Zachary Mason, who retold Homer’s story of the wanderings of Odysseus in his well-received 2007 debut novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, takes on Ovid‘s epic narrative poem Metamorphoses in his latest work, Metamorphica (2018). Mason distills Metamorphoses’ over 250 Greek myths into 53 brief stories, including the tales of Arachne, Daedalus and Icarus,
August 16th, 2018. Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5, 4 | Zachary Mason | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Stars Uncharted by S.K. Dunstall
I’ve read a lot of books and seen a lot of shows with this basic premise: several individuals, each with their own secrets and special skills, end up together (in this case, on a spaceship) and must bond with each other so they can outwit and overpower the evil enemy that’s chasing them. That’s what’s happening in S.K. Dunstall’s version of this classic storyline in Stars Uncharted (2018).
There’s Nika Rik Terri, a famous body modder (think artistic genetic engineer) who is trying to hide from the criminal organization her ex-boyfriend belongs to.
August 14th, 2018. Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | S.K. Dunstall | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Book of Peril by Melissa McShane
Abernathy’s Bookstore is a powerful oracle, used by the community of mages to answer important questions and foretell the future. Its proprietor, Helena Davies, is a critical part of the bookstore’s oracular function: she takes augury slips of paper with questions on them from customers, wanders among the bookshelves until she finds a book that glows to her eyes, and sells the book to the customer as the answer to their question. The price for the augury is conveniently and magically printed inside the book on the title page,
August 10th, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Melissa McShane | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Book of Secrets by Melissa McShane
Helena Davies, a twenty-one year old who’s been living in her parents’ basement since dropping out of community college for lack of funds, is at loose ends and clueless about her future. She needs a job ― any job ― while she tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life. Surprisingly, the proprietor of Abernathy’s Bookstore immediately hires her, despite her sparse resume. But her new boss barely has time to have her sign an employment agreement (“I … swear to uphold the standards of Abernathy’s without fear or favor,
July 26th, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Melissa McShane | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Transfigured Hart by Jane Yolen
The Transfigured Hart, a 1975 novella by the talented Jane Yolen, was recently republished as part of Tachyon Publications’ Particle e-book imprint. It’s a lovely, evocative tale, juxtaposing fairy-tale-like fantasy and a contemporary rural setting.
Richard and Heather are twelve-year-old neighbors with vastly different personalities who barely know each other. Richard, an orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle, is an introspective loner. A long bout with rheumatic fever has given him the habit of reading,
July 23rd, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Jane Yolen | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Game of the Gods by Jay Schiffman
Hundreds of years in our world’s future, dystopia prevails, at least in the nation called the Federacy. Judge Max Cone, with a stellar career as a military commander behind him, has spent the last fourteen years as a high judge. One of his duties is to interview young people who want to become formal citizens of the Federacy, guaranteeing them freedom. Most are rejected, sent to border settlements where life is perilous. Now Max is biding his time, taking care of his beloved wife and three young children and quietly planning his personal revenge on the governmental officials who ordered the procedure that essentially lobotomized his wife,
July 20th, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 1.5 | Jay Schiffman | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
Nyxia Unleashed by Scott Reintgen
Emmett Atwater, a sixteen-year-old African American from Detroit, has spent the last year on board a spaceship owned by Babel Communications, lured in ― along with nineteen other disadvantaged teenagers from across the globe ― by Babel’s offer of immense wealth if he will travel to Eden and mine as much of the priceless mineral nyxia as possible on behalf of Babel for a year or so. Then he and the others can return home to a life of permanent ease. **Recapping Book 1 in the rest of this paragraph at a high level,
July 18th, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Scott Reintgen | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan
With Age of Myth, Michael J. Sullivan begins a prequel series to his RIYRIA CHRONICLES and RIYRIA REVELATIONS series. The good news for newcomers to his books is that, since this series takes place about 3,000 years earlier, you don’t need to be familiar with either of those series or the world of Elan to enjoy this new LEGENDS OF THE FIRST EMPIRE series, so I was in good shape.
July 17th, 2018. Tadiana Jones and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Michael J. Sullivan | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Our exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few recent stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about.
“Meat And Salt And Sparks” by Rich Larson (June 2018, free at Tor.com, 99c Kindle version)
Al Huxley and Cu are detectives and partners in this near-future SF tale. Cu is a chimpanzee whose intelligence has been enhanced to human-level through a company’s cruel and illegal experimentation. Granted “personhood” rights ― and a hefty settlement ― in a court case,
July 16th, 2018. Tadiana Jones and Marion Deeds | Pat Murphy, Tina Connolly | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Anya is an orphaned young princess, about twelve or thirteen years old, and a bookworm (as many of the best princesses in literature seem to be). She and her fifteen year old sister Morven are orphans under the dubious care of their stepmother, a botanist who is enthusiastic about plants but completely uninterested in and uninvolved with the girls, and Duke Rikard, their stepstepfather (which is what you get when your stepmother remarries after your father dies). Morven is supposed to be crowned as the queen when she turns sixteen in three months,
July 6th, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Garth Nix | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
What a dunderhead, not like the Horseclans series? I just like stories that are pure entertainment like these or Stirling's…
No, Paul, sorry, I don't believe I've read any books by Aickman; perhaps the odd story. I'm generally not a…
I like the ambiguities when the story leading up to them has inserted various dreadful possibilities in the back of…
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Ramsay Campbell was all the rage in my circle of horror-reading/writing friends in the 1980s, and they extolled the ambiguity.…