Daryl Gregory’s first novel Pandemonium won the 2009 Crawford Award. His novella We Are All Completely Fine won both the World Fantasy and the Shirley Jackson awards. Gregory writes across genres, with science fiction titles like Afterparty, and fantastical family sagas like Spoonbenders. Earlier in 2021 his novella The Album of Dr. Moreau was released, and his newest release is his Southern gothic horror novel Revelator.
He took some time to answer some questions for us.
August 31st, 2021. Marion Deeds | Daryl Gregory | Author Interviews, Giveaway! | 11 comments |
In the mid-20th century, Griffith lives in the West Indies with his father, a famous scientist who studies marine biology. Griffith, who helps his father with his research, thinks the work is pretty boring. He hopes to go back to America soon to attend the Air Force Academy.
Griff suddenly becomes more interested in his father’s work when something in the sea starts attacking ships near the island he lives on. Some people think it’s a dupee, others think it’s a Russian submarine.
August 31st, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Andre Norton | Audio, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Birth of a New Republic by Jack Williamson & Miles J. Breuer
In his 1966 novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, author Robert A. Heinlein gave his readers a tale of a penal colony on the Moon that rebels and declares its independence from Earth. The book went on to win the coveted Hugo Award and probably didn’t hurt Heinlein’s chances of being named sci-fi’s very first Grand Master, in 1974. But, as it turns out, this was not the first time that a writer had presented his fans with such a literally revolutionary scenario.
August 30th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Jack Williamson | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Kat: I’m still listening to John Bellairs’ LEWIS BARNAVELT books with my daughter. Bellairs died in 1991 and the series has continued under author Brad Strickland. You’d never know there was a change in authorship. This week we read The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder, The Beast Under the Wizard’s Bridge, and The Tower at the End of the World.
Bill: This week I read The Desert Prince,
August 29th, 2021. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 1 comment |
The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs
Lewis Barnavelt is a chubby middle schooler whose parents recently died in a car accident. He has just arrived in a new town at the house (mansion, actually) of an uncle he hardly knows. Uncle Jonathan is eccentric, as is his neighbor and best friend, Mrs. Zimmerman, a middle-aged widow who loves the color purple.
As Lewis begins to adjust to a new living situation, new school, and new neighborhood kids, he gradually becomes aware that there’s something weird about Uncle Jonathan and his house.
August 27th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Brad Strickland, John Bellairs | Audio, Children | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun (2020) introduces a new series set in an ancient Mesoamerica that is a mix of partly-familiar cultures and original fantasy elements, creating a heady brew that rolls along smoothly even as it moves back and forth in time and amongst a quartet of POVs.
Those POVs belong to:
August 27th, 2021. Bill Capossere and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Rebecca Roanhorse | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Stella Birch sees her family’s god when she is nine years old, in 1933. Her father has dropped her off in a sheltered valley, the cove, in the Smoky Mountains. He says he’s leaving her with Motty, her grandmother, while he looks for work, but he’s never coming back.
Daryl Gregory’s 2021 southern gothic horror novel Revelator trades in bone-deep horror, stunning beauty, strangeness, and acid-etched banter. Moving between two timelines, Stella’s time with Motty in the cove and her present life as a moonshiner in 1948,
August 26th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Daryl Gregory | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
File 770 shared the announcement of the nomination period for the Sara Douglass Book Series Award. I think the idea of an award strictly for series is great.
A new C.L.Polk book! A novella, due out next fall.
Giveaway: one commenter chosen at random, with a USA or Canadian address, will get a copy of C.M. Waggoner’s The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Winzardry.
At LitHub, Heather Cass White examines the primal sin of literacy in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Stephanie Meyers’s famous TWILIGHT series has new covers—that look like mistaken versions of the old covers.
August 25th, 2021. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 14 comments |
Andre Norton’s Star Born was originally published in 1957. In 2013 it was combined with the related prequel The Stars are Ours and released as Baen’s Star Flight omnibus. Now Tantor Media has published Star Flight in audio format with excellent narration by Ryan Burke. You don’t need to read The Stars are Ours before reading Star Born,
August 25th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Andre Norton | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner
Dellaria Wells is an untrained fire witch, living hand-to-mouth in the slums of Leiscourt, trying to keep track of her drip-addicted mother. Behind on rent and threatened with a curse by her landlady, Delly plans to answer a mysterious advertisement recruiting various women to protect a Lady of Some Importance. When she is interviewed — through the bars of a cell, as it happens — Delly gives a succinct summation of her skills to the interviewer:
“… Why on earth would I be willing to interview a criminal for a position in my employer’s household,
August 24th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | C.M. Waggoner | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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.
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…