Act of Love by Joe R. Lansdale
Originally published in 1981, Joe R. Lansdale’s Act of Love is a serial-killer thriller. A year before Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon took us into the mind of a sadistic serial killer, Lansdale was doing it, giving us chapters in the point of view of a necrophiliac, sadistic, misogynist cannibal as he terrorizes the city of Houston, Texas.
Act of Love is set in the 1980s and follows the murders committed by the Houston Hacker.
April 2nd, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Joe R. Lansdale | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Beyond the Golden Stair by Hannes Bok
Hannes Bokwas the pseudonym of Wayne Francis Woodward, a science fiction and fantasy illustrator and artist who also wrote. In 1948, Bok published a 35,000-word novella called “The Blue Flamingo” in Startling Stories. For decades, rumors circled the science fiction community that “The Blue Flamingo” was an excerpt from a larger novel. In 1970, after Bok’s death, Lin Carter found the manuscript and published it as Beyond the Golden Stair.
In his foreword,
April 1st, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Hannes Bok | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Magic Time by Marc Scott Zicree & Barbara Hambly
Magic Time is the first book of a fantasy trilogy helmed by Marc Scott Zicree. This book is co-written with Barbara Hambly. Each of the subsequent books in the series is written with a different writer. Magic Time was published in 2001, and it is not aging well.
I had a difficult time getting through Magic Time. It narrowly missed achieving Did Not Finish status.
March 29th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2 | Barbara Hambly, Marc Scott Zicree, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, Robert Charles Wilson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Jon Courtenay Grimwood was born in Malta and grew up in Southeast Asia, Norway and Britain. He won the British Science Fiction Association Award for best novel in 2003, for Felaheen, the third book in his ARABESK trilogy, and again in 2006 for End of the World Blues. His work has been described as post-cyberpunk and “alternate future.” Confounding the labelists, Grimwood has set his current trilogy, THE ACTS OF THE ASSASSINI, in an alternate 15th-century Venice. Book Two, The Outcast Blade,
March 26th, 2012. Marion Deeds | Jon Courtenay (Jonathan) Grimwood | Author Interviews | 3 comments |
The Outcast Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
I have good news and bad news about The Outcast Blade, the second book in Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s ACTS OF THE ASSASSINI series.
The good news is that the book is as captivating as its predecessor, The Fallen Blade. It’s a heady brew of magic, military strategy, politics, mystery, betrayal and love. Grimwood’s descriptions of Venice are grounded rather than lyrical, creating a living city that is gritty and fantastical,
March 26th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Jon Courtenay (Jonathan) Grimwood | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Descent into Dust by Jacqueline Lepore
Jacqueline Lepore’s Descent into Dust is an atmospheric Victorian pastiche complete with a forbidding mansion, an innocent child in danger, the shadow of madness, and vampires. Emma Andrews is a young and wealthy widow coming to the moors to visit her newly married half-sister and their cousins. Emma has always felt like an outsider. The specter of her mother’s madness and death haunt her. Soon after arriving at Dulwich Manor, Emma has a frightening encounter on the moors. The house,
March 21st, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Jacqueline Lepore | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine
Here is how you read Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti:
You open the book, and the first paragraph reminds you, a little, of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and then a gold and brass hand sprouts from the pages, grabs you by your collar, and drags you headfirst into the book.
(At least, that’s what it feels like.)
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti is Genevieve Valentine’s first novel,
March 7th, 2012. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4, 4.5 | Genevieve Valentine | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
ARABESK: Pashazade, Effendi and Felaheen
In this review, I’m going to write about the willing suspension of disbelief. Perhaps more precisely, I’m writing about the intersection of world-building and the willing suspension of disbelief. Enter Jon Courtenay Grimwood and the ARABESK trilogy: Pashazade, Effendi and Felaheen.
In Grimwood’s world, the Ottoman Empire never collapsed. Woodrow Wilson brokered peace between London and Berlin in 1915, World War II never happened, and the major world powers seem to be Germany,
February 27th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Jon Courtenay (Jonathan) Grimwood | BSFA Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Poltergeist is the second Kat Richardson GREYWALKER novel. A few years have passed since Greywalker, marked by the growth of Ben and Mara’s son Brian from a babe-in-arms to a talking toddler, and Harper Blaine’s increasing proficiency in navigating the transitional dimension next to ours, called the Grey. Harper clinically died for two minutes, and during that time, “crossed over,” triggering this strange ability.
Harper is hired by an egotistical and unethical professor of psychology to vet the results of an experiment in the paranormal.
February 23rd, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Kat Richardson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Secrets of the Cave by Phillipa Bowers
The loveliest image in Phillipa Bowers’s The Secrets of the Cave is the form of a woman, carved into the rock of the cave by the flow of the spring waters. At her feet, the pure water gathers in a pool lined with pink and red crystals. The water looks blood-red because of those crystals. The Lady in the cave is never described but frequently evoked in this book, which follows a young woman in England from 1930 until the end of World War II.
February 21st, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2 | Phillipa Bowers | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…