Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: January 2017

The Bear and the Nightingale: Russian folklore-inspired fantasy

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

In the northern lands of medieval Rus’, a daughter is born to Pyotr Vladimirovich, a boyar, lord over many lands, and his wife Marina, who dies in childbirth. But Marina, daughter of the Grand Prince of Moscow and a mysterious, swan-like beggar girl, has bequeathed her daughter Vasilisa a mystical heritage. Vasilisa, or Vasya, grows up to be a spirited and rather rebellious young girl who, like an untamed colt, freely roams the fields and forest, and is able to see and communicate with the domovoi (a guardian of the home),

January 11th, 2017. Tadiana Jones, Jana Nyman and Katie Burton´s rating: 4.5, 5 | Katherine Arden | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

The City of Ice: Still slow, but a worthy follow-up in a fascinating series

The City of Ice by K.M. McKinley

I was going to start out this review of K.M. McKinley’s The City of Ice (2016) by saying that I could pretty much cut and paste the first paragraph of my review of its predecessor The Iron Ship, since it matched exactly what I’d say about The City of Ice. But then I realized why say I could when I actually can do that.

January 11th, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | K.M. McKinley | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Sandy’s 2016 Film Year in Review

Anyone who knows me well could tell you that I don’t see a lot of new films. As a matter of fact, of the 143 films that I saw in 2016, only four were new, and 139 were old. Thus, my annual Top 10 Best and Worst lists are necessarily different than most. With me, any film that I saw for the first time in 2016 was eligible for either list. If the film made me laugh, or think, or tear up, or sit suspensefully on the edge of my seat, or amazed me with something that I had not seen before,

January 10th, 2017. Sandy Ferber | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Babylon’s Ashes: A great read in the best sci-fi series going

Babylon’s Ashes by James S. A. Corey

Here’s the short version of the review of James S. A. Corey’s Babylon’s Ashes (2016), book six in THE EXPANSE series: I’ve long considered THE EXPANSE my favorite science fiction series I’ve read as an adult, and Babylon’s Ashes does nothing to change that opinion. If you’ve read the other books (and if you haven’t, why are you reading this?), jump in with all confidence. The long version follows with major spoilers for prior novels.

January 10th, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | James S.A. Corey | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa

Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa by Haruki Murakami

Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa (2016) is an edited transcript of several conversations between Haruki Murakami, the novelist, and Seiji Ozawa, the conductor.

I came to this book as a fan of Murakami’s writing, as many of this site’s readers would. SFF readers may be disappointed to read that these conversations rarely touch on writing, let alone the imagined mirror worlds that give a haunting quality to his novels.

SHORTS: Byrne, Klages, Humphrey, Lecky, Vaughn

Our weekly exploration of short fiction, old and new, available on the internet.

“Alexandria” by Monica Byrne (Jan. 2017, Fantasy & Science Fiction Jan/Feb 2017 issue)

They were travelers, though of the domestic sort. After their terrible honeymoon, they’d never left Kansas again.

Monica Byrne is a playwright and fiction writer who won the James Tiptree Award in 2015 for her novel The Girl in the Road. “Alexandria” starts slowly, maybe a little bewilderingly, with Beth, an older woman living alone on her Kansas farm,

Lagoon: I loved it as soon as I saw the swordfish

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

I thought I was going to love Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Lagoon (2014) when I read the first chapter, from the point of view of a swordfish. She is not just any swordfish; she is an eco-warrior. Through her eyes, we see the arrival of extra-terrestrials into the lagoon of Lagos, the Nigerian capital. And from that point on I was never disappointed.

Lagoon does not spend too much time with the swordfish, although we do see her again a few times.

Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror: Another wonderful collection from “The Unique Magazine”

Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror edited by John Betancourt & Robert Weinberg

This is the seventh anthology that I have reviewed that has been drawn from the pages of Weird Tales, one of the most famous pulp magazines in publishing history. Each of the previous collections had employed its own modus operandi in presenting its gathered stories. Weird Tales (1964) and Worlds of Weird (1965) had been slim paperbacks featuring previously uncollected stories. The Best of Weird Tales: 1923 (1997) had spotlighted tales solely from WT’s very first year.

January 9th, 2017. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Brian Lumley, C.L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, Eric Frank Russell, Fritz Leiber, Gene Wolfe, H.P. Lovecraft, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Nancy Springer, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ray Bradbury, Ray Russell, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Robert Sheckley, Tanith Lee, William Hope Hodgson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Invisible Cities: Philosophical sketches of imaginary cities

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino has long been on my list of foreign writers of the fantastic who have been deeply influential to SFF writers while remaining only tangential to the genre. This would include the great Jorge Luis Borges, as well as Stanislaw Lem. All these writers revel in philosophical musings, magic realism, and intellectual play. They belong to the deeper end of the fantastic literature swimming pool, but adventurous readers and authors have often plunged into those depths to one degree or another.

Crown of Midnight: A superior sequel to a ho-hum first installment

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

I was about three chapters into Crown of Midnight when I realized it was a sequel — after that it was a matter of tracking down Throne of Glass, catching myself up, and returning with a better understanding of the characters and situation. As it happens, I was a little lukewarm when it came to Throne of Glass, but I ended up much preferring this story to its predecessor.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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