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The Enchanted Stone: “The moral of the story’s for a limited crew…”

The Enchanted Stone by Charles Lewis Hind

In the year 1898, the reading public of Great Britain was kept very well entertained by the various English, Scottish and Irish fantasists of the day. The great H. Rider Haggard, the so-called “Father of the Lost-Race Novel,” would release his medical thriller Doctor Therne that year. Arthur Conan Doyle, having temporarily killed off his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, came out with an historical novel set in Egypt, The Tragedy of the Korosko.

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses: They can’t all be hits

Reposting to include Marion’s new review.

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older

Sometimes you just have to give in to the fact that a particular book, series, or author just isn’t for you. Sadly, I think I’ve reached that point after reading The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, the third book in Malka Older’s THE INVESTIGATIONS OF MOSSA AND PLEITI.

Though I’ve never really fallen hard for any of the first three works,

July 14th, 2025. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Malka Older | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Witch Roads: One of my favorite reads this year

The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott

The Witch Roads (2025), by Kate Elliott, is the first book in a fantasy duology, and it’s hard for me to imagine anyone not picking up book two; The Witch Roads is that much fun. Filled with strong characters, set in an intriguing world, and rife with vivid detail, it’s one of my most enjoyable reads over the past few months.

In this world, two past events play a major role. One is a bit mysterious due to how long ago it occurred,

July 11th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Kate Elliott | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Great Stone of Sardis: The pole at the pole

The Great Stone of Sardis by Frank R. Stockton

Throughout the 19th century, numerous expeditions made the valiant attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole, and records were set as one team after another vied for the title of “Farthest North.” The ball got rolling in 1827, when the team of the English explorer Sir William Edward Parry reached the northern latitude of 82 degrees. By 1898, expeditions from the U.K., U.S., Norway and Italy had nudged their way ever higher, and the record stood at 86 degrees north latitude,

July 10th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frank R. Stockton | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: July 9, 2025

USA Today provides links to charities helping the Texas flood victims, if you want to donate.

This YouTube video shows Ryan Coogler talking about that amazing dance sequence in Sinners, and shows some of the visuals.

File770 posted the WesterCon 2027 site election results. If I read this right, it also looks as if that will be the final “WesterCon.”

SpongeBob SquarePants and his friends are now on first-class postage stamps.

In the 1980s, Buckaroo Banzai (as we called it) was one of my favorite films.

July 9th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

Persephone Station: Action, suspense, and tears in this adventure

Persephone Station by Stina Licht

Stina Leicht’s SF novel, Persephone Station (2021), is filled with action, suspense, and great descriptions. From a hold-your-breath opening to the tear-jerking ending, the book leads us through capers-gone-wrong, double-crosses, asymmetrical warfare, decades-old rivalries and witty banter.

Persephone is described as a “hell-planet.” Behind the artificial barrier around the one human city, everything in the environment wants to kill you; the atmosphere, the flora, and the fauna. Within the human city you can make a living if you’re flexible about obeying the law,

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately uneven

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

I was a huge fan of V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (and much of her other work as well) and so was excited to see her new book, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, was seemingly a bit similar. Unfortunately, while the writing on a sentence level remains strong, and there’s a lot of strong elements, I ended up somewhat disappointed with the tale.

July 3rd, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Victoria (V.E.) Schwab | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

WWWednesday: July 2, 2025

Last Sunday, AMC+ premiered its new action-fantasy show Nautilus. Purchased from Disney, the story is inspired by Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, as you could no doubt tell by the title. Roger Ebert.com liked it very much. Vulture liked it too, but they take a more analytical approach.

Nerds of a Feather reviews John Wiswell’s Heracles retelling, Wearing the Lion.

They also reviewed the fourth season of HBO’s True Detective, Night Country.

July 2nd, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

Hidden Truth: Familiar strengths and flaws

Hidden Truth by Dawn Cook

Hidden Truth (2002) is the second book in Dawn Cook’s TRUTH series. It picks up a few weeks after the events of First Truth (which you definitely need to read first) and mostly continues the same formula: a small cast, a secluded mountain setting, some very fuzzy magic, and — because it’s a YA story — the requisite love triangle.

I was hoping we’d finally get some new scenery in this novel, but nope — we’re still stuck in Bailic’s mountain hold.

Shield of Sparrows: My favorite romantasy so far

Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry

Shield of Sparrows came out this year, 2025, and is already in development as a feature film, so I guess Devney Perry, who sold about a million romance novels before this one, knows what she is doing. I’m exaggerating. It isn’t a million books, only fifty. This book is a romantasy—a romance novel set in a second world. It’s not my go-to genre, but I enjoy them now and then, and I would say this is my favorite romantasy so far.

Let me quickly run through the romantasy tropes you can expect here: enemies-to-lovers,

July 1st, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Devney Perry | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Druid Stone: Ugony and the Ecstasy

The Druid Stone by Simon Majors

“You can’t judge a book by its cover.” We’ve all heard the saying before and know it to be true. Not that I’m demeaning the work of all the wonderful cover artists out there. Indeed, a good book with a beautifully decorative cover illustration makes for a treasure in any home, to be sure, and I’m nerdy enough to have my own favorite artists of such: Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Richard M. Powers, Virgil Finlay, James Bama … the list goes on and on. All I’m saying is that it can be a risky proposition to purchase a book,

Where the Axe is Buried: Thoughtful SF spy thriller

Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler

Ray Nayler’s 2025 SF geopolitical spy-thriller novel, Where the Axe is Buried, explores totalitarian regimes and the role of AI in a dystopian near-future. The story moves among many characters; Lilia, a scientist; Palmer, her London boyfriend; Zoya, a famed activist in the repressive Federation, now living in exile; Nurlan, a government functionary who is deeply in love; Nikolai, the Federation president’s personal physician, and Krotov, the president’s head of security.

The Federation is ruled by one man,

WWWednesday: June 25, 2025

Locus awards were announced last Saturday. Best Science Fiction Novel: The Man Who Saw Seconds, by Alesander Boldizar; Best Fantasy Novel: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher; Best Horror Novel: Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle.

Surfing around, I found this piece of short fiction from Garth Nix from last month on Reactor.

They also feature an excerpt from The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst.

Canada’s Sunburst Award longlist is out.

June 25th, 2025. Marion Deeds | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

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,

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 | 5 comments |

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.

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Recent Discussion:

sandy ferber on The Enchanted Stone: “The moral of the story’s for a limited crew…”July 15, 2025
I suppose that's gotta be it, Marion. Not exactly MY idea of a lost-world/lost-race novel, but I guess the folks…
Marion Deeds on The Enchanted Stone: “The moral of the story’s for a limited crew…”July 15, 2025
Maybe the "lost race" in question is meant to be the faithful who traipse after the Moses-like baby with the…
Sensor Sweep: Red Sonja, Bradbury, Tolkien, Star Wolf – castaliahouse.com on The Weapon From Beyond: Chane gangJuly 14, 2025
[…] Fiction (Fantasy Literature): I’d been hankering for another dose of latter-day Hamilton ever since, and this trinity thus […]
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.