Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: March 2016

Thoughtful Thursday: In Honor of To-Read Lists

I dedicate a lot of time to reading, and I have reading routines, but perhaps the most important of them is maintaining a to-read list.

My to-read list exists in two places: my phone and my laptop. If someone recommends a book to me in conversation, I immediately take out my phone to add another author/ title, e.g. “Wilson/ Comstock.” The to-read list on my phone is random, disordered, and disorganized, but every few weeks, I’ll open it and transfer its author/ titles to a master file on my computer.

March 31st, 2016. Ryan Skardal | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 8 comments |

The Wildings: Exciting adventure with a cats-eye view

The Wildings by Nilanjana Roy

I was telling my friend about my story-in-the-making (it’s about an underground colony of cats!) and he said, “Have you read The Wildings, by Nilanjana Roy? You have to.” Wanting a model for my story — and also intrigued by the premise, a colony of cats in Delhi — I bought it immediately.

The Wildings follows a cat colony in the Delhi neighborhood of Nizamuddin as they encounter two of their biggest challenges in living memory: the appearance of a new and oddly powerful “Sender,” and the incursion of a group of ferocious feral cats into their territory.

March 31st, 2016. Kate Lechler´s rating: 3.5 | Nilanjana Roy | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

YOU: For the nostalgia of the burgeoning game industry only

YOU by Austin Grossman

Russell was a nerd in high school, running with a crowd of computer geeks before anyone knew what computers could do. Unlike his childhood friends, he didn’t stay a computer geek. He went on to try to have a ‘normal’ life. His friends went on to release a hugely popular video game, and founded a game label in its own right. Years later and after many changes in plans Russell comes back and applies to work for the people he left behind. Austin Grossman’s YOU is the story of a guy who isn’t quite anything but finds a place where maybe he can create something.

The Curve of the Earth: A pulse-pounding adventure

The Curve of the Earth by Simon Morden

Simon Morden’s The Curve of the Earth is a book that flew below the radar. It’s set in a sort of futuristic Earth. Politics and the whole “the earth is flat” thing have effected how people live, communicate, work and understand each other. The world is a different place. Some areas, like America, are ultra conservative, while others are downtrodden and rather terrifying, ruled by crime bosses. It’s a world where crossing the Atlantic takes a fraction of the time it takes now.

March 31st, 2016. Sarah Chorn | Simon Morden | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: March 30, 2016

Awards

It’s Awards Season. Aliette de Bodard had a great run at the British Science Fiction Awards, winning in the Novel category for House of Shattered Wings and in the short story category for “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”. She is an awesome writer, and there also ought to be some award for Best Titles, because she comes up with them.

Apex, by Namez Raam, took the Philip K Dick Award for best original science fiction paperback.

March 30th, 2016. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |

The Secret of Platform 13: Delightful, fantastical fun

The Secret of Platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson

Eva Ibbotson is a well-loved children’s author, and it is books like The Secret of Platform 13 that make me glad that I have no qualms about reading beyond the confines of suggested age groups. In fact, I find the experience particularly indulgent.

As a quick prologue, I note that some people have made much of the similarity between Ibbotson’s Platform 13 at Kings Cross Station and the one used by J.K. Rowling,

Obsidian: A derivative YA paranormal romance with a hot, super-powered jerk

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Obsidian is one of a slew of young adult paranormal romances that were published in the aftermath of the runaway success of Twilight. The plot, therefore, will sound familiar, though some of the details are different: a teenage girl, Katy Swartz, moves to a small town in West Virginia with her widowed mother to make a new start. Katy is a 4.0 GPA student and book review blogger who’s never caused her family trouble and considers herself a reserved and practical girl.

March 30th, 2016. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 1.5 | Jennifer L Armentrout | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |

Dominion: An exciting, satisfying conclusion to the trilogy

Dominion by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard

The CHRONICLES OF THE INVADERS by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard comes to a satisfying conclusion with Dominion, the final book of the trilogy. We get a post-apocalyptic survival story on earth, an off-planet prison break, space battles, and political skullduggery and espionage in the halls of the Nairene Sisterhood. Each character faces multiple layers of jeopardy as the story comes to a close, and it’s not certain that everyone we like will live.

The Lost Boys Symphony: If destiny exists, can it be overturned?

The Lost Boys Symphony by Mark Andrew Ferguson

Henry, formerly a music student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, has run away from home in search of his former girlfriend, Val. Henry’s always been different — listening to music no one else can hear, fixating on certain objects, and exhibiting odd behavior — but since their break-up, his mental and physical health has been on a rapid decline. One night, he sets off on foot for Manhattan, convinced that he’ll find her among the thousands of other NYU students, and that her presence will calm the turmoil in his mind.

Imago: Finally, we see the Ooloi perspective

Imago by Octavia Butler

Imago (1989) is the third book in Octavia Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy. It concludes the story begun with the human woman Lilith in Dawn (1987) and continued with her Oankali-human ‘construct’ son Akin in Adulthood Rites (1988). Imago takes the bold but logical next step by shifting the perspective to Jodahs, an Ooloi-human construct. The Ooloi are the third, gender-less sex of the Oankali, the alien race of ‘gene traders’ that saved the remnants of humanity on the condition that humanity share its DNA with them and be forever transformed in the process.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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