King of the Dinosaurs by Raymond A. Palmer
In two of my recent book reviews here, for David V. Reed’s Empire of Jegga (1943) and for Nelson S. Bond’s That Worlds May Live (also 1943), I mentioned that both novels, in their current Armchair Fiction incarnations, feature copious, vintage footnotes from Raymond A. Palmer, the editor of Amazing Stories, the pulp magazine in which those tales first appeared.
November 8th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Raymond A. Palmer | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
After eight novels dealing with such venerable science fiction themes as lost races, weapons of superscience, the transmutation of elements, dinosaurs, devolution, crystalline life-forms and the creation of a superman, Scottish-American author John Taine finally tackled one of the most revered sci-fi tropes of them all, namely time travel, in his ninth novel, The Time Stream. Today, this book comes freighted with a double-edged reputation, as it is said to be the author’s strangest novel of the 16 he wrote between 1924 and ’54,
September 9th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | John Taine | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Deliver Me From Eva by Paul Bailey
Once again, I am indebted to Stephen Jones and Kim Newman’s excellent overview volume Horror: 100 Best Books for alerting me to the existence of a great read that I probably would never have run across without their assistance. In this case, the novel in question is Paul Bailey’s Deliver Me From Eva, which was chosen for inclusion in that volume by no less a figure than Forrest J.
December 13th, 2018. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Paul Bailey | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Witch House by Evangeline Walton
Ever since British author Horace Walpole kick-started the haunted house genre with his seminal short novel of Gothic romance, The Castle of Otranto (1765), there have been hundreds of short stories and dozens of novels centered on this most shuddery of literary subjects. But for this reader, the two novels at the very top of the ectoplasmic heap have long been Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), still the most spine-tingling book that I have ever read,
October 24th, 2018. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Evangeline Walton | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 11 comments |
When the Birds Fly South by Stanton A. Coblentz
Never let it be said that you can’t learn anything from Facebook! It was on the Vintage Paperback and Pulp Forum there, for example, that this reader recently discovered his newest favorite author. Several of my very knowledgeable fellow members on that page happened to be discussing the merits of a writer who I had previously never even heard of before; a man with the curious name Stanton A. Coblentz. Very much intrigued, I later did a little nosing about,
June 19th, 2018. Sandy Ferber and Katie Burton´s rating: 5 | Stanton A. Coblentz | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
Night Has a Thousand Eyes by Cornell Woolrich
On the cover of my Dell paperback edition of Night Has a Thousand Eyes (with a cover price of 25 cents), the author is listed as William Irish, with an asterisk next to the name. At the bottom of the cover, next to the footnote asterisk, is another name: George Hopley. This should not fool any prospective readers, though. Both names were pseudonyms of Cornell Woolrich, the author whom Isaac Asimov called “THE Master of Suspense”;
November 17th, 2017. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Cornell Woolrich | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Pat Frank’s Mr. Adam (1946) is billed as “[o]ne of literature’s first responses to the atomic bomb,” and the uncertainty of the freshly-minted Atomic Age is palpable within the novel’s pages. With the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still fresh in his mind, and within the minds of his readers, Frank crafted a cautionary tale regarding the dangers of nuclear power and its invisible, unstoppable effects on the future of mankind.
Steve Smith, intrepid journalist and recent veteran of the European theatre in WWII,
March 21st, 2017. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Pat Frank | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R.A. Dick
If you were to ask me to name my top two or three favorite fantasy novels, the answer would take me a long time to come up with, given the overwhelming number of possible choices. But if you wanted to know my top two or three fantasy films, well, I could give you that reply fairly quickly. One of them would of course be The Wizard of Oz (1939), which I steadfastly maintain must be viewed on the big screen.
August 31st, 2016. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | R.A. Dick | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
The Dark World by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore
1946 was a very good year indeed for sci-fi’s foremost husband-and-wife writing team, Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. Besides placing a full dozen stories (including the acknowledged classic “Vintage Season”) into various magazines of the day, the pair also succeeded in having published three short novels in those same pulps. The first, The Fairy Chessmen, which was released in the January and February issues of Astounding Science-Fiction,
April 19th, 2016. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Valley of the Flame by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore
Yeah, I know that one has to take inflation into account when computing these things, but still, what incredible deals the sci-fi lover could acquire 60 or so years ago! Take, for example, the March 1946 issue of Startling Stories, with a cover price of just 15 cents. For that minimal charge, the reader got stories by sci-fi greats Frank Belknap Long, Jack Williamson and Henry Kuttner, PLUS the entire novel Valley of the Flame,
May 30th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
...as well as the 1932 sequel, "Topper Takes a Trip"!
It's such a rich and ancient ambience - in many ways the plot itself doesn't matter, I just like strolling…
I didn't know he wrote Topper!
Best new book: Play of Shadows by Sebastien Sebastien de Castell Honorary mention for The Naming Song by Jebediah Berry…
Best read for August was Karel Capek's War With the Newts, another one of his acerbic fables about the human…