Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: November 2021

Comfort Me With Apples: All happy families are (not) alike

Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente

Sophia’s life is perfect. She adores her husband, her company is much sought-after in the luxurious gated community she and her various neighbors share, she has endless tasks and joys to fill the long days while she waits for her husband to return from his various freelancing jobs. So why does everyone keep asking if she’s happy? Why has her husband forbidden her from breaching their home’s basement? Everything is perfect … right?

It would be easy to call Comfort Me With Apples (2021) a retelling of the “Bluebeard” folktale,

Thoughtful Thursday: Eighth Annual Speculative Fiction Haiku Contest

Time for our eighth annual SPECULATIVE FICTION HAIKU CONTEST! Anyone can do this!

As a reminder, here are the rules:

For haiku, the typical subject matter is nature, but if you decide to be traditional, you must give it a fantasy, science fiction, or horror twist. We expect to be told that the peaceful wind you describe is blowing across a landscape of an unfamiliar, distant planet. And if your poem is about a flower, we hope that elegant little touch of beauty is about to be trampled by an Orc. We welcome the sublime as well as the humorous,

November 18th, 2021. Brad Hawley | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 7 comments |

The Bone Shard Emperor: A step backwards

The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart

Andrea Stewart’s debut novel, The Bone Shard Daughter, was an engaging beginning to a new fantasy trilogy, showing some originality in setting and magic system, introducing a few interesting characters, and incorporating several complex moral questions. While it also had its fair share of weaknesses (half the characters were far less interesting, a major implausible narrative contrivance, and some predictable plotting), they were outweighed by the novel’s strengths enough to make it a solid recommendation.

November 18th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | Andrea Stewart | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: November 17, 2021

From two months ago, the British Fantasy Award winners (better late than never). Some of our favorites, like Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Alix E. Harrow, are on here!

How about an anthology of Christmas stories edited by SFWA Grandmaster Connie Willis?

Comeuppance Served Cold got a starred review (or, as my husband called it, “a one-star review”) from Publishers Weekly!

Giveaway: One commenter chosen at random will win a mass market paperback of Cassie Alexander’s Nightshifted.

November 17th, 2021. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 6 comments |

The Language of Power: An unfinished series, a frustrating cliffhanger

The Language of Power by Rosemary Kirstein

2014’s The Language of Power is the fourth and final complete book in Rosemary Kirstein’s THE STEERSWOMAN series. Kirstein is hardly the worst offender in the ranks of writers who stopped writing before a series was finished. Still, the sense of urgency that develops in the final few pages of the book left me hanging, almost literally. Since this is the fourth book in the series, this review might contain spoilers for the previous books.

November 17th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Rosemary Kirstein | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

A Tale of Two Castles: Charming but not completely satisfying

A Tale of Two Castles by Gail Carson Levine

12-year-old Elodie is leaving her rural home and traveling to the city of Two Castles where her family expects her to be apprenticed to a weaver for ten years. But there are two things Elodie’s family doesn’t know. One is that Elodie has no intention of being apprenticed to a weaver. Instead, she wants to be a mansioner, which is basically an actor. (Her parents wouldn’t approve of this career.) The second thing that Elodie and her parents don’t know is that there are no more ten-year apprenticeships offered in the city of Two Castles.

Along the Saltwise Sea: Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for a week

Along the Saltwise Sea by A. Deborah Baker

In the 2020 portal fantasy Over the Woodward Wall, by A. Deborah Baker (a pseudonym for the prolific Seanan McGuire), two children, Avery and Zib, climbed a granite wall that had inexplicably appeared in the road and were transported to a magical world, the Up-and-Under. It’s much like the land of Oz but with far sharper teeth, and Avery and Zib are anxious to find their way home to our world.

Sunday Status Update: November 14, 2021

Jana: This week I’m reading You Feel it Just Below the Ribs, a novel set within the world of Within the Wires, a podcast co-created by Jeffrey Cranor (of Welcome to Night Vale fame) and Janina Matthewson. The novel and podcast are set in an alternate timeline in which the entire world’s economy and societal structure have been re-organized in the wake of a horrible global cataclysm; the podcast is told through “found audio” sources throughout different decades, and the novel is presented as a found journal with heavy annotations from its fictional editor/publication house.

November 14th, 2021. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 3 comments |

12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next

12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson

In 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next (2021), Jeanette Winterson offers up a dozen essays on Artificial Intelligence divided into four sections: “How we got here” (a dip into the history of computing), “What’s Your Superpower” (a philosophical/religious change in vision of matter), “Sex and Other Stories” (AI’s potential impact on love and sex), and “The Future” (what will change and what might not with the advent of AI).

The Bone Shard Daughter: A fast-paced, enticing adventure

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

The Bone Shard Daughter (2020) by Andrea Stewart is a fast-paced, enticing read, with an attractive world and a magical system that grabs the imagination with both hands and doesn’t let it go.

Stewart’s debut is the first book of a series, THE DROWNING EMPIRE. In an archipelago empire, the imperial Sukai dynasty defeated the powerful Alanga, who ruled it. The current emperor, Shiyen, uses bone shard magic to protect his citizens from the possible return of the Alanga.

November 12th, 2021. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Andrea Stewart | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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