The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves & China Miéville
You, he thought as it drew back its right left fist, its agglomerated fistmass, on a farrago of an arm, on a stitchwork welter of a shoulder.
2024’s collaboration between acting icon Keanu Reeves and prose icon China Miéville delivers lots of thrills. The Book of Elsewhere, which follows the adventures of a nearly-unkillable warrior, is based on a character created by Reeves in his comic book, BRZRKR.
February 7th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | China Mieville | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Here are some downloadable datasets from NOAA.
File770 has an article about new Marvel variant covers which features the brand’s heroes in traditional Japanese clothing. I don’t know what I think about all of them, but Venom in a kimono is eye-catching.
Locus’s always-useful Recommended Reading list is out.
I’m getting ready to read Opacity by Sofia Samatar, so this article in Reactor about reading writing about writing was timely and interesting.
More fallout from the sexual abuse allegations against Neil Gaiman,
February 5th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |
Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune
2024’s Somewhere Beyond the Sea continues the adventures of Arthur Parnassus and Linus Baker and their six magical children, in a second world similar to ours, with a government kind of like Britain’s. The Amazon blurb for this book says, “This is Arthur’s story.” While I enjoyed the book and found it a much-needed escape from real life current events, this tale left many of Arthur’s issues unaddressed in its rush to show us fun, bantering scenes with the children, and let Arthur and Linus match wits with another government inspector and a government minister,
February 3rd, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | TJ Klune | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott
I loved GennaRose Nethercott’s novel Thistlefoot, one of the best books I’d read in a long time, so I followed it up with 2024’s story collection, Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories. This collection displays the beautiful, the eerie, the surreal, and the terrible, written in Nethercott’s precise, poetic prose that reminds me of the writing of Kelly Link.
The books contains fourteen stories.
January 31st, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | GennaRose Nethercott | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
I will read two short fiction works on The Story Hour tonight, at 7 PM Pacific Time. The readings are store on the Facebook page, if you want to catch up later.
The Centers for Disease Control have downloadable data available to the public. Check their site here.
In Reactor’s List of Five column, James Driscoll shares five books about gods causing trouble for humans.
Award Season! Speculative fiction is well represented on the ALA’s Alex award list this year.
January 29th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |
2024’s Bringer of Dust, J.M. Miro’s second book in the trilogy of THE TALENTS, finds our survivors from Book One, Ordinary Monsters, scattered across Europe. Maybe “scattered” isn’t the right word, because their locations are purposeful, as they seek to find an orsine they can open, to return to the world of the dead and rescue Marlowe, the Shining Boy.
A quick review of the magic: Clanks can manipulate their own flesh,
January 28th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | J.M. Miro | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Reactormag shares a couple of forthcoming 2025 releases, among them the latest by Charlie Jane Anders and a dragon book by Cherie Radke.
They also shared an excerpt from T.J Klune’s latest, The Bones Beneath my Skin.
Best Of Lists, Recommended Reading lists, nomination suggestions… it’s that time of year. Nerds of a Feather starts with their recommended list of fiction and visual work categories.
John Scalzi announced completion of The Shattering Peace,
January 22nd, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |
Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro
…And the way a child looked at him in the harbor at Alexandria as he climbed down the gangway and into the haze. All this, all this and more, would vanish from the world with his ceasing, all this ineradicable beauty that now lived only inside him would be lost, moments as fragile as coins of light on water, and this more than any other part of it made him feel alone and sorrowful and frail…
2022’s Ordinary Monsters, Book One of THE TALENTS,
January 21st, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | J.M. Miro | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The New York Times profiles Nnedi Okorafor and her forthcoming autobiographical novel. (This article may be behind a paywall.)
Thanks, File770, for introducing me to yet another “—punk” category: Incensepunk. Also, you can click on their submission guidelines if this is a market where your short fiction would fit.
At Reactor, Molly Templeton takes a thoughtful look at the nature of “escapism” in fiction.
Speaking of thing I wish I could escape… because I do cover stories of genre interest, I’m including a link to this week’s Variety article about the allegations about Neil Gaiman.
January 15th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 1 comment |
The Spite House by Johnny Compton
Spite houses are real and I went down a shallow rabbit hole preparing for this review. With his 2023 novel, The Spite House, Johnny Compton takes on the concept of a house built solely to irritate and harass nearby landowners, and morphs it into something original and scary.
Eric Ross and his two daughters, Dessa and Stacy, are making their way through Texas, trying to keep under the radar. They have the normal concerns a black family in Texas would have,
January 13th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Johnny Compton | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
How did I miss this? Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
I guess that is true, Marion. And when it comes to "You Only Live Twice," I saw the movie TWICE…
I absolutely loved this deep dive into Edwige Fenech's giallo films! Her unique blend of allure and mystery truly captivates.…
You managed to work in your two loves; vintage fiction and films!
Yup, Marion, your memory serves you well! Oh...as regards these three recent Bond reviews of mine, as the old saying…