Hellboy in Mexico by Mike Mignola (writer) & various artists
Hellboy in Mexico is a collection of short stories. It starts out with the same story that is in Hellboy (Vol. 11): The Bride of Hell and Others:
“Hellboy in Mexico, or A Drunken Blur” is a funny story about Hellboy’s lost five months in Mexico drinking and wrestling. The story starts in 1982 with Hellboy and Abe Sapien in Mexico together. Abe Sapien finds an old wrestling poster showing Hellboy with three other wrestlers.
April 4th, 2020. Brad Hawley´s rating: 3.5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Blossoms and Shadows by Lian Hearn
Japan in 1857 is in turmoil. Internal divisions mean the country is on the brink of civil war, whilst after centuries of isolation, the country has also opened its doors to the west. In the midst of this instability, Tsuru, a doctor’s daughter, wishes to study medicine, but the only expectation her father has for her is to marry.
After the hugely successful TALES OF THE OTORI series, Lian Hearn returns with a very different kind of novel in Blossoms and Shadows (2010).
September 20th, 2019. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 2.5 | Lian Hearn | Edge | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Susan Hill’s first ghost novel, 1983’s The Woman in Black, had recently surprised this reader by being one of the scariest modern-day horror outings that I’ve run across in years. Thus, I decided to see if lightning could possibly strike twice, and picked up her more-recent The Small Hand (2010). This latter title is the fourth of Ms. Hill’s five ghost novels to date, following The Mist in the Mirror (1992) and The Man in the Picture (2007),
October 18th, 2017. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Susan Hill | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Spirits of Glory by Emily Devenport
Recently, author Emily Devenport approached me with a request to review her young adult novel Spirits of Glory. I was not familiar with Devenport, but a quick search told me she has published several novels under three different pen names, one of which earned her a Philip K. Dick Award nomination. Spirits of Glory (2010) is self-published, and I tend to avoid such books after a number of negative experiences. Given Devenport’s resume, however, I wasn’t too worried I’d end up with a poorly written piece of fiction,
August 18th, 2017. Rob Weber´s rating: 4 | Emily Devenport | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar
Having recently re-read Chocolat I found myself with a hankering for more of that winning combination of sugar and magic. It was lucky then that I stumbled across Amal El-Mohtar’s The Honey Month which provided just what I was after in perfect, petit-four-sized nuggets.
The Honey Month was conceived when the author received a gift of assorted honeys from a new-found friend. Finding herself inspired by the smell, taste and texture of each honey she wrote a quick review of each one,
October 20th, 2016. Katie Burton´s rating: 4 | Amal El-Mohtar | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
As always with books published by Subterranean Press, Journeys (2010) by Ian R. MacLeod looks stunning. I love the cover art by Edward Miller. The collection contains nine stories, ranging from a few pages to novella length, all of them first published between 2006 and 2010. Personally I feel the longer pieces work better.
Journeys is an appropriate title for this collection, MacLeod takes you to unexpected places with his stories. In many of them,
August 5th, 2016. Rob Weber | Ian R. MacLeod | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Dan Simmons has impressed with the variety of themes and settings he takes on in his novels. He has written science fiction, horror, historical novels, crime and literary fiction. The man’s a very versatile writer. Black Hills, like his previous two novels The Terror and Drood, could be considered historical fiction with a clear supernatural theme.
The novel tells the story of the Paha Sapa. His name means Black Hills in Lakota but it is only used by those he is most intimate with;
July 6th, 2016. Rob Weber | Dan Simmons | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
Redemption in Indigo (2010) by Karen Lord is a beautiful, sly, innovative book that is doing much more than it seems to be on the surface. The frame story is the folktale of Ansige the glutton. Lord’s retelling takes Paama, a skilled cook and Ansige’s estranged wife, as its protagonist. At the beginning of the book, she has left Ansige and returned to her own family to decide what she’ll do next. But after missing his wife’s constant attention to his endless appetite,
December 16th, 2015. Kate Lechler and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Karen Lord | Audio, Mythopoeic Award | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Set in an alternate world in which Google’s place is filled by a company called Grail (a brilliant name for a search engine, by the way), and Wikipedia’s by “Open Britannica,” Robin Sloan’s Annabel Scheme is difficult to categorize. Is it a detective novel? An urban fantasy? A technothriller with a touch of cyberpunk? It’s all of those at once. It reminds me a little of Charles Stross‘s LAUNDRY FILES novels with the mix of high technology and demons.
March 2nd, 2015. Mike Reeves-McMillan´s rating: 4 | Robin Sloan | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Tell me if this doesn’t sound like a dream come true for those who regularly visit survivalist forums: In the near-future, the United States experiences a collapse of its economic institutions, which leads to the collapse of every social institution mankind has built to function as a society. All order has been destroyed, and from now on your survival against the challenges of nature, both human and not, depends on nothing but yourself. The classical dog-eat-dog world is in session.
Hiram, the protagonist in Darin Bradley’s debut novel Noise,
February 26th, 2015. João Eira´s rating: 4.5 | Darin Bradley | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…
It's hardly a private conversation, Becky. You're welcome to add your 2 cents anytime!
If the state of the arts puzzles you, and you wonder why so many novels are "retellings" and formulaic rework,…
I picked my copy up last week and I can't wait to finish my current book and get started! I…