Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: February 2019

Empress: So much action!

Empress by Mark Millar

Empress is another one of Mark Millar’s big-action comics. It’s about Earth’s first rulers, long ago, when apparently they had technology beyond anything we could imagine. The Empress, Emporia, lives with a terrible husband, King Morax, who is all-powerful and likes to express that power by killing his people for the smallest possible infraction. This story is about her escape from the misery of his company as she goes on the run with her family across the galaxy.

The story is fairly simple and lacks the complexity of Millar’s best work.

BINTI: The Complete Trilogy

Editor’s note: BINTI was originally published in three separate novellas but has recently been released in a complete trilogy. We’ve combined all of our new and previous BINTI reviews in this post.

BINTI: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor

As Binti, a mathematically brilliant, 16 year old member of the African Himba tribe, sneaks away from her home in the dead of night, I felt almost as much anticipation as Binti herself. Binti has decided, against massive family pressure, to accept a full-ride scholarship to the renowned Oomza University on a planet named ― wait for it ― Oomza Uni.

Welcome to Night Vale: Buckle up — it’s going to be a weird ride

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor

If you enjoy horror in all its many forms, or just plain Weird Stuff, odds are good that you’ve at least heard of (if not been sucked into the fandom vortex of) the highly-acclaimed podcast Welcome to Night Vale. Its creators, Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, have spent the last five years expanding upon a central premise — there’s a desert town in the southwestern region of the United States, where all manner of strange things happen and time doesn’t really exist — through twice-monthly podcast episodes.

Companions on the Road: One is good, one is great

Companions on the Road by Tanith Lee

I’m a big fan of Tanith Lee. Like many great fantasy writers, Lee understood that to truly transport a reader, it’s not enough to talk about dragons or swords or magic systems. Readers are transported just as much or more by the way these things are talked about. Lee’s work has that eerie, otherworldly feel that characterizes the best works of this genre. She could make a story about a squirrel looking for nuts feel like something dredged from a forgotten and more romantic epoch.

WWWednesday: February 6, 2019

The Puppy Bowl:

The big game was on Sunday. For anyone who missed it, this year’s Puppy Bowl trophy went to Team Ruff. The score was 59-51 against the odds-on favorite, Team Fluff. Before you ask, I have no idea how they score this thing.

Books and Writing:

If you’re a big Robert Heinlein fan this notice of a “new” novel, an alternate version of Number of the Beast, will get your attention. The story is based on a 185,000 manuscript by Heinlein,

February 6th, 2019. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |

The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump: Very punny

The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump by Harry Turtledove

David Fisher is an inspector for the Environmental Perfection Agency (EPA), a bureaucracy in charge of regulating the industrial by-products (pollution) caused by using magical spells in an alternate America where most of the technology is based on magic or the actions of any deities or demons that people believe in. For example, the telephones work because there are imps that relay messages back and forth, salamanders produce heat, and vehicles are actually flying carpets.

One night, David gets a frantic call from a superior who tells him that there’s some unusual activity at a spell dump north of this world’s version of Los Angeles.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf: A frenetic journey through mythical Africa

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

“The child is dead. There is nothing left to know.”

Thus opens Marlon James’ highly anticipated Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019) in a frenetic, dizzying tale of Tracker, the hunter tasked with finding a child at the centre of this fantasy steeped in African mythology.

The story opens with Tracker being interrogated by the Inquisitor in a grimy prison cell. “Truth eats lies just as the crocodile eats the moon,” he says, and it soon becomes apparent that this will not be the kind of fantasy epic fans of the genre are used to.

February 5th, 2019. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Marlon James | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Ruin of Kings: A solid series starter with some structural issues

The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons

Jenn Lyons’ The Ruin of Kings (2019) is the first of a five-book series, A CHORUS OF DRAGONS, that didn’t fully win me over but did do just enough to keep me reading through its 500-plus pages and end up sufficiently intrigued to move on to the sequel when it eventually arrives. I just wish I could have written “excited to move on to” rather than “sufficiently intrigued.”

The novel’s structure is a bit complicated.

February 5th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Jenn Lyons | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

SHORTS: Bazan, Lundy, Tidbeck, Mondal, Wilbanks

Our 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.

“Slow Victory” by Juanjo Bazan (free at Daily Science Fiction, May 24, 2018)

A time traveler heads back for a meeting in the woods with a young woman “hiding from the army of uninformed and ignorant men.” Bazan offers up a different take on time travel here, a more intimate, more quiet sort of tale than is often told in this sub-genre.

Remnants of Trust: Some improvements, but still kinda bland

Remnants of Trust by Elizabeth Bonesteel

Remnants of Trust (2016) is the second novel in Elizabeth Bonesteel’s CENTRAL CORPS trilogy. If you haven’t yet read The Cold Between, you should read it first. This review may contain spoilers for that first novel.

Elena and Greg were appropriately court-martialed for their actions in The Cold Between and, instead of prison, their ship Galileo was given a low-level assignment in a backwater sector of space.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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