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Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: A graphic novel adaptation by Manu Larcenet (An Oxford College Student Review!)

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: A graphic novel adaptation by Manu Larcenet

In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe sequential art and visual literacy are essential parts of education at any level (see my Manifesto!). I post the best of my students’ reviews in this column. Today,

June 21st, 2025. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Late Star Trek: The Final Frontier in the Franchise Era

Late Star Trek: The Final Frontier in the Franchise Era by Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko’s, Late Star Trek: The Final Frontier in the Franchise Era — no surprise given the title — explores the “strange new worlds” of the Trek universe from Enterprise onward, managing to get about as fully up to date as one can with publication schedules, missing only the very recent Section 31 film (apparently to Kotsko’s great benefit). Aimed at the layperson despite its close readings of the shows and cultural criticism,

June 20th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Film / TV, Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Living Death and Drome: A John Martin Leahy “Double Feature”

The Living Death and Drome by John Martin Leahy

The double-decker volume entitled The Living Death and Drome, from the Seattle-based imprint Sarnath Press, gathers together two novels from the weird-fiction author John Martin Leahy; the second of two volumes that Sarnath has recently issued focusing on this relatively unknown pulp writer. The entirety of Leahy’s fictive career was limited to just three novels and four short stories; that initial collection, Draconda and Others,

June 19th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | John Martin Leahy | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: June 18, 2025

This Friday is 2025’s summer solstice. The Farmer’s Almanac provides some information on the event.

Last Saturday, people all over the USA participating in a protest event called No Kings. The Facebook page called Alt National Park Services tracked attendance and reports a final number of 13.1 million people.

The Guardian provides a Best Of round-up of new speculative novels. Esperance has caught my attention—although the horror of sleepless zombies is intriguing too.

I tried to say “femfanzines”

June 18th, 2025. Marion Deeds | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Crimson Road: A treat of a magical vampire-hunter-quest book

The Crimson Road by A.G. Slatter

The first A.G. Slatter book I’ve read, 2025’s The Crimson Road was a treat. Violet Zennor is a smart, witty, bitter young protagonist with an unusual upbringing, who reluctantly embarks on a quest she has no desire to undertake. The story is a vampire-themed fairy tale, filled with magic and danger. I wanted to know how Violet would fare against the dreaded vampire Leech Lords, who rule in the north. Violet has been trained to fight and kill, but she’ll need more than the arts of war to prevail against the being who has risen as their new leader.

Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World Through the Women Written Out of It

Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World Through the Women Written Out of It by Emily Hauser

Emily Hauser is the author of THE GOLDEN APPLES TRILOGY, a retelling of several Greek myths. But in Penelope’s Bones, she puts her Classics/Ancient History scholarship to work in the service of non-fiction, using her own knowledge and a veritable mountain of cross-discipline evidence to re-examine the role of women in Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey,

June 13th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

First Truth: A mild YA fantasy with a lot of walking

First Truth by Dawn Cook

First Truth (2002) is the first book in the TRUTH series, a young adult fantasy by Dawn Cook, who’s better known under her pen name Kim Harrison, author of a lot of urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels.

The story follows Alissa, whose mother throws her out when she begins showing signs of magic — something her (possibly dead) father always denied existed. Her mother tells Alissa to seek the Hold, a mysterious place where she might find answers.

WWWednesday: June11, 2025

The Tony Awards included some speculative plays this year.

Last Thursday was the anniversary of the drive-in movie theater. Here is a nice article about the first drive-in.

Two small-press bankruptcies made the news this week—bad news for writers and readers. Unbound and Albert Whitman and Co have both had financial troubles in the past, and both leave many writers unpaid.

Thanks to File 770 for the link to this long article discussing 100 years of film “stunts.” Some are way more dangerous and convoluted than mere “stunts;”

June 11th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |

Utterly Dark and the Tides of Time: A truly satisfying finish to a wonderful trilogy

Utterly Dark and the Tides of Time by Philip Reeve

Utterly Dark and the Tides of Time (2023) is the third and final book in the UTTERLY DARK trilogy, and the reason I left it this long (I read the preceding books exactly one year ago) is simply because I didn’t want it to end. Once a Philip Reeve story is over, it can’t be read for the first time ever again, so you have to savour them while they last.

And in this case,

The River Has Roots: Lush, beautiful fairy tale retelling

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

I use up all my superlatives whenever I review anything by Amal El-Mohtar, whose prose is always exquisite and imaginative, flowing like syrup. In the case of 2025’s The River Has Roots, the hardcopy version of El-Mohtar’s lovely, original fairy tale is enhanced by woodcut-style illustrations. The story is short, novella-length, and draws on familiar elements, but the themes of the river and music form the story’s main currents, which drew me in immediately.

