Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Terry Weyna

The Illumination: Brockmeier never shies away from the hard questions

The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier

[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]

Two themes drive Kevin Brockmeier’s The Illumination. The first is a fantasy motif, placing this novel right on the line that separates the best fantasy from the genre-that-won’t-admit-it’s-a-genre, i.e., the literary novel.

Moon over Soho: Witty, gripping, creepy, tense

Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

A promising jazz drummer is found dead of a heart attack shortly after playing a gig in London. At first, the only odd circumstance surrounding his death is the fact that Peter Grant, apprentice wizard and police constable, faintly hears the notes of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” rising from the corpse, indicating that magic was somehow involved in the musician’s death. However, when further research reveals that several jazz musicians have died in similar circumstances over the years, it suddenly becomes much more urgent for Peter and his supervisor Thomas Nightingale to find out what’s really going on…

March 31st, 2011. Stefan Raets, Terry Weyna and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Ben Aaronovitch | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The King of Plagues: Back to the original Joe Ledger forumula

The King of Plagues by Jonathan Maberry

PLOT SUMMARY: Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen. Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak.

Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos.

March 29th, 2011. Robert Thompson and Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | Jonathan Maberry | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Magazine Monday: Adams Takes Over at Fantasy Magazine

John Joseph Adams, in recent years the editor of a raft of excellent anthologies on different science fiction, fantasy and horror themes, has now become the editor of Fantasy Magazine. The March 2011 issue is the first published under his red pencil, so to speak, and its mix of new and reprint fantasy material is promising. All content is free on the web, though ebook subscriptions and editions are available for sale.

“The Sandal-Bride,” by Genevieve Valentine, is about Sara, a woman who needs to travel from one land to another to join her husband,

Magazine Monday: Black Gate

Black Gate has been published irregularly (sometimes only once a year) since 2000, but I’ve only just discovered it. And what a time to do so! The Winter 2010 edition, Number 14, is 385 pages long, the size of a hefty book. The price reflects that; few magazines will run you $15.95 in the print edition ($8.95 for a PDF version that doesn’t translate well to Kindle). But then, few magazines will give you as much great fantasy as this one, including first stories by four promising new authors.

There are a very great many stories in this issue – 16 short stories and three novellas.

Troll’s Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales

Troll’s Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Fairy tales were my first love when I was a child. My mother introduced me to the joys of stories with The Golden Book of Fairy Tales long before I learned how to read. My early reading included the first three volumes of The Junior Classics and Andrew Lang’s colorful fairy tale books. When Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling started editing anthologies of new takes on the old tales for adults with Snow White,

March 20th, 2011. Terry Weyna´s rating: 4 | Catherynne M. Valente, Delia Sherman, Ellen Datlow, Garth Nix, Holly Black, Jane Yolen, Kelly Link, Midori Snyder, Nancy Farmer, Neil Gaiman, Peter S. Beagle, Terri Windling | Children, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Princes of the Golden Cage: A world of sand, roses and tulips

The Princes of the Golden Cage by Nathalie Mallet

The Princes of the Golden Cage is a fine debut fantasy by Nathalie Mallet. Mallet sets her fantasy in a vaguely Arabian setting, with a Sultan and his many princes by many wives. The princes are kept caged in sumptuous captivity, a reaction to previous generations having raised armies and warred upon one another to eliminate competition for the throne. Now the princes war merely upon one another, seeking out reasons for offense and therefore excuses for duels to the death.

March 12th, 2011. Terry Weyna´s rating: 3.5 | Nathalie Mallet | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Cloud Roads: Rich and inventive world-building

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells

FORMAT/INFO: The Cloud Roads is 288 pages long divided over 20 numbered chapters. It also includes two Appendixes, one about the Raksura and one about the Fell. Narration is in the third-person, exclusively via the protagonist Moon. The Cloud Roads is self-contained, but a sequel titled The Serpent Sea will be published in 2012. March 2011 marks the Trade Paperback publication of The Cloud Roads via Night Shade.

We Never Talk About My Brother: Add it to your library

We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter S. Beagle

We Never Talk About My Brother, published by the small but estimable Tachyon Press, is a collection of ten of Peter S. Beagle’s recent stories. Eight were previously published from 2007 through 2009, demonstrating that Beagle has been as productive in his late 60s as he was at the age of 19, when he wrote A Fine and Private Place. Certainly his late work shows a mature intellect and imagination,

Magazine Monday: Realms of Fantasy Under New Management

The first issue of Realms of Fantasy published by Damnation Books feels no different at all from issues published while it was owned by different publishers, and no wonder: the editorial staff is the same. Shawna McCarthy continues to fulfill the role of fiction editor, as she has since the magazine was founded. That explains why the February 2011 issue contains such a fine offering of short stories. Douglas Cohen is still the editor, and that explains why there is such a fine selection of nonfiction, from Theodora Goss’s “The Femme Fatale at the Fin-de-Siecle,” a piece that would be at home in any academic journal,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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