Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Marion Deeds


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Midnight Blue-Light Special: Distant relatives and dancing mice

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Midnight Blue-Light Special (2013), book two in Seanan McGuire’s INCRYPTID series, wraps up some plot points, deepens some characters and expands the world of the stories. McGuire takes the expected “The Covenant Strikes Back” plot, but incorporates a few nice twists along the way.

The Covenant of St. George is a group dedicated to a “scorched earth” policy toward magical creatures, working hard to exterminate any cryptid race, no matter how harmless or,


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WWWednesday: April 8, 2015

I’ll be subbing this week and next, because Kate and her beau Wil are getting married! Congratulations, Kate and Wil!

The Meeting of Oberon and Titania, by Arthur Rackham, 1905

Awards:

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (AWFA) announced that Joanna Russ and Stanley Schmidt are the winners of the 2015 Solstice Award. The award, created in 2008, is given to “those individuals, living or dead… who had a significant impact on the science fiction or fantasy landscape.”

The Hugo Nominations were announced on Saturday.


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The Devil’s Detective: Exquisite, excruciating literary horror

The Devil’s Detective by Simon Kurt Unsworth

Thomas Fool is an Information Man in Hell. As an Information Man, he investigates cases of violence and death; and there are many. Thomas thinks he’s been in Hell about six years. Before that, his soul floated in the sea of Limbo that surrounds Hell, until it was pulled out by a demon and embodied in the human form he wears now. Fool, as he calls himself, does not know why he is in Hell or what he must atone for, because no human who is fished from Limbo and sent here remembers any part of their human lives.


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Macaque Attack: I fell off the teeter-totter with this one

Macaque Attack by Gareth L. Powell

For the first two books in Gareth L. Powell’s MACAQUE series, I felt like I was standing in the center of a seesaw or teeter-totter, trying to hold the plank level and balanced. With the third book, Macaque Attack, the totter tipped and threw me off. I can no longer maintain the suspension of disbelief needed to enjoy these adventures.

This review may contain spoilers of all three books, so be warned.


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Superposition: A quantum-physics courtroom thriller

Superposition by David Walton

David Walton’s new book Superposition is billed by the publisher as a “quantum physics murder mystery.” Clearly, Walton loves quantum physics and can explain its concepts in an understandable way. Choosing alternating first-person narrators was a stroke of brilliance, upping the suspense, at least in the beginning as the story unfolds.

Jacob Kelly is a physicist who resigned from the New Jersey Super-Collider (Yes! New Jersey has the biggest super-collider in the world in this book!). Now he teaches at Swarthmore College.


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Discount Armageddon: Displays fancy footwork

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

I’m not an expert on paranormal romance versus urban fantasy, especially when the book seems to land right on the border of those two sub-genres. Based on the sexiness of the female hero,  the hotness quotient of the boyfriend/adversary, the quality of the sex (steamy!) and the speed at which, after that first passionate connection, they are arguing again (mere minutes!) I’m categorizing Discount Armageddon as paranormal romance (PR). I’m also categorizing it as fun.

Seanan McGuire is one of the busiest writers in the field;


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Hive Monkey: This fun, fizzy concoction is not completely satisfying

Hive Monkey by Gareth L. Powell

Hive Monkey is the second book in Gareth L. Powell’s ACK ACK MACAQUE series, originally dubbed a trilogy but now, apparently, fated to be a quartet. The eponymous monkey, who likes cigars, rum and flying a refurbished WWII Spitfire, plays a large role in this book, gleefully wreaking mayhem on the bad guys. His sidekicks, Victoria Valois, journalist-turned-airship-captain, K8, plucky girl hacker, and Paul, a hologram, also have roles to play as they battle the colonized drones of an evil hive-mind.


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Favorite fairies

Shakespeare gave us Oberon and Titania. J.M. Barrie gave us Tinkerbell. Jim Butcher gave us Toot-Toot. John Keats provided La Belle Dame sans Merci, and Seanan McGuire introduced us to the folks of the Shadowed Hills.

High fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal romance and even horror love to play around with the realm of faerie.

Which is your favorite version of the realm of faerie, and/or who is your favorite fairy?

When I wrote this question, I didn’t think I had a favorite depiction. Then I remembered the terrifying fairies in Robert Jackson Bennett’s book The Troupe,


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Empire: A tense, can’t-put-it-down adventure

Empire by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard

(Warning, may contain spoilers for Conquest.)

Empire, by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard, is filled with action, suspense, and characters we care about. It is YA but adults will enjoy it.

In Conquest, the first book of THE CHRONICLES OF THE INVADERS, Earth had been conquered by a technologically superior race, the Illyri. Syl, a young woman, was the first Illyrian born on Earth.


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The Fortress in Orion: Things go too smoothly in this space-opera heist

The Fortress in Orion by Mike Resnick

The Fortress in Orion is the first book in Mike Resnick’s DEAD ENDERS series. Colonel Nathan Pretorius is a decorated hero in the Democracy’s twenty-three year war with the Traanskei Coalition. Just as he is recuperating from his last mission, Pretorius is given a new assignment, one that seems impossible. It means infiltrating the heart of one of the Coalition’s best-defended fortresses and substituting an imposter for an important Coalition member. Early in the book, the odds of success are given as three percent.


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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