There seems to exist some very real confusion as to just what English sci-fi author Eric Frank Russell did during WW2. Some sources would have us believe that he worked for British Intelligence during the war years, while others claim that he was merely an RAF radio operator and mechanic. Whatever the real story may be, the writer put his war experiences to good use over a decade later, when he wrote what would be his sixth novel out of an eventual 10,
March 27th, 2017. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Eric Frank Russell | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick
Jack Hamilton has just lost his job as an engineer for a government defense contractor because his wife Marsha is a suspected communist sympathizer. Having nothing better to do for the afternoon, he accompanies Marsha to the viewing of a new linear accelerator. An accident at the accelerator beams the Hamiltons and six other unsuspecting citizens into a parallel universe that at first appears to be their world but soon starts to evince subtle differences that become more and more obvious as time goes on.
January 18th, 2017. Kat Hooper and Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Philip K. Dick | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Shores of Space by Richard Matheson
The four novels that I had previously read by New Jersey-born Richard Matheson — namely, 1954’s I Am Legend, 1956’s The Shrinking Man, 1958’s A Stir of Echoes and 1971’s Hell House — all demonstrated to this reader what a sure hand the late author had in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror.
October 24th, 2016. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Richard Matheson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Lone Star Planet by H. Beam Piper
Lone Star Planet (1957) is a fun science fiction murder mystery novella by H. Beam Piper. The murder occurs on a planet colonized in the future by the citizens of Texas who wanted to escape the intrusive United States government on Earth. They set up a system where there’s not much centralized government and it doesn’t have much authority, for they all agree on this tenet:
Keep a government poor and weak and it’s your servant;
June 29th, 2016. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | H. Beam Piper | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
Midwich was just another quiet English town until the Dayout — when an invisible dome surrounds Midwich for one day. Afterward, all of the women discover that they are pregnant. Since not all of them are married (or sexually active), it soon becomes clear that these women are being used to bring strange creatures to life on Earth.
When the children are born, it’s obvious that their genes do not come from this world. The children have golden eyes, silver hair, and pale skin.
June 8th, 2015. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | John Wyndham | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein
The Door Into Summer (1957) is an immensely enjoyable time-travel story told effortlessly by Robert A. Heinlein long before he turned into a crotchety, soap-box ranting old crank who had a very unhealthy obsession with free love and characters going back in time to get involved with their mothers (gross!!).
So, back to this book. The Door Into Summer is the story of Daniel Davis, a hard-working engineer in 1970 who invents a wonderful robot vacuum cleaner named Hired Girl (not at all sexist,
April 14th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Robert A. Heinlein | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Can you be nostalgic for a place you never lived in, for a time long gone before you were born? I certainly never lived in Waukegan, Illinois in the summer of 1928 as a 12-year old boy named Douglas Spalding, but Ray Bradbury has perfectly evoked a magical world of a long-lost Midwest small town as seen from the eyes of a bright, energetic young boy.
You would think small town life is fairly boring and uneventful, but in the lyrical hands of Bradbury,
April 10th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4.5 | Ray Bradbury | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Master of Life and Death by Robert Silverberg
Future Grand Master Robert Silverberg’s fifth sci-fi novel, Master of Life and Death, was originally released as one-half of one of those cute little “Ace doubles” (D-237, for all you collectors out there), back to back with James White’s The Secret Visitors. Published in 1957, this was one of “only” three novels that Silverberg would release that year (the others were The Dawning Light and The Shrouded Planet),
January 14th, 2015. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Robert Silverberg | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Doomsday Morning by C.L. Moore
By the mid-1950s, science fiction’s foremost husband-and-wife writing team, Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, could be regarded more as coeds than working authors. After the release of their “fix-up” novel Mutant in late 1953, the pair released only five more short pieces of sci-fi over the next five years. And while it is true that Kuttner did come out with a series of novels featuring psychoanalyst/detective Dr. Michael Gray, for the most part, the two concentrated on getting their degrees at the University of Southern California.
May 29th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | C.L. Moore | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein’s best books are those he wrote for kids, and Citizen of the Galaxy is one of the best of those. Originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in 1957, this is an anthropological adventure story with strong libertarian and anti-slavery themes.
We first meet Thorby, a young belligerent orphaned slave boy, as he has just landed on an unfamiliar planet and is on the auction block. Nobody wants him — he’s too feisty — but he is eventually sold for a pittance to Baslim,
January 17th, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Robert A. Heinlein | Audio, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
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…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…