In Warm Bodies (2010), our world has been overrun by the zombies, and the few humans who are left are fighting a rearguard action. They huddle in walled enclosures, sending out occasional armed expeditions for food and supplies. Regular school classes have fallen by the wayside, replaced by classes and demonstrations on how to best kill a zombie permanently (head shots).
R is a zombie who doesn’t remember his past life, except that his name maybe started with the letter R.
March 14th, 2017. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Isaac Marion | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
In Mark Lawrence‘s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, ten SFF review blogs joined forces to read 300 self-published fantasy novels. Each blog read ten books and chose one to advance to the top ten. The book that we advanced was Kaitlyn Davis‘s The Shadow Soul (here’s our review) and we gave it a score of 5 out of 10 on Lawrence’s scale. We are currently reading the remaining top ten SPFBO books. Here is our review of four of them. We’ll get the last five books done soon.
March 10th, 2017. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones | SPFBO | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
“Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang (1998, originally anthologized in Starlight 2, reprinted in Stories of Your Life and Others). 2000 Nebula award winner (novella) and 1999 Sturgeon award winner.
Being more of a fantasy lover than a sci-fi fan, I still hadn’t read the short-story superstar Ted Chiang.
March 6th, 2017. Katie Burton, Tadiana Jones, Kat Hooper and Bill Capossere | Brandon Sanderson, Ken Liu, Ted Chiang | Nebula Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Our weekly sampling of free short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories that caught our attention this week.
“Masked” by Rich Larson (July 2016, free at Apex, $2.99 Kindle magazine issue. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction)
It’s been a whole month since anyone’s seen Vera, and the circumstances of us finally seeing her this weekend are going to be ultra grody-odd, so I deliberate forever doing my Face. In the end I decide to go subtle: an airbrushed conglom of three of my most flattering private snaps,
February 27th, 2017. Katie Burton, Jana Nyman, Tadiana Jones, Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere | David D. Levine, Yoon Ha Lee | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Tiger and the Wolf (2016), just issued in trade paperback format, immerses you a Bronze Age/early Iron Age world, where every human is a shapeshifter. People divide into clans according to the animal they change into, which happens instantly and, for the most part, at will. Their shapeshifting animal informs their clan’s physical appearance as well as the nature of their society. It’s a brutal life, with the stronger tribes like Tigers and Wolves fighting for supremacy. Groups like these dominate the weaker clans like the Deer and Boars,
February 21st, 2017. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Man Who Painted The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard (1984, free online at Baen.com (sample from the Bestiary anthology), originally published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, also collected in The Dragon Griaule). 1985 Hugo and 1984 Nebula nominee (novelette), 1985 World Fantasy Award nominee (novella)
In 19th century South America, “in a world separated from this one by the thinnest margin of possibility,” a 6,000 foot long,
February 20th, 2017. Tadiana Jones | Aliette De_Bodard, Cecelia Holland, Elizabeth Bear, K.J. Parker, Lucius Shepard, N.K. Jemisin | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Diabolic (2016) is set in some distant future, when humans have settled the galaxy using spaceships that travel through hyperspace. Humanity has also been experimenting with genetic engineering, and for a period of time it becomes fashionable to purchase so-called Diabolics as bodyguards. Diabolics are cloned humans, engineered to have superior strength and resistance to sickness and poisons, and trained from early childhood to be skilled and ruthless fighters and killers, with no regard for anyone but the person they are chemically induced to love and protect.
February 15th, 2017. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | S.J. Kincaid | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
“The Pirate Captain’s Daughter” by Yoon Ha Lee (2009, free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
A female pirate captain sails the Unwritten Sea on her ship, the Improbable Dragon. Her crew includes her daughter, who is still unnamed despite growing into a young woman, for the Unwritten Sea has its laws and traditions, and a pirate must have the soul of a poet, and write a poem to the sea with enough power in it to move a ship.
February 13th, 2017. Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere | Tim (T.A.) Pratt, Yoon Ha Lee | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Wondering Sight by Melissa McShane
In Wondering Sight (2017), the second book in Melissa McShane’s THE EXTRAORDINARIES series, we return to a fantasy-touched version of Regency-era England where some people have magical talents ― throwing and extinguishing fire, shaping one’s appearance, flying, teleporting, and more. Sophia is an Extraordinary, one of the very few people who have particularly strong magical abilities. As a Seer, she can cast herself into Dreams, which show her future events as a series of doors in her Dreams that she can open and explore,
February 13th, 2017. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Melissa McShane | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Tom Barren lives in a near-utopian version of our world in 2016, the world that Disney and science fiction optimistically imagined in the 1950s that we would one day have, complete with flying cars, ray guns, space vacations, and other Amazing Stories and Jetson-like technology. There’s a single compelling reason for this: in 1965, a man named Lionel Goettreider invented an engine that produced unlimited clean energy, in the process giving himself a fatal dose of radiation, but also becoming a historic figure on the level of Albert Einstein or Sir Isaac Newton.
February 9th, 2017. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Elan Mastai | 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.