Month: December 2015

The Voice from the Edge Volume 5: Shatterday & Other Stories

Shatterday & Other Stories: The Voice From the Edge Vol. 5 by Harlan Ellison

Shatterday & Other Stories: The Voice From the Edge Vol. 5 is the final installment in Harlan Ellison’s 5-volume THE VOICE FROM THE EDGE series. It’s been quite a ride, and it’s hard to dispute that Ellison is a superb storyteller who can take an idea and run with it in the most original and twisted way, frequently delving into the dark and cruel side of human nature, but also celebrating moments of nobility and pathos along the way.

The Martian: Being abandoned on Mars is more fun than you’d think

The Martian by Andy Weir

Mars has long had a somewhat cursed reputation in space exploration. Launch failures, midair explosions, crash landings. Probes that missed the planet completely. Probes we’ve never heard from again and still don’t know what happened. By the time of Andy Weir’s The Martian, though, things have been on a better trajectory for some time and humanity has successfully landed several expeditions on Mars. Mark Watney is the engineer/botanist on the third such expedition, Ares 3, which is just coming up on the end of their first week of a month-long stay.

Thoughtful Thursday: Happy Holidays!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!
(And for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, we wish you a lovely holiday season!)

We hope you are able to have a joyful time with the people you love.

We also hope you’ll have time to spend with some wonderful books.

How are books involved in your holiday? Will you be giving any books as gifts? If so, which ones and why?

Do you hope to receive any particular books? Or perhaps gift cards or cash to spend on books?

If so, which books do you hope to acquire,

December 24th, 2015. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 15 comments |

The Voice from the Edge Volume 4: The Deathbird & Other Stories

The Voice from the Edge Volume 4: The Deathbird & Other Stories by Harlan Ellison

The Deathbird & Other Stories: The Voice from the Edge Vol. 4 is the fourth installment in Harlan Ellison’s 5-volume THE VOICE FROM THE EDGE series. He’s a born storyteller, without question the most passionate, intense and brilliant audiobook narrator I’ve ever experienced. He captures the characters’ quirks and attitudes, and narrates with masterful pacing and tone. This is the ideal showcase for him to read his favorite stories from a career spanning over 60 years.

The Elfstones of Shannara: Actually refreshing for today, and for when it was written

The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks

I’ve read plenty of Terry Brooks‘s fantasy novels, but among his earliest works I’ve only ever completed The Wishsong of Shannara. But with news of a television adaptation of The Elfstones of Shannara scheduled to air in 2016, I figured now was as good a time as any to delve into his backlog — and it’s interesting to see how he’s developed as a writer since then.

As the direct sequel to The Sword of Shannara,

December 24th, 2015. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3.5 | Terry Brooks | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Curse of the Faceless Man: Ready for a modern-day excavation

Curse of the Faceless Man directed by Edward L. Cahn

Curse of the Faceless Man was hardly the first film to deal with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and the subsequent destruction of the city of Pompeii. Indeed, following English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton‘s 1834 novel The Last Days of Pompeii (itself based on a painting by Russian artist Karl Briullov entitled “The Last Day of Pompeii”), no fewer than six versions of the book appeared on film (in 1900, 1908, 1913, 1926,

December 24th, 2015. Sandy Ferber | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

WWWednesday: December 23, 2015

This week’s world for Wednesday is wassail, a noun, meaning a salutation wishing health to another person, usually in the form of a toast; or also a spiced ale beverage drunk on winter holidays, most notably winter solstice, Christmas or Twelfth Night. The phrase entered the language in the 1100s from the phrase, “Be Hale.” Rather than go into detail about the spiced ale, I’m just going to link to a recipe. And here’s a non-alcoholic (and egg-free) recipe.

I hope your winter solstice was filled with light and the warmth of family and friends,

December 23rd, 2015. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |

Galileo’s Dream: A decent story with uneven execution

Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson

I’m a huge fan of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt, which is a terrific blend of pseudo science fictional philosophy and religion, and fun and entertaining alternative history. It’s deep and touching and provides a strong sense of activity (if not specifically action and adventure). So the concept behind Galileo’s Dream drew me to the book the instant I read the description: the astronomer Galileo is taken from Earth to the moons of Jupiter (which he discovered) in an attempt to modify the past to make for a better future — a future in which science rises up over religion.

The Voice from the Edge Volume 3: Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes

The Voice from the Edge Volume 3: Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes by Harlan Ellison & Robert Bloch

This is the third collection of Harlan Ellison’s short stories which he has narrated himself. Each of these Voice from the Edge audiobooks is quite excellent. I can’t say that I like every story — some of them are just too gross for me — but I can say that Ellison is a great storyteller and that there’s no better way to read his stories than to listen to him read them to you.

The Gracekeepers: Sea and circuses

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

In Kirsty Logan’s watery debut, the world as we know it still exists, only it is entirely underwater. Eerie and poetic, The Gracekeepers has been dubbed a dystopia, but it actually reads much more like a regular fantasy. Small scraps of land are all that remain of earth’s continents after rising water levels, leaving humanity in two groups: “clams,” the lucky few who cling to the land and “damplings,” those that must live out on the sea. The two groups have an uneasy relationship: half-mistrustful,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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