Bill Capossere | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews

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,

Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe

Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe by Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer’s book Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe is an always informative, often fascinating, and at times worrying look at humanity’s long speculation and exploration of what is in the air around us and what we breathe besides the life-giving oxygen we need.

Zimmer covers a lot of ground here, going back to ancient civilizations and the idea of “miasma” or “bad air,” an explanation of sickness that held sway for centuries until being rivaled in the 14th century by the opposing idea that “diseases such as plague were caused by contagion — a poison that grew inside the sick and then spread to the healthy.” A speculative theory strengthened by the invention of the microscope in the 17th century,

March 14th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Tomb of Dragons

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison

2025’s The Tomb of Dragons is the fourth book in Kate Addison’s CHRONICLES OF OSRETH. The Goblin Emperor has retroactively been designated Book One. The Tomb of Dragons, like the two books before it, features Thera Celehar, a Witness for the Dead, as he tries to bring justice to his world in large and small ways.

In The Goblin Emperor,

March 10th, 2025. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4, 5 | Katherine Addison | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Days of Shattered Faith: The best in the series so far

Days of Shattered Faith by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Days of Shattered Faith is the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS series, continuing that series’ strong run of quality. While each book is meant to stand alone, and this one certainly can, reading the others will allow for a richer experience given the reappearance of multiple characters.

As with the other two books, Tchaikovsky shifts to a new setting in this universe and introduces a new group of characters (with some old ones as noted),

February 27th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | no comments |

When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance

When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance by Riley Black

Riley Black’s The Last Days of the Dinosaurs made my top ten books of the years when it came out (if you haven’t read it, you absolutely should), so I was excited to read her follow-up When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance. I’m happy to report that like its predecessor, it’s an impressive work of popular science marked by wonderful prose and an engaging voice.

February 25th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Gorge: A perfectly serviceable movie

The Gorge directed by Scott Derrickson

The good news about Apple’s new movie The Gorge is that it’s a perfectly serviceable streaming movie, the actors do an excellent job, the visuals are fantastic, and you also are basically getting two movies for the price of one. The bad news is one of those movies is vastly more original and engaging than the other, the plot of that second film is overly familiar and predictable, and while the visuals are stunning, they’re also something we’ve seen before.

The premise of the film is that post-WWII,

February 17th, 2025. Bill Capossere | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Sanctum of the Soul: It’s difficult to recommend this series

Sanctum of the Soul by Kel Kade

I’ve been up and down on Kel Kade’s SHROUD OF PROPHECY series, with book one, Fate of the Fallen, striking me as enjoyable though with a number of issues. The sequel, Destiny of the Dead, took a small turn downward for me, though it had its strengths. Unfortunately, my experience with book three, Sanctum of the Soul, was closer to Destiny than Fate,

February 11th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | Kel Kade | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Orbital: A moving elegy to our environment and planet

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital (2023) will, for some people, barely qualify (if that) as a novel, leaving them crying “Where’s the plot? Nothing happens!” And you know, I can’t argue with them. If you define a novel as a series of plot steps from a to b to c such that change occurs, then yes, Orbital probably won’t squeeze in under that definition. Its focus is less on “what is happening” and more on “what am I feeling about what is happening?” or “What am I thinking about while things are happening?” And if you’re looking for conflict or fleshed out and distinctive characters who are different at the end than when we first meet them,

The Voyage Home: Powerful, in a quieter fashion

The Voyage Home by Pat Barker

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,

Mother of Rome: An uneven book

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,

Author: Bill Capossere

Murder by Memory: Intriguing setting but didn’t connect

Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe

The Tomb of Dragons

Days of Shattered Faith: The best in the series so far

When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance

The Gorge: A perfectly serviceable movie

Sanctum of the Soul: It’s difficult to recommend this series

Orbital: A moving elegy to our environment and planet

The Voyage Home: Powerful, in a quieter fashion

Mother of Rome: An uneven book

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