Sir Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch, the first “Watch” book in his DISCWORLD series, is now being published as a Penguin Modern Classic.
Roseanna shares her struggles with the critical work Colourfields; Writing About Writing About Science Fiction, over at Nerds of a Feather.
Conquest of Space was meant to be the most realistic “outer space” film ever made. Did the 70+ year old classic fall short? (Thanks to File770.)
From last month,
April 30th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
One Message Remains by Premee Mohamed
Yes, we are cruel. Yes, the world does not use that word as a compliment as we do.
Premee Mohamed is one of my favorite writers in the field. With 2025’s themed story collection One Message Remains she reminds me once again of why I like her work so much.
These four stories all take place either within the decadent, aggressive nation of Treotan, or in one of the nations it has invaded. Treotan, dying from within, still relies on its military and continues its invasions.
April 28th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Premee Mohamed | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Karen Russell’s newest, The Antidote (2025), is at times a great book, is at times a befuddling book, and is, in a few instances, a flawed book. The strengths of the book are many: wonderful character creation; the exploration of gravely important themes such as historical erasure, the treatment of Indigenous people, the shaming of women; a healthy dose of magical realism via a magical camera, a sentient scarecrow, and memory-vault “witches”; and wonderfully rich, vivid description. The issues crop up with regard to character presentation,
April 25th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Karen Russell | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
2023’s Red Rabbit, by Alex Grecian, is a solid entry in a category of speculative fiction I call fantastical Americana. Set in the American Midwest a few years after the Civil War, the book starts when some men in a town in Burden County, Kansas, put a bounty on the head of the local witch. This brings all kinds of killers into the county. Meanwhile, farther south, two former union soldiers partner up with Old Tom, self-proclaimed witch-master, and the mute child,
April 24th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Alex Grecian | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day. The ABA has provided a map and a guide to bookstores with events, by state. A bookstore crawl might be fun to organize.
From 2023, Bookbub provides a list of books with magic houses. A few recent releases aren’t included, and at least one of these, The Little Stranger, is not a magic house but a haunted one. (I won’t die on that hill, but I’m at least willing to take some damage on it.) The list is still worth checking out.
April 23rd, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
The Book That Held Her Heart by Mark Lawrence
Mark Lawrence’s first title in his LIBRARY TRILOGY, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn, made my Top Ten Books list the year it came out (2023), and while its sequel, The Book That Broke the World, wasn’t as strong, I still quite enjoyed it. Now Lawrence is out with The Book That Held Her Heart,
April 22nd, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Mark Lawrence | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Savage Epics: The Seminal Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Edgar Rice Burroughs
I haven’t had this much pure fun reading a book since I was thirteen, which was the same age that I started reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ TARZAN series.
Those TARZAN books that were a turning point for me. I collected, read, and still have the Ballantine series with the Neal Adams and Boris covers. TARZAN led me to the Ace CONAN series that was edited by DeCamp and Carter.
April 16th, 2025. Greg Hersom´s rating: 5 | Edgar Rice Burroughs | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (aka Shadowfire) by Tanith Lee
In Tanith Lee’s first novel written for adults, The Birthgrave (1975), Book #1 in her BIRTHGRAVE TRILOGY, the reader had been introduced to a very unusual young woman. Petite, albino, in command of a range of superhuman abilities, and with no memory of her past or even her own name, she had awoken in the heart of a dormant volcano and ventured forth on an epic journey of self-discovery.
April 14th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Tanith Lee | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The National Space Society is awarding its inaugural Arthur C. Clarke Memorial Award to Joe Haldeman.
The link takes you to the list of books pulled by the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy in response to the administration’s policies. Titles include: What Are We Fighting For? By Joanna Russ(nonfiction); Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki (fiction); A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers (fiction); The Last White Man, Mohsin Hamid (fiction); Sorrowland, by Rivers Solomona (fiction),
April 9th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Spirit’s End (2012) is the final book in Rachel Aaron‘s THE LEGEND OF ELI MONPRESS. You’ll want to read the first three books, The Spirit Thief, The Spirit Rebellion, The Spirit Eater, and The Spirit War before picking up this one. This review will have some spoilers for the previous installments.
April 8th, 2025. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Rachel Aaron | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one
These weird westerns are always interesting and have been popping up more in recent times (it seemed like there was…
Looking forward to reading the review.