The Silver God of the Orang Hutan by David Douglas
As many of you here at FanLit may have already discerned, this reader is a huge fan of English author H. Rider Haggard, and at this point I have read 45 of the man’s 58 novels. Haggard, for good reason, has been called “The Father of the Lost Race Novel,” and his influence on that genre has been enormous, casting a very long shadow across the decades since he came out with the triple whammy of King Solomon’s Mines,
June 20th, 2019. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | David Douglas | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Cons:
Terry and I will be attending ReaderCon in Boston in two weeks. Here are some of the people I look forward to seeing (some are deceased and I don’t expect to actually see them).
Books and Writing:
You write a nonfiction book, and part of your premise is based on your faulty understanding of an old legal term. This is discovered shortly before your book is released. What do you do? In the case of Naomi Wolf’s Outrage: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalization of Love,
June 19th, 2019. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
The Listener by Robert McCammon
Robert McCammon’s The Listener (2018), a finalist for this year’s Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, takes us to New Orleans during the Great Depression. There we meet:
June 19th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Robert McCammon | Audio, Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
Fang Runin (Rin) is a war orphan living with opium-dealing foster parents who physically abuse her and treat her like a slave, which is miserable enough. But when they arrange a match for her at age fourteen with a twice-divorced merchant three times her age, Rin has finally had enough. She comes up with an escape plan, managing to hold off her foster parents’ marriage plans for her for the time being through a combination of threats and promises. Rin spends every spare waking moment during the next two years studying for the Keju,
June 19th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | R.F. Kuang | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Moon: A History for the Future by Oliver Morton
With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing approaching, we’re seeing a slew of books, films, TV shows, web articles, etc. highlighting what remains one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. But it would be a mistake to lump Oliver Morton’s The Moon: A History for the Future (2019) in with the retrospectives, for as that subtitle hints, Morton looks forward more than he looks backward in a wide-ranging look at our nearest celestial object.
On a basic level,
June 18th, 2019. Bill Capossere | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Raven Tower (2019) begins, as so many fantasy tales do, with a young man returning home to claim the powerful title and honor which are his birthright. Upon his arrival, he discovers that his father has gone missing and is presumed dead, while his uncle has taken the seat of power for himself with the promise that it will be given over to the young man when the time is deemed to be right (with the implicit understanding that the uncle will never do so).
June 18th, 2019. Jana Nyman and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Ann Leckie | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 13 comments |
SAGA Volume Four, Issues 19-24 by Brian K. Vaughan (author) & Fiona Staples (illustrator)
Saga is one of those series that is so wildly popular, like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, or The Sopranos, that you start to worry how the writers can maintain its high quality. Can they keep up the momentum, originality, artistic integrity, and entertainment that make the series so special? Or will they hit a wall and produce a total stinker of an ending,
June 18th, 2019. Stuart Starosta and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Brian K. Vaughan | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Recursion (2019) begins with a dual timeline in alternating chapters, a familiar literary approach, but then splinters into razor-sharp time shards as the characters deal with the explosive consequences of a new technology relating to personal memory.
In November 2018, detective Barry Sutton attempts to prevent a woman from jumping from the 41st floor of a New York City tower. The woman, Ann, tells him she has False Memory Syndrome (FMS), a new affliction in which a person remembers an entirely different past for themselves,
June 17th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Blake Crouch | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse
I pull my knees to my chest, feeling myself irrationally offended at being rejected by a sentient casino.
Rebecca Roanhorse’s second THE SIXTH WORLD book, Storm of Locusts (2019), continues to deliver on the promise of Trail of Lightning. Maggie, a Navajo monsterslayer (or now, as some call her, Godslayer) ventures outside the magical walls of the Navajo reservation to stop a magically enhanced terrorist from destroying it.
June 17th, 2019. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Rebecca Roanhorse | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
As summer goes on, we’re reading some new books.
Bill: This week I read a solid alien contact novel — The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, an absolutely captivating look at the explorations and ramifications of the Greenland ice sheet — The Ice at the End of the World by Jon Gertner, and an interesting but at times too detailed look at the impact of discovering carbon 14 — Hot Carbon: Carbon 14 and a Revolution in Science by John F.
June 16th, 2019. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 1 comment |
If the state of the arts puzzles you, and you wonder why so many novels are "retellings" and formulaic rework,…
I picked my copy up last week and I can't wait to finish my current book and get started! I…
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.