Amongst the flood of Greek myth retellings over the past number few years, three authors have stood out to me. Two are Madeline Miller and Claire North, the first for her fantastic Circe (not to mention the brilliant The Song of Achilles from a decade earlier) and the second for her excellent and just-concluded SONGS OF PENELOPE trilogy. The third is Pat Barker and her WOMEN OF TROY series,
January 20th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Pat Barker | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Mother of Rome by Lauren J.A. Bear
Lauren J.A. Bear’s first novel, Medusa’s Sisters, was a sharp feminist retelling of the well-known Greek tale. For her second book, Bear has left the Greeks behind and moved on to the Romans, giving us in Mother of Rome a sort of prequel to the Romulus and Remus Found Rome story. Though I found Mother of Rome to be more uneven than Medusa’s Sisters,
January 17th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Lauren J.A. Bear | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
An Instruction in Shadow by Benedict Jacka
An Instruction in Shadow is Benedict Jacka’s follow up to An Inheritance of Magic, his tale of modern-day magic and family intrigue set in London. The main character remains likably engaging, the magic intriguing, the family history labyrinthine, and if the story doesn’t perhaps progress quite as much as one would prefer, it all results in a smoothly enjoyable read.
Stephen Oakwood is continuing to hone his “drucraft” while working at locating magical wells for a big drucraft company,
January 10th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Benedict Jacka | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture by Barret Klein
In The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture (2024), Barret Klein explores the impact of insects on human society, an impact both broad and deep. The text is almost always fascinating and offers up more than enough representative examples of his points, while the numerous included illustrations and photographs add a wonderful enhancement to the text.
After a preface which offers a personal touch, and an introduction that gives us some foundational sense of context and numbers (sixty percent of identified animal species are insects,
November 29th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
These f—-ing people complaining about this f—-ing book. What the f—-ing f? Sure it’s f—ing weird, sure you don’t get any f—-ing answers, but if you f—-ing read the first three f—-ing books, what the f—- did you expect? Goodnight f—-ing Moon? The Very F—-ing Hungry Caterpillar? If you’re gonna f—-ing buy a Jeff Vanderf—-ingMeer book, then you better expect a f—-ing Vanderf—ker.
Sorry, sorry. Got a little too immersed in the final section of Absolution, and I’ve seemingly picked up the voice of that section’s narrator,
November 19th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Jeff VanderMeer | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
The Navigator’s Children by Tad Williams
A long, long time ago in a world far, far away (otherwise known as 1988), a younger me picked a heavy (like really heavy) book titled The Dragonbone Chair off the shelf in the bookstore. If you had told that younger, thinner, more-haired me that I’d still be reading about those characters almost 40 years later in 2024, I would have laughed at the absurdity. But here I am, just putting down The Navigator’s Children (2024),
November 15th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Tad Williams | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Clock in the Sun: How We Came to Understand Our Nearest Star by Pierre Sokolsky
In The Clock in the Sun: How We Came to Understand Our Nearest Star, Pierre Sokolsky does a nice job in covering the history of solar mechanics and exploration, concisely and clearly explaining things in his own language but also, in one of my favorite aspects of the book, offering up a number of lengthy passages from his source material, letting us hear those early thinkers in their own words.
The early sections on pre-Scientific Revolution observations are detailed and often fascinating,
November 8th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
THE ASGARDIANS 1: Thor by George O’Connor
So I’ve lost track of how many of George O’Connor’s graphic novel retelling of myths I’ve reviewed, from his original series OLYMPIANS to the first book of his current ASGARDIANS series, Odin. He’s back with book two, everyone’s favorite Norse god — Thor, and all I can say is what I’ve been saying since the beginning: the story is great, the artwork is great, they’re not just for kids,
October 10th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Children, Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il Kim
Blood of the Old Kings (2024), by Sung-il Kim and translated by Anton Hur, is the first in a Korean fantasy trilogy well known in South Korea. While it has its strong points, I have to confess to being overall disappointed with Blood of the Old Kings, though I’ll probably give book two a shot when it comes out in English in hopes that the series improves (the last book won an award so there’s a fair chance that’s the case).
October 8th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Sung-il Kim | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The first book in a series by Sophie Burnham entitled EX ROMANA, Sargassa is, not surprisingly given that series name, set in a world where the Roman Empire seemingly never fell, at last not permanently, though there was a mysterious “Great Quiet” in which most of the prior knowledge and technology was lost before the Empire was reestablished. More specifically, the novel is set in Sargassa, long ago colonized by the Roman Imperium and now home to the Imperial Archives, the repository of all the Empire’s knowledge and lore.
October 7th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Sophie Burnham | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Great minds think alike, Marion! The same thought occurred to me at one point while reading this book....
Interesting! I have to say I had a "Jim and Huck underwater" moment, reading your synopsis.
No doubt about it--I have to read these.
Pretty much as expected going into 2024, Nicola Griffith's Menewood was my pick for best book read in that year.…
Sounds intriguing!