Esther and Ysabel Hawthorn are sisters,

Draconda and Others: Resurrecting a forgotten Weird Tales talent

Draconda and Others by John Martin Leahy

For modern-day fans of the classic pulp magazine Weird Tales, few websites will be found that exceed the depth and breadth of the one created by Terence E. Hanley; namely, Tellers of Weird Tales. Encyclopedic in scope, the site is a virtual godsend for all lovers of the so-called “Unique Magazine.” In just the Weird Tales Authors section of the website, Hanley gives full biographies of (by my rough count) 460+ authors who contributed to the magazine during its first legendary incarnation (1923 – ’54),

The Afterlife Project: Recommended with a caveat

The Afterlife Project by Tim Weed

The Afterlife Project by Tim Weed is a cli-lit book that follows two distinct storylines, one set in the not-too-distant future wracked by climate disaster and a “hyper-pandemic” and the other set 10,000 years later in a vibrant recovered world, one that may or may not have us humans around anymore. The two-track structure is appropriate, as I had two differing reactions to the book, finding the far-future section (mostly) quite strong while having a less favorable reaction to the near-future setting,

WWWednesday: June 4, 2025

Salem’s Lot is beloved by many Stephen King fans, yet adaptations to film and screen remain largely unsuccessful. Reactor analyzes these offerings in depth.
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This YouTube site is streaming science; 100 hours of 5-minute segments by noted scientists, explaining the importance of their field.

Warning, spoilers: The Doctor Who finale swings for fences, jumps a couple of sharks, and generally invokes every other metaphor-for-outrageous.

Oh, wow! Captain Nemo is back, with the Nautilus! This might even be good.

June 4th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

Luminous: A beautiful debut

Luminous by Silvia Park

Luminous (2025) is the debut novel for Silvia Park, and as such evinces some of the issues that sometimes crop up in first books in areas such as structure and pace. Those issues, however, are more than eclipsed by the book’s shimmering prose, frequently moving moments, and thoughtful exploration of a number of themes, all circling around the question of what it means to be “human.”

Park sets her novel in a unified Korea, roughly twenty years after the war that ended their separation.

Notes from a Regicide: A hell of a book about art and love

Notes From a Regicide by Isaac Fellman

If Notes from a Regicide were just a book about two artists who become involved in a revolution, it would be one hell of a book. If it were just a story about a man who learns to see his parents as people, it would be one hell of a book. If it were just a love story between two artists, dealing with addiction and mental illness, it would be one hell of a book, too. If it were just about a trans gay man navigating his life,

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame: A luscious little book

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang

Neon Yang’s 2025 novella Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame, is a luscious little book, a tasty way to spend an hour or two. Yang’s words shimmer like a silk pennant rippling in the breeze. There is color, there is food, there are scents, and sensations. At the level of sentences and paragraphs, I enjoyed every moment of Yang’s fantasy. The characterizations and plot choices meant this wasn’t a story that stuck with me or made me think.

Thunder City: A new adventure in the world of THE HUNGER CITIES

Thunder City by Philip Reeve

A new MORTAL ENGINES story? What bliss!

The first book set in the dystopian world of Philip Reeve’s mighty Traction Cities since Scrivener’s Moon was published back in 2011, Thunder City (2024) ends up being something of an oddity within the overarching scope of the series. Unlike the three prequels, which delved into the genesis of the Traction Cities, or Night Flights,

WWWednesday: May 28, 2025

This article about the original Charlie’s Angels movie with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu, and the “wrong” bird used in a pivotal scene, is long, but it’s written in an engaging way and I learned more about birds that I ever planned to. I enjoyed it and I hope you do.

After three seasons, Amazon Prime has canceled Wheel of Time.

At least with Reactor, Murderbot continues to please. (Warning, spoilers.)

It’s almost summer, which everyone knows is cannibal novel season.

May 28th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

You Only Live Twice: Domo Origato!

You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming

Written during the winter of 1963, at Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye retreat in Oracabessa, on the north shore of Jamaica, You Only Live Twice was the author’s 12th James Bond novel, not counting the short story collection For Your Eyes Only (1960). Ultimately released in March ’64, just five months before the author’s untimely demise, it was the last Bond novel to be completed. (The posthumous 007 novel The Man With the Golden Gun,

May 27th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

The Ashfire King: A flawed but worthwhile return to Abdullah’s magical world

The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah

The Ashfire King is Chelsea Abdullah’s follow-up to the highly enjoyable The Stardust Thief, picking up pretty immediately after the events of that book, which ended on a pretty sizable cliffhanger. While the new novel doesn’t attain the heights of its predecessor, which I called “one of the most enjoyable and captivating books” I’d read that year, despite some issues it moves the story along, deepens several of the characters,

May 23rd, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Chelsea Abdullah | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

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