Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Marion Deeds

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: Packaged well

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Ransom Riggs went to film school, made some award-winning short films, and did travel writing and photography before he published Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, his first novel. This young adult fantasy novel uses a number of strange old photographs Riggs either found or borrowed from several collections, and the photos are interspersed with the text. It’s an interesting presentation that adds a lot to the reading experience.

The book has already been optioned by Twentieth Century Fox,

Jala’s Mask: Interesting world-building in this YA fantasy

Jala’s Mask by Mike & Rachel Grinti

I enjoy reading fantasy that stems from a different folkloric basis than the one I grew up in. Middle European, British, Native American and Asian fantasy tropes have been done a lot, so Jala’s Mask, by Mike & Rachel Grinti was a refreshing change.

Jala has grown up in a society similar in some ways to our Polynesian one. Her people can magically shape ships from the material that forms the reefs around their islands. They gather wealth by raiding the mainland.

Locke and Key: Crown of Shadows by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Locke and Key (Vol 3): Crown of Shadows by Joe Hill (writer) and Gabriel Rodriguez (artist)

Toil and trouble; the cauldron begins to bubble.

(May contain spoilers of earlier volumes.)

In Crown of Shadows, the third volume in Locke and Key, written by Joe Hill and drawn by Gabriel Rodriguez, the simmering sense of doom we encountered in Volume Two comes to a boil. More keys are found. More truths are revealed to the reader, and where truths are not uncovered,

Collaborative Cliché — Urban Fantasy Edition!

In 2009, Ruth Arnell created the Collaborative Cliché project, where we reached for every cliché we have seen or read, and used them to create an awful group story. We skewered epic fantasy in that column, but we can find clichés anywhere. Let’s try it again, this time with a sub-genre dear to my heart, urban fantasy.

I’ll start us off. Then you continue the story by adding your cliché-ridden passage in the Comments Section. You can come back and add as many passages as you like.

My soul-beacon tattoo woke me at two in the morning.

October 23rd, 2014. Marion Deeds | Thoughtful Thursday | 77 comments |

Falling Sky: Good familiar fun

Falling Sky by Rajan Khanna

Falling Sky, Rajan Khanna’s first published novel, is good if familiar post-apocalyptic fun, with plenty of adventure. At 250 pages it’s a good way to spend a couple of evenings or a weekend. Khanna doesn’t explore any new ground here (pun intended) but he has good action sequences and likeable characters.

It is two generations after a virus — the Bug — turned any human infected into an aggressive, bestial killing machine the survivors call the Feral. Ferals breed and care for their young,

October 23rd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Rajan Khanna | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

Last Plane to Heaven: The Final Collection: Indispensable

Last Plane to Heaven: The Final Collection by Jay Lake

Jay Lake died in June of 2014. It was a tragic loss but not a surprise, since Lake had made his experiences with cancer public. Last Plane to Heaven, edited by Lake himself, is a reminder of just how much the speculative fiction world lost.

I have always loved Lake’s prose, but I had trouble with his novels. This collection of thirty-two stories shows him, mostly, at his best and strongest. As with his novels,

Doctor Sleep: A sequel to The Shining

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

I’ve avoided some of Stephen King’s more recent works, like Cell and Under the Dome, because they didn’t look like they would be my thing. Doctor Sleep was a different matter. I didn’t think it was perfect, but it had a lot of the things I look for in a King novel.

In 1977, King published The Shining, a book about an evil hotel in Colorado,

Locke and Key (Vol. 2): Head Games by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Locke and Key (Vol. 2): Head Games by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

A solid and scary second section to this first-class horror story.

Warning; may contain spoilers of Volume One; Welcome to Lovecraft

After everything the Locke family went through in Volume One, Welcome to Lovecraft, they need a break. Unfortunately, in Volume Two of this powerful graphic horror novel, they aren’t going to get one.

Head Games starts with an elderly teacher at Lovecraft Academy.

Unlocked: This prequel could have used more subtext

Unlocked by John Scalzi

The novella Unlocked is John Scalzi’s prequel to his innovative novel of ideas Lock In. I read the beautiful Subterranean Press hard copy, and Kat will add comments about the audio version of the story. With both Lock In and Unlocked, the publishers have made some interesting choices in audio presentation.

The subtitle of Unlocked is “An Oral History of Haden Syndrome.” Further down on the title page,

Ack-Ack Macaque: In which our reviewer finds herself in an adventure

Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth L Powell

“Let me get this straight. You’re a World War II fighter pilot,” I say to Ack-Ack, the one-eyed, cigar-chomping macaque as he leads me through the corridor of the airship.

“Right.”

“But it’s 2059.”

“What’s your question?” He glares, a daiquiri glass clenched in his left paw.

“How do you fit in, exactly?”

He spins to face me. “I’m the main character, aren’t I? Ack-Ack Macaque, that’s the book’s name. See?

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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