With Station Zero (2019), Philip Reeve brings to an end the RAILHEAD trilogy begun with Railhead and Black Light Express, and if it’s not a perfect conclusion, it’s pretty darn close, leaving you at the end with a sense of satisfying, even gratifying, resolution tinged with a lingering bittersweetness that makes the final result all the more richly rewarding. With this Cosmic Railroad trilogy (not an official title) and his earlier PREDATOR CITIES/MORTAL ENGINES work,
March 13th, 2020. Bill Capossere and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Philip Reeve | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Snakes. They just don’t get a break. Adam and Eve. Cleopatra’s asp. Those ones on a plane. Even our very first story ever, Gilgamesh, has a snake screwing things up at the end.
And here we are about to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and of course, one of his biggest claims to fame is how he drove those poor snakes out of Ireland entire.
Well, we’re here to speak for the snakes! (albeit not in parceltongue). Where would myth and fantasy be without them?
So, who are some of your favorite snakes and serpents appearing in fantasy,
March 12th, 2020. Bill Capossere | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 12 comments |
The Drums of Tapajos by S. P. Meek
As you may have noticed, over the past six months I have been dipping into Armchair Fiction’s current Lost World/Lost Race series of 24 novels, and with mixed results. One thing I have observed is that the best of this bunch — such as Frank Aubrey’s The King of the Dead (1903), Rex Stout’s Under the Andes (1914), John Taine’s The Purple Sapphire (1924) and A.
March 12th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3 | S.P. Meek | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Awards:
Books:
BBC Culture asked well-regarded writers to give their recommendations for overlooked novels. Here are the results. I was surprised at how many I had read. (Thanks to File 770.)
Nerds of a Feather discusses six books with K.B. Wagers.
Reed Exhibitions plans to go forward with Book Con and Book Expo,
March 11th, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |
Watch Hollow: The Alchemist’s Shadow by Gregory Funaro
The spooky adventures of Lucy and Oliver Tinker continue in The Alchemist’s Shadow (2020), a sequel to last year’s middle-grade haunted house novel by Gregory Funaro, Watch Hollow. The Tinker family — 11-year-old Lucy, 12-year-old Oliver, and their father — are settling in at the rural Rhode Island mansion, Blackford House, where they vanquished a supernatural foe in Watch Hollow. The Tinkers, originally the caretakers of Blackford House,
March 11th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Gregory Funaro | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
William Gibson’s latest novel, Agency (2020), is a follow-up to The Peripheral which needs to be read first. In The Peripheral we learned that in the not-too-distant future, someone will discover some software on a secret server in China which allows users to interact with people using the internet in the past (our modern day). Contacting people in the past makes a new timeline branch called a “stub.” The future people who create the stub can play around with it,
March 10th, 2020. Kat Hooper and Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | William Gibson | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
CLASSIFICATION: Weaving together fairy tales and history, Deathless is kind of like Pan’s Labyrinth, if it was told by Hayao Miyazaki and Neil Gaiman. Highly recommended for fans of adult fairy tales, Russian folklore, and Catherynne M. Valente.
FORMAT/INFO: Deathless is 352 pages long divided over a Prologue, 6 Parts, and 30 numbered/titled chapters. Narration is in the third-person, mostly via the protagonist, Marya Morevna.
March 10th, 2020. Robert Thompson and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4, 5 | Catherynne M. Valente | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Brightstorm (2020) introduces the two resourceful twins Arthur and Maudie, son and daughter of the famed explorer Ernest Brightstorm. The story opens grimly, with news that their father was lost on his latest expedition, an attempt to reach South Polaris by airship. Worse, his competitor, Eudora Vane, returned with the accusation that Brightstorm had stolen her ship’s fuel in an attempt to reach Polaris first, before failing and being killed, along with this entire crew, by vicious beasts. The news not only destroys the family name,
March 9th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Vashti Hardy | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Black Light Express by Philip Reeve
Black Light Express (2017) is Philip Reeve’s just-as-good-as-the-first-book follow up to Railhead, continuing the exhilarating romp while expanding the universe and its inhabitants, as well as digging a bit more deeply into the hidden history of the created world and offering up some more page time to some of the first book’s secondary characters. Warning: there will be some inevitable spoilers for book one (you can just stop here with the take-away that I recommend the duology).
March 9th, 2020. Bill Capossere, Jana Nyman and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Philip Reeve | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Jana: This week I finished A.K. Larkwood’s The Unspoken Name, which was a lot of fun, and read Carrie Vaughn’s The Immortal Conquistador, a novella exploring the backstory of Rick, from her KITTY NORVILLE urban-fantasy series. I haven’t read any of the other books in that series, and that might have to change, now.
Bill: This week I read Anthropocene Rag by Alex Irvine (enjoyable but didn’t match its potential), Monster 1959 by David Maine (fun parts but bit of a disappointment),
March 8th, 2020. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | no comments |
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…
It's hardly a private conversation, Becky. You're welcome to add your 2 cents anytime!
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…