Recent Posts

The Antidote: Sometimes great, sometimes befuddling

The Antidote by Karen Russell

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,

Red Rabbit: Perfect blend of western adventure and wild magic

Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian

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 | 2 comments |

WWWednesday: April 23, 2025

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: Concludes a trilogy that’s easy to recommend

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

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: What’s become of the baby?

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 |

WWWednesday: April 9, 2025

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: A satisfying end to Eli’s tale

Spirit’s End by Rachel Aaron

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.

The Birthgrave: Tanith Lee’s first novel

Reposting to include Sandy’s new review.

The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee

Let me be clear: The Birthgrave has kind of a dumb plot. It’s repetitive, it’s all predicated on a prosaic twist that’s kept overly mysterious, and when the big reveal finally does come, it’s via one of the most blatant examples of deus ex machina I’ve ever seen. All the same, I’d still call this a good book. Maybe even a great one. That’s the magic of Tanith Lee: even her first novel,

April 4th, 2025. Tim Scheidler and Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4, 5 | Tanith Lee | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |

WWednesday: April 2, 2025

The Story Hour has migrated from Facebook, which is owned by Meta, to YouTube. The live-story-reading site is hosted by writers Laura Blackwell and Daniel Marcus. You can read their statement about what led to this decision here.

Here is a review category I don’t see every day: Bulgarian fiction. I want to read the first one!

More in the saga of scraping and data-mining; Society of Authors published an article about the findings of their survey about proposed changes in copyright that privilege tech companies over the authors and creators.

April 2nd, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |

The Devil in Silver: Monsters in the maze of a poisonous mental health system

The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle had The Devil in Silver published in 2012. The book is set earlier than that; around 2010/2011. Starting with a Greek myth of Theseus in the labyrinth, LaValle layers horror after horror, and maze after maze, onto this scary, dread-inducing story that looks hard at the nature of powerlessness and the systems designed to keep people that way.

Pepper is a big man—that’s how he’s described in the early sentences of the book. He lives in Queens.

Life Drawing: Expanding the Love and Rockets cast of characters

Life Drawing by Jaime Hernandez

“I guess that’s what spending summer with a crazy aunt is like,” Tonta reports after hanging out with Maggie, the long-time star of Jaime Hernandez’s Love and Rockets which has now been running for over forty years. And while Maggie, and Hopey, too, appear in Life Drawing, the focus is on this newer character in the series — Tonta. Tonta is a wonderful character who seems to be the center of attention of a dynamic cast of characters,

March 29th, 2025. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Spirit War: Continues the series in fine fashion

The Spirit War by Rachel Aaron

The Spirit War (2012) is the fourth and penultimate installment in Rachel Aaron‘s THE LEGEND OF ELI MONPRESS. You’ll want to read the first three books, The Spirit Thief, The Spirit Rebellion, and The Spirit Eater. This review will have some mild spoilers for those earlier books.

In this volume Eli,

World of the Starwolves: Hamilton goes out like a pro

World of the Starwolves by Edmond Hamilton

Although Ohio-born author Edmond Hamilton had given his readers much in the way of action, spectacle, alien races, futuristic science, and cosmic wonder in the first two novels of his so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY – The Weapon From Beyond (1967) and The Closed Worlds (1968) – there was yet one element that he seemed to be holding in abeyance. In Book #1, the reader had met Morgan Chane,

March 27th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Edmond Hamilton | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: March 26, 2025

Echobird Press is accepting submissions for an anthology of hopeful science fiction stories. The window closes May 31, 2025. This is an opportunity for writers, and it’s very important for us to have hope, so I will include this link more than once before the deadline.

One of the fantasy’s genre most innovative and most “American” series is Alex Bledsoe’s TUFA series, and Nerds of a Feather talks about it here.

John Scalzi and Mary Robinette Kowal participated at an event in Columbus, Ohio; she for her newest LADY ASTRONAUT book,

March 26th, 2025. Marion Deeds | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Salt-Black Tree: Magical cars are cool

The Salt-Black Tree By Lilith Saintcrow

The Salt-Black Tree came out in 2023, three months after Book One of THE DEAD GOD’S HEART duology. Three things are obvious. One: This was written as one longer book. Two: it would have worked better if it had been published that way. Three: Magical cars are cool.

Book Two opens with a repeat of the final chapter of Spring’s Arcana. After finding another part of her arcana as the emerging goddess of spring,

March 25th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Lilith Saintcrow | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Valdemar: Has some great moments

Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey

Valdemar (2023) is the third and final book in Mercedes Lackey’s FOUNDING OF VALDEMAR trilogy. This series is a great place to start if you’re new to Valdemar, but you’ll definitely want to read Beyond and Into the West first. Only mild spoilers for those books ahead.

It’s been ten years since Duke Kordas Valdemar led his people away from the Empire, and they’re still working to establish their new home.

Spring’s Arcana: Slavic gods on a road trip

Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow

2023’s Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow has atmospheric language and lovely descriptions. This is Book One of a duology, THE DEAD GOD’S HEART. The book is a road trip, taking us through exquisitely described scenes of fantasy, magic and mundanity. The language is gorgeous, but the story feels derivative, and the protagonist faces very little direct danger. The book ends abruptly midway through the main character’s quest, with the words “To be Continued.” Read it for the beautiful language,

March 20th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Lilith Saintcrow | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: March 19, 2025

Here is a nice website with statistics and facts you might find useful.

Judith Tarr considers a “river monster” from West Africa.

After the Army removed articles about the 442nd Regiment, World War II’s most decorated regiment, they reacted to public outcry and restored the articles. The 442nd was comprised mostly of Japanese American soldiers, many of whom had family members left behind in camps.

I read several paragraphs into this article, drawn in by the sprightly tone, before I realized it was a “Five Books…” list.

March 19th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

Murder by Memory: Intriguing setting but didn’t connect

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

Murder by Memory is a cozy mystery novella by Oliva Waite set on a generation spaceship. Unfortunately, despite the intriguing setting, this didn’t connect with me for a number of reasons: the brevity of the novella form seemed to work against the story, neither the mystery nor the solving of it was particularly compelling, and the novel was both a bit overly expository and too twee for me.

The HMS Fairweather has been journey through space for 300 years, carrying thousands of passengers whose minds are stored in the ship’s Library so when their bodies wear out or are damaged,

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Recent Discussion:

Marion Deeds on The Antidote: Sometimes great, sometimes befuddlingApril 26, 2025
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
Bill Capossere on Red Rabbit: Perfect blend of western adventure and wild magicApril 25, 2025
this sounds like a fun one
Paul Connelly on Red Rabbit: Perfect blend of western adventure and wild magicApril 25, 2025
These weird westerns are always interesting and have been popping up more in recent times (it seemed like there was…
Marion Deeds on Vazkor, Son of Vazkor: What’s become of the baby?April 18, 2025
Looking forward to reading the review.
Sandy Ferber on Vazkor, Son of Vazkor: What’s become of the baby?April 18, 2025
Always my pleasure, Marion! I'm almost finished with Book #3 now, and hope to be reporting on it very shortly....