Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Marion Deeds

Grandville, Bete Noire: Luscious art creates good escapist fun

Grandville, Bete Noire by Bryan Talbot

Grandville, Bete Noire, Bryan Talbot’s third steam-punk themed graphic novel, has the same lavish detail and striking use of color as the first two. English Badger D.I. Archie LeBrock is back, as rough-and-tumble as ever, and in this book we spend a bit more time with Quayle or “Q,” a brilliant inventor adept at stealth weapons, like a smoking pipe that is really a bomb. It’s a nice wink in the direction of Ian Fleming.

The plot is slimmer and more predictable than the first two,

Dreams of Gods and Monsters: A spectacular ending

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

What do you get if you cross Paradise Lost with Romeo and Juliet? Laini Taylor’s DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE trilogy, a story that centres on an epic war between angels and demons with a pair of star-crossed lovers caught in the middle. Only the angels and demons aren’t exactly what you’d expect. In the world of Eretz, “angels” are winged humanoids known as seraphim and the “demons” are half-human,

Dead Set: A YA horror novel

Dead Set by Richard Kadrey

Zoe’s parents were punks in San Francisco when they met and fell in love. Zoe’s father managed punk bands, while her mother was a graphic artist, designing album covers. When they realized they were going to have a child, they went into the straight life, although Zoe’s dad never left punk music behind. Now Zoe is sixteen, her father is dead, and her mother is battling a heartless insurance company that is refusing to pay. They have moved from their pleasant house in the San Francisco East Bay area to a small apartment in the city.

Fire with Fire: The hero mars this fun Nebula-nominated adventure

Fire with Fire by Charles E. Gannon

I don’t read a lot of military science fiction, and Fire With Fire is definitely military SF. It’s also an intelligence thriller and a first-contact story, at least part of the time. Charles E. Gannon’s book was good fun, but could have been forty pages shorter (limiting the verbiage of the talking heads) without losing anything, and the main character was a problem.

Caine Riordan, the hero of Fire with Fire, is a little like Jack Ryan from the old Tom Clancy books.

April 3rd, 2014. Marion Deeds and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Charles E. Gannon | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Grandville, Mon Amour by Bryan Talbot

Grandville, Mon Amour by Bryan Talbot

Grandville, Mon Amour is the second in Bryan Talbot’s steampunk graphic novel series with highly evolved animals, in a world where Napoleon conquered all of Europe and Britain has only been an independent country for twenty-three years. British badger Detective-Inspector Archie LeBrock and his partner Ratzi, a rat, are back on a case that will take them back to Paris, also called Grandville. As Ratzi puts it, “We’re like a pair of bloomin’ boomerangs.”

In the opening,

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves: On the Edge

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

[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.]

“…I would see his hand on the doorknob, the door beginning to swing shut. I have something to say! I’d tell him, and the door would stop part way.

“Start in the middle,

The Wild Girls: Wraps you in silken words and then breaks your heart

The Wild Girls by Ursula K Leguin

“When her mother went to embrace her, Tudju made the gesture that put her aside.”

Some topics carry inevitability in their DNA. When you read about Titanic, or the 1918 influenza pandemic, you know what’s going to happen. In Ursula LeGuin’s novelette The Wild Girls we have a good idea how it’s going to end. We don’t want to believe, but we know.

In the opening paragraphs, Bela ten Belen takes five companions and a male slave and leaves his City home to raid a nearby nomadic village.

March 25th, 2014. Marion Deeds | Ursula K. Le-Guin | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Compleat Crow: Short stories of Lumley’s master occultist

The Compleat Crow by Brian Lumley

Subterranean Press has gathered a collection of Brian Lumley’s stories in The Compleat Crow. As you’d expect, nearly all these tales feature Lumley’s occult detective, Titus Crow.

Crow is the main character of a couple of novels by Lumley. He is a “white wizard,” a force for good who struggles mostly against those in league with the Cthulhu-cycle elder gods. Lumley’s style skates between Lovecraft-lite and an almost Holmesian tone. These eleven short stories were published mostly in the UK and range from 1969 to the early 1980s.

Contagion: A bang-up resolution to the TOXIC CITY Trilogy

Contagion by Tim Lebbon

Contagion provides a sad but satisfying resolution to Tim Lebbon’s TOXIC CITY series. Jack, the hero of the books, comes to grips with his new powers, while outside quarantined London, Jack’s mother and sister spread the truth of the mutation agent Evolve.

In the TOXIC CITY series, two years ago on a date now called Doomsday, a scientist named Angelina Walker released a virus-like compound in London. It changes people. Some people it gives extraordinary powers; other change into beasts or monsters.

A Darkling Sea: Enjoyable and raises thoughtful questions

A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias

Ever since I was a kid stealing my dad’s sci-fi books the moment he laid them down for a minute (silly, silly man), I’ve loved First Contact stories and still fondly remember reading Murray Leinster’s classic, entitled, shockingly, “First Contact.” So when I was offered a chance to read A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias, which is at its heart a first contact story, I jumped. And I’m glad I did, as it turned out to be a mostly well-executed story with a fully realized alien race and a compelling story line.

March 12th, 2014. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3, 4 | James L. Cambias | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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