The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, Elio M. García, and Linda Antonsson
George R.R. Martin’s The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and The Game of Thrones is a companion to his A SONG OF ICE & FIRE novels. It provides modest spoilers for the series and is probably best if not read until readers have finished the third novel,
May 1st, 2020. Ryan Skardal and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | George R.R. Martin | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Earth is powerful but overpopulated, and its many billions of people now look at the Martian frontier with desperate envy and resentment. Is war inevitable? Peace in the short term will require a delegation to co-opt the “feudal capitalist” Earth’s selfish politics, it will require history’s most ambitious Model United Nations committee to create a Martian government, and it might also require Mars First’s intelligence community to build an extra-terrestrial alliance against the home world. If that plot summary sounds sprawling, I’m afraid it doesn’t even approach a comprehensive list of what Kim Stanley Robinson explores in Blue Mars,
April 27th, 2020. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 5 | Kim Stanley Robinson | Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
If you’ve read one Stephen King novel, you’ve read nearly all of them. And yet people keep coming back for more. Published in 1987, Misery explores King’s relationship with his most obsessive readers while also wrestling with his own addictions.
Misery‘s plot is pretty straightforward: Paul Sheldon is an author of best-selling novels who one night drunkenly drives into a blizzard and crashes. When he wakes up, he has been (not rescued, but) kidnapped by Nurse Ratched,
March 20th, 2020. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | Stephen King | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
William Gibson’s latest novel, Agency (2020), is a follow-up to The Peripheral which needs to be read first. In The Peripheral we learned that in the not-too-distant future, someone will discover some software on a secret server in China which allows users to interact with people using the internet in the past (our modern day). Contacting people in the past makes a new timeline branch called a “stub.” The future people who create the stub can play around with it,
March 10th, 2020. Kat Hooper and Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | William Gibson | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson
X follows his girlfriend, Val, to Antarctica, only to learn that she is dumping him. A mountaineer, Val becomes an expedition leader while X becomes a grunt. While driving a convoy, one of his vehicles is hijacked, which is odd enough that the American Senator Phil Chase sends one of his staff, Wade, to investigate. Kim Stanley Robinson‘s Antarctica is an adventure, a near future climate change allegory, and an overview of Antarctica’s history, geography, geology, politics, and more.
January 10th, 2020. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | Kim Stanley Robinson | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Toru Watanabe is just another kid studying drama at university when he falls for his friend Naoko, who is in a relationship with another of Toru’s friends, Kizuki — until Kizuki commits suicide. Emotionally confused because she feels “split in two and playing tag with myself,” Naoko escapes to a mountain retreat, though not before sleeping with Toru. Watanabe pines for Naoko as he passes time in Tokyo with his friend Nagasawa. Nagasawa likes The Great Gatsby, and he has no trouble finding women to sleep with him — and with Toru,
January 1st, 2019. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | Haruki Murakami | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Happy Thanksgiving, American readers! In honor of Ryan, who recently retired from FanLit after eight years of servitude, we’re re-running his Thanksgiving column from two years ago.
Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday. There are no gifts. Instead, we set time aside for family, friends, and good food. And we are invited to consider those things we are grateful for, a reminder to keep things in perspective.
Well, one thing I’m grateful for is science fiction and fantasy stories. They were the first books that appealed to me when I was a young reader.
November 22nd, 2018. Ryan Skardal | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 12 comments |
Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
What is the best way into Haruki Murakami’s new novel, Killing Commendatore (2018)?
This is a late novel from an aging novelist (Murakami is 69 years old) who has perhaps lost the vitality that carried his greatest novels. In fact, I gave up on 2013’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by the end of the first chapter. It seemed like a re-tread, something I could return to later or never. I was therefore pleased when I found that I had once again fallen under the spell of a Murakami novel with Killing Commendatore.
November 1st, 2018. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | Haruki Murakami | Edge | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Originally published in Portuguese in 1995, José Saramago’s Blindness is a post-apocalyptic novel about pandemic blindness and the consequent dissolution of a society. Both the novel and the author have received acclaim, and Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. I liked Blindness, but I found it overrated.
Many readers will find this novel thoughtful and complex. The hero is a woman who does not lose her sight but nevertheless accompanies her suddenly blind husband when he is sent into quarantine.
August 24th, 2018. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | José Saramago | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Tool of War by Paolo Bacigalupi
Paolo Bacigalupi’s Tool of War (2017) is the third entry in a series of futuristic novels in which catastrophic climate change projections have come to pass. The American seaboard is flooded, and the United States government has been overtaken by transnational organizations. The most stunning technological breakthroughs are in gene editing, and elite organizations own “augments,” creatures that are part human and part animal, part slave and part soldier. The main character here, Tool, is the greatest of the augments because he can defy his training and act independently.
June 5th, 2018. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 2 | Paolo Bacigalupi | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
For some strange reason, I get the feeling I might like this one! 😁
Wow, 20 dollars? That seems a lot for a 100-or-so-page book, but most of my novellas have come via ARCs…
I might say "formulaic" actually.
Your review made me curious, so I looked this book up. Sure enough: Tor. Tor seems to specialize in these…
It's a tightrope act for sure.