Scarlet Odyssey (2020) is the debut novel by C.T. Rwizi and the beginning of a new series, RED PLAINS. It’s an epic fantasy set in a world based on sub-Saharan Africa, featuring a group of young people who might have the chance to stop an evil plan — or might unwittingly put it in motion instead.
The central point-of-view characters are Musalodi (“Salo”), a young man who wants to learn magic even though his people forbid that study to men;
June 30th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | C.T. Rwizi | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Remarkable Life of the Skin: An Intimate Journey Across Our Largest Organ by Monty Lyman
The brain and the heart tend to get all the good press as far as bodily organs go, each with a slew of books focused only on them. The other organs either don’t get mentioned at all or get thrown in with a bunch of others as part of the discussion of a particular system or the body entire, as in Mary Roach’s Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal or Bill Bryson’s The Body: A Guide for Occupants.
June 30th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
“War is hell,” William Tecumseh Sherman famously said in the aftermath of the American Civil War, and Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade (2019), a Hugo and Locus award nominated novel, drives that point home. The brutality of a soldier’s life combines with dystopia and hellish corporate behavior, but it’s lightened by the gritty determination of the main character, Dietz, and a handful of others to find the right path out of the nightmarish war, and by a hopefulness that refuses to be beaten down.
June 29th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Kameron Hurley | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Sam Hawke’s debut novel, City of Lies, is the first book in her POISON WARS series. It features two protagonists, Jovan and Kalina, who are brother and sister. They work for their friend Tain, a young man who has suddenly become the Chancellor of their country after his uncle was poisoned. As the Chancellor’s proofer, Jovan tests everything Tain eats or drinks. He knows how to detect most poisons, he’s inoculated against many of them,
June 29th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Sam Hawke | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Jana: This week I read Lina Rather’s Sisters of the Vast Black, a novella with lots of interesting characters and concepts, and a little more hand-waving than I’d prefer when it comes to hard details like timeline and spatial relations. I’m also reading Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars, which I’m really enjoying despite my constant story-induced anxiety. Kowal’s writing is evocative and compelling, to say the least.
Bill: This week I read Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth,
June 28th, 2020. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | no comments |
B.P.R.D. (Vol. 5): The Black Flame by Mike Mignola (writer), John Arcudi (writer), Guy Davis (artist), Dave Stewart (colors), and Clem Robins (letters)
B.P.R.D.: The Black Flame is another great entry in the B.P.R.D. series. This volume opens up with a board meeting at a company called Zinco. We are quickly led to see they are a company unlike any other: In the basement, they are running tests on and trying to communicate with frog creatures. Upstairs off of the boardroom is a secret chamber hiding the CEO’s secret Nazi memorabilia.
June 27th, 2020. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
Silver in the Wood (2019) is an enchanting novella by Emily Tesh, who is a finalist for the 2020 Astounding Award. It is the first in Tesh’s GREENHOLLOW DUOLOGY; the sequel, Drowned Country, will be released in August.
Tobias has lived alone for a long time. He’s a sort of guardian of the forest, keeping its assorted supernatural creatures from getting out of hand. (He’s also a couple of other things,
June 26th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Emily Tesh | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
King Kull by Robert E. Howard & Lin Carter
There’s a reason why I never lend out books anymore, even to my closest friends; namely, the fact that when I used to loan them out, I never got them back in the same good condition, or, even worse, never got them back at all. Cases in point: three paperbacks from one of my old favorite writers, Texas-born Robert E. Howard. Back in the mid-‘60s, Lancer Books released all of Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories in a now-classic series of 12 paperbacks,
June 26th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Lin Carter, Robert E. Howard | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Watermark by E. Catherine Tobler
Watermark (2014), by E. Catherine Tobler, is the story of Pip, a kelpie who is cast out of the Otherworld of the fae and into the human realm. Before that, she was being held in a tower in iron chains. She remembers very little before that; she doesn’t know what she was being punished for, or why she now finds herself in the town of Peak, Colorado, or why there was a dead girl lying next to her when she got there.
June 25th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | E. Catherine Tobler | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland
I enjoy thinking about A Choir of Lies, Alexandra Rowland’s 2019 novel, more than I enjoyed reading it. I usually like stories where the writer plays textual games, whether the story is epistolary, based on ephemera, uses marginalia, or even footnotes, upon which A Choir of Lies relies. I like stories that explore the nature of stories, and storytellers, which A Choir of Lies does.
June 25th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Alexandra Rowland | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.