Author: Marion Deeds

Memory Reborn: We weren’t expecting a love story

Memory Reborn by David Walton

2023’s Memory Reborn is the third book in David Walton’s LIVING MEMORY series, which started with Living Memory and introduced us to individuals from an advanced society living during the Cretaceous Period, and who happened to be dinosaurs (maniraptors to be precise). Reading Memory Reborn, we were both eager to see how Walton resolved the many, increasingly complex problems the modern-day characters, both human and dinosaur, faced. Neither of us expected the love story to be the plot line that grabbed us the hardest.

December 22nd, 2023. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | David Walton | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Spark of Destiny: It’s a treat to read some old-fashioned steampunk

Spark of Destiny by Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin

Steampunk as a fiction genre has nearly disappeared. It’s become much more of a fashion or costume statement; or subsumed completely into alternate history. I understand the reasons; and expect the various sub-genres to ebb and flow like everything else. It was still a nice treat to read 2023’s Spark of Destiny by Gail Z. Martin and Larry N. Martin, a genuine steampunk adventure.

Here’s an incomplete list of what I expect in steampunk:

alternate European or North American history (or other locations—this is just what I mostly see);

December 21st, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Gail Z. Martin | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: December 20, 2023

File 770 reports that Galaxy Magazine will be relaunched by Starship Sloane Publishing.

The year has flown and we are already to the “Best of…” season. Here’s the Guardian’s take on the best fiction in the speculative genres for 2023. (Sorry about the pledge break in the middle—I don’t think it’s a paywall.)

Investing Magazine… (Yes, I do know how weird that is!)… has an article about famous, and expensive, movie cars. A couple of these go for under $100,000! A virtual steal!

December 20th, 2023. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

Bookshops & Bonedust: A fun, engaging prequel

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

2023’s Bookshops & Bonedust, by Travis Baldree, is not a sequel to last year’s Legends & Lattes, but a prequel, introducing us to a much younger version of the orc mercenary Viv. Pursing the necromancer Varine the Pale with her band of hired soldiers, Viv is seriously wounded. The gang leaves her to recuperate in the tiny coastal town of Murk. They promise to pick her up on their return home, but Viv chafes at the thought of them fighting without her.

December 14th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Travis Baldree | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: December 13, 2023

Lis Carey review Chaos on Catnet, (looks like Audio only) over at I.

Neil Gaiman was interview by the New York Times. Here’s part of the article. It may be behind a paywall. (Thank you to File 770.)

Flory Jagoda wrote “Ocho Kandelikas” in 1983, in Ladino, a Spanish language used traditionally by the Sephardic Jewish community.

Tor.com has a detailed recap of the Doctor Who specials which I will probably not see since they’re on Disney and I don’t subscribe.

December 13th, 2023. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 3 comments |

The Undetectables: Three detectives and a ghost solve magical crime

The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth

The Undetectables, by Courtney Smyth, (2023) reads like the first book in a series and I hope this is the case, because it was fun, and I loved the magical detective characters. Set in a modern world where magic and the mundane exist in close proximity if not actually side-by-side, the story follows our three amateur sleuths as they try to uncover the identity of a magical serial killer.

The point of view character of the story, mostly, is Mallory Hawthorne.

December 11th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Courtney Smyth | SFF Reviews | no comments |

North Woods: Wonderfully and precisely crafted

Reposting to include Marion’s new review.

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Daniel Mason’s North Woods (2023) is a wonderfully and precisely crafted collection of related short stories that greatly impresses with its varied styles, vividly detailed descriptions, sharp sentence constructions, connecting echoes, and a few unexpected twists and turns. I would have preferred a bit more emotional depth at times, though several of the stories, particularly toward the end, offer up some more than a few moving scenes. Between those moments and Mason’s consummate craftsmanship,

WWWednesday: December 6, 2023

With the IndieInk Awards, independent presses are trying to start formal recognition of indie works.

Mark Shepherd, best known as “Crowley” on Supernatural, reports he survived a “widowmaker” event that involved six heart attacks. The actor, who also appeared on Doctor Who and in a recurring role on Warehouse 13, is 56 years old.

Caution; Wide Load. A section of the Antarctic ice shelf, roughly the size of the island of Oahu, broke off and is now headed for the open ocean,

December 6th, 2023. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

WWWednesday: November 29, 2023

Another single topic column. This one Marion’s Own Idiosyncratic, Book-themed Gift Guide for the 2023 year-end holidays. These aren’t new releases or 2023 books—these contain some new books, some old favorites, and a few in between.

For the historian, feminist reader on your gift list:

Library of America: The Joanna Russ Compilation. This collection of three of Russ’s novels, including her best known, The Female Man, as well as the Alyx stories and three other award-winning and finalist stories, restores this intellectual, feminist writer to her place in history,

November 29th, 2023. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

The Truth Against the World: Dystopian, intriguing and deeply moving

The Truth Against the World by David Corbett

If you like Irish folklore and enjoyed Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, and/or The Road by Cormac McCarthy, then you owe it to yourself to read David Corbett’s 2023 novel The Truth Against the World.

Corbett comes out of the crime novel tradition, and The Truth Against the World brings elements of that, and, as always, an interesting pairing of protagonists. In this case,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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