Month: April 2021

In the Palace of Shadow and Joy: Two more loveable rogues

In the Palace of Shadow and Joy by D.J. Butler

D.J. Butler tries his hand at the two-loveable-rogues-for-hire story and mostly succeeds.

Our two loveable rogues are Indrajit Twang and Fix. Indrajit is the poet of his very small clan of people. He has come to the great city of Kish to find (he hopes) an apprentice who can learn the epic poem of his race so it can be passed down to the next generation. If he does not succeed, all of the history and culture of these few hundred people will be lost.

The Forbidden Garden: Lucky 13

The Forbidden Garden by John Taine

Once again, it has been impressed upon me how very unfair the modern-day world of publishing has been to the Scottish-born author John Taine. Taine, whose career as a novelist extended from 1924 – ’54 – while at the same time that he plied his “day job” as a mathematician and professor under his given name, Eric Temple Bell – produced 14 works of fiction during that time, the bulk of which have been OOPs (out of prints) for many years.

The Cunning Man: Interesting setting, heart-warming relationship

The Cunning Man by D.J. Butler & Aaron Michael Ritchey

Hiram Woolley, 44 years old, is a slightly melancholy widower who farms beets in Utah during the Great Depression. He and his adopted son, Michael, spend their free time taking food and supplies to people who are suffering more than they are. This includes the citizens, mostly immigrants, of a mining town where the mine has been closed due to a squabble between the members of the Kimball family who own it. The miners aren’t getting paid and they’re starving. They can’t get out of the situation because they rent their homes from the mining company.

Rogue Protocol: Can humans and bots be friends?

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Martha Wells’ endearingly grumpy cyborg Security Unit Murderbot returns with a vengeance in Rogue Protocol (2018), the third novella in the MURDERBOT DIARIES series. In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot heads off to Milu, a deserted terraforming facility in space, to investigate the past of a murky group called GrayCris, which we originally met in the first book in this series, the Nebula award-winning All Systems Red.

Sunday Status Update: April 4, 2021

Jana: This week I read through the boxed set (novellas #1-4) of Martha Wells’ MURDERBOT DIARIES, which I loved, and have been contributing enthusiastic reactions to Tadiana and Kat’s reviews. I’m also midway through Sarah Beth Durst’s The Bone Maker, and am enjoying it tremendously so far. Durst has a really good handle on her middle-aged former heroes who are forced to revisit their greatest victory/failure and the trauma still affecting their lives, and I’m excited to see how it all plays out.

April 4th, 2021. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | no comments |

B.P.R.D. (Vol. 14): King of Fear: The End of a Hellboy Universe Trilogy

B.P.R.D. (Vol. 14): King of Fear by Mike Mignola (writer), John Arcudi (writer), Guy Davis (art), Dave Stewart (colors), and Clem Robins (letters)

B.P.R.D. (Vol. 14): King of Fear continues the story started in volumes 10: The Warning and 11: The Black Goddess, and since it is deep into the history of the Hellboy universe, this is not the place to start reading Hellboy or B.P.R.D. Instead, start with Hellboy volume one. These volumes do not read well out-of-order.

Einstein’s Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe

Einstein’s Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe by Paul Sen

At some point in your schooling you learned the Laws of Thermodynamics. And then, at some point shortly thereafter (or at least, shortly after the test on them), you promptly forgot them. And even if you later in life you kept up with reading about science, well, there was always something sexier to read about: black holes, new particles, rovers zipping around on Mars. But in Einstein’s Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe (2021),

April 2nd, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Hoka! Hoka! Hoka!: Cute aliens provide much entertainment

Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! by Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson

Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! (1998), by Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson, has been on my TBR list for years and, thanks to Tantor Media, which just released the first audio edition, it has finally landed in my audiobook player. As I anticipated, this collection of stories about the cute fuzzy aliens known as the Hoka, were really entertaining.

The Hoka are creatures that look like large teddy bears and they’re known throughout the universe as being “the most imaginative race of beings in known space.” They have a fascination with human culture and they love to mimic it,

Artificial Condition: Murderbot’s search for answers

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

The illicit adventures of Murderbot continue in Artificial Condition (2018), the terrific sequel to Martha Wells’ 2017 Nebula award-winning novella, All Systems Red. Murderbot, a deeply introverted cyborg security unit, or SecUnit, who previously hacked the governor software that forced obedience to human commands, has illegally gone off the grid, eschewing the safety of a mostly-free life with a sympathetic owner in order to travel on its own. Disguising itself as an augmented human,

Thoughtful Thursday: What’s the best book you read last month?

It’s the first Thursday of the month. Time to report!

What is the best book you read in March 2021 and why did you love it? It doesn’t have to be a newly published book, or even SFF, or even fiction. We just want to share some great reading material.

Feel free to post a full review of the book here, or a link to the review on your blog, or just write a few sentences about why you thought it was awesome.

And don’t forget that we always have plenty more reading recommendations on our Fanlit Faves page and our 5-Star SFF page.

April 1st, 2021. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 18 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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