Month: April 2021

Wraiths of time: An American grad student becomes an African princess

Wraiths of time by Andre Norton

Tallahassee (Tally) Mitford, a graduate student who studies archaeology and African history, has been asked to examine some Egyptian artifacts that appear to be very old, important, powerful, and radioactive.

When one of the relics pulls her into a parallel universe, Tally finds herself in Meroë, an ancient Nubian kingdom located on the Nile River. She is completely helpless there with no status and the inability to speak the language. She has no idea how to get back home.

When she’s rescued by some women who are the companions of the recently deceased princess Ashake,

A Deadly Education: Fantastic originality

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

I honestly had a very hard time with the beginning of Naomi Novik’s newest novel, A Deadly Education (2020). But based on my experience with her prior work, I kept going and though I don’t think this novel nears the strength of ones like Spinning Silver or Uprooted, I was happy I did.

El (short for Galadriel) Higgins is a student at the Scholomance,

April 30th, 2021. Bill Capossere, Jana Nyman, Tadiana Jones and John Hulet´s rating: 4.5 | Naomi Novik | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Thoughtful Thursday: Rename this horrible cover

Usually at this time of year we promote Free Comic Book Day and ask you about your plans for visiting your local comic shop, but this year, due to the pandemic, it’s been postponed to August 14.

So, instead, let’s do another “Rename This Horrible Cover” contest.

Farnham’s Freehold, by Robert A. Heinlein, was published in 1964, probably not coincidentally, the same year as the last cover we mocked. You can click the image to embiggen.

April 29th, 2021. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 15 comments |

WWWednesday: April 28, 2021

Books and Writing:

Here are seven author-owned bookstores. This article is about an early woman-owned bookstore in New York. The place must have been wonderfully bohemian.

The Last Dangerous Visions anthology will open to submissions for ONE DAY ONLY on April 30, 2021.Please note they are accepting ONE story. Here is some submission info. The post includes a “release form,” which I’ve never seen before. I didn’t real the whole thing—the first part simply seems to be the author affirming that it’s original work.

April 28th, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |

The Ikessar Falcon: Come for the fight scenes, stay for the dragons

The Ikessar Falcon by K.S. Villoso

The thing I loved the most about The Ikessar Falcon is the dragons. This second book in K.S. Villoso‘s CHRONICLES OF THE BITCH QUEEN, published in 2020, has plenty of action, world-building, political intrigue and romantic conflicts, but in this book, we learn much more about the dragons, their connection to the magical substance agan, and their role in the nation of Jin-Sayeng.

This review may contain spoilers for the first book,

April 28th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | K.S. Villoso | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Android at Arms: A prince wonders if he’s an android

Android at Arms by Andre Norton

This year Tantor Media has been producing audio editions of the Baen omnibus collections of Andre Norton’s science fiction stories. Gods and Androids (2004 in print, 2021 in audio) contains the two novels Android at Arms (1971) and Wraiths of Time (1975). I am reviewing the novels separately because that’s how they were originally released, and that’s usually been our practice here at Fantasy Literature. Each of these stories stands alone.

The Cosmic Geoids and One Other: Take your vitamins!

The Cosmic Geoids and One Other by John Taine

It was Polish biochemist Casimir Funk who, in 1911, isolated the substance now known as vitamin B3. In 1912, Funk wrote a book called The Vitamines (he’d coined that term as a contraction of the words “vital amines”), in which he spoke of other, similar substances and their abilities to prevent various ailments. And then, the vitamin ball really got rolling, with sales of vitamins A and C rising steadily in the 1920s and ‘30s. Before the onset of WW2,

Voorloper: A few humans try to make peace with a hostile planet

Voorloper by Andre Norton

Voorloper (1980) is the last novel collected in The Game of Stars and Comets (2009), Baen’s omnibus of Andre Norton stories. I’ve been reviewing the books individually (because they were originally released as separate novels), but it’s cost-effective and convenient to purchase them in the omnibus edition. Specifically, I’m reviewing Tantor Media’s new audio version of the omnibus, which is excellently narrated by L.J. Ganser.

The first three books in this omnibus are The Sioux Spaceman (1960),

The Bone Maker: A solid novel

The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst

There’s a point almost exactly halfway through Sarah Beth Durst’s latest novel, The Bone Maker (2021), where the author teases us that the book we’ve been reading just might go in a completely different direction, prompting me to write in my notes, “Love this.” And then, well, it didn’t. Instead, as if the inertia were too great, we’re shortly steered back into a well-worn fantasy story, which, despite being mostly satisfying — with some moments that rose above that level and a few that pulled it below — had me wishing I could have gone back to that moment fifty-three percent of the way in and chosen the plot less traveled.

Thoughtful Thursday: What’s your TBR list like?

We suspect that most of our readers keep a TBR (“To Be Read”) list and we’re interested in hearing about it, so we’ve got some questions. Feel free to answer as many as you’d like and to ask questions of other readers.

Do you keep a TBR list? If not, why not?
What format is it in (e.g., notebook, spreadsheet, online)?
How many books are on your list?
How do you organize it?
How do you decide in which order to read your books?
Are you good at sticking to the list?

April 22nd, 2021. Bill Capossere | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 28 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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