The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
The Invisible Man (1897) is a story known by most people, but how many have actually read the book? It’s probably a lot darker and action-packed than you think. Also, like most of H.G. Wells’ books, it is not long and is available free as an e-book, so it’s well worth a day’s reading time.
Imagine you are an ambitious but poor young medical student named Griffin, eager to make a name for yourself and enjoy success.
April 16th, 2015. Stuart Starosta, Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | H.G. Wells | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells’ 1896 novel is dark, disturbing and thought-provoking. Coming just several decades after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), it tells the tale of a man named Edward Prendick who gets shipwrecked on a remote island, subsequently encountering a sinister figure named Dr. Moreau, who he discovers conducts vivisections of animals, combining various creatures to make subhuman beasts who he then loses interest in and releases to roam the island.
April 15th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4.5 | H.G. Wells | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein
The Door Into Summer (1957) is an immensely enjoyable time-travel story told effortlessly by Robert A. Heinlein long before he turned into a crotchety, soap-box ranting old crank who had a very unhealthy obsession with free love and characters going back in time to get involved with their mothers (gross!!).
So, back to this book. The Door Into Summer is the story of Daniel Davis, a hard-working engineer in 1970 who invents a wonderful robot vacuum cleaner named Hired Girl (not at all sexist,
April 14th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Robert A. Heinlein | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith
I’ve always wanted to read the work of Cordwainer Smith (pen name of Paul Linebarger, a scholar and diplomat who was an expert on East Asia and psychological warfare), who also moonlighted as a quirky SF author who wrote a number of short stories mainly in the 1950s and 60s set in the Instrumentality of Mankind, a full-fledged galaxy-spanning far-future universe.
Smith has something of a cult following, but really only has a few books to his credit: the collected short stories that can be found in The Instrumentality of Mankind (1974),
April 13th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3 | Cordwainer Smith | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Can you be nostalgic for a place you never lived in, for a time long gone before you were born? I certainly never lived in Waukegan, Illinois in the summer of 1928 as a 12-year old boy named Douglas Spalding, but Ray Bradbury has perfectly evoked a magical world of a long-lost Midwest small town as seen from the eyes of a bright, energetic young boy.
You would think small town life is fairly boring and uneventful, but in the lyrical hands of Bradbury,
April 10th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4.5 | Ray Bradbury | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
There’s something very comforting in the SF novels of Arthur C. Clarke, my favorite of the Big Three SF writers of the Golden Age (the other two being Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov). His stories are clearly-written, unembellished, and precise, and they focus on science, ideas, and plot. Though some claim his characters are fairly wooden, I don’t see it that way. They tend to be fairly level-headed and logical, and focus on handling the situations on hand in an intelligent manner.
April 9th, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Arthur C. Clarke | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith
The universe that Cordwainer Smith created has captured the imagination of many SF fans and authors thanks to the short stories that have been collected in The Instrumentality of Mankind (1974), The Best of Cordwainer Smith (1975), and The Rediscovery of Man (1993). It is without doubt one of the strangest and most memorable creations in SF, even if it only affords short, tantalizing glimpses of a much greater tapestry that the author was never able to fully reveal due to his untimely death at age 53.
April 8th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4.5 | Cordwainer Smith | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The City and The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
The City and The Stars is a 1954 rewrite of Arthur C. Clarke’s first book Against the Fall of Night (1948). There are plenty of adherents of the original version, but the revised version is excellent too.
As one of his earlier classic tales, this one features many familiar genre tropes: A far-future city called Diaspar, where technology is so sophisticated it seems like magic, a young (well not exactly,
April 6th, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Arthur C. Clarke | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides (1949) won the International Fantasy Award and was selected as one of David Pringle’s Best 100 SF Novels, but I’m guessing many SFF readers have never heard of it. You may have heard of pastoral SF (ala Clifford Simak), and this book may be best classified as post-holocaust pastoral SF, perhaps even “bucolic SF” (similar books include Leigh Bracket’s Long Tomorrow and Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon).
March 27th, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5, 4.5 | George R. Stewart | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
We all know Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as a classic dystopian tale of a world bereft of conflict, pain, and hardship — but also lacking individuality, free will, and intellectual thought. You were probably forced to read it in high school (I somehow missed it) and if you were a normal teen it must be have been either very weird or strangely appealing (unlimited free drugs and sex, a carefree life, etc.). Granted, it’s a brilliant critique of the early socialist utopias penned by H.G.
March 20th, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Aldous Huxley | Audio, Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
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