The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick
I must first off state that I am generally not an avid lover of the short story. There are a few writers that I think really excel in the genre and whose stuff I will read without hesitation (Edgar Allen Poe, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Fritz Leiber), but in general I am often underwhelmed by the format. Keep that in mind when I say that Michael Swanwick’s collection The Dog Said Bow-Wow was quite good,
October 19th, 2012. Terry Lago´s rating: 3 | Michael Swanwick | Hugo Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Emma Bull turns the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral into a romping fantasy adventure in Territory.
Since I don’t know much about this period, most of the historical specifics were lost on me. For example, I can’t critique her characterization of Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday or say if she was accurate with the nitty-gritty details of events. Thus, historical accuracy wasn’t a huge deal to me, which allowed me to sit back and really enjoy the book for its story.
July 25th, 2012. Sarah Chorn | Emma Bull | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff, is a funny, dark and twisty thriller. I was hooked on Page Five, when a woman who is being held in the nut-job wing of a Nevada jail says to the doctor evaluating her, “I think it all started when I figured out my high school janitor was the Angel of Death…”
Jane Charlotte, the woman in question, says she works for a secret organization called, well, the organization. This organization has a unit called “The Division for the Final Disposal of Irredeemable Persons” — nicknamed Bad Monkeys.
April 12th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Matt Ruff | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist, is a bleak and chilly horror novel that evokes classic Stephen King works like Salem’s Lot. Lindqvist is a Swedish writer and the book is set in a planned community in northern Sweden, called Blackeberg, in 1981. The novel follows several different point of view characters as the events that will change the community forever begin to unfold.
From the beginning,
January 9th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | John Ajvide Lindqvist | Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son. Good, now that’s out of the way. 20th Century Ghosts (2007) is a prime collection of short fiction. Some stories are horror, some are literary horror and some aren’t horror at all. Hill has a strong style, a distinctive voice, and a willingness to indulge in post-modernism. This means that the conclusions of some stories are left up to the reader. This is not the undisciplined writing of someone who can’t commit to a resolution,
November 27th, 2011. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Joe Hill | Short Fiction, World Fantasy Award | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is a highly acclaimed graphic novel about immigration. There are no words in this graphic novel, allowing Tan to rely entirely on images to reveal the doubts and conflicts that his characters face. On his website, Tan explains that:
“In ‘The Arrival’, the absence of any written description also plants the reader more firmly in the shoes of an immigrant character. There is no guidance as to how the images might be interpreted,
November 4th, 2011. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 5 | Shaun Tan | Comics | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Lucy’s Blade by John Lambshead
Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, has asked Dr. John Dee to summon a demon so he can ask it questions about who is threatening the queen. Just as the demon arrives, though, something goes wrong and the demon jumps into the body of Lady Lucy Dennys, Walsingham’s pretty ward. The demon, who calls herself Lilith, endows Lucy with superpowers, so when England is threatened by malevolent forces, Lucy starts kicking ass in her petticoats.
I like the premise and plot of John Lambshead’s Lucy’s Blade and its science-fantasy twist on where demons come from (Lilith is a future being who comes to Earth to study her ancestors).
October 6th, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | John Lambshead | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
It’s hard not to approach a Gene Wolfe novel with high expectations. After all, the man is responsible for some of the most brilliantly mind-bending science fiction and fantasy written in the last few decades. Such high expectations can make it hard to write an objective review (if such a thing is even possible) when the new book in question is quite good but just doesn’t blow you away like, say, his Book of the New Sun or The Wizard Knight.
January 12th, 2011. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | Gene Wolfe | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Joe Hill is the most promising new horror writer on the horizon. His first book, a collection of short stories called 20th Century Ghosts (2007). It was a revelation: quirky, brilliant and scary. I gave it a rave review when I first read it, and I still return to those stories every now and then just to take pleasure in seeing how Hill pulls it off.
Joe Hill’s first novel, Heart-Shaped Box (2007),
January 12th, 2011. Terry Weyna and Jason Golomb´s rating: 4 | Joe Hill | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
China Miéville has become known for his genre-defying work, but to some extent many of his novels embrace a specific genre. As much as Iron Council is a western and The City & The City is a police procedural, Un Lun Dun is a young adult urban fantasy. Of course, with Miéville, these sorts of distinctions are usually just amusing starting points before readers revel in genre twists and unusual monsters.
September 16th, 2010. Ryan Skardal and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 3, 3.5 | China Mieville | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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…