On a faraway planet with a dense jungle ecosystem, a human colony ship accidentally landed generations ago. The planet killed all but a few hardy survivors and their offspring evolved, along with the jungle, into a symbiotic pseudo-human race.
A man named Born is one of the descendants of those few humans. In his early manhood, he is eager to prove himself a mighty hunter and a desirable mate for a girl he has a crush on. Among his people, who live in the trees,
February 27th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Alan Dean Foster | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Companions on the Road by Tanith Lee
I’m a big fan of Tanith Lee. Like many great fantasy writers, Lee understood that to truly transport a reader, it’s not enough to talk about dragons or swords or magic systems. Readers are transported just as much or more by the way these things are talked about. Lee’s work has that eerie, otherworldly feel that characterizes the best works of this genre. She could make a story about a squirrel looking for nuts feel like something dredged from a forgotten and more romantic epoch.
February 7th, 2019. Tim Scheidler´s rating: 4 | Tanith Lee | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Black Druid by Frank Belknap Long
In my recent review of Frank Belknap Long’s short-story collection The Hounds of Tindalos, I mentioned that when this hardcover volume was initially released by Arkham House in 1946, it contained 21 tales, encompassing the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. I also mentioned that most later reprintings of this now classic collection contained only half of those 21 stories, including the 1975 edition that I recently wrote about; the one from the British publishing firm Panther.
September 20th, 2018. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Frank Belknap Long | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
My usual response to reading any book by Diana Wynne Jones is: “how does she come up with this stuff?” This is swiftly followed by bewilderment (especially in the wake of Harry Potter) that nobody has ever adapted any of her work, despite the fact her stories would make for excellent on-screen entertainment.
Dogsbody (1975) is no exception. It begins by introducing the immortal Dog Star Sirius, who is in serious trouble with his peers.
August 30th, 2018. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Diana Wynne Jones | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Transfigured Hart by Jane Yolen
The Transfigured Hart, a 1975 novella by the talented Jane Yolen, was recently republished as part of Tachyon Publications’ Particle e-book imprint. It’s a lovely, evocative tale, juxtaposing fairy-tale-like fantasy and a contemporary rural setting.
Richard and Heather are twelve-year-old neighbors with vastly different personalities who barely know each other. Richard, an orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle, is an introspective loner. A long bout with rheumatic fever has given him the habit of reading,
July 23rd, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Jane Yolen | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Although virtually unclassifiable, Gene Wolfe’s 1975 novel, Peace, was chosen for inclusion in both David Pringle’s Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels AND Jones & Newman’s Horror: Another 100 Best Books. While the novel certainly does have shadings of both the horrific and the fantastic, it will most likely strike the casual reader — on the surface, at least — as more of an autobiography, telling, as it does, the story of Alden Dennis Weer,
October 6th, 2016. Sandy Ferber and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Gene Wolfe | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
Something of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, John Brunner is one of the more intriguing though lesser recognized figures in science fiction history. Much the same as Robert Silverberg, he cut a path for himself in genre writing that is essentially pulp sci-fi but later began introducing novels of significantly greater depth to his oeuvre. Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, and The Jagged Orbit are some of the most important novels the field has produced.
September 9th, 2016. Jesse Hudson | John Brunner | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Starting in 2012/2013 I started obsessing on Stephen King. I’m slowly working my way through his catalog, which means I should have a pretty full life of King left to me, right? I’m a huge fan of It, The Stand, The Shining, and I actually really enjoyed Under the Dome. I wanted more, and so I’ve gone old school with Salem’s Lot.
January 11th, 2016. Jason Golomb´s rating: 5 | Stephen King | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
If you had the chance, would you live in a massive, 1,000-unit luxury high-rise with its own supermarket, liquor shop, schools, pools, gyms, etc.? Instead of living in some dreary suburb with boring, prosaic neighbors, why not join an elite group of young and successful professionals, like-minded and sophisticated, with immaculate taste and superb social connections? Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to join the elite upper echelons of society? This is the scenario that J.G. Ballard creates in High-Rise (1975),
October 16th, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | J.G. Ballard | Audio, Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 17 comments |
Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith
I’ve always wanted to read the work of Cordwainer Smith (pen name of Paul Linebarger, a scholar and diplomat who was an expert on East Asia and psychological warfare), who also moonlighted as a quirky SF author who wrote a number of short stories mainly in the 1950s and 60s set in the Instrumentality of Mankind, a full-fledged galaxy-spanning far-future universe.
Smith has something of a cult following, but really only has a few books to his credit: the collected short stories that can be found in The Instrumentality of Mankind (1974),
April 13th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3 | Cordwainer Smith | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Don't know how to answer that, Andrew; I've only read the long. But when it comes to REH, more is…
Would you recommend the long or the short version of Three Bladed Doom?
"A Gent From Bear Creek," originally a collection of short stories later cobbled together to make a novel, and "Three-Bladed…
What were the 4 novels we wrote? Two were Almuric and Hour of the Dragon, what's the other 2?
He has a new one just out (or being released soon) called DRILL. I'm interested, but I may need to…