You just know there are lots of reasons people might give a pass to China Miéville’s newest novel, Railsea. Some will see the YA or sci-fi/fantasy labels hanging on it and dismiss it out of hand. Others will hear it features a captain obsessed with hunting a giant white moldywarpe that cost her an arm and think “I hate parody/allusion” or “I really hated Moby Dick” or “Boy, I hate books with words like ‘moldywarpe” (or all three).
May 21st, 2012. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | China Mieville | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers
Tim Powers’s The Stress of Her Regard was one of my favorite random used-bookstore discoveries. After reading it ten years ago, I talked it up to all my friends. It was out of print at the time, so I constantly lent out my own copy until the time I didn’t get it back. When I got wind of Hide Me Among the Graves, a sequel of sorts, I was thrilled and hoped it would be one of my favorite books of the year.
May 19th, 2012. Kelly Lasiter and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3, 3.5 | Tim Powers | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Indignities of the Flesh by Bentley Little
Until I read Indignities of the Flesh I hadn’t heard of Bentley Little, although he’s been published in magazines like Cemetery Dance, which I used to read. Indignities of the Flesh is an anthology containing ten of Little’s surrealistic horror tales. One, “Valet Parking,” is original to this collection.
Bentley Little provides a paragraph before each story, talking about the inspiration. Not surprisingly, many of his inspirations for horror stories are things that frighten him or creep him out;
May 14th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Bentley Little | Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In a world very different from ours, two powerful factions fight for the throne. Alliances are made and shattered. Vows are sworn and broken. Brothers betray brothers; fathers betray sons; kings are imprisoned and queens make war. No, it’s not A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. It’s The Deep, by John Crowley, published in 1975.
The Deep is Crowley’s first novel. It is unlike his other works,
May 12th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | John Crowley | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris
Wellington Books and Eliza Braun are agents in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, taking on the uncanny in the name of Queen and country. Agent Books is a straitlaced archivist — don’t call him a librarian — who enjoys mechanical tinkering and his peaceful job among the Ministry’s old files. Agent Braun is an outspoken New Zealand transplant who loves to blow things up. At the beginning of Phoenix Rising, the two agents land themselves in the doghouse with the Ministry and are assigned to work together.
May 10th, 2012. Kelly Lasiter and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Philippa (Pip) Ballantine, Tee Morris | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Robert Jackson Bennett lives in Austin, Texas with his family. He is the author of Mr Shivers, The Company Man and, most recently, The Troupe. Bennett is currently working on this fourth novel, but he generously gave some time to Fantasy Literature and answered some questions for us. We hope you’ll read our reviews of all of Robert Jackson’s books.
Marion Deeds: You’ve published 3 books; Mr. Shivers, The Company Man, and now The Troupe.
May 8th, 2012. Marion Deeds | Robert Jackson Bennett | Author Interviews | 4 comments |
Dark Sleeper by Jeffrey E. Barlough
Dark Sleeper is a delightful, debonair and decidedly Dickensian departure from dime-a-dozen fantasy. Jeffrey E. Barlough, who published the book in 2000, attempts and mostly succeeds in writing an entire fantasy novel in the style and form of Charles Dickens, with a dash of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thrown in.
Let me be clear. This is not a steampunk novel, set in the nineteenth century while incorporating twentieth-century technology, winking at the sensibilities and conventions of the time.
April 30th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Jeffrey E. Barlough | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Chris F. Holm’s first novel, Dead Harvest, is supernatural noir at its best. Sam Thornton, who is as surely named for Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade as he is for the Hebrew judge of the Bible, is the best sort of hero to serve as the basis for a series (THE COLLECTOR): despite being damned, he still has a strong sense of right and wrong, and refuses to do wrong whenever he has the option.
April 24th, 2012. Terry Weyna and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5, 4 | Chris F. Holm | Audio | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Richard Bowes published Feral Cell in 1986. It’s set in 1999, the last year of the second millennium, in New York City, which is starting, to “go bad” as many other cities before it have. It’s not clear exactly what is making the city go bad. Is it the strange weather, as summers grow hotter and winters grow shorter and drier? Is it the selfishness and complacency of the wealthy and the desperation of the young people? Is it the use of more and different drugs?
April 19th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Richard Bowes | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett
Robert Jackson Bennett: why isn’t everyone reading this guy? Here is an authentic voice with an original vision, a uniquely American dark fantasist who can weave the three Fates into the Great Depression and fairies into a story about vaudeville. With The Troupe, Bennett moves closer to the setting and milieu he created so well in his first novel, Mr. Shivers. The Troupe is a long story with a rich cast, a powerful coming-of-age tale entwined with a traditional fantasy quest.
April 16th, 2012. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Robert Jackson Bennett | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…