Wool by Hugh Howey
Editor’s Note: When first published, Wool was an omnibus of edition including 5 “books.” Now, Wool is considered the first novel in Hugh Howey’s SILO series. The other two books are Shift (also at first considered an omnibus) and Dust which we’ve since reviewed.
Wool is the omnibus edition of Hugh Howey’s WOOL series. The first book in the series, Wool,
April 16th, 2012. Ruth Arnell, Bill Capossere, Ray McKenzie and Marion Deeds | Hugh Howey | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff, is a funny, dark and twisty thriller. I was hooked on Page Five, when a woman who is being held in the nut-job wing of a Nevada jail says to the doctor evaluating her, “I think it all started when I figured out my high school janitor was the Angel of Death…”
Jane Charlotte, the woman in question, says she works for a secret organization called, well, the organization. This organization has a unit called “The Division for the Final Disposal of Irredeemable Persons” — nicknamed Bad Monkeys.
April 12th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Matt Ruff | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Anne Lyle’s first novel, The Alchemist of Souls, was released last week. Lyle is pretty busy right now, getting ready to attend Eastercon in England and working on The Prince of Lies, the second book in the trilogy, but she answered some questions for Fantasy Literature.
Marion Deeds: I suppose the fact that you grew up in Nottingham partially answers this question, but what inspired your love of swordplay?
Anne Lyle: Mostly it was watching Hollywood swashbucklers as a kid, as they were staple Sunday afternoon TV back in the days before cable.
April 10th, 2012. Marion Deeds | Anne Lyle | Author Interviews | 1 comment |
The Alchemist of Souls by Anne Lyle
Anne Lyle’s first novel, The Alchemist of Souls, is a big tankard of Elizabethan ale, foaming with intrigue, hidden identities, secret societies, treachery, plots, swordplay and magic. I can’t think of a much better way to spend a few hours than to curl up with this book.
Maliverny Catlyn is half English and half French, but a loyal English citizen. He has been a soldier, but now is reduced to taking jobs guarding warehouses and teaching merchants’ sons swordplay.
April 5th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Anne Lyle | Audio | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon might well remind readers of the Arabian Nights, given that it’s the first thing mentioned by the publishers when advertising Ahmed’s debut fantasy novel. They could also mention that it offers almost everything readers tend to expect from the genre.
Dr. Adoulla Makhslood is a ghul hunter, one of the last of his kind. The magic system he employs relies on vials that he throws at ghuls,
April 3rd, 2012. Ryan Skardal, Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Saladin Ahmed | Audio | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
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 |
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,…
It's hardly a private conversation, Becky. You're welcome to add your 2 cents anytime!