The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small part of a Midwest state. There wasn’t so much wilderness around you couldn’t see the town. But on the other hand there wasn’t so much town you couldn’t see and feel and touch and smell the wilderness.
So reads the charming first sentence of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree. A perfectly gothic yarn that seeks,
March 1st, 2017. Katie Burton and Jason Golomb´s rating: 4, 5 | Ray Bradbury | Children | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino has long been on my list of foreign writers of the fantastic who have been deeply influential to SFF writers while remaining only tangential to the genre. This would include the great Jorge Luis Borges, as well as Stanislaw Lem. All these writers revel in philosophical musings, magic realism, and intellectual play. They belong to the deeper end of the fantastic literature swimming pool, but adventurous readers and authors have often plunged into those depths to one degree or another.
January 6th, 2017. Stuart Starosta, Kat Hooper and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4, 5 | Italo Calvino | Edge | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
Roadside Picnic by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky
Roadside Picnic (1972) is a Russian SF novel written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. This was back when authors and publishers were subject to government review and censorship. Since it didn’t follow the Communist Party line, it didn’t get published in uncensored book form in Russia until the 1990s despite first appearing in a Russian literary magazine in 1972. So its first book publication was in the US in 1977.
Since then Roadside Picnic has been published in dozens of editions and languages over the years,
December 2nd, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Boris and Arkady Strugatsky | Film / TV, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |
The Book Of Skulls by Robert Silverberg
Because he has garnered no fewer than eight Hugo and Nebula Awards over the years, has been inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Hall of Fame, and has been, since 2005, anyway, an SFWA Grand Master, it might be difficult to credit the notion that Robert Silverberg might also be a writer of horror. And yet, there it is, the 55th book under discussion in Jones & Newman’s excellent overview volume Horror: Another 100 Best Books;
November 10th, 2015. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Robert Silverberg | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
I don’t think I’m the only reader drawn to Gene Wolfe’s books — hoping to understand all the symbolism, subtleties, oblique details, unreliable narrators, and offstage events — and finding myself frustrated and confused, feeling like it’s my lack of sophistication and careful reading ability to blame. Wolfe is most famous for his amazing 4-volume THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN dying earth masterpiece, which has a 1-volume coda called The Urth of the New Sun,
October 9th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Gene Wolfe | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg
Tower of Glass (1972) is another of Robert Silverberg’s ambitious novels from his most prolific period in the late 1960s/early 1970s. In that time he was churning out several books each year that were intelligent, thematically challenging, beautifully written stories that explored identity, sexuality, telepathy, alien contact, religion and consciousness. At his best, he produced some masterpieces like Downward to the Earth and Dying Inside,
October 1st, 2015. Stuart Starosta, Kat Hooper and Sandy Ferber | Robert Silverberg | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 11 comments |
The Second Trip by Robert Silverberg
In his 1969 novel To Live Again, Robert Silverberg posited a world of the near future in which it is possible for the very rich to have their personae recorded and preserved, and later placed in the mind of a willing recipient after their own demise, as a means of surviving the death of the body and sharing their consciousness with another. It is a fascinating premise and a terrific book, and thus this reader was a tad apprehensive at the beginning of Silverberg’s similarly themed novel The Second Trip.
October 14th, 2014. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Robert Silverberg | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Godmakers by Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert’s The Godmakers is a novelized collection of four connected stories that first appeared in the pulp magazines between May 1958 and February 1960:
The story takes place in a far future after humanity has spread to many habitable planets.
May 7th, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Frank Herbert | Audio | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.”
Isaac Asimov’s The Gods Themselves earned the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. About 15 years ago it was put on the Locus list of All Time Best Science Fiction Novels.
If you’re anything like me, that’s enough to put The Gods Themselves on your To Be Read List and,
March 31st, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Isaac Asimov | Audio, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Charles Hobuhet, an intelligent doctoral student in anthropology, is a Native American who holds a secret grudge against the Europeans who came to America, not only because of what they did to his race, but also because a group of them raped and killed his sister years ago. When Charles is stung by a bee and thinks he’s been given the title of Soul Catcher by the bee’s spirit, he believes he’s been tasked with a mission that will make the whites finally pay for their crimes.
February 7th, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Frank Herbert | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.