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]: 2012.01

The Suburban Strange: Too little too late

The Suburban Strange by Nathan Kotecki

Celia is a high school sophomore who’s grieving the death of her father and starting at a new school. She is swept up into a clique called the Rosary, a group of friends who pride themselves on their “darkness” and their sophistication. Celia feels awkward with them at first but gradually begins to gain confidence from these friendships. Meanwhile, something eerie is going on at Suburban High. Girls are suffering injuries or sudden illnesses on the day before their sixteenth birthