Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Marion Deeds

Raven Girl: Haunting artwork enhances this “new” fairy tale

Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger’s Raven Girl is a slim book that straddles categories. I thought it would be a graphic novel. It isn’t, quite. At 75 pages, I’d call it an illustrated novella. Niffenegger, in her Acknowledgments, calls it a new fairy tale. It certainly has fairy tale aspects, especially a “happy ending” that arrives almost out of nowhere, but it goes beyond traditional fairy tales. The book, Niffenegger tells us, was based on a story she created for the Royal Ballet in London, for a new ballet.

May 13th, 2013. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Audrey Niffenegger | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Reaper’s Legacy: Suspenseful and strange young adult adventure

Reaper’s Legacy by Tim Lebbon

Reaper’s Legacy is the second book in Tim Lebbon’s young-adult paranormal adventure series TOXIC CITY. In London Eye, someone released a strange serum or toxin called Evolve into London, two years earlier, a day now called Doomsday. Millions died. The world has been told that the entire city is a poisoned wasteland, cut off from the rest of England, but within the city, the survivors are changing, mutating, developing paranormal abilities.

The Exiled Blade: A satisfying finish to an imaginative series

The Exiled Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

But the real battle was with himself. All the battles that really mattered were with yourself.

Jon Courtenay Grimwood ends The Exiled Blade, book three in his Acts of the Assassini series, with a spectacular three-act battle, and a wedding. This is a pleasing, sad, and haunting ending to his alternate history fifteenth century Venetian tale, where political intrigue and martial prowess function side by side with shape-shifters, demons and magic.

At the end of the second book,

May 6th, 2013. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Jon Courtenay (Jonathan) Grimwood | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Warlord of the Air: Political message doesn’t overwhelm the adventure

The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock

In 1971, Michael Moorcock published a trilogy called Nomad of the Timestreams. Titan Books is reissuing this series. The first book, The Warlord of the Air, introduces us to Oswald Bastable, a captain of the 53rd Lancers in 1902, who, through a bizarre occurrence is hurled into 1973 — a 1973 that is very little like the one our history books, or Wikipedia, tell us about.

Moorcock is an excellent writer, and in The Warlord of the Air he set out to create a late Victorian/Edwardian pastiche.

April 19th, 2013. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Michael Moorcock | SFF Reviews | no comments |

SFF vacation brochures

It’s that time of year when humans are planning their summer vacations. Your task this week is to create a vacation brochure for any destination found in speculative fiction. You can’t upload images here, but if you want to use images, you could create your brochure elsewhere (e.g. Google docs) and submit a link. Here’s my vacation brochure for Arrakis, which I think would be a great place to take a Honeymoon:

Visit Arrakis!

Looking for a change of pace from frantic tropical vacations, with all that hang-gliding, drink-sipping, body-surfing, massage-getting madness?

April 11th, 2013. Marion Deeds | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 6 comments |

With the Night Mail: Kipling is a grandfather of steampunk

With the Night Mail: Two Yarns About the Aerial Board of Control by Rudyard Kipling

I didn’t know that Rudyard Kipling wrote steampunk, especially since that moniker didn’t exist during his lifetime. Kipling’s novellas “With the Night Mail” and “Easy as A.B.C.” have airships, vaguely defined etheric power sources and more energy weapons than you can hit with a stick. He may not have written steampunk, but he might be one of its literary grandfathers.

Written in 1905, “With the Night Mail,” narrated in the first person by a young journalist,

Shadowbridge: Exquisite imagery and magic

Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost

Gregory Frost graduated from Clarion Workshop, authored five novels and the critically-acclaimed short story collection Attack of the Jazz Giants & Other Stories, and has been a finalist for nearly every major award in the fantasy field including the Hugo, the Nebula, the James Tiptree, and the World Fantasy Award.

Impressive, but what did I think of Shadowbridge? Well, for the most part I enjoyed reading Shadowbridge and while I may have liked the novel,

March 16th, 2013. Robert Thompson and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Gregory Frost | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest: A beautiful book to read with a child

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles de Lint

From its charming dustcover to the muted two-page illustration at the end, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest is a beautiful book that I would love to read with, or to, a child. Charles de Lint and artist Charles Vess form a perfect collaboration here, with a wonderful, magical story for middle readers.

This novel is an expansion of de Lint’s novella, The Circle of Cats. De Lint uses as inspiration many of the Appalachian folk-tales,

Dreams and Shadows: The clumsy little kid who makes you smile

Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill

Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill is not what I would label a particularly well-written novel. In fact, in many ways, I’d call it a poorly written one. But despite the several issues I had with major aspects of the work, I have to admit that by the end I was mostly enjoying myself and curious as to where the story was going to go.

The novel opens up with a fairy-tale like romance, one that was a bit too sugary for my liking,

March 7th, 2013. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5, 3.5 | C. Robert Cargill | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Earth Girl: The ambitious concept doesn’t quite succeed

Earth Girl by Janet Edwards

Earth Girl is the first book of Janet Edwards’s planned EARTH GIRL trilogy. On her website, Edwards reports that both Amazon.uk and Kobobooks have rated the e-book version of Earth Girl as among the Best YA of 2012. I can see why people would like this book, but it was a miss for me.

Edwards has a great concept here. Five hundred years into our future, most humans have left Earth to colonize various sectors of space.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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Recent Discussion:

David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
Bill Capossere on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
We’re in total agreement David!
David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.