Awards:
Karen Lord has been named as one of the judges for the Commonwealth Award in 2019.
Conventions:
A few more details on the cancellation of Steamposium. And a new Steampunk resource, (new to me, anyway,) the Steampunk Explorer.
Books and Writing:
Last week PBS unveiled America’s Favorite Book in the Great American Read; it was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The other top four were: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon;
October 31st, 2018. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 13 comments |
Age of War by Michael J. Sullivan
We (Tadiana and Marion) have both been reading THE LEGENDS OF THE FIRST EMPIRE series. Here, we take a few minutes to discuss the third book, Age of War.
Tadiana: All the resentments, cruelties, conspiracies and ambitions that have been simmering since Age of Myth (and even before) boil over and explode in Age of War (2018), the third book in Michael J.
October 31st, 2018. Tadiana Jones and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Michael J. Sullivan | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Psycho directed by Alfred Hitchcock
It is not every filmmaker who can manage the difficult trick of coming up with four consecutive masterpieces, but that is just what British director Alfred Hitchcock was able to do as the late 1950s segued into the ’60s. His 1958 offering, Vertigo, took time to find its audience but today is recognized by the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine as the single greatest motion picture ever made; 1959’s North by Northwest is surely one of the all-time great entertainments;
October 31st, 2018. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
Today Fantasy Literature welcomes Seth Dickinson for his second interview with us! (Woohoo!) We loved his first novel, The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Mr. Dickinson was kind enough to talk to me about its sequel (The Monster Baru Cormorant), the complexities of world-building, and the thrill of a peaty single-malt whiskey. One randomly-chosen commenter will win a copy of The Monster Baru Cormorant from Tor Books!
Jana Nyman: Congratulations on the publication of your second novel! I know writing one book can be a stressful (but joyful) experience — writing the first follow-up has to be another thing entirely!
October 30th, 2018. Jana Nyman | Seth Dickinson | Author Interviews, Giveaway! | 19 comments |
The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
My recent read of Bellewether, the 2018 historical novel by Susanna Kearsley, left me slightly dissatisfied, but I knew (and was assured by historical novel-loving friends) that she was capable of far more engaging storytelling, so I dove into her older duology of Jacobite-era novels, The Winter Sea (2008) and The Firebird. Both of these books ― in which Kearsley employs her favored dual-timeline approach with romance subplots,
October 30th, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Susanna Kearsley | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer directed by John McNaughton
Loosely based on the real-life exploits of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to the slayings of over 600 people but who was ultimately convicted in the homicide of a “mere” 11, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer changes some of the established facts around, yet remains a very strong experience for the viewer. As revealed on a certain Wiki site, the film was shot in just four weeks in 1986, at a cost of around $110,000, but was not released until four years later.
October 30th, 2018. Sandy Ferber | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Our reviews of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. For this year’s Halloween week column, we offer a selection of haunted house stories. (The first story is admittedly pushing the boundaries of that classification, but it was too good to leave out.)
“The Man in the Woods” by Shirley Jackson (published 2014, free in The New Yorker)
Christopher, a college student, leaves school one day for reasons he can’t even articulate to himself, and walks for days through towns and fields,
October 29th, 2018. Tadiana Jones | Kelley Armstrong | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Soul Eater by Mike Resnick
Nicobar Lane is a hunter. People hire him to acquire (dead or alive) exotic species from all over the galaxy. They pay him a lot of money to do this and he’s very successful. But there’s one creature who he refuses to hunt: a creature known by different cultures throughout the galaxy as the Soul Eater, or the Dreamwish Beast, or Starduster. People say this creature lives in space, is not affected by black holes, and perhaps even eats them! Nicobar thinks the beast is a legend and that it’s not worth his time to go looking for it.
October 29th, 2018. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Mike Resnick | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Happening directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Following the inanity of the borderline train wreck that was 2006’s Lady in the Water, writer/producer/director M. Night Shyamalan rebounded in a very big way with his next film, 2008’s The Happening. His contribution to the type of eco-horror film that was all the rage in the 1960s and ’70s — I’m thinking of such films as 1963’s The Birds, 1972’s Frogs, 1977’s Kingdom of the Spiders and 1978’s The Swarm …
October 29th, 2018. Sandy Ferber | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
As Halloween approaches, we’ve been reading plenty of seasonal (and a few less-than-seasonal) new books!
Marion: I read An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I hope to add my thoughts to the excellent reviews by Bill and Kat. The book is a literary science fiction novel; one of a handful that you can offer to your literary reading friends who can’t find their way into science fiction.
Bill introduced me to Sebastien de Castell in person at the 2016 WorldCon (MidAmeriCon).
October 28th, 2018. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 4 comments |
Gentlemen, I concur! (Forgive me for jumping into your convo)
The cover is amazing. I love how the graphic novel (and the review!) hewed close to the theme of "good…
I've thought about picking that one up. The artwork looks perfect.
I like the way you think, Bill. I found the second one particularly objectionable; the one with Khan. It was…
I find if I take every Trek reference out of them (the title, the character names, the ship names, etc.),…