Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi
This is the part where you run and scream a lot.
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Intrepid, a spaceship that has the reputation of killing off most of its non-essential crew. The captain and senior officers and one or two especially good-looking guys always come back from planetary “away” missions alive (though often mangled up a bit), but always, always, at least one, and often many more,
July 19th, 2012. Kat Hooper, Marion Deeds, Terry Weyna, Tadiana Jones and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3.5, 4, 4.5 | John Scalzi | Audio, Hugo Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 15 comments |
Lightspeed Magazine is edited by the formidable John Joseph Adams, who has produced a long series of wonderful anthologies and is soon to launch a new horror magazine. One might be concerned that such a busy schedule would mean that something would get short shrift, but if that is the case, it certainly isn’t Issue 26 of Lightspeed.
About half of the content of this magazine, which is produced in electronic format only, consists of interviews, novel excerpts, an artist gallery and spotlight,
July 16th, 2012. Terry Weyna | A.M. Dellamonica, David Brin, Garth Nix, Joe Haldeman, Liz Williams, Madeline Ashby, Maria Dahvana Headley, Peter S. Beagle, Theodora Goss | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry
The summer I turned 30, I went to Great America with my two sisters and one brother-in-law. We rode the Screaming Eagle rollercoaster, one of those wooden rebuilds of old-time coasters, which (at the time) had the longest drop on the first hill of any rollercoaster in the world. As we reached the top of that hill, my sister turned to me and said, “It’s been nice knowing you.” Sure enough, that first drop about killed me; even worse (or better, depending on your perspective) was the series of corkscrew turns at high speed that came toward the end of the ride.
July 11th, 2012. Terry Weyna and Robert Thompson´s rating: 4 | Jonathan Maberry | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow
Ellen Datlow suggests in her introduction to Supernatural Noir that noir fiction and supernatural fiction, with its roots in the gothic, have a lot in common. The main character in each tends to be a hard-living guy, usually down to his last flask of scotch, haunted by a sexy dame whose middle name is trouble. So it seemed natural to her to combine the two genres for an original anthology.
Despite my general rule that any anthology edited by Ellen Datlow is one I want to read,
July 9th, 2012. Terry Weyna´s rating: 5 | Caitlín R. Kiernan, Elizabeth Bear, Ellen Datlow, Gregory Frost, Jeffrey Ford, Joe R. Lansdale, John Langan, Laird Barron, Nick Mamatas | Horror, Shirley Jackson Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Shirley Jackson Awards will be handed out in just less than two weeks, at Readercon in Burlington, Massachusetts. This is the third of three columns about the short fiction nominees, this column covering the novellas; the short stories are discussed here, and the novelettes are discussed here (now updated to include a discussion of Jeffrey Ford’s wonderful novella, “The Last Triangle” from the Ellen Datlow-edited anthology, Supernatural Noir).
Michael Morano’s “Displacement” from Stories from the Plague Years begins with a chilling picture: a serial killer is “showing” a victim’s body to her decapitated head,
July 2nd, 2012. Terry Weyna | Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, Tim Waggoner | Horror, Shirley Jackson Award | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The best story in the May/June issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction is the novella, “”Maze of Shadows” by Fred Chappell. And isn’t it lovely that a man who has won numerous literary prizes, is known for his poetry and essays, and was the poet laureate of North Carolina, is writing fantasy? And writing it beautifully, as well. The novella is one of his series about Falco, who is training to become a shadow master under the tutelage of Maestro Astolfo. A shadow master is one who works with shadows belonging to people and animals to create traps for the eyes,
June 25th, 2012. Terry Weyna | Charles De_Lint, Chris Willrich, Naomi Kritzer | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Megan Lindholm’s “Old Paint” is the thoroughly enjoyable novelette about an old car beloved by a family that lets it roam free. The car comes from a time before cars were completely automated, when one could still actually drive them oneself instead of just programming in a destination. It’s so old that its nanotech paint is of a wood veneer on the side of a station wagon. The car is useful, if not exactly a favorite of the teenage boy in the family who’d like something a bit racier. At least, it’s useful up until the time it goes wild because of virus unleashed by a hacker group that did it just to prove they could.
June 18th, 2012. Terry Weyna | Allen Steele, Megan Lindholm, Robert Silverberg | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
This week Terry looks at the four novelettes nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, which will be presented at Readercon. This year Readercon will take place July 12 through 15, in Burlington, Massachusetts.
“Omphalos” by Livia Llewellyn, is the first nomination for this writer whose first book, The Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors is also nominated in the single-author collection category (“Omphalos” appears in the collection). It is about a horrifically dysfunctional family in which every family member seems to be having sex with every other family member of the opposite sex,
June 18th, 2012. Terry Weyna | Kelly Link, Lucius Shepard, Peter Straub | Horror, Shirley Jackson Award | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Why are the second books of trilogies so difficult? Jade Man’s Skin is the second book of MOSHUI: THE BOOKS OF STONE AND WATER, a series set in an alternate China where dragons are real and jade has the power to make an emperor nearly invincible. I greatly enjoyed Dragon in Chains, the first in this series. And I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy Jade Man’s Skin; only that I enjoyed it less.
June 14th, 2012. Terry Weyna and Robert Thompson´s rating: 3, 4 | Ben Macallan, Chaz Brenchley, Daniel Fox | SFF Reviews | no comments |
These horror stories are so good that they’ve been nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. Read all about them, then try to find them for yourself and figure out which one will be the winner before the awards are handed out at Readercon, July 12-15, 2012.
The Shirley Jackson Awards are awarded “for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.” They are one of my favorite awards each year, along with the World Fantasy Awards. The Shirley Jackson Awards single out the Weird fiction that I enjoy most: the fiction that straddles boundaries,
June 11th, 2012. Terry Weyna | Genevieve Valentine, Joan Aiken, Nadia Bulkin | Horror, Shirley Jackson Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Thanks for the kind words, Ira! Much appreciated!
Fine review
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
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!