When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard
In 1916, as World War I raged, Henry Rider Haggard, then 60 years old, started to compose his 48th novel, out of an eventual 58. Originally called The Glittering Lady, the novel was ultimately released in 1919 under the title we know today, When the World Shook, and turned out to be still another wonderful book from this celebrated author, in which many of his old favorite themes (lost civilizations,
July 2nd, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | H. Rider Haggard | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Son of Man by Robert Silverberg
Back in the 1970s, there was a certain type of film that, whether by chance or design, became highly favored by the cannibis-stimulated and lysergically enhanced audience members of the day. These so-called “stoner pictures” — such as Performance, El Topo, Pink Flamingos and Eraserhead — played for years as “midnight movies” and remain hugely popular to this day. Well, just as there is a genre of cinema geared for stoners, it seems to me that there could equally well be a breed of literature with a genuine appeal for those with an “altered consciousness.”
June 26th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Robert Silverberg | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Face in the Abyss by Abraham Merritt
Abraham Merritt’s The Face in the Abyss first appeared as a short story in a 1923 issue of Argosy magazine. It would be another seven years before its sequel, “The Snake Mother,” appeared in Argosy, and yet another year before the book-length version combined these two tales, in 1931. It is easy to detect the book’s provenance as two shorter stories, as the first third of the novel is pretty straightforward treasure-hunting fare, while the remainder of the book takes a sharp turn into lost-world fantasy,
June 24th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Abraham Merritt | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Legion of Time by Jack Williamson
The Legion of Time consists of two novellas that Jack Williamson wrote in the late 1930s, neither of which have anything to do with his wholly dissimilar LEGION OF SPACE novels of that same period. Both of these novellas are written in the wonderfully pulpy prose that often typified Golden Age sci-fi, and both are as colorful, fast moving and action packed as any fan could want. That elusive “sense of wonder” that authors of the era strove for seemed to come naturally for Williamson,
June 16th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg
Although it had been over 45 years since I initially read Robert Silverberg’s novella “Hawksbill Station,” several scenes were as fresh in my memory as if I had read them just yesterday; such is the power and the vividness of this oft-anthologized classic. Originally appearing in the August ’67 issue of Galaxy magazine, the novella did not come to my teenaged attention till the following year, when it was reprinted in a collection entitled World’s Best Science Fiction 1968. Silverberg later expanded his 20,000-word story to novel form,
June 6th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Robert Silverberg | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Queen of the Legion by Jack Williamson
Fans of Jack Williamson’s LEGION OF SPACE series would have a long time to wait after part 3 of the saga, One Against the Legion, appeared in 1939. It would be a full 28 years before a short story featuring any of the Legion characters came forth, 1967’s “Nowhere Near,” and it was not until 1983, almost 50 years after part 1 of the series (The Legion of Space) was released,
June 5th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Incredible Adventures by Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood’s Incredible Adventures was first released in book form in 1914, and is comprised of three novellas and two short stories. The literary critic and scholar S.T. Joshi has called this book “perhaps the greatest weird collection of all time,” and while I do not pretend to be well read enough to concur in that evaluation, I will say that the book is beautifully written… and certainly weird, in Blackwood’s best manner.
The five pieces in Incredible Adventures are almost impossible to categorize.
June 4th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Algernon Blackwood | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
One Against the Legion by Jack Williamson
The third installment of Jack Williamson’s LEGION OF SPACE tetralogy, One Against the Legion, initially appeared in the April, May and June 1939 issues of Astounding Science-Fiction. A short, colorful and fast-moving novel, it reacquaints us with the Legionnaires Jay Kalam, Hal Samdu and Giles Habibula; John Star and his extended family only make cameo appearances in this one.
Whereas in book 1, The Legion of Space,
June 3rd, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Valley of the Flame by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore
Yeah, I know that one has to take inflation into account when computing these things, but still, what incredible deals the sci-fi lover could acquire 60 or so years ago! Take, for example, the March 1946 issue of Startling Stories, with a cover price of just 15 cents. For that minimal charge, the reader got stories by sci-fi greats Frank Belknap Long, Jack Williamson and Henry Kuttner, PLUS the entire novel Valley of the Flame,
May 30th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Doomsday Morning by C.L. Moore
By the mid-1950s, science fiction’s foremost husband-and-wife writing team, Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, could be regarded more as coeds than working authors. After the release of their “fix-up” novel Mutant in late 1953, the pair released only five more short pieces of sci-fi over the next five years. And while it is true that Kuttner did come out with a series of novels featuring psychoanalyst/detective Dr. Michael Gray, for the most part, the two concentrated on getting their degrees at the University of Southern California.
May 29th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | C.L. Moore | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.