Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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]: 2009

Galileo’s Dream: A decent story with uneven execution

Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson

I’m a huge fan of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt, which is a terrific blend of pseudo science fictional philosophy and religion, and fun and entertaining alternative history. It’s deep and touching and provides a strong sense of activity (if not specifically action and adventure). So the concept behind Galileo’s Dream drew me to the book the instant I read the description: the astronomer Galileo is taken from Earth to the moons of Jupiter (which he discovered) in an attempt to modify the past to make for a better future — a future in which science rises up over religion.

Under the Dome: An incredibly gripping read

Under the Dome by Stephen King

Stephen King’s Under the Dome is long. I mean, long. The manuscript weighs in at 8.6 kg and Time magazine quoted King himself saying he’d be “killing a lot of trees” with his next novel. But when you read the book’s premise, and begin to understand what King had set out to do, it begins to make sense…

Under the Dome opens in Chester’s Mill, a small Maine town which is suddenly and inexplicably cut off from the rest of the world by a dome.

Madame Xanadu: Exodus Noir by Matt Wagner

Madame Xanadu (Vol. 2): Exodus Noir by Matt Wagner

Exodus Noir, the second volume of Matt Wagner’s Madame Xanadu series, is an impressive follow-up to the first collection, even though there is a new artist on board. However, there’s no loss in artistic quality. If I prefer the first volume to the second, it’s primarily because I love an origin story. So, my preference is less a fault of the second volume than it is the inherent focus of the first.

December 20th, 2014. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Act One: A Thought-provoking and moving story

Act One by Nancy Kress

Ever since reading Kress’ wonderful collection Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories I’ve been keeping an eye out for her short fiction. A number of her short works won Nebulas and Hugos, the most recent was a Hugo in 2009 for her novella The Erdmann Nexus, which unfortunately I haven’ t read yet. The novella Act One was nominated for the Hugo, Locus and Nebula award but won none of them. It was originally published in Asimov’s in 2009.

September 5th, 2014. Rob Weber´s rating: 4.5 | Nancy Kress | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Eternal Smile: Three Stories

The Eternal Smile: Three Stories by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim

I just finished reading The Eternal Smile for a second time to see if I would like it as much as I did the first time. The answer is, “Yes.” There’s no doubt in my mind that this work is a truly great comic book that is unique in presenting three very different short stories with overlapping themes. They are extremely different in look and in genre, but they come together to present some unified ideas about the dreams we have,

The Unwritten by Mike Carey

The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor & the Bogus Identity (Vol 1) by Mike Carey (writer) & Peter Gross (artist)

The Unwritten by Mike Carey is one of the best current series being published right now. It is one of the few titles put out by Vertigo — DC’s mature line of comics — that has kept Vertigo from losing its respected place in the world of comics. Vertgo was started by Karen Berger with Neil Gaiman’s wonderful Sandman stories,

Olympus by Nathan Edmondson

Olympus by Nathan Edmondson (writer) and Christian Ward (artist)

I am starting to be very impressed with this writer whose books I’ve just started reading. Nathan Edmondson caught my eye first with Who Is Jake Ellis?, for which I wrote a positive review earlier this year. But today — May 15th, 2013, the day I’m writing this review — marks the release of a 50+ page first issue of a new limited series: Dream Merchant. I read it today and was absolutely blown away by both the writing and the art.

May 24th, 2013. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: Nerdy and bookish

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a romp of a first novel by Robin Sloan. It’s a perfect book for booklovers who lean toward the mysterious and fantastic, blurring genre lines throughout to afford readers a marvelous time.

The novel begins when Clay Jannon, the first-person narrator, is responding to an advertisement for a clerk in a 24-hour bookstore in San Francisco. Clay was educated as a graphic artist, but he’s finding jobs scarce since his work designing a logo and a website for a bagel bakery and acting as the “voice” of @NewBagel on Twitter — definitely a new economy sort of job.

RASL by Jeff Smith

RASL by Jeff Smith

RASL by Jeff Smith — available in four paperback volumes — is a fifteen-issue story that recently took me by complete surprise. However, I should have known how good it would be: Smith’s well-known comic Bone — an epic work of fantasy for all ages — is one of the great contemporary comic classics. However, I must warn fans of Jeff Smith and Bone that RASL is not a book for kids.

Fire on the Mountain: Alternate history with a political flavor

Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson

What if America’s Civil War had been, not a war of unification, but a war to end slavery? What if John Brown had succeeded at Harper’s Ferry?

In his short utopian novel Fire on the Mountain, Terry Bisson contemplates those questions.
Bisson’s story is simple and human, but he uses it to muse on how the Civil War could have gone differently. Yasmin Abraham Martin Odinga is an archeologist recently back from a dig in Olduvai,

October 17th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Terry Bisson | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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