The British publishing firm Sphere Books had a really wonderful thing going for itself back in the 1970s: a series of 45 books, both fiction and nonfiction, curated by the hugely popular English supernatural novelist Dennis Wheatley, and titled Dennis Wheatley’s Library of the Occult. This reader had already experienced seven of these novels in the natural order of things, in other editions – titles such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897),
December 29th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Marjorie Bowen | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The Land of the Lost by Roy Norton
A little while back, I had some words to say concerning Roy Norton’s 1919 novel The Glyphs, the Kewanee, Illinois native’s fourth and final novel containing fantastic content, in a career highlighted by numerous Western novels as well. The Glyphs, as I mentioned, was a compact affair, and a pleasing one, dealing with a sextet of adventurers and their explorations of a lost Mayan city in northern Guatemala.
February 22nd, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Roy Norton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Lady of Blossholme by H. Rider Haggard
The Lady of Blossholme was Henry Rider Haggard‘s 34th piece of fiction, out of an eventual 58 titles. It is a novel that he wrote (or, to be technically accurate, dictated) in the year 1907, although it would not see publication until the tail end of 1909, and is one of the author’s more straightforward historical adventures, with hardly any fantasy elements to speak of.
The story takes place in England during the reign of Henry VIII,
October 8th, 2015. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | H. Rider Haggard | Free!, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson
William Hope Hodgson‘s first published novel, The Boats of the Glen Carrig (1907), is a story of survival after a disaster at sea, and of the monstrous plant and animal life-forms that the survivors encountered while trying to reach home. In his second book, the now-classic The House on the Borderland (1908), Hodgson described an old recluse’s battle against swine creatures from the bowels of the Earth, and the old man’s subsequent cosmic journey through both time and space.
January 20th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | William Hope Hodgson | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
With the Night Mail: Two Yarns About the Aerial Board of Control by Rudyard Kipling
I didn’t know that Rudyard Kipling wrote steampunk, especially since that moniker didn’t exist during his lifetime. Kipling’s novellas “With the Night Mail” and “Easy as A.B.C.” have airships, vaguely defined etheric power sources and more energy weapons than you can hit with a stick. He may not have written steampunk, but he might be one of its literary grandfathers.
Written in 1905, “With the Night Mail,” narrated in the first person by a young journalist,
March 20th, 2013. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Rudyard Kipling | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
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!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…