Order [book in series=yearoffirstbook.book# (eg 2014.01), stand-alone or one-author collection=3333.pubyear, multi-author anthology=5555.pubyear, SFM/MM=5000, interview=1111]: 1979

testing

Electric Forest: Interesting, but not one of Lee’s best

Electric Forest by Tanith Lee Magdala Cled is an unattractive disabled woman living in a world where genetic engineering has ensured that everyone around her is beautiful and healthy. She’s a genetic misfit who has no family, friends, or social support of any type. When a handsome rich man offers to make her beautiful, she […]

Read More
testing

Roadmarks: The Road must roll

Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny Roadmarks (1979) is a fragmented, experimental type of novel, tied together by a Road (with a capital R) that leads to all times and places and alternative timestreams in our world’s history, for those who know how to navigate it (a certain German named Adolph briefly pops up in an early […]

Read More
testing

Transfigurations: A classic

Transfigurations by Michael Bishop Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris is one of science fiction’s landmark works. A philosophical and psychological study of a man confronting the inherently unknowable, the imagery, events, and overall experience of the novel lodge in the mind, begging questions for which one uncomfortably has no immediate answer. So strange and haunting, a person can only think of […]

Read More
testing

The Unlimited Dream Company: More art than story

The Unlimited Dream Company by J.G. Ballard Looking at the spread of colors, shapes, and lines smeared across the canvas that is J.G. Ballard’s 1979 The Unlimited Dream Company, it’s easy to get lost in the details, the view to the whole submerged. Superficially disorienting to say the least, the narrative packs a bewildering visual punch while […]

Read More
testing

Jem: A cynical speculation about humanity’s future

Jem by Frederik Pohl Like Man Plus (1976) and Gateway (1977), books which Frederik Pohl a number of awards, Jem (1979) is another book from this highly successful period in Pohl’s career. It was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards but didn’t win. It did win a National Book Award. Jem is set […]

Read More
testing

The Bloody Chamber: A darkly seductive collection of not-so-traditional tales

The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories by Angela Carter Angela Carter’s style is rich and dense. Her short stories are the most sumptuous of literary feasts. In The Bloody Chamber Carter reworks a number of fairy stories and folk tales, from “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Beauty and the Beast” to “Puss-in-Boots”. But Carter never intended […]

Read More
testing

The Long Walk: A novel about exhaustion

The Long Walk by Stephen King Ray Garraty, Maine’s own, lives in a near-future dystopian America where boys enter an annual game, the Long Walk, in which the winner is given anything he wants. The winning boy must walk at four miles per hour longer than any other boy in the competition. Boys whose pace […]

Read More
testing

Morlock Night: The first steampunk novel

Morlock Night by K.W. Jeter K.W. Jeter’s Morlock Night (1979) is often cited as the first novel to be categorized at “steampunk.” In a 1987 letter to Locus magazine, Jeter coined the term in an effort to describe the types of stories that he and his friends Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock were writing: […]

Read More
testing

Engine Summer​: Fey, muted, beautiful

Engine Summer by John Crowley Fey, muted, beautiful. The story of Rush-that-speaks is a bildungsroman that will haunt you long after you have read the last page. Engine Summer follows the charming and inquisitive Rush as he grows up in his enclave of ‘True Speakers,’ one of the few groups of humanity left after an […]

Read More
testing

The Fountains of Paradise: A visionary classic now on audio

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke The latest scheme dreamed up by Dr. Vannevar Morgan, a materials engineer, is either pure genius or pure crackpot: He wants to build an elevator to space. He’s discovered a new material that he thinks is strong enough to withstand the gravitational and climatic forces that would […]

Read More
testing

Which Witch?: Very funny with unexpected depth

Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson Arriman Canker (better known as Arriman the Awful, Loather of Light and Wizard of the North) is a dark wizard in search of an heir after a gypsy fortune teller prophesies the coming of another wizard to Darkington Hall. Arriman is excited about the prospect of a pupil in the […]

Read More
testing

Gloriana, or The Unfulfill’d Queen: Reader Unfulfill’d

Gloriana, or The Unfulfill’d Queen: Being a Romance by Michael Moorcock Gloriana (1979) is Moorcock’s homage to Mervyn Peake (author of the Gormenghast saga), and fittingly, is a lush tale of intrigue told in thoroughly British prose. At times brilliant (especially in the descriptions of the seasonal festivities), often captivating and humorous, often sluggish and […]

Read More
testing

The Neverending Story: A must-read

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende The Neverending Story is probably best known to the general public through Wolfgang Peterson’s movie, whereas the original novel by Michael Ende is less well known. Despite the horrid sequels and the even worse television series that Michael Ende desperately tried to prevent in the last years of his […]

Read More
We have reviewed 8040 fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and films.

Under ConstructionWe’re updating our theme, so things may be a little messy or slow until we’re finished. Thank you for being patient with us!

SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS

You can subscribe to our posts via email, email digest, browser notifications, Twitter, RSS, etc. You can filter by tag (e.g. Giveaway), keyword, author. We won't give your email address to anyone. Enter email to subscribe:

SUPPORT FANLIT

Want to help us defray the cost of domains, hosting, software, and postage for giveaways? Donate here:
You can support FanLit (for free) by using these links when you shop at Amazon:

US   UK    CANADA

Or, in the US, simply click the book covers we show. We receive referral fees for all purchases (not just books). This has no impact on the price and we can't see what you buy. This is how we pay for hosting and postage for our GIVEAWAYS. Thank you for your support!