Month: December 2020

Our favorite books of 2020 (giveaway!)

Here are our favorite books published in 2020. Hover over the cover to see who recommends each book. Click on the cover to read our review.

Please keep in mind that we did not read every SFF book published this year, so we know we’ve missed some good ones! Please add your comments — we’d love to hear your opinions about our list and to know which were YOUR favorite books of 2020. What did we miss? One commenter chooses a book from our stacks.

ADULT SFF

MIDDLE GRADE / YOUNG ADULT SFF

NON-FICTION

December 31st, 2020. FanLit | Best of the Year | 25 comments |

The Unkindest Tide: Resolution for the Selkie/Roane subplot

The Unkindest Tide by Seanan McGuire

It’s probably inevitable that any long series, even one I enjoy as much as Seanan McGuire’s OCTOBER DAYE, will have books that just aren’t as great as some of the others. And I want to be fair; I’ve gotten really invested in the Amandine/Eira/August plotline, and it’s made me more impatient with the in-between books, so I want to make sure I’m not being too harsh. But even after thinking it over for a while, The Unkindest Tide (2019) was just kind of middling to me.

December 31st, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Seanan McGuire | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

WWWednesday: December 30, 2020

2020 is nearly out the door. Vaccines are on their way, and positive change is in the air as the days grow (infinitesimally) longer. Wishing you all a joyous 2021 and a safe, healthy New Year’s Day to those who celebrate.

The city of Nashville experienced a shocking bombing on Christmas Day. Here is one site that helps direct donations to the residents of that city.

In 2020, people who never imagined they would need a food bank found themselves depending on one. The crisis is not over. If you are looking for a last-minute 2020 donation for your taxes,

December 30th, 2020. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories: Historical horror done to a turn

The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories by Marjorie Bowen

At the tail end of my recent review of D. K. Broster’s Couching at the Door, I mentioned that I so enjoyed this volume of creepy stories that I was minded to immediately begin another book from British publisher Wordsworth Editions’ Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural division … and I’m so glad that I followed through on that! My latest discovery from this wide-ranging series is Marjorie Bowen’s The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories,

The Ministry for The Future: An optimistic but unlikely scenario

The Ministry for The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson’s new novel, The Ministry for The Future (2020), feels like a blueprint. Set in our near future, it follows a set of diverse characters living all over the world who are trying to solve the climate crisis, repair our world and, essentially, save the human race.

The novel begins in India where Frank May is working at a charity organization’s neighborhood clinic. Heatwaves have become a regular occurrence there. When the worst one yet arrives and power is shut off,

Ninth House: Black magic in Yale’s secret societies

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Galaxy “Alex” Stern (the name courtesy of her hippie mother) seems an obvious misfit at prestigious Yale University. Wealth, athletic talent and academic stardom are nowhere to be found in Alex’s life. Instead she’s a high school dropout with a history of dead-end jobs and drug use, and the survivor of a traumatic multiple homicide. But she has a rare talent that to date has brought her nothing but grief: Alex sees the ghosts of dead people.

As it turns out, that talent is highly useful to Yale’s eight elite secret societies,

A Very Scalzi Christmas: The lighter side of Christmas

A Very Scalzi Christmas by John Scalzi

I spent part of Christmas Day 2020 reading A Very Scalzi Christmas (2019), a (mostly) humorous collection of short Christmas-themed pieces by, naturally, John Scalzi. As Marion so aptly commented in her review of Scalzi’s highly similar collection Miniatures, “this collection of works does verge on the silly. It jumps the border of silly. It tap-dances and cartwheels through the world of silly, shrieking ‘Wheeeee!’ ” It’s the same in this case,

Sunday Status Update: December 27, 2020

Marion: Last week, most of my “reading” involved recipes and grocery shopping lists. I did, however, finish a romance novel (a genre I almost NEVER read). I finished up Deception by Selena Montgomery, better-known to politics-watchers as Stacey Abrams. It’s not my go-to genre, but I did enjoy it. And I managed to browse the most recent issue of Clarkesworld, which had a couple of interesting stories. A.C. Wise’s “To Sail the Black” was like Giedeon the Ninth light, and I loved the fractured first generation-North-American family in Brazilian writer Clara Madrigano’s “Lost in Darkness and Distance.”

Sandy: Moi?

December 27th, 2020. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 2 comments |

Lovecraft Country: Book and TV show

One commenter with a USA mailing address will get a trade paperback edition of Lovecraft Country.

I watched Season One of HBO’s adaptation of Lovecraft Country before I read Matt Ruff’s original novel-in-stories. I liked each of them, for different reasons. I will be comparing and contrasting here.

Ruff’s book came out in 2016. It embraces and honors the pulp era of speculative fiction, especially short fiction, especially the weird (the title is a clue). Ruff wanted one important difference from the weird fiction and comic books of the 1950s—he wanted Black main characters.

Christmas Break!

We are on Christmas break with limited reviews/columns this week.

Next week (on Thursday) we’ll announce our favorite books of 2020.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!
(And for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, we wish you a lovely holiday season!)

We hope you’ll have time to spend with some wonderful books.

Stay safe and healthy!

December 20th, 2020. FanLit | Status Update | 1 comment |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

We have reviewed 8360 fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and films.

Subscribe to all posts:

Get notified about Giveaways:

Support FanLit

Want to help us defray the cost of domains, hosting, software, and postage for giveaways? Donate here:

You can support FanLit (for free) by using these links when you shop at Amazon:

US UK CANADA

Or, in the US, simply click the book covers we show. We receive referral fees for all purchases (not just books). This has no impact on the price and we can't see what you buy. This is how we pay for hosting and postage for our GIVEAWAYS. Thank you for your support!

SFF Deals

Recent Discussion:

William Capossere on Horror Double Feature: The Black Scorpion & DinosaurusOctober 5, 2024
Kind of you to say. I certainly like to think so!
Sandy Ferber on Horror Double Feature: The Bells & The Cat and the CanaryOctober 4, 2024
BTW, Steve Sterner will be performing at seven films during this upcoming fest: https://filmforum.org/series/clara-bow
Sandy Ferber on Horror Double Feature: The Bells & The Cat and the CanaryOctober 4, 2024
As far as I know, Bill, Steve Sterner is the only person who does the live accompaniment to silent movies…
Sandy Ferber on Horror Double Feature: The Black Scorpion & DinosaurusOctober 3, 2024
And I'm positive that Kaidan will fondly remember watching these movies with his old man for the rest of his…
Sandy Ferber on Horror Double Feature: The Black Scorpion & DinosaurusOctober 3, 2024
You bet, Marion!