The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
The Hazel Wood (2018) is one of those novels whose reputation precedes it. Authors and critics alike are singing the book’s praises, dubbing it mesmerising, creepy, captivating. It promises to be a dark and twisting fairytale in the vein of Caraval and The Bear and the Nightingale, but can Melissa Albert‘s debut live up to its own hype?
Alice and her mother have moved from place to place for as long as she can remember.
January 30th, 2018. Ray McKenzie, Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 2.5 | Melissa Albert | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
I’m honestly not quite sure of how to review Jo Walton’s 2018 collection of short stories, Starlings. As a fiction read, it left me greatly wanting, with many of the stories (there are also poems and one play, but more on those later) feeling undeveloped, slight, and too one-note, so that most frequent reaction was “nice idea, but …” with the “but” mostly signifying a response that really wasn’t a response. And so what’s the problem, you might be thinking.
January 30th, 2018. Bill Capossere and Skye Walker´s rating: 4 | Jo Walton | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Midnight Front by David Mack
The European theatre of WWII has been used as a staging device for so many forms of modern entertainment media that it’s hard to believe David Mack could find anything new or interesting to write about it in The Midnight Front (2018). And yet, he managed to come up with an angle I’ve never seen, implement it in a thoroughly researched and imaginative way, and open the door for subsequent books to examine the aftershocks of WWII throughout subsequent decades.
January 30th, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | David Mack | SFF Reviews | 2 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.