Month: July 2022

Sunday Status Update: July 17, 2022

Kat: Only three books read in the last two weeks. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the only slightly related John Scalzi’s The Android’s Dream, were both very entertaining. The best book, and actually a 5-star book for me, was Jonathan Carroll’s The Land of Laughs. I loved it!

Bill:

Since my last status report I’ve read:

The Deep and Shining Dark By Julie Kemp
The Extractionist by Kimberly Unger
Stan Lee by Bob Batchelor
The Rise and Reign of the Mammals by Steve Brusatte
Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test: How Behavior Evolves by Marlene Zuk
Whalefall,

July 17th, 2022. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 8 comments |

WWWednesday: July 13, 2022

President Biden introduced the first image from the James Webb Space telescope, the deepest we’ve seen into the universe.

The Imadjinn Award winners were announced last weekend. (Thanks to File 770.)

The Last Dangerous Visions anthology has a release date of September 2024.

Alex Horman, one judge of this year’s Self Published Science Fiction Competition (it’s the first year of SPSFC) shares his thoughts on what worked and what didn’t. The SPSFC was inspired by an existing competition,

July 13th, 2022. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 7 comments |

Flash Fire: The best of its sub-sub-genre

Flash Fire by T.J. Klune

2021’s Flash Fire is the second book in T.J. Klune’s YA Series The Extraordinaries. This is the best YA superhero origin story / Spiderman-movie parody / coming of age / neurodivergent / queer rom-com I’ve read this year. With most of the background put in place by its predecessor, The Extraordinaries, Flash Fire is tighter, filled with action sequences, super-villains, and a deadly ordeal known as Prom.

July 13th, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | TJ Klune | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Fall of Babel: A satisfying and emotional ending

The Fall of Babel by Josiah Bancroft

Thomas Senlin’s bizarre, chaotic, and perilous adventure in the Tower of Babel finally ends in the fourth book of Josiah Bancroft’s BOOKS OF BABEL series: The Fall of Babel. If you haven’t read the first three books, Senlin Ascends, Arm of the Sphinx, and The Hod King, stop now and get those under your belt before reading this review.

The Wonder: Too cool for school

The Wonder by J.D. Beresford

As I believe I’ve mentioned elsewhere, one of the pet themes of both Radium Age and Golden Age sci-fi was that of the ubermensch (superman) or the wunderkind (child prodigy), as the case may be; individuals who, as a result of a mutation or genetic engineering, and whether deliberately or accidentally created, came to possess mental and/or physical abilities that separate them from the ruck of humanity. I have already written here of such ubermensch novels as Seeds of Life (1931) by John Taine,

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth (vol. 12): Metamorphosis: Two stories featuring B.P.R.D. member Johann Krauss

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth (vol. 12): Metamorphosis by Mike Mignola (writer), John Arcudi (writer), Peter Snejbjerg (art), Julian Totino Tedesco (art), Dave Stewart (colors), Clem Robins (letters).

This volume consists of two stories. In the first, “Nowhere, Nothing, Never,” Johann has a crisis of sorts, and his team at the B.P.R.D. is turning on him, finding him responsible for mistakes that they feel should not have been made. He talks with Liz to figure out how she lives with the fact that she has killed a lot of people,

The Extraordinaries: Superheroes and extraordinary friendships

The Extraordinaries by TJ Klume

TJ Klune’s 2020 novel The Extraordinaries is only the second-best YA/superhero/coming of age/Spiderman movie parody/neurodivergent/ queer rom-com I’ve read this year. I’ll explain at the end of the review why it only came in second.

Nicholas Bell is sixteen, gay and out to his father, friends and school. Nick lives with ADHD. His mother was killed a few years ago, and he and his cop dad share a loving but uneasy relationship. Nick’s life is further complicated by his crush on one of the two of Nova City’s superpowered,

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 June 2022 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.

July 7th, 2022. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 15 comments |

WWWednesday: July 6, 2022

It’s officially been summer for two weeks now. What do you want to read for summer? Molly Templeton shares her thoughts on summer reading for grown-ups at Tor.com.

In this Ask the Smithsonian column, a reader asks about a science fiction writer the magazine admires, and they recommend Octavia Butler. (You can also learn why only men’s bikes have the crossbars.)

I don’t think I’ve done a book design link in a while. This Book Riot article has taught me to look underneath the book jacket,

July 6th, 2022. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |

Night Shift Dragons: An entertaining finale

Night Shift Dragons by Rachel Aaron

Rachel Aaron’s DFZ (DETROIT FREE ZONE) series comes to a conclusion with the third novel, published in 2020, Night Shift Dragons. For this review, I’ll assume you’ve already read its predecessors, Minimum Wage Magic and Part-Time Gods. (There will be spoilers for those books in this review.)

The story begins right where Part-Time Gods left off.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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