Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: September 2016

The Deadbringer: Promising debut fantasy series

The Deadbringer by E.M. Markoff

Kira Vidal is a Deadbringer. His touch brings rot, death and destruction to anything that comes into direct contact with his skin — human flesh disintegrates, metal turns to rust. Kira can also ‘summon’ death and put flesh and life back to that which is no more.

Kira’s an orphan. As is often the case in this fantasy trope, the lone wanderer seeks his past, family and the truth of his power, and has grown in a world with ‘parental ambiguity’. In Kira’s case,

September 19th, 2016. Jason Golomb´s rating: 3 | E.M. Markoff | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Best of Gene Wolfe: Challenging, allusive, and tricky stories

Editor’s note: Stuart originally posted a review of this book in December 2015. This is a new version of the review.

The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Retrospective of His Finest Fiction by Gene Wolfe

I decided to tackle this collection for a third time, this time armed with Marc Aramini’s Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe, 1951 to 1986, an 826-page analysis covering Wolfe’s output through 1986, including most of his short stories (no matter how obscure) along with The Fifth Head of Cerberus,

Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee

Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee

Batman: Hush (2002-2003) is a story arc that appeared originally as Batman #608-619. I first saw it as a bound collection at Barnes & Noble when my daughter was shopping for Christmas presents. I knew nothing about internal chronology, but I picked it up and was just stunned by the glossy, dynamic, sensual and powerful artwork of Jim Lee. This guy is really something else, I can understand why he is so popular.

Before reading Batman: Hush I did my homework and read some core Batman titles beforehand: Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One (1987) and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) which cover his early and later years,

September 17th, 2016. Stuart Starosta and Tim Scheidler´s rating: 3.5 | Comics, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Shazam! by Geoff Johns

Shazam! by Geoff Johns (writer) and Gary Frank (artist)

Shazam! was told in short installments in the back pages of The Justice League, in issues 7-11, 0, 14-16, and 18-21. As his story progressed, he was eventually added to the primary Justice League story. In other words, by issue #21, Billy Batson, as Shazam, was a member of the Justice League and the short installments were no longer needed. However, DC has collected all these installments into this single trade collection,

The Underground Railroad: A moving, substantive, mature work of fiction

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead’s new novel, The Underground Railroad, is a brilliantly realized blend of magical and literary realism that grabs one hard at the start and rarely lets go. The magical aspect appears via Whitehead’s decision to make the railroad literal as opposed to a metaphor and in the way he has his protagonist Cora journey through an alternate history version of the South. The literary realism is seen in his searingly graphic depiction of the slave trade in all its gruesome aspects.

The Book of Speculation: Doesn’t quite come together as expected

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.

The Book of Speculation, by Erika Swyler, is one of those perplexing novels I come across now and then where the book has everything I would usually lap up as a reader, but for some reason it falls just a little flat,

The Broken Kingdoms: Adventure and tragedy

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

The world has changed over the last several years and the opportunities that are now possible are too hard for Oree to resist, so she left home to seek a new life in Sky. Oree is an artist with a gift for seeing magic, but magic is the only thing she can see. She has set up shop in a promenade section of the great city and has created a pleasant life for herself there amongst friends and Godlings. Things start to get ugly, though, when Oree stumbles upon a dead Godling.

Of Sand and Malice Made: A fine introduction to Çeda and the city of Sharakhai

Of Sand and Malice Made by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Of Sand and Malice Made is a prequel to Bradley P. Beaulieu‘s 2015 novel Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, introducing the teenaged main character, Çeda, along with her best friend Emre, and aspects of the desert city of Sharakhai they call home. Çeda is a pit fighter, and Beaulieu writes her training and fight scenes well, conveying action and Çeda’s thoughts during the fights in brisk prose. The primary impetus for the plot is that a demon-like creature called an “erekh,”

September 15th, 2016. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Bradley P. Beaulieu | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Toad Words and Other Stories: Enchanting folk and fairy tale retellings

Toad Words and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher

T. Kingfisher is the name used by author Ursula Vernon for her adult fiction, although some of her T. Kingfisher works fall into the young adult category, like The Seventh Bride, and some of her Ursula Vernon works are adult works, like her wonderful Nebula award-winning short story “Jackalope Wives.” Regardless of the name she uses, I’ve been searching out her fiction ever since reading “Jackalope Wives.” T. Kingfisher writes lovely fairy tale retellings and other folk and fairy tale-flavored fantasies,

Luck of the Wheels: A fitting conclusion

Luck of the Wheels by Megan Lindholm

Luck of the Wheels (1989) is the final part in Megan Lindholm/Robin Hobb’s Ki and Vandien quartet. I guess you could say this book is the odd one out in the series, having been published several years after the first three, which appeared in quick succession in 1983 and 1984. Lindholm had written a number of other books in the meantime, the incomparable Wizard of the Pigeons among them.

September 15th, 2016. Rob Weber | Megan Lindholm | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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