A Brother’s Price by Wen Spencer
In a frontier land on some other world, a close-knit family of outlaws lives in the same sort of manner that you’d expect such a family to live in the American Wild West. They’re tough, they wear cowboy hats and ride horses, they speak coarsely, they curse and brawl, they shoot and hunt, they drink whiskey and smoke cigars, they protect their spouses… Oh, and I’m talking about how the women behave.
In A Brother’s Price (2005),
March 7th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Wen Spencer | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
It is Alicia Ostriker, in her wonderful collection of essays Dancing at the Devil’s Party, who writes “the true poet is necessarily the partisan of energy, rebellion, and desire, and is opposed to passivity, obedience, and the authority of reasons, laws and institutions.” Daring to deconstruct one of the most dearly held myths of the Western world, Margaret Atwood’s 2005 The Penelopiad is certainly a tango step or two with the one with the pitchfork tail.
December 5th, 2018. Jesse Hudson and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Margaret Atwood | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Sea Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories by Leigh Brackett
As NASA’s Curiosity rover trundles about the surface of Mars today, another page turns on the glories of pulp science fiction. Leigh Brackett’s vision of a land populated with humans and aliens, ancient cities and creatures, long-buried secrets and mysterious deserts fades a shade closer to pale as one desolate desert image after another is beamed back to Earth. But there was a day when her works shone with the hope and possibility of life on the planets beyond Earth.
June 12th, 2018. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 2.5 | Leigh Brackett | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Od Magic by Patricia A. McKillip
The city of Numis is home to the famous Od School of Magic, founded years ago by the legendary giantess Od. She’s apparently immortal, but appears only occasionally, and therefore the school lies in the hands of the king Galin and the wizard-headmaster Valoren, who demand strict obedience from its students. Any unorthodox magic is outlawed, any student that step outside the boundaries set for them are expelled. This is especially true of any student who goes wandering in the Twilight Quarter of the city: a neighborhood that comes alive only after dark,
February 19th, 2018. Rebecca Fisher and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Patricia McKillip | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is about clones, but don’t get your hopes up. This is an unconventional clone story.
That’s right. There aren’t any mad scientists, nor are there any daring escapes.
March 14th, 2017. Ryan Skardal and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 2 | Kazuo Ishiguro | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
I Am Alive and You are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick by Emmanuel Carrère
Anyone familiar with the SF novels of Philip K. Dick and the many films inspired by his works knows that he was one strange and visionary guy. Certainly the SF genre is filled with works of bizarre worlds, aliens, characters, and slippery reality. But it’s generally accepted by authors and readers alike that these fictional creations are just that — works of the imagination by writers who are generally considered sane and share the consensus view of reality.
February 17th, 2017. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Philip K. Dick | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Batman: The Man Who Laughs (2005) #1 by Ed Brubaker
Ed Brubaker is one of the best writers in comics overall, and he is unquestionably the best writer of noir comics. Batman: The Man Who Laughs is a re-imagining of what Batman’s first encounter with the Joker might have been like. In the story, the Joker makes his presence known and tells Gotham that he will kill one-by-one prominent Gothamites. He even names the specific day and time of each death. After the first wealthy target — surrounded by police and watched covertly by Batman — dies precisely on time,
January 14th, 2017. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Ed Brubaker | Comics | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
Pushing Ice (2005) is a standalone novel. It is not set in Alastair Reynolds’ REVELATION SPACE universe and as far as I can tell it is not related to any of his other works either. On his website, Reynolds mentions that there may one day be a sequel though. Pushing Ice is space opera on an intimidating scale but, unfortunately, I don’t think it gets close to the best the REVELATION SPACE universe has to offer.
July 29th, 2016. Rob Weber´s rating: 3 | Alastair Reynolds | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country collects essays about living in George W. Bush’s America. Published in 2005, these essays were written after America invaded Iraq in order to defeat terrorism, to find and neutralize weapons of mass destruction, and to spread freedom and democracy throughout the Middle East.
Briefly summarized, Vonnegut is critical of the state of America, which has been hijacked by psychopaths, and let’s not forget the state of the world,
June 9th, 2016. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 3 | Kurt Vonnegut | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories by Frederik Pohl
Platinum Pohl is a career-spanning collection of Frederik Pohl’s best short fiction. Almost every collection of short fiction contains weak stories but I was absolutely blown away by editor James Frenkel’s selection of Pohl’s work. It is one of the best collections of short fiction I have ever read.
Platinum Pohl contains a total of thirty stories, too many to comment on each of them but I’ll name a number of the highlights.
April 15th, 2016. Rob Weber | Frederik Pohl | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
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…