Reposting to include Sandy’s new review.
Let me be clear: The Birthgrave has kind of a dumb plot. It’s repetitive, it’s all predicated on a prosaic twist that’s kept overly mysterious, and when the big reveal finally does come, it’s via one of the most blatant examples of deus ex machina I’ve ever seen. All the same, I’d still call this a good book. Maybe even a great one. That’s the magic of Tanith Lee: even her first novel,
April 4th, 2025. Tim Scheidler and Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4, 5 | Tanith Lee | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
World of the Starwolves by Edmond Hamilton
Although Ohio-born author Edmond Hamilton had given his readers much in the way of action, spectacle, alien races, futuristic science, and cosmic wonder in the first two novels of his so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY – The Weapon From Beyond (1967) and The Closed Worlds (1968) – there was yet one element that he seemed to be holding in abeyance. In Book #1, the reader had met Morgan Chane,
March 27th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Edmond Hamilton | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Closed Worlds by Edmond Hamilton
In Edmond Hamilton’s 1967 novel The Weapon From Beyond, Book #1 of his so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY, the reader had been introduced to Morgan Chane, an orphaned Earthling who had been brought up and raised by the piratical Starwolves of the planet Varna. In that first installment, Chane had been forced to flee from the vengeful Varnans after having killed one of them in self-defense, and had gone on to work with a group of mercenaries,
March 17th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Edmond Hamilton | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Weapon From Beyond by Edmond Hamilton
It would seem that I owe a very sincere apology to all my FanLit readers here. In my June 2017 review of Edmond Hamilton’s 1966 novel Doomstar, I mentioned that this was the final work given to us by the Golden Age sci-fi master, and as it turns out, that statement was far from being correct. One of the folks who saw that review, Dennis Burdette, was good enough to point out, 10 months later in that review’s Comments section,
March 7th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Edmond Hamilton | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Rogue Star by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
Have you ever read a science-fiction book that was so bizarre, so way-out, that you said to yourself “How did the author ever think of this? What was he smoking? Did she possibly eat a Fluffernutter and headcheese sandwich, go to bed, and dream the whole thing up?” It’s happened to me any number of times, with such novels as Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore’s The Well of the Worlds (1952),
February 28th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Starchild by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
By the end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson’s 1963 novel The Reefs of Space, all of the reader’s many questions had been answered, and all of the loose ends tied up in a neat bow … at least, so we would have thought. The book could very easily have stood on its own, so perhaps it came as something of a surprise when the authors came out with a sequel two years later.
February 20th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Reefs of Space by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
The experience of collaborating on a trilogy must have been a pleasant one for future sci-fi Grand Masters Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson, as just five years later, the pair would embark together on another series of books. THE UNDERSEA TRILOGY – Undersea Quest (1954), Undersea Fleet (1956) and Undersea City (1958) – had been targeted at a younger audience,
February 13th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Undersea City by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
What red-blooded youth – or adult, for that matter – could possibly read Books 1 & 2 of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson’s UNDERSEA TRILOGY and not want to immediately proceed on to Book #3? Not I, that’s for sure! In Book #1, Undersea Quest (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, a cadet at the U.S. Sub-Sea Academy, had gotten into major-league trouble with a gaggle of crooks and goons in the suboceanic domed city of Thetis,
February 6th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Undersea Fleet by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
At the tail end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson’s Undersea Quest (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, has been reinstated into the U.S.S.A. (U.S. Sub-Sea Academy), after having been forced to resign under mysteriously trumped-up charges. The authors’ fans would have to wait a few years to find out what, if anything, might happen next, but ultimately they were rewarded with a follow-up volume that was, if anything,
January 30th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Undersea Quest by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
In 1947, Robert A. Heinlein, after almost a decade of producing high-quality science fictional short stories and novellas for adults, came out with his first novel, Rocket Ship Galileo. The book was geared to younger readers, and would prove to be just the beginning of a landmark series of 12 “Heinlein juveniles,” all published by the U.S. firm Scribner’s. Heinlein – who, in 1974, would be proclaimed the first Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America – would come out with at least one such book for younger readers every year until 1958.
January 23rd, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Looking forward to reading the review.
Always my pleasure, Marion! I'm almost finished with Book #3 now, and hope to be reporting on it very shortly....
After reading your review, I'm quite sure I never read this one, or Book Three for that matter. I loved…
What a fantastic review! I loved how you highlighted the blend of action and character development in "Foundryside." The intricate…
On her blog, "Aunt Beast" says she is in the early stages of working on another Tinfoil Dossier novella, so…