Author: Bill Capossere

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The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II

The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II by Peter S. Beagle

It’s a good time to be a Peter S. Beagle fan. In short order this mid-year, we’ve been gifted The Way Home — two novellas set in the world of the beloved classic The Last Unicornand two collections of Beagle’s short stories: The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II. And true gifts they are. You can see my review of the novellas here,


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The Way Home: Beagle remains one of our most elegant of fantasists

The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle

This is a glorious month for Peter S. Beagle fans, with The Way Home (2023) offering up two novellas set in the same world as The Last Unicorn, and not one but two retrospective collections of stories: The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II. Even better, one of those two novellas is brand new and serves to show that Beagle remains one of our most elegant of fantasists.


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The Malevolent Seven: Bitterness needs nuance

The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castell

Sebastien de Castell’s 2023 antihero novel The Malevolent Seven has good magical action and lots of sarcastic banter. It has an emotionally tortured male main character in a world that is filled with suffering, death, betrayal and a sense of hopelessness that swamps every action. Generally, I enjoy de Castell’s work, but while this book had enough to keep me reading, ultimately, it doesn’t rank among my favorite works of his.

I say, “enough to keep me reading,” because I very nearly put this book down during the first 50 pages.


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Deadly Memory: Walton writes the best dinosaurs

Reposting to include Bill’s new review.

Deadly Memory by David Walton

In 2023’s Deadly Memory, by David Walton, the challenges humanity faces have never been higher. A virus so deadly it can kill nearly every species on the planet is loose, and a pheromone-based drug that allows the wearer to dominate everyone who smells it is in the hands of authoritarians from more than one global power. The source of the substance, and the possible antidote to it, is hidden away,


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The Book That Wouldn’t Burn: If you’re a reader, you’re bound to love it

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence

A topical, deeply thoughtful, and wonderfully written love letter to books, to libraries, to the power of storytelling, to fantasy, and to epigrams, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence will be appearing on my best of 2023 list at the end of this year. That’s not to say it’s perfect. After all, I now have to wait for book two in this new series. And, well, I don’t wanna wait. Me want. Me want now.

At nearly 600 pages,


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The Ferryman: Recommended for everyone

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin

Justin Cronin burst onto the big scene with his apocalyptic vampire doorstopper The Passage (first of a trilogy), a fantastically harrowing blockbuster of a novel that still maintained amidst its action/thriller/horror aspects the quietly intimate elements of his earlier literary novels. His newest, The Ferryman, while not quite as strong and despite having a few more noticeable issues, shares some of the same strengths that made The Passage so successful, as I imagine this one will be.

The story takes place on an archipelago isolated from the rest of the world by something known as The Veil,


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The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos

The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos by Jaime Green

In The Possibility of Life, journalist Jaime Green takes us on an expansive and open-minded exploration of whether or not life may have formed elsewhere in the universe and if so, what that life might be like. If this were only that book, it would be well worth reading. But Green makes two choices that elevate her work beyond a good exobiology book easily recommended and into a fantastic medley of science,


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How to Mars: Solid but feels like a missed opportunity

Reposting to include Marion’s new review.

How to Mars by David Ebenbach

In David Ebenbach’s How to Mars (2021), humans have made it to Mars, but not via the usual major government initiative. Instead, a group of six was sent as a reality TV show produced by Destination Mars, a corporation whose owner is “pretty eccentric.” Sadly, Mars turned out to be kind of dull (lots of rocks, no life, monotone color) and as the six scientists grew bored so did the audience,


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Rose/House: Hits the sweet spot

Rose/House by Arkady Martine

As I’ve noted multiple times, I often struggle with the betwixt and between nature of the novella. But Arkady Martine’s newest, Rose/House hit the sweet spot for me with its unique mash-up of a classic clinical locked-room murder mystery and a lyrical fever dream exploration of art and identity and narrative all held within just the right size container. I was variously enthralled, amused, and bemused and pretty much loved this richly layered story start to finish with just a few blips here and there.


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The Magick of Physics: Uncovering the Fantastical Phenomena in Everyday Life

The Magick of Physics: Uncovering the Fantastical Phenomena in Everyday Life by Felix Flicker

Felix Flicker’s relatively unique take on popular science is right there in the title: The Magick of Physics: Uncovering the Fantastical Phenomena in Everyday Life. Taking Arthur C. Clarke’s old adage that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” Flicker presents his layperson’s explanations of modern-day physics as a wizard’s manual of sorts, as in one scene where a wizard illuminates her path with a crystal spelled into glowing and then cuts through a bolt with a “stream of light.” In reality though (at least our reality),


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