Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: November 2024

The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture

The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture by Barret Klein

In The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture (2024), Barret Klein explores the impact of insects on human society, an impact both broad and deep. The text is almost always fascinating and offers up more than enough representative examples of his points, while the numerous included illustrations and photographs add a wonderful enhancement to the text.

After a preface which offers a personal touch, and an introduction that gives us some foundational sense of context and numbers (sixty percent of identified animal species are insects,

November 29th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Cahokia Jazz: Syncretism, symbolism and realpolitik

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

Cahokia Jazz is a detective novel, set in 1922 in the city and state of Cahokia, USA. Police detective Joe Barrow and his partner Phineas Drummond are called up onto the roof of the Cahokia Land Building in the middle of the night, where they find the mutilated corpse of a takata—a European-American–posed like an Aztec sacrifice, its heart removed. In most cities, this would simply be bizarre, but in Cahokia, this makes the murder a flashpoint for unrest in a city and state governed largely by the takouma,

Fourth Wing: Dragons, death, and damn those tight pants!

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Typically I write a summary in my own words about a book I’m reviewing, but I would like to start this review by sharing the publisher’s description because it plays an important role in how I initially perceived Fourth Wing (2023) by Rebecca Yarros:

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history.

Your Shadow Half Remains: To look is the one forbidden thing

Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine

2024’s Your Shadow Half Remains provides a seductive and disturbing journey of psychological horror, as we visit the mind of an isolated young woman in a post-apocalyptic world, where one look into another human’s eyes can kill both of you.

Your Shadow Half Remains is plainly inspired by Josh Malerman’s Bird Box, only in Moriane’s work, the thing you must not look at is a human face.

The Scarlet Boy: Don’t spare me the details!

The Scarlet Boy by Arthur Calder-Marshall

In the mood for an offbeat haunted-house novel to keep you company during this fall season … or during any season; a beautifully written tale of supernatural horror that you have most likely never heard of before? Well, then, I have a doozy of a suggestion for you … namely The Scarlet Boy, by the British author Arthur Calder-Marshall! The book has been unfortunately neglected for over six decades now, and a quick look at its sporadic publishing history will help explain why it might be an unknown quantity for you and the general reading public today,

WWWednesday: November 20, 2024

Do we Do we need a remake of Forbidden Planet?? Doesn’t matter—we’re getting one.

BBC released a trailer of the Doctor Who Christmas special. Reactor doesn’t have it, but they saw it.

This is a plug for a local southeastern anthology. The proceeds go to families in Appalachia who lost businesses and homes during the recent hurricanes. I may or may not have a story in it. I’m not being coy; I sent in a story but I haven’t seen the complete TOC yet.

In the weeks following the election,

November 20th, 2024. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, World Wide Wednesday | 4 comments |

Absolution: Still feels freshly fascinating

Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer

These f—-ing people complaining about this f—-ing book. What the f—-ing f? Sure it’s f—ing weird, sure you don’t get any f—-ing answers, but if you f—-ing read the first three f—-ing books, what the f—- did you expect? Goodnight f—-ing Moon? The Very F—-ing Hungry Caterpillar? If you’re gonna f—-ing buy a Jeff Vanderf—-ingMeer book, then you better expect a f—-ing Vanderf—ker.

Sorry, sorry. Got a little too immersed in the final section of Absolution, and I’ve seemingly picked up the voice of that section’s narrator,

November 19th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Jeff VanderMeer | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |

The Navigator’s Children: If this is the end, it’s a fully satisfactory one

The Navigator’s Children by Tad Williams

A long, long time ago in a world far, far away (otherwise known as 1988), a younger me picked a heavy (like really heavy) book titled The Dragonbone Chair off the shelf in the bookstore. If you had told that younger, thinner, more-haired me that I’d still be reading about those characters almost 40 years later in 2024, I would have laughed at the absurdity. But here I am, just putting down The Navigator’s Children (2024),

November 15th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Tad Williams | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Doctors Wear Scarlet: Hated the movie, loved the book

Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven

The British film Bloodsuckers, from 1970, was easily one of the worst cinematic experiences I’ve sat through in recent memory; a confused and confusing mess of a movie, made even more disappointing for me by dint of the fact that the two lead actors whose participation induced me to watch the film in the first place – namely, Peter Cushing and Patrick Macnee – don’t even appear on screen together once! And yet, I thought, the central premise of the film,

Poison Ivy: Thorns: A mature YA graphic novel

Poison Ivy: Thorns by Kody Keplinger (writer), Sara Kipin (artist), Jeremy Lawson (colorist), and Steve Wands (letterer)

Keplinger’s Poison Ivy: Thorns is a wonderful young adult graphic novel from DC illustrated in a unique style by Sara Kipin. The graphic novel is divided into four sections: Toxic, Roots, Bloom, and Ivy. It takes a look at Poison Ivy when she was Pamela Isley, a struggling high school student, and it gives her a different origin story than some of the usual ones that are presented in other DC storylines,

November 9th, 2024. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Comics, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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Recent Discussion:

David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
Bill Capossere on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
We’re in total agreement David!
David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.