Cloudbound is Fran Wilde’s 2016 sequel to her debut novel Updraft, and if its predecessor was a mixed bag whose balance tipped toward the positive, albeit not as much as one would wish, Cloudbound doesn’t fare quite so successfully, with the needle pointing slightly more toward the negative. Thanks to a continuingly inventive world-building and a somewhat predictable but still intriguing ending, I’ll forge forward to book three,
September 15th, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | Fran Wilde | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
It’s time again to share some of our favorite (new or old) quotes from speculative fiction. They can be deep, poignant, witty, hilarious, or otherwise memorable.
You can choose quotes from books you’ve read, or from interviews or blog posts from the authors who write those books.
Give us the quote and the source (book title, link to interview or blog, etc).
Here are quotes that readers mentioned last time we did this. Two are from Guy Gavriel Kay! Click the book cover to read our review.
The deeds of men,
September 14th, 2017. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 12 comments |
I’m of mixed feelings on Fran Wilde’s 2015 debut novel Updraft, which left me at various times enthralled, captivated, curious, and eager to continue. All of which would be great if it hadn’t at other times had me thinking it was too predictable, too familiar, too plodding, and too vague. Thus the mixed feelings, though the balance tipped me over far enough to move on to book two in the series, Cloudbound (I’ll amend this review once I’ve decided whether the sequel and/or the third book,
September 14th, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Fran Wilde | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Obituary:
Jerry Pournelle, probably best known for his collaborations with Larry Niven, passed away on September 8. In addition to well-known books with Niven, Pournelle wrote a few by himself, and collaborated with writers like Michael Flynn, Dean Ng and S.M. Stirling. In later years, Pournelle shone as an editor, with anthologies like There Will Be War. SFWA’s obituary column can be found here. Cata Rambo, SFWA President, said that Pournelle was one of the founding donors of the SFWA Emergency Medical Fund,
September 13th, 2017. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |
The Courier (2016) was recommended to me by a bookseller. She hadn’t read it herself yet. It was recommended to her by a friend, she said, who said it was YA and “kind of like William Gibson.” My first impulse in rating this book was to base my rating on the gap between the “William Gibson” statement and my experience of the book. If I had done that, this would be a 2-star review. That would not be fair.
September 13th, 2017. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Gerald Brandt | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Taste of Marrow by Sarah Gailey
In the novella River of Teeth (2017), Sarah Gailey introduced readers to a hard-working crew of miscreants who were hired for an operation (not a caper, mind you), the goal of which was the removal of feral hippopotami living in a portion of the Mississippi Delta. In its sequel novella Taste of Marrow (2017), they’ve been split into two groups by the after-effects of River of Teeth’s explosive conclusion: Adelia Reyes,
September 12th, 2017. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Sarah Gailey | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
A Secret History of Witches by Louisa Morgan
At nearly 500 pages, Louisa Morgan’s A Secret History of Witches (2017) might seem daunting, but it’s partitioned into five sections, individually focusing on a subsequent member of the Orchiére family as they flee persecution in France, set up roots in England, and eventually become involved in World War II. I zipped through this book in an afternoon, and while romance does have its own part to play, the interactions between mothers and their daughters is the most significant aspect of the novel.
September 12th, 2017. Jana Nyman | Louisa Morgan, Louise Marley | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Black Wolves of Boston by Wen Spencer
Joshua is a teen runaway; a college-bound senior who survived a horrifying massacre of his classmates during an extracurricular project. Silas Decker is a vampire who lives in Boston, one who has the magical ability to find lost things – and people. Seth is the werewolf Prince of Boston. Elise comes from the Grigori family, who trace their bloodline back to the first angelic-human hybrids. She kills things — mostly, evil things. These four characters find their paths intersecting and tangling in The Black Wolves of Boston,
September 11th, 2017. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Wen Spencer | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Welcome back to Kathryn Troy, an historian turned novelist who, last time she was here, gave us An Undead History. She has taught college courses on Horror Cinema and presented her research on the weird, unnatural, and horrific to academic conferences across the country Her nonfiction book, The Specter of the Indian: Race, Gender and Ghosts in American Séances, 1848-1890, has just been released by SUNY Press. Her historical expertise in the supernatural and the Gothic informs her fiction at every turn. Her genres of choice include dark fantasy,
September 8th, 2017. Kat Hooper | Expanded Universe, Giveaway! | 7 comments |
The Cosmic Rape by Theodore Sturgeon
In Theodore Sturgeon’s International Fantasy Award-winning novel of 1953, More Than Human, six extraordinary young people with various extrasensory mental abilities blend their powers together to create what the author called a “gestalt consciousness.” And in his next novel, the Staten Island-born Sturgeon amplified on this idea of shared consciousness, but upped the ante quite a bit; instead of a mere half dozen souls forming one hive brain, Sturgeon posited the notion of a mind containing the thoughts and experiences of the life-forms of 2½ galaxies!
September 8th, 2017. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Theodore Sturgeon | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one
These weird westerns are always interesting and have been popping up more in recent times (it seemed like there was…
Looking forward to reading the review.