Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: March 2018

White Sand Volume 2: Too wordy

White Sand Volume 2 by Brandon Sanderson

White Sand Volume 2 is, like most graphic works, a team effort: the story is by Brandon Sanderson, the script by Rik Hoskin, the art from Julius Gopez and Julius Otha, the coloring by Morgan Hickman and Salvatore Aila Studios, and the lettering by DC Hopkins. Unfortunately, in my case, quantity did not equal a quality experience.

One problem is I’m not sure Sanderson’s storytelling translates well into the graphic form. Though there are certainly exceptions (The Rithmatist for one excellent example),

Jessica Jones Season Two: A stuttering start but gets there in the end

Jessica Jones Season Two

Let’s face it, Jessica Jones’ season two was always going to suffer, at least from the outset, in comparison to season one for one simple reason: it was going to be pretty much impossible to come up with anything like the combination of Killgrave and David Tennant — an incredibly compelling villain played by an actor who so wonderfully (if one can use that word) and seductively inhabited that character. And there’s no doubt season two feels that lack of a compelling villain (one fully realizes how large a hole Tennant’s absence creates when he briefly returns in what I’d say was probably the best episode of the season).

March 30th, 2018. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Assembling the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Essays on the Social, Cultural, and Geopolitical Domains

Assembling the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Essays on the Social, Cultural, and Geopolitical Domains (ed: Julian C. Chambliss, William L. Svitavsk, Daniel Fandion)

Assembling the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Essays on the Social, Cultural, and Geopolitical Domains (2018) edited by Julian C. Chambliss, William L. Svitavsk, and Daniel Fandion is a collection of 15 essays examining the Marvel films, in particular how they “represent, construct, and distort American culture.” The essays vary in the level of “academese” employed, and also for me varied in how far they stretched their given premises,

March 29th, 2018. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

WWWednesday: March 28, 2018

Science and Tech:

“We could store all the data currently on the internet in the size of a shoebox,” says a scientist in this BBC World News segment about using DNA for data storage. Is that the best SF What-If ever?

“1984; it’s a great book, but it’s not the right dystopia for the 21st century.” In light of the revelations about Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, this TED talk becomes very interesting. It’s just under 25 minutes long.

Books and Writing:

Nisi Shawl and K.

March 28th, 2018. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 4 comments |

Dreadful Sleep: Some kind of ultimate pulp mash-up

Dreadful Sleep by Jack Williamson

At the end of my recent review of Jack Williamson’s 1933 novel Golden Blood, which initially appeared as a six-part serial in the pages of Weird Tales magazine, I mentioned that the author had later placed another serial in that same pulp publication, and that I meant to seek it out. Well, I am here to tell you MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! That later serial, Dreadful Sleep, was a three-part affair in the March –

Author Cass Morris discusses FROM UNSEEN FIRE and gives away a book!

Cass Morris joins FanLit to discuss her latest Roman-era fantasy FROM UNSEEN FIRE. Cass lives and works in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with the companionship of two royal felines, Princess and Ptolemy. She completed her Master of Letters at Mary Baldwin University in 2010, and she earned her undergraduate degree, a BA in English with a minor in history, from the College of William and Mary in 2007. She reads voraciously, wears corsets voluntarily, and will beat you at MarioKart. Find out more about Cass Morris online at cassmorriswrites.com.

March 27th, 2018. FanLit | Author Interviews, Giveaway! | 21 comments |

Guardian of the Crown: Struggles against middle-book syndrome

Guardian of the Crown by Melissa McShane

Guardian of the Crown (2017), the second book in Melissa McShane’s SAGA OF WILLOW NORTH fantasy trilogy, picks up where the first book, Pretender to the Crown, left off. (It’s necessary to read that book first, and this review will contain some unavoidable spoilers for Pretender.) Willow North has left her homeland of Tremontane in company with her ex-fiancé, Kerish, and the rightful king of Tremontane,

March 27th, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Melissa McShane | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

SHORTS: Lingen, Prasad, Wilde

Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about, including two excellent Nebula nominees.

“Flow” Marissa Lingen (March 2018, free at Fireside Fiction)

In Marissa Lingen’s “Flow,” teenaged Gigi, who loves her father and proudly shares his mannerisms, accidentally discovers — or is discovered by — naiads in the nearby woods. The naiads knew her father, and are pleased to meet Gigi, who spends time over the coming years performing small tasks for the naiads and coming to know more about their environment.

Snow City: A disorienting, intermittently interesting, destination

Snow City by G.A. Kathryns

G.A. Kathryns’ independently-published novel Snow City (2017) is a story about a ghost, narrated by a kind of a ghost. The POV character Echo Japonica creates Snow City in her mind as a preservation mechanism responsive to the terror she experiences in a dystopian reality. The fantastical part of this creation is that she inhabits her imagination physically, along with a ghost. And the living is not too bad until her creation doesn’t turn out to be as safe and warm as her conscious mind had hoped.

Paper Girls (Vol 3) by Brian K Vaughan

Paper Girls (Vol 3) by Brian K Vaughan (writer) and Cliff Chiang (artist)

This is the third volume of Brian K. Vaughan’s Paper Girls, and if you thought you were starting to get a handle on where the story was headed, think again…

[SPOILER TERRITORY AHEAD – DON’T READ UNLESS YOU’VE READ VOLUMES ONE AND TWO]

The four paper girls are reunited in a completely new place somewhere far off in the future or past,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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