The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer by John Bellairs & Brad Strickland
The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer appears to be the final book in the LEWIS BARNAVELT series of horror novels for middle graders. The series was started in 1973 by John Bellairs but most of the novels were actually written by Brad Strickland after Bellairs’ death. There’s nothing in The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer which indicates that it’s the last book but, since it’s been 13 years,
November 11th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2.5 | Brad Strickland, John Bellairs | Audio, Children, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Call of Fire (2017) continues the adventures of Ingrid Carmichael, introduced in Breath of Earth as a secretary at a geomancy school with tremendous hidden powers and who, in this second BLOOD OF EARTH novel, is on the run from an ambitious ambassador with deadly secrets. This time, Beth Cato takes Ingrid, Lee Fong, Cy Jennings, and the brilliant engineer Mr. Fenris up the Pacific Northwest coastline to Portland and Seattle, where the Japanese influence of the United Pacific conglomeration is inescapable.
November 11th, 2021. Jana Nyman and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Beth Cato | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Word Fantasy awards were announced last weekend. Trouble the Saints, by Alaya Dawn Johnson, won for Best Novel. Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi took the award for Best Novella, and Celeste Rita Baker’s “The Glass Bottle Dancer” took home the best short story award.
In his newsletter, Max Gladstone announced that CRAFT Sequence merchandise is now available. Yes, you too can now have a Red King Consolidated T-shirt.
If you’re a Hugo voter this year, John Scalzi reminds you that the deadline is looming.
File 770 writes about a round table which included N.K.
November 10th, 2021. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Foundation created by David S. Goyer & Josh Friedman
What you need to know first about Apple TV’s Foundation is that it is stunningly gorgeous to look at. Seriously. Gorgeous. Do not watch it on your phone. Do not, if you can avoid it, watch it on your laptop. This deserves, no, it cries out for, as large a TV with as good a screen as you can see it on. Honestly, if Apple released it to a theater I’d happily watch it there.
November 10th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Isaac Asimov | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Nightshifted by Cassie Alexander
Edie Spence has a degree in nursing and a job at the County Hospital, in the Y4 ward. County Hospital, the public hospital that treats everyone, insured or not, is a tough gig at any time — Y4 is both tougher and weirder, being the floor that treats daylight servants of vampires, vampires themselves, shapeshifters, and all sorts of were-folk. Oh, and did I mention zombies? The work is hard and dangerous, the pay is abysmal, but by working here, Edie guarantees protection for her junkie brother. As Nightshifted opens,
November 10th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Cassie Alexander | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
With Book of a Thousand Days (2007), Shannon Hale offers a delightful retelling of the Grimm fairy tale Maid Maleen.
Dashti is a mucker, a low-born girl who was born on the steppes. When her mother dies, she goes to the city to take a job as a maid to Lady Saren. Right away she is locked into a tower with her lady because, in defiance of her father’s wishes, Saren has refused to marry Lord Khasar.
November 9th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Shannon Hale | Audio, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis
The Lights of Prague (2021) is Nicole Jarvis’s first novel. It’s set in 1868 Prague, filled with pijavica* — vampires — and other magical creatures. Fighting the pijavica are the lamplighters, whose cover job is to go around lighting the new gas streetlamps in the city. Domek Myska is a lamplighter, apprenticed to an irascible alchemist. Lady Ora Fischerova is a widowed noblewoman with a secret, who has started up a flirtation with Domek. A bold and terrible plan hatched by an upstart nest of vampires threatens them and the entire city.
November 8th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Nicole Jarvis | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
King of the Dinosaurs by Raymond A. Palmer
In two of my recent book reviews here, for David V. Reed’s Empire of Jegga (1943) and for Nelson S. Bond’s That Worlds May Live (also 1943), I mentioned that both novels, in their current Armchair Fiction incarnations, feature copious, vintage footnotes from Raymond A. Palmer, the editor of Amazing Stories, the pulp magazine in which those tales first appeared.
November 8th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Raymond A. Palmer | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
Kat: Still listening to Marissa Meyer’s LUNAR CHRONICLES with my daughter and will finish the second book, Scarlett, today. These are fun. For something completely different, I read The Psychedelic Reader: Selected from the Psychedelic Review which was published in 1965 and edited by Timothy Leary. Some of it was boring, some of it was crazy, and some was quite fascinating.
Bill: This week I read Jeanette Winterson’s collection of essays on AI, 12 Bytes,
November 7th, 2021. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 2 comments |
The Abaddon by Koren Shadmi (writing and art)
The Abaddon by Koren Shadmi is a horror story of existential dread: A man knocks on the door of an apartment, asking if this is the open house for a room to rent. He meets three out of the four housemates right away, as they are all relaxing in the living room. Unfortunately, when asked his name, he can’t quite remember it, and instead says to call him, “Ter.” Thus starts a surreal story in which questions without answers are the norm.
November 6th, 2021. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 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,…