Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: November 2016

Hidden Universe Travel Guides: The Complete Marvel Cosmos by Marc Sumerak

Hidden Universe Travel Guides: The Complete Marvel Cosmos by Marc Sumerak

Imagine a mash-up of Lonely Planet and Fodors written by a group of snarky been-there-done-that travelers and you’ve pretty much got Hidden Universe Travel Guides: The Complete Marvel Cosmos. As the title says, it’s a travel guide to the many settings of the Marvel Universe (sometimes the settings are a universe), with a jaunty-voiced narrator whose more formal guidebook descriptions are constantly interrupted by the less-formal commentary of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

November 12th, 2016. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Stargate: Beautiful creation myth blends fantasy and sci-fi

Stargate by Pauline Gedge

“Before the beginning was the Lawmaker,” he read. “And the Lawmaker made the Worldmaker and commanded him to make according to his nature. And the Worldmaker made the worlds…”

Originally published in 1982 and re-issued in 2016, Pauline Gedge’s Stargate is a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid writ large. Its universe rides the mythic themes of a world overseen by Gods who live within the vague rules similarly employed against their literary and cultural brethren in Olympus. Gedge seems more than happy to borrow these Grecian mythic motifs while putting her own sci-fi/fantasy spin on the creation myths we find embedded within even modern religions.

The Shadow Soul: Our SPFBO winner is a solid YA fantasy

The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis

The Shadow Soul came in first place of the 30 books that our Fantasy Literature team of reviewers read for Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO), in which 300 self-published science fiction and fantasy novels have been read and evaluated by ten blogs. The winner of the very first round, it managed to survive and prevail over all of the rest of the novels in our later rounds. A round of virtual but heartfelt applause to The Shadow Soul and its author,

Flashfall: Could have used more polishing

Flashfall by Jenny Moyer

For those seeking non-stop action and little else, Flashfall, by Jenny Moyer, offers up a solid if somewhat predictable entry in the Strong Nervy Young Female Fights Oppression but not Love genre (trademark pending on SNYFFOL). But those who desire depth of character and of worldbuilding will probably want to look elsewhere for those elements.

A century after a solar apocalypse, sixteen-year-old Orion is a “caver” who, with her partner Dram, mines the all-important cirium, “an element born of the flash curtain [that] can be milked and refined into the only effective shields we have against the band of radioactive electromagnetic particles the sun sent crashing through our atmosphere.”

The Traveler in Black: Short stories by Brunner

The Traveler in Black by John Brunner

Breaking into the business with Silver Age space opera but putting himself on the map by writing intelligent dystopia with a social conscience, for a brief moment John Brunner put aside science fiction and dabbled in fantasy. After the success of Stand on Zanzibar, The Jagged Orbit, and The Sheep Look Up, he wrote the four novelettes starring the other-wordly traveler in black. Unconventional to say the least,

November 10th, 2016. Jesse Hudson | John Brunner | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: November 9, 2016

This week’s word for Wednesday is the noun illywacker, Australian slang of unknown origin. An illywacker is a small-time confidence artist. There is a verb-form, to perform a confidence trick, which is to “whack the illy,” that is back-formed from the noun.

Conventions:

Cosplay at Marvel’s convention.

Helen Montgomery and Dave McCarty bat around the idea of Codes of Conduct at conventions, boiling it down to one question; is your CoC meant to be a shield or a weapon?

Books and Writing:

Barnes and Noble reviews Invisible Planets,

November 9th, 2016. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |

Deep Red: Gulp down some deep-red Chianti and prepare to be stunned

Deep Red directed by Dario Argento

Following his so-called Animal Trilogy — 1970’s The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and 1971’s The Cat O’Nine Tails and Four Flies on Gray Velvet — and immediately before creating what turned out to be his most popular picture as of this date, 1977’s Suspiria, Italian director Dario Argento released, in March 1975, one of his most critically acclaimed films, Deep Red (or, as it is more sonorously known in Italian, Profondo Rosso). All these decades later,

November 9th, 2016. Sandy Ferber | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 13 comments |

Peacemaker: A well-done bit of Weird West with a likeable protagonist

Peacemaker by K.A. Stewart

K.A. Stewart‘s Peacemaker gives us an alternate America (Kansas, to be exact) in which most people have magic, arcane-powered transports replace the horses they’re modeled on, and Native American magic is strong enough that the USA stops at the Rockies. The eponymous Peacemaker (think US Marshal), Caleb Marcus, brings his magic, his staff and his familiar (a cute jackalope named Ernst) to the town of Hope, where he has to deal with a Bad Wealthy Rancher.

I give that last phrase capitals because he’s a trope,

November 9th, 2016. Mike Reeves-McMillan | K.A. Stewart | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Perdition Score: That is one shocking ending!

The Perdition Score by Richard Kadrey

James Stark, AKA Sandman Slim, is making another effort to be more like a “regular” human being. He has left the arena in Hell behind and is working for the Sub Rosa, the clandestine magical community in Los Angeles. His girlfriend Chihiro works for a detective agency and is learning to play surf guitar. Stark has a salary, a 401(k) and even health benefits; but he is dissatisfied and only violence seems to provide satisfaction.

(This review contains a mild spoiler for readers who may not have read Killing Pretty,

November 8th, 2016. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Richard Kadrey | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Baptism of Fire: The story does not progress, but entertains us nonetheless

Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski

Baptism of Fire is the fifth book in Andrzej Sapkowski’s WITCHER series. It starts up immediately after the events in The Time of Contempt, which you must read before picking up Baptism of Fire. This review will contain spoilers for previous books.

Previously, in The Time of Contempt, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri got caught up in a coup on the island of Thanedd.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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