Month: May 2023

WWWednesday: May 17, 2023

SFWA announced the 2023 Nebula winners on Sunday. R.F Kuang took home Best Novel for Babel; C.L. Polk’s Even Though I Knew the End won for Best Novella; Jon Chu won the Best Novelette award for “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You.” “Rabbit Test,” by Samantha Mills, won for Best Short Story.

I think I’ve posted about the origin of the word “blurb” before, but LitHub’s article is so engaging I’m including it here.

You know what I was not remotely interested in?

May 17th, 2023. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn: If you’re a reader, you’re bound to love it

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence

A topical, deeply thoughtful, and wonderfully written love letter to books, to libraries, to the power of storytelling, to fantasy, and to epigrams, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence will be appearing on my best of 2023 list at the end of this year. That’s not to say it’s perfect. After all, I now have to wait for book two in this new series. And, well, I don’t wanna wait. Me want. Me want now.

At nearly 600 pages,

May 16th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Mark Lawrence | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Corpus Earthling: Book vs. film

Corpus Earthling by Louis Charbonneau

As revealed in David J. Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen’s essential reference book The Outer Limits: The Official Companion (1986), that TV series’ producer and co-creator, Joseph Stefano, was laboring with some pretty serious concerns before the airing of Season 1’s ninth episode, “Corpus Earthling.” To quote from the book: “’When “Corpus Earthling” was finished and the music added, I sat there wishing I could say don’t air this,’ said Joseph Stefano. ‘I had never thought it could be that scary,

The Ferryman: Recommended for everyone

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin

Justin Cronin burst onto the big scene with his apocalyptic vampire doorstopper The Passage (first of a trilogy), a fantastically harrowing blockbuster of a novel that still maintained amidst its action/thriller/horror aspects the quietly intimate elements of his earlier literary novels. His newest, The Ferryman, while not quite as strong and despite having a few more noticeable issues, shares some of the same strengths that made The Passage so successful, as I imagine this one will be.

The story takes place on an archipelago isolated from the rest of the world by something known as The Veil,

WWWednesday: May 10, 2023

File 770 asked SFWA to expand on the qualifications for the Infinity Award, and Rebecca Gomez responded. It seems clear to me but there is still plenty of room for discussion apparently.

The MTV Movie Awards were not live this year because of the WGA strike, but several performances “of genre interest” were nominated.

The Hollywood Reporter has an article about the strike and the issue the writers face with the studios. (Thanks to File 770.)

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 introduces a new character,

May 10th, 2023. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |

Darkness Below: A romp through dark academia with tentacles

Darkness Below by Barbara Cottrell

2023’s Darkness Below is the first book in Barbara Cottrell’s new THE SHADOWS OF MISKATONIC series. We’re heading into warmer weather, with the promise of road trips and vacations. Here’s a shivery tentacle-horror story for fans of Lovecraftia, complete with a sprinkle of dark academia on top, that’s perfect for the road or that lounge chair by the pool.

Ellen attends Miskatonic University and lives in the town of Arkham with her guardian, Uncle Joshua (who probably isn’t her uncle.) Ellen is a strong psychic whose past is a mystery.

G.O.G. 666: Taine’s Cold War swan-song novel

G.O.G. 666 by John Taine

When famed Scottish mathematician Eric Temple Bell released his first novel, 1924’s The Purple Sapphire, no one could have foreseen that his literary career would extend 30 more years and encompass 15 books of very high-quality science fiction. Looking back on the eight books by Bell that I have read so far – all of them written under his pen name, John Taine – the thing that strikes me first is how very different each one is from the others.

Sunday Status Update: May 7, 2023

Marion: I’ve been re-reading both Greg van Eekhout and Daryl Gregory; The CALIFORNIA BONES series, and Afterparty, which I think would make a great streaming series. Now I’m finally settling in with Simon Singh’s 1999 book The Code Book, which dumbs down a lot of fascinating mathematical information enough that even I can understand it.

Bill: Amidst a lot of final papers/portfolios, since our last update I’ve read

The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green: a fantastic look at the idea of life beyond Earth
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin: a well-written sort-of-dystopia
Deadly Memory by David Walton: a techno-thriller with great dinosaur characters
The Way Home by Peter Beagle: a lovely duology from one of our best fantasists
Odin by George O’Connor: as with his OLYMPIANS series,

May 7th, 2023. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 3 comments |

The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos

The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos by Jaime Green

In The Possibility of Life, journalist Jaime Green takes us on an expansive and open-minded exploration of whether or not life may have formed elsewhere in the universe and if so, what that life might be like. If this were only that book, it would be well worth reading. But Green makes two choices that elevate her work beyond a good exobiology book easily recommended and into a fantastic medley of science,

May 5th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Thoughtful Thursday: What’s the best book you read last month?

It’s the first Thursday of the month. Time to report!

What’s the best book you read in April 2023 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.

May 4th, 2023. FanLit | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 15 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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