Today we welcome Kari Maaren, a Toronto-area writer, academic, and award-winning musician and cartoonist. She created the webcomics West of Bathurst and It Never Rains, and is also known as a musician for her popular song “Beowulf Pulled Off My Arm.” Weave a Circle Round is her first novel. Learn more about her at www.karimaaren.com.
One random commenter in the US or Canada wins a trade paperback copy of Weave a Circle Round.
I don’t see my upcoming novel as a time-travel story;
November 24th, 2017. FanLit | Expanded Universe, Giveaway! | 13 comments |
The Ends of the Earth by Lucius Shepard
Lucius Shepard had already created one of the best short story collections in the genre, The Jaguar Hunter, which won the 1988 World Fantasy Award and Locus Award for Best Collection, with “Salvador” winning the Locus Award in 1985 and “R&R” winning the Nebula Award in 1987. His work is steeped in magical realism, supernatural horror, Central America and other exotic locales, and hallucinatory depictions of futuristic warfare. In my opinion, Shepard is one of the best stylists to ever work in the genre.
November 24th, 2017. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 5 | Lucius Shepard | Short Fiction, World Fantasy Award | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
Tor recently re-released the Hugo winner The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin in a lovely paperback edition, so I thought it finally was time to check out this famous short novel, originally published in the seventies.
The novel is part of Le Guin’s famous HAINISH CYCLE (see also, among others, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed) but can be read completely separately,
November 24th, 2017. Stefan Raets, Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Ursula K. Le-Guin | Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Americans!
OK, we all know the traditional Thanksgiving main course is turkey, but we also know that what really makes a great Thanksgiving repast/buffet are the sides: acorn squash, roasted Brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, pumpkin soup, curried, well, you get the picture.
Just like we know the protagonists of our favorite books and films do the heavy lifting, but the side characters add the rich flavor.
So let’s make a meal out of them (so to speak, this isn’t the Donner Party in Space): what three or four side characters would you put on the table?
November 23rd, 2017. Bill Capossere | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 12 comments |
Middle-Earth: From Script to Screen by Daniel Falconer
Getting a glimpse behind the scenes of a favorite film is always exciting — it’s rather like pulling the curtain back and, rather than seeing a humdrum old snake oil salesman, actually discovering a great and powerful wizard. David Falconer’s Middle-Earth: From Script to Screen gives credit to the several hundred wizards hard at work re-creating and re-inventing J.R.R. Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS novels and The Hobbit into two sets of visual feasts.
November 23rd, 2017. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | J.R.R. Tolkien | Non-fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Thanksgiving:
For all our USA readers, I wish you a happy, fun and loving Thanksgiving with plenty of American football; for all readers outside the US, have a good Thursday tomorrow, and everybody have a good week.
Thanksgiving is beginning to get tarnished between the relentless drive to transmute it from a day with loved ones and friends to a shopping extravaganza and the historical ties to colonialism and genocide. For me, still, it is a holiday for seeing friends and loved ones, taking stock, and spending a moment to be consciously grateful for what I have in my life.
November 22nd, 2017. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |
Magpie’s Song (2017) is the beginning of a new series by Allison Pang, and it’s an interesting blend of genres. There’s a dash of steampunk, a dollop of dystopia, and even a pinch of faerie lore. When I started reading, I was skeptical that all of this would work well together, but Pang pulls it off, and creates an interesting world that I want to know more about.
BrightStone is a steampunky, gritty city whose inhabitants are ruled from above — literally — by the Meridians,
November 22nd, 2017. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Allison Pang | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Everyone’s favorite Jhereg assassin is back in Vallista, Steven Brust’s fifteenth VLAD TALTOS novel. If you’re not familiar with this series, don’t start here. Get a copy of Jhereg and read the books in publication order (which is not, by the way, the same as the internal chronological order, but that’s okay). Let me recommend the audio versions produced by Audible Studios and read by Bernard Setaro Clark. He does such a great job capturing Vlad’s sarcastic personality and the amusing dialogue between Vlad and Loiosh,
November 21st, 2017. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Steven Brust | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Fisher of Bones by Sarah Gailey
Sarah Gailey’s novella Fisher of Bones (2017) is a bewildering revision of the Talmud/Old Testament Exodus story with the “Moses” role cast as a prophetess dubbed Fisher (formerly Ducky).
Fisher assumes the prophetess mantle only on her father’s deathbed when the patriarch prophet lays his hands upon her in a would-be ordination and declares her an outcast, “forever banished from [her] people.” And in the next breath commands her to lead the same. I never could get over this contradiction.
November 21st, 2017. Taya Okerlund´s rating: 1 | Sarah Gailey | Horror, Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Whether you’ve read Ann Leckie’s IMPERIAL RADCH trilogy or not (though I highly recommend you do, as it’s excellent), there’s plenty to enjoy about Provenance (2017), a new and stand-alone novel set within the reaches of Radchaai space. The Empire-shifting events of Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy have an effect on the political schemes in progress within Provenance,
November 21st, 2017. Jana Nyman, Kat Hooper and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Ann Leckie | Audio | SFF Reviews | 4 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.