What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
I have just finished reading Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running for the fifth time. I love this book, and although I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest book ever written, it may be my favorite book ever written.
At the title suggests, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a series of essays and memoirs, mostly centering on running.
November 18th, 2015. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 5 | Haruki Murakami | Edge, Non-fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan
Nastasya is a burned-out immortal who has spent hundreds of years trying to avoid any sort of real emotion. With her equally jaded friends, she spends all her time in endless, meaningless carousing. She’s not very likable at first, but that’s the whole point. When her friend Incy’s casual cruelty gives Nastasya a wake-up call about what her life has become, she doesn’t like herself much either.
Horrified with herself, afraid of Incy, Nastasya does the only thing she can think of. She turns to River,
November 18th, 2015. Kelly Lasiter and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3, 3.5 | Cate Tiernan | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Cixin Liu is the most popular SF writer in China, having won the Galaxy Award (the Chinese Hugo) nine times, but it wasn’t until 2014 that The Three-Body Problem, the first volume of his enormously popular THREE BODY trilogy, was first published in English. Amid the Sad Puppies controversy, it deservedly won the 2015 Hugo Award (first time for an Asian writer and first translated novel to win) and was nominated for the 2014 Nebula Award. The Three-Body Problem was translated by Ken Liu,
November 17th, 2015. Stuart Starosta | Cixin Liu | Author Interviews, Giveaway! | 15 comments |
The Best of Nancy Kress by Nancy Kress
Reading Nancy Kress’s work is a disconcerting experience for me. I love her ideas; there is no one quite like her when it comes to integrating a Big Idea into a believable world. On the other hand, I often don’t understand her characters’ motivations and frequently find them unengaging. Subterranean Press’s new story collection, The Best of Nancy Kress — edited by Kress herself — provides some insight into her ideas and her storytelling, and is an educational,
November 17th, 2015. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Nancy Kress | Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Short Fiction, Theodore Sturgeon Award | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Bluebeard directed by Edward Dmytryk
It’s funny, but I always thought the Bluebeard character was based on a real-life historical figure, much as Vlad the Impaler had been the inspiration for Dracula, Gilles de Rais inspired Paul Naschy’s Alaric de Marnac, and the Countess Elizabeth Bathory was the obvious basis for Delphine Seyrig’s vampiric Countess Bathory in Daughters of Darkness. But a little research reveals that Bluebeard was rather the creation of French author Charles Perrault, and first appeared in a collection of the author’s fairy tales in 1697. The basis for no less than six cinematic treatments,
November 17th, 2015. Sandy Ferber | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | no comments |
There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about.
“Given Advantage of the Blade” by Genevieve Valentine (August 2015, free at Lightspeed Magazine)If you’ve ever wanted to have a cagematch between Snow White’s stepmother and the evil queen in Sleeping Beauty, this is the story for you. It’s also the story for you if you find the never-ending woman-on-woman violence inherent to many of our most beloved fairy tales getting a little old.
November 16th, 2015. Kate Lechler, Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper | Genevieve Valentine, Ray Bradbury, Suzanne Palmer, Tanith Lee | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Crystal Mask by Katherine Roberts
Crystal Mask is the second book in Katherine Robert’s ECHORIUM SEQUENCE. Unlike Song Quest which I first read as a child, Crystal Mask was new to me. I can’t help wishing I had encountered it as a child because I would have been far less fussy about the plot. Adulthood has come with a propensity to pick holes as you will discover if you are minded to read on.
November 16th, 2015. Katie Burton´s rating: 3.5 | Katherine Roberts | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
It’s often said that “one must suffer for one’s art.” They must have been referring to Philip K. Dick. He slaved away in relative obscurity and poverty at a typewriter for decades, churning out a prodigious flow of low-paid Ace and Berkeley paperbacks (sometimes fueled by amphetamines), went through five marriages, battled with depression, mental illness and suicide attempts, all culminating in a bizarre religious experience in 1974, and struggled to come to grips with this for the next eight years until his death in 1982 from a stroke at age 54.
November 16th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 5 | Philip K. Dick | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Home for the Haunting by Juliet Blackwell
Home for the Haunting is the fourth book in Juliet Blackwell’s HAUNTED HOME RENOVATION series. Each of these book is a short cozy paranormal mystery. Each story is self-contained, so the books can stand alone, but there’s an overarching plot involving Mel Turner’s personal relationships and each installment adds new characters, so most readers would probably prefer to start at the beginning and read the novels in order. The first three are If Walls Could Talk,
November 16th, 2015. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Juliet Blackwell | Audio | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Michael Moorcock Library (Vol. 1): Elric of Melniboné adapted by Roy Thomas
“Melniboné has never stood for good or for evil, but for herself and the satisfaction of her desires.”
Michael Moorcock’s Elric cannot follow this line of thinking that is prevalent among his people, the people of Melniboné; in fact, it’s so prevalent that even his lover, whose words I quoted above, believes that they are a race of people above ethics, above good and evil, in the way we think of such concepts.
November 14th, 2015. Brad Hawley | Michael Moorcock | Comics | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…