Coffin Hill (Vol. 1): Forest of the Night by Caitlin Kittredge and Inaki Misanda
Coffin Hill is a great new horror comic that is worth checking out in this first trade collection. It is part of the new wave of titles being put out by Vertigo, DC’s line of mature comics for adult readers. I tried reading Caitlin Kittredge’s Coffin Hill when it came out on a monthly basis, but it didn’t hold my interest, so, after two issues, I decided to wait until it was published as a trade.
June 6th, 2014. Brad Hawley and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Caitlin Kittredge | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal
Valour and Vanity is the fourth book in Mary Robinette Kowal’s series THE GLAMOURISTS. This time our husband-and-wife team of heroes, David Vincent and Lady Jane Vincent, are stranded, penniless, in Murano, victims of a predatory swindler who hopes to sell their secret glamour process to the highest bidder. To stop this from happening, Vincent and Jane must out-swindle the swindler. Yes, that’s right; set during the British Regency, this book is a caper book.
So,
June 2nd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Mary Robinette Kowal | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Daryl Gregory’s pharma-tech novel Afterparty is good entertainment with many wonderful moments. At times it is wildly inventive — filled with images like an apartment full of tiny genetically-engineered bison roaming the “range” of wall to wall grass, or an angel named Dr. Gloria who wears a business suit, white coat, glasses, carries a clipboard and has wings.
Kat and I read this book about the same time. We both gave it four stars but we may have liked different things,
May 26th, 2014. Marion Deeds and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Daryl Gregory | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
It’s award season in Science Fiction and Fantasy Land, with the 49th annual Nebula Awards Weekend starting TODAY (Terry and I will be attending), and the Hugos coming up in August. The Hugo slate wins the Everyone’s-in-a-Froth award for the nomination of the entire WHEEL OF TIME series in the best novel category, a nomination which is allowed by the World Science Fiction Society, but leaves people saying, “Wha—hunh?”
We’ve got all the short-listed novels reviewed (links below), but we want to know what you think. Have you read them? Which books do you think will win?
May 15th, 2014. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 17 comments |
The Red: First Light by Linda Nagata
James Shelley, the main character of Linda Nagata’s Nebula-nominated novel The Red: First Light, is the high-drama leader of a Linked Combat Squad or LCS. It is Shelley’s opinion, shared at length with his squad, that “there has to be a war somewhere,” and that these wars are consciously orchestrated by the cabal of defense contractors who grow mega-rich off military contracts.
Shelley and his squad are linked to each other via communication implants;
May 9th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Linda Nagata | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
RUNAWAYS: The Good Die Young by Brian K. Vaughan
Note: This review may contain spoilers of the previous volumes.
The Good Die Young, the third collection of Brian K. Vaughan’s Marvel’s RUNAWAYS, brings the original story arc to a successful, if sad, close. Our six young people, who have had to adjust to discovering they are the children of super-villains, come of age and make their own decisions, graduating to full hero status.
The book starts with Alex,
May 2nd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Brian K. Vaughan | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Hild: A Novel by Nicola Griffith
[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]
Hild, Nicola Griffith’s Nebula-nominated novel, takes us to seventh-century England, to the court of Overking Edwin of Northumbria, and into the heart and mind of the young girl who will become his seer, and later be canonized by the Christian church.
May 2nd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Nicola Griffith | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Runaways: Teenage Wasteland by Brian K. Vaughan
Almost every teenager has a point where he or she decides that parents are either evil, or the lackeys of evil. In the case of six young people in Marvel’s RUNAWAYS, they discover to their shock that their parents truly are, and not just garden variety evil, either; the parents are costumed super-villains. At the end of the first volume of this comic book series collection, the Runaways have gathered information and weapons, and have gone into hiding in a secret hideout.
April 25th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Brian K. Vaughan | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar
In A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar takes us on a journey that is as familiar and foreign as a land in a dream. It’s a study of two traditions, written and oral, and how they intersect. Samatar uses exquisite language and precise details to craft a believable world filled with sight, sound and scent.
The book follows Jevick, who journeys from Bain, the Harbor City of the land of Olondria to a distant valley, on a quest to settle the ghost that haunts him.
April 23rd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Sofia Samatar | Stand-Alone, World Fantasy Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Revolutions by Felix Gilman
At not quite the halfway point in Felix Gilman’s The Revolutions, the main character — Arthur Shaw — reacts to a particular text he is reading:
It was a hodge-podge of Masonry, Greek myth, Egyptian fantasy, debased Christianity, third-hand Hinduism, and modern and ancient astronomy, promiscuously and nonsensically mixed . . . The Book was riddled throughout with paradox and absurdity and contradiction . . . But after a week or two of study, Arthur began to enjoy it.
April 16th, 2014. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Felix Gilman | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…