Lindsey Eagar serves up eight fantasy books featuring bread, bread-adjacent foods, and/or baking, on Tor.com.
Giveaway: One commenter chosen at random will win a copy of Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk.
Vulture has an overview of the life of the amazing Octavia Butler, written by E. Alex Jung.
We’re heading into nomination season for the 2023 awards, and Cora Buhlert is introducing podcasts. This column highlights Tales From the Trunk.
November 30th, 2022. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 11 comments |
The Tongueless Horror and Other Stories by Wyatt Blassingame
A little while back, I was very pleased to read my first collection in the genre known as “weird-menace” fiction, which genre mainly dealt, back in the 1930s and early ‘40s, with lurid, violent, supernatural stories that usually turned out to have rather mundane – and often far-fetched – explanations. That collection was Food for the Fungus Lady and Other Stories by Ralston Shields, a 2014 release from the publisher Ramble House. I enjoyed my first weird-menace exposure so well that I determined to seek out some similar fare from Ramble House’s immense catalog,
November 28th, 2022. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Wyatt Blassingame | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
Have a good day tomorrow everybody, if you celebrate the holiday or it you don’t.
Giveaway: One commenter chosen at random will get a copy of Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi.
Greg Bear, Nebula Award winner, passed away on November 20, 2022.
Snoopy is part of Project Artemis. At least, a stuffed Snoopy dog is on the lunar vehicle.
The Onion posted this satirical article about Meta, Mark Zuckerberg and his avatar. Oh, come on, they just wrote what we were all thinking.
November 23rd, 2022. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 18 comments |
Marion: I read The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach. I enjoyed it while I was reading it; I don’t know what I think of it yet though. I finally started a 2019 Hugo winner, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, and I’m so glad I finally did! This is everything I love in a book so far! And, apart from genre, Empty Shells, The Story of Petaluma, America’s Chicken City is helping me learn more than I ever thought possible about incubators,
November 20th, 2022. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 1 comment |
Joe Golem: Occult Detective (volume 1) by Mike Mignola (writer), Christopher Golden (writer), Patric Reynolds (artist), Clem Robins (letterer), and Dave Stewart (colorist)
In the first volume of Joe Golem: Occult Detective, we get two stories: a three-part tale called “The Rat Catcher” and a two-part one called “The Sunken Dead.” Taking place in an alternative 1965, these comics are situated in the “Drowned City,” a post-flood New York city, in which canals and make-shift bridges out of boards crisscross the city’s landscape.
November 19th, 2022. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin
Book Two in N.K. Jemisin’s GREAT CITIES duology, 2022’s The World We Make is full of action, suspense, humor and good fun. That doesn’t mean the stakes aren’t serious (the continued existence of our reality), but as she did in The City We Became, Jemisin lets herself have fun with a self-aware New York and its human avatars. In spite of the seriousness of the plot, this book is lighter in tone than the first one.
November 18th, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | N.K. Jemisin | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Does anybody have a turkey stuffing recipe that doesn’t call for onions? Seriously. If you do, and you’re willing to share, please put the link in the comments. Thank you!
Z-Library has been seized by the Feds for pirating and copyright infringement.
While overall the election results seem to lean toward support of democracy, in a few places, libraries were defunded. If you think education, reading, and books are important, this might concern you.
It looks like in-person or at least hybrid book festivals returned this fall.
November 16th, 2022. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |
Stonefish by Scott R. Jones
2020’s horror novel Stonefish by Scott R. Jones is not your basic horror novel. I tend to forget that, like every other genre, horror has an array of subgenres, styles, and tropes. Even so, it’s hard for me to “sum up” what kind of horror story Stonefish is. I’m settling for futuristic-dystopian-gnostic-phantasmagorical weird horror, with Sasquatch.
Climate change and leaps in high technology have created the everyday world of Den Secord, who writes things for his generation’s version of the internet.
November 14th, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Scott R. Jones | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Marion: In spite of internet issues and vehicle issues, I found time to read this week. I finished N.K. Jemisin’s second book in the GREAT CITIES duology, The World We Make. It’s vivid, action-packed and full of fun. I bought C.LPolk’s novella Even Though I Knew the End the day it came out. I love her depiction of 1940’s Chicago, especially the lesbian bar Helen the protagonist and her girlfriend Edith met at. The plot was familiar but the book is fast-paced and lovingly captures a detective-noir voice.
November 13th, 2022. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 3 comments |
Knock Three Times by Cressida Cowell
The third book in Cressida Cowell‘s THE WIZARDS OF ONCE sees our young protagonists on an adventure to collect the rare ingredients needed to banish the terrible Witches that have recently awoken all across Ancient Britain.
As difficult as it may be to find the scales of a Nuckalavee, it’s even stranger to consider the team they’ve assembled to retrieve them. Xar is the youngest son of the Head Wizard Encanzo, while Wish is the daughter of the cold Queen Sychorax,
November 11th, 2022. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3.5 | Cressida Cowell | Children | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
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.... 🤔