2259 Fantasy & Science Fiction Authors:
 A
 B
 C
 D
 E
 F
 G
 H
 I
 J
 K
 L
 M
 N
 O
 P
 Q
 R
 S
 T
 U
 V
 W
 Y
 Z
Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: March 2021

testing

The Glass Hotel: A modern-day ghost story

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel rose to prominence with the extraordinary Station Eleven (which, given the current state of the world, is enjoying a resurgence on the best-seller lists), but her latest novel, The Glass Hotel (2020), is a very different kind of book.

The story begins with a young woman named Vincent disappearing from a ship, the Neptune Cumberland. In what has become Mandel’s signature style, the story eschews chronology to skip backwards and forwards in time,


Read More




March 16th, 2021. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

testing

Transgressions of Power: The stakes are higher than ever

Transgressions of Power by Juliette Wade

With the second book of THE BROKEN TRUST series, Juliette Wade widens her world for the readers, and manages to place her characters in even greater danger than they were at the end of Mazes of Power, the first one. This review of Transgressions of Power (2021) may contain mild spoilers for book one. In any event, you must read Mazes of Power first if you really want to understand what’s happening here.


Read More




March 15th, 2021. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

testing

Sunday Status Update: March 14, 2021

Kat: S.B. Divya’s Machinehood was the best book I read this week. I look forward to telling you about it. I’m also reading four stand-alone novels by Andre Norton which were collected in the 2009 Baen omnibus The Game of Stars and Comets which has just been produced in audio format. So far I’ve finished The Sioux Spaceman and The Eye of the Monster. I’m currently reading the third novel, The X Factor.


Read More




March 14th, 2021. | Status Update | 4 comments |

testing

Merchanter’s Luck: An entertaining space opera

Merchanter’s Luck by C.J. Cherryh

Tantor Audio has recently released two of C.J. Cherryh’s ALLIANCE-UNION novels, Merchanter’s Luck (1982) and Forty Thousand in Gehenna, together under the title Alliance Space. I’m going to review the novels separately since that’s the way they were originally published and can still be purchased. However, I love that you can get them both in one Kindle edition or one 22-hour long audiobook!


Read More




March 12th, 2021. ´s rating: | | , | SFF Reviews | no comments |

testing

Thoughtful Thursday: Poetry

Saint Patrick’s Day always sees me returning to my favorite poet, William Butler Yeats, whose grave I made a pilgrimage to many a year ago. Though he might be the most famous, Yeats is hardly the only wordsmith from Ireland; for such a tiny land, it exports a hell of a lot of good poetry.

Which got me to thinking about poetry in fantasy. Tolkien, of course, made huge use of it in his works (your mileage may vary as to whether that’s a good or bad thing). But so have other authors — whether within the work itself,


Read More




March 11th, 2021. | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 16 comments |

testing

The Councillor: Strong writing balances out familiar plotting

The Councillor by E.J. Beaton

E.J. Beaton’s The Councillor (2020) is a political fantasy whose smooth prose carries one smartly if slowly through the well-worn grooves of the genre. And therein one can see both the novel’s strengths and its weaknesses, which together result in a solid if somewhat overly long and overly familiar story.

Lysande Prior — commoner, orphan, and scholar — has risen to become advisor and friend to the warrior Queen Sarelin, who recently put down a nearly-successful attempt by the White Queen to restore elemental magic users (a currently persecuted minority group) to their former ruling position in Elira.


Read More




March 11th, 2021. and ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

testing

WWWednesday: March 10, 2021

Awards:

Nghi Vho’s The Empress and Salt and Forture won the IAFA’s Crawford Award.

C.J. Cherryh won the 2021 Heinlein Award.

Writers, Writing, Reading, Books:

Crime Reads looks at the fine art of dopplegangers and imposters.

In consultation with the publisher, the estate of Dr Seuss decided to let six underselling books of the children’s book author go out of print, prompting a frenzy of anguished screams of “cancel culture.” Two of the books haven’t sold in years,


Read More




March 10th, 2021. | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

testing

Soulstar: The culmination is chilling and triumphant

Soulstar by C.L. Polk 

“The knock came an hour after we had put up the stormboards and battened down to wait it out.”

With her opening sentence, C.L. Polk starts the action of Soulstar (2021), book three in her KINGSTON CYCLE. And the action rolls on through the first chapter at a breathless pace, with changes that push Robin Thorpe of the Clan of the Peaceful Waters into the spotlight, as she becomes a leader for societal change,


Read More




March 9th, 2021. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

testing

Troyana: An action-packed but very poorly written sequel

Troyana by S.P. Meek

A short while back, in my review of S.P. Meek’s 1930 offering The Drums of Tapajos, I mentioned that this was a lost-race novel that was fatally done in by both a paucity of descriptive detail and a lack of memorable dramatic incidents. And indeed, of the 23 books that this reader has so far experienced in Armchair Fiction’s ongoing Lost World/Lost Race series, which currently stands at 30 volumes, The Drums of Tapajos might very well have been the weakest of the bunch.


Read More




March 9th, 2021. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

testing

The Ghost Variations: A collection of 100 flash stories

The Ghost Variations by Kevin Brockmeier

The Ghost Variations (2021) by Kevin Brockmeier is a collection of 100 flash stories, all involving ghosts, though the meaning of that word is stretched in some of them. In structure, style, flavor, and tone, the collection reminded me most of Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman, although it also calls up echoes of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.

The stories are grouped into various sections,


Read More




March 8th, 2021. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

We have reviewed 8495 fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and films.

Subscribe to all posts:

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!
Try Audible for Free

Recent Discussion:

  4. If the state of the arts puzzles you, and you wonder why so many novels are "retellings" and formulaic rework,…

  5. Marion Deeds