Mira Grant is the science fiction side of Seanan McGuire, the fantasy writer responsible for the OCTOBER DAYE and INCRYPTID fantasy series. Her last outing was the NEWSFLESH trilogy, which I loved (especially the first book, Feed). Now she’s published the first novel in the PARASITOLOGY duology, Parasite. And it’s a doozy.
Parasitology opens with the transcription of a video recording.
October 28th, 2013. Terry Weyna and Stefan Raets | Mira Grant | Horror | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Equations of Life by Simon Morden
I picked up Equations of Life, the first novel in Simon Morden’s SAMUIL PETROVITCH series, after receiving a copy of his latest novel The Curve of the Earth for review. The new novel is the fourth one set in the series, but it came billed as a good point to get started if you missed the first three books, which form a trilogy of sorts. Still, being somewhat obsessive about these things, I decided to go back and read the first book rather than jump in at The Curve of the Earth.
September 5th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 2 | Simon Morden | SFF Reviews | no comments |
I read some great YA novels last year, but also a few less than impressive ones. In my reviews, I explained my reservations about the novels I didn’t like in some detail. At one point, I started to wonder whether I was being too hard on them, because, after all, those books are aimed at a younger audience. Is it fair to set the same expectations for YA as for books aimed at mature readers? Looking back, I even mentioned in some reviews that I clearly wasn’t the target demographic for these novels and that someone who is closer to the YA age range would probably enjoy them more.
August 28th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | Karen Healey | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell
The protagonist in Sean Ferrell’s Man in the Empty Suit has seen and done it all. Thanks to his ability to travel in time, he’s cruised all the way up and down the course of human history. There’s not much that’ll get him excited anymore. Every year, he travels to the year 2071, the 100th anniversary of his own birth, to celebrate his birthday with dozens of younger and older versions of himself. It’s the world’s most exclusive party: only he and other versions of himself are invited.
August 20th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 0.1 | Sean Ferrell | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Damocles by S.G. Redling is a charming but flawed twist on first contact stories, the twist being that, in this case, the humans are the aliens who are landing on a faraway planet after a long period of cryogenic sleep. They are attempting to trace the origins of a mysterious message from an ancient race that claims to have originally seeded the Earth. Upon landing, the small human team discovers a humanoid race called the Dideto and becomes the subject of intense study.
August 14th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 2 | S.G. Redling | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination edited by John Joseph Adams
The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination is the latest themed anthology edited by John Joseph Adams — and it’s another good one. This time, Adams has collected a set of short stories featuring the hero’s (or often superhero’s) traditional antagonist: the mad genius, the super-villain, the brilliant sociopath who wants to remold the world in his own image — or occasionally, maybe, just be left alone in his secret lair to conduct spine-tingling experiments that,
August 7th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 3.5 | Alan Dean Foster, Austin Grossman, Ben H. Winters, Carrie Vaughn, David D. Levine, David Farland, Diana Gabaldon, Genevieve Valentine, Harry Turtledove, Jeffrey Ford, L.A. Banks, L.E. Modesitt_Jr, Laird Barron, Marjorie M. Liu, Mary Robinette Kowal, Naomi Novik, Seanan McGuire, Theodora Goss | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough
Karin Kross just posted an excellent piece on Tor.com about “dumb” action movies, nominally a review of Pacific Rim (which I haven’t seen) but with broader application to anything we tend to label as “dumb”:
Respectfully, I would like to disagree. Or at least, insist that we stop using the word dumb. Simple? Sure. Uncomplicated? Absolutely. Spectacular, in the truest sense of the word? Hell yes. But none of these things are dumb.
The rest of the article is worth reading for SFF readers,
July 30th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 3.5 | Jason M. Hough | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Beautiful Land by Alan Averill
The Beautiful Land, by Alan Averill, is one of those books that I could mostly enjoy as I go along thanks to some snappy dialogue and likable main characters placed in some interesting situation, but always with the nagging feeling in the back of my head that things just aren’t holding together as they should be, that the whole underlying structure is just a little shaky and were one of those moments of witty repartee to suddenly go awry,
June 19th, 2013. Bill Capossere and Stefan Raets´s rating: 3 | Alan Averill | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer
Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer is a wonderful and deceptively complex little book that will play havoc with your mind in general and any preconceived genre expectations you may have in particular. I highly recommend grabbing it for that reason alone, but read on if you need more convincing.
Angélica Gorodischer is the Argentine author of more than twenty books, only two of which have been translated into English thus far. The first one of these was Kalpa Imperial,
April 10th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4.5 | Angélica Gorodischer | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins
I’ve read several novels over the last few years that were compared to China Miéville by reviewers, publishers, or both. In most cases, I thought the comparison was a stretch, to say the least. In some cases, it was simply ludicrous. Setting your fantasy novel in a grimy city where it rains a lot is not enough. Not every weird/slipstream dystopia qualifies. There is more to it than that.
When Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins arrived on my doorstep,
March 29th, 2013. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | Peter Higgins | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…