Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
CLASSIFICATION: Weaving together fairy tales and history, Deathless is kind of like Pan’s Labyrinth, if it was told by Hayao Miyazaki and Neil Gaiman. Highly recommended for fans of adult fairy tales, Russian folklore, and Catherynne M. Valente.
FORMAT/INFO: Deathless is 352 pages long divided over a Prologue, 6 Parts, and 30 numbered/titled chapters. Narration is in the third-person, mostly via the protagonist, Marya Morevna.
March 10th, 2020. Robert Thompson and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4, 5 | Catherynne M. Valente | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Black Light Express by Philip Reeve
Black Light Express (2017) is Philip Reeve’s just-as-good-as-the-first-book follow up to Railhead, continuing the exhilarating romp while expanding the universe and its inhabitants, as well as digging a bit more deeply into the hidden history of the created world and offering up some more page time to some of the first book’s secondary characters. Warning: there will be some inevitable spoilers for book one (you can just stop here with the take-away that I recommend the duology).
March 9th, 2020. Bill Capossere, Jana Nyman and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Philip Reeve | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Restless Girls by Jessie Burton & Angela Barrett (illustrator)
I loved the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses when I was a little girl, but was also terribly disappointed with it. Twelve sisters sneak out of a secret door in their bedroom every evening to dance the night away in a magical fairyland, with only their worn-out shoes left as evidence of their rule-breaking.
And then their father comes along to spoil all the fun, setting potential suitors outside their door in order to find out what’s going on,
March 6th, 2020. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3.5 | Jessie Burton | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany
After reading about Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter I went in search of it and found it at my university library. Reading it was quite a different experience for me, but people who aren’t prepared for the style of writing like I was might be disappointed, confused or scorning of the slow, dream-like pace, archetype characters and poetical language. This might be especially true of fans of typical fantasy genre books (authors such as David Eddings or Terry Brooks) where a fantasy universe is deemed to be good only if it has a solid backing and an exhaustive array of facts and figures to add realism to the stories.
January 23rd, 2020. Rebecca Fisher and Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Lord Dunsany | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
MONSTRESS 3: Haven by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda
It’s always an event when the next collection of Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s MONSTRESS is released — I take a copy home, make sure I won’t get interrupted, and just sink down into the complex storytelling and truly gorgeous illustrations. Every year this ongoing graphic novel cleans up at the Eisner and Hugo Awards, and for good reason.
Maika Halfwolf is a young woman with a terrible secret: an ancient monster resides within her body,
December 11th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Marjorie M. Liu | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
It struck me on reading this YA novel that there’s a definite hierarchy to the stories that are told within the STAR WARS universe. Obviously the movies are the most important: they are seen by the most people, and encompass the most important events in the overarching space epic. They’re “tent-poles” so to speak.
In second place are the animated television shows such as The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels which build on the canon that’s laid out in the movies,
December 9th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | E.K. Johnston | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Moonlight and Ashes by Sophie Masson
This is one of three fairy tale retellings by Sophie Masson that are only tangentially based on a traditional tale, the others being The Crystal Heart (Rapunzel) and Scarlet in the Snow (Beauty and the Beast). Moonlight and Ashes (2012) tackles Cinderella, and is quite possibly the best of the three. Incorporating elements of the story that are usually forgotten in retellings (such as the magical hazel tree) and Masson’s own imagination,
November 29th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Sophie Masson | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Remember Me by Christopher Pike
The idea of a ghost who has to solve their own murder from beyond the grave is a slam-dunk. I’ll read or watch any variation of this story, from Patrick Swayze in Ghost to all those early X-Files episodes. So having been a fan of Christopher Pike in my teen years, I’m not sure how Remember Me (1989) managed to slip my notice. But hey, better late than never!
Shari Cooper is dead, thrown from a balcony at a friend’s party.
November 28th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Christopher Pike | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Night Flights (2018) by Philip Reeve is a collection of three short stories set in the world of the MORTAL ENGINES QUARTET (also known as the HUNGRY CITY CHRONICLES), and focuses on the character of Anna Fang, a fearless aviatrix. Its timing seemed to be connected to the release of Peter Jackson’s filmic adaptation of Mortal Engines, the first book in the series, and Reeve’s touching dedication at the front of the book confirmed this.
November 25th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Philip Reeve | Short Fiction, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Flight of Angels by Rebecca Guay (illustrator)
Stories by Holly Black, Bill Willingham, Alisa Kwitney, Louise Hawes and Todd Mitchell
An angel has fallen. Led by their insatiable curiosity, the hosts of fae have followed the descent of the white-winged creature and now gather around his still-breathing body to decide what to do with him. They decide to hold a trial, and present evidence in the form of stories about the deeds of angels to decide whether or not to let him live.
November 20th, 2019. Ruth Arnell and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Bill Willingham, Holly Black, Louise Hawes, Rebecca Guay | Comics | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Oh...and the men used the name "The Great Northern Expedition" to throw people off as to their actual destination, even…
Oh, it IS, Marion! It is!
Sorry if I mislead you in this detail, Paul...the voyage by ship was only the first leg of the quintet's…
The geography is confusing me--how does one get to a village in Tibet by ship? And even the northernmost part…
Oh, this sounds interesting!