2014. Sarah Chorn´s rating: 3 | Pamela Sargent | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
On this day in 2008, the Large Hadron Collider was powered up in Geneva, Switzerland, and proton beams circulated in the main ring.
Movies and Television:
A new live-action Peter Pan is coming to the small screen this fall. Allison Williams of GIRLS (and news anchor Brian Williams’ daughter) will continue the tradition of women who have played the spritely boy. Check out some of the first photos of Williams as Pan.
A new animated film, Hullabaloo, is being funded by IndieGoGo.
September 10th, 2014. Kate Lechler | World Wide Wednesday | 8 comments |
Tendeleo’s Story by Ian McDonald
Tendeleo’s Story is a short companion novel to Ian McDonald’s CHAGA series which is about an alien tropical plant-like life form that drops from space and lands in several equatorial regions of Earth. The first CHAGA novel, Evolution’s Shore, follows Irish reporter Gaby McAslin as she documents the biological, societal, and political changes that occur in Kenya as the Chaga descends from Mount Kilimanjaro and overruns Nairobi. In Kirinya,
September 10th, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Ian McDonald | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Dr. Bloodmoney: Or How We Got Along After the Bomb by Philip K. Dick
Based on the overwhelming success of The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick set about writing another alternate history/future. Choosing the Cold War as its crux, he imagined a US wherein the post-WWII threat of nuclear catastrophe manifests itself. Dr. Bloodmoney: Or How We Got Along After the Bomb is the (conveniently sub-titled) result.
With only a few main elements in common with that first big success,
September 10th, 2014. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 3 | Philip K. Dick | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire’s Egg and Spoon is being marketed as a YA novel, and I hope that designation doesn’t drive any readers away. This book blends the humor and hunger of real life with the wonder and otherworldliness of fables, resulting in a story that broke my heart so subtly, it was like a crack developing in an egg.
Egg and Spoon follows two young protagonists in Tsarist Russia. Elena Rudina, a peasant girl from the village of Miersk,
September 9th, 2014. Kate Lechler´s rating: 5 | Gregory Maguire | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Jeff VanderMeer’s first two books in his SOUTHERN REACH series, Annihilation and Authority, end up on my top ten list for the year, so it was with great excitement and high expectations that I opened up Acceptance, the third and final book of the trilogy. Having finished, I can’t honestly say those expectations were wholly met, though my lack of satisfaction has less to do with any real complaints about the novel itself and more about the question I had at the end,
September 9th, 2014. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Jeff VanderMeer | Audio | SFF Reviews | 5 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…