Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Tadiana Jones

SHORTS: Sanford, Palwick, Walton, Hill, Sullivan, Kemp

Here are a few shorter SFF works that we read this week that we wanted you to know about. Some great finds this week!

Blood Grains Speak Through Memories by Jason Sanford (March 2016, free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, free ebook available on the author’s website)

Frere-Jones Roeder is the anchor of her land, charged with its protection and maintenance. The blood grains flow through her body, sharing memories of past anchors and giving her senses knowledge of all of the life and activity on her two-league plot of land,

The Keeper of the Mist: A quietly charming traditional YA fantasy

The Keeper of the Mist by Rachel Neumeier

Kerianna, the illegitimate daughter of the dissolute, ailing Lord of the country of Nimmira and a former serving girl, is a baker in the town of Glassforge who prides herself on the quality of her wedding cakes and other baked goods. It’s a struggling business, and Keri has to run it by herself since the death of her mother, but it’s modestly successful and Keri has hopes for the future.

Rule over Nimmira passes from parent to child, along with the magical power that enables the Lord or Lady of Nimmira to maintain the magical mists that hide the entire country from the powerful countries around it that would quickly take over Nimmira,

SHORTS: Howey, Yeh, Bolander, Ford, Sullivan, Smith

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we’ve recently read that we wanted you to know about.

“Peace in Amber” by Hugh Howey (2014, $1.99 Kindle, $3.95 Audible)

“Peace in Amber” is Hugh Howey’s tribute to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, a surrealistic novel in which Vonnegut explores his personal memories of the bombing of Dresden. Like Slaughterhouse-Five, “Peace in Amber” is also a personal reflection: Hugh Howey’s experiences on September 11,

Teaching the Dog to Read: A surreal trip

Teaching the Dog to Read by Jonathan Carroll

Anthony Areal, a forgettable, average man, trending toward wet noodle, is astonished one day to receive an anonymous gift in the mail containing the watch of his dreams: a gorgeous $9,000 Lichtenberg ‘Figure’ wristwatch. For a few minutes he’s afraid it is a dream: the watch will probably disappear or turn into a pumpkin when he touches it. But the watch stays on Tony’s arm when he puts it there, and it’s followed a week later by his fantasy car, an $80,000 gray Porsche Cayman GTS,

SHORTS: Dickinson, Sanderson, Hill, Kelly, Valentine, Simak

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we’ve recently read.

“Please Undo this Hurt” by Seth Dickinson (2015, free at Tor.com, Kindle version)

This is a really beautiful story about compassion, pain, and what it means to burn out. “Please Undo This Hurt” seems very realistic and not so much fantasy for a little while. I spent some time at the beginning waiting for the other shoe to drop.

SHORTS: Goss, Hogarth, Algernon, Maberry

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read (or listened to!) this week that we wanted you to know about.

“Red as Blood and White as Bone” by Theodora Goss (May 2016, free at Tor.com, $0.99 Kindle version)

Klara, the daughter of a woodcutter, now a kitchen maid at a wealthy baron’s castle, deeply loves fairy tales, which are the only outlet for her imagination. Perhaps she is a princess in disguise,

Fridays with the Wizards: Wizard-hunting in the castle

Fridays with the Wizards by Jessica Day George

Fridays with the Wizards is the fourth and most recent book in Jessica Day George’s CASTLE GLOWER series about twelve year old Princess Celie and the magical, semi-sentient castle where she lives. Celie and her brother and sister and friends have just returned from an unexpected adventure in another land, as related in the previous two books in the series, Wednesdays in the Tower and Thursdays with the Crown,

SHORTS: Lemberg, Brockmeier, Das, Bishop, Bolander

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few of the stories we read this week.

“The Desert Glassmaker and the Jeweler of Berevyar” by Rose Lemberg (March 2016, free at Uncanny Magazine, Kindle magazine issue)

In this lush story, Lemberg shows us a long-distance romance developing between two makers-of-things. Maru lives in the desert and sings sand into glass; Vadrai lives in the Northern woods and uses deepnames to inscribe images into jewels.

SHORTS: Gilman, Levine, Johnson, Liu, Weir

There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about.

“Touring with the Alien” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (April 2016, free at Clarkesworld magazine, Kindle magazine issue)

In “Touring with the Alien,” an unnamed alien species has landed impenetrable bubble ships on Earth and is sending out “translators,” apparently-human people who claim that they were abducted as children and raised by the aliens.

Sleeping Giants: Sci-fi thriller debut is one of the best of 2016

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Sylvain Neuvel’s Sleeping Giants honorably borrows from notable films — Pacific Rim, The Iron Giant, and the Indiana Jones series — in this creative take on first contact in a contemporary world of shadowy government operatives, high tech archaeology, and mystery-shrouded alien technology.

Rose Franklin was the little girl who fell into the mysterious metal hand. Years later, with a physics Ph.D. in hand, Dr. Franklin is appointed to lead the investigation into the metal object.

April 21st, 2016. Jason Golomb, Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 5 | Sylvain Neuvel | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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Recent Discussion:

David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
Bill Capossere on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
We’re in total agreement David!
David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.