Month: February 2016

The Cassini Division: Action-packed

The Cassini Division by Ken MacLeod

The Stone Canal, predecessor to The Cassini Division, saw a flurry of technical, and as a result, social developments, moving one part of humanity to post-human status. And so while Wilde and Reid’s personal matters were resolved, larger matters, that is, an agreement between standard and post-humans was left hanging, with a peaceful resolution far from certain. Focusing precisely on this schism, The Cassini Division, Ken MacLeod’s third novel in the FALL REVOLUTION sequence,

February 4th, 2016. Jesse Hudson | Ken MacLeod | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: February 3, 2016

This week’s word for Wednesday comes courtesy of Terry. It is nefilibata (Neh-FE-lee-BA-ta), from the Portuguese, meaning “cloud walker;” someone who is a dreamer, living in a world of imagination. The Oxford Dictionary site defines it both as “dreamer; idealist,” and also as “an affected writer.” (Snort.) It’s a lovely word. Thanks, Terry!

Books and Writing

Locus published its 2015 Recommended Reading list, just in time to prepare for Hugo nominations. It is a comprehensive list that includes art books and non-fiction, which fit into categories of Best Related Works.

February 3rd, 2016. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 4 comments |

Podkayne of Mars: Heinlein gives us a smart feministic mixed-race heroine

Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein

Podkayne (“Poddy”) Fries is a pretty, mixed-race teenager who lives with her parents and her younger brother (Clark) on Mars. We learn about her family and her adventures via the diary entries she writes. Poddy tell us that her family was planning to take a vacation to visit Old Earth, but when there is a mix-up with some frozen embryos, they had to cancel the trip so Poddy’s mother can take care of the unexpected new babies. Poddy is devastated until her Uncle Tom, a man who is a respected politician on Mars,

Bitter Greens: Gorgeous historical novel blended with fairytale

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth is a marvelous re-telling of Rapunzel, woven together with historical fiction that gives the reader a glimpse into the life of Charlotte Rose de Caumont de La Force, the French noblewoman who first published the fairy tale. Forsyth, pursuing her doctorate in fairy-tale retellings in Sydney, originally published in this novel in her native Australia. It has just been released in the US.

Bitter Greens begins with the story of Charlotte,

An Apprentice to Elves: A primer in in-depth worldbuilding

An Apprentice to Elves by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette

An Apprentice to Elves, the third installment of the ISKRYNE series, is a book that depends on its thick world-building. Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette have created realistic cultures that take some cues from Norse and Roman history and dramatized a cultural conflict between them, at the same time as developing relationships and characters rooted in these cultures. Most of the narrative is set in the Northlands,

February 2nd, 2016. Kate Lechler´s rating: 3.5 | Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels, 1946-1987: Introduces many lesser-known fantasy works

Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels, 1946-1987 by David Pringle

Note: You may also be interested in Stuart’s reviews of:
Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels, 1985-2010.
Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, 1949-1984.

Following on the success of 1985’s Science Fiction: 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984, it made sense that David Pringle would tackle the wide-ranging and ill-defined field of fantasy with Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels,

February 2nd, 2016. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 11 comments |

The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories: Humane science fiction

The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories edited by Tom Shippey

I read Tom Shippey‘s other excellent collection, The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories some time ago, so it was only a matter of time before I sought out this one. Like its stablemate, The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories consists of a chronological collection of stories from a variety of authors with an introduction by the editor. I was struck by the idea of “fabril” literature, which is discussed in the introduction: a form of literature in which the “smith”

February 2nd, 2016. Mike Reeves-McMillan | Arthur C. Clarke, Brian W. Aldiss, Bruce Sterling, C.L. Moore, Clifford D. Simak, Cordwainer Smith, David Brin, Frederik Pohl, Gene Wolfe, George R.R. Martin, H.G. Wells, Harry Harrison, Henry Kuttner, J.G. Ballard, Jack Williamson, James Blish, James H. Schmitz, John W. Campbell, Larry Niven, Rudyard Kipling, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Ursula K. Le-Guin, Walter M. Miller, William Gibson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

SHORTS: Christopher, Bledsoe, McIntosh, Wallace, Brooke and Brown

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.

“Brisk Money” by Adam Christopher (2014, $0.99 for Kindle, free at Tor.com)

Ray is an electromatic man — a full-metal private investigator in 1960s Los Angeles — with a functional memory which must be reset every twenty-four hours. He relies on his assistant, Ada, an artificial intelligence who lives in a bank of computers,

Alistair Grim’s Odd Aquaticum: Fairy dust magic and steampunk mechanics

Alistair Grim’s Odd Aquaticum by Gregory Funaro

The strange adventures of Grubb, a young boy and former chimney sweep swept away to hair-raising magical escapades in Gregory Funaro’s Alistair Grim’s Odditorium, continue in Alistair Grim’s Odd Aquaticum, the second volume in the ODDITORIUM series set in Victorian-era England. Grubb is starting to feel at home in the Odditorium, a magically mechanical ― or perhaps mechanically magical ― flying mansion of wonders built by Alistair Grim,

The Master: An epic game of chess

The Master by Claire North

The Master is the third and apparently final entry in Claire North’s wonderful THE GAMESHOUSE series of novellas. These stories are about a mysterious organization called The Gameshouse where elite patrons are invited to play for very high stakes. For example, they might win a prestigious political office, or they might lose the memories of their first love. Once they become involved with the Gameshouse, they belong for life and may be called on to participate in other players’ games.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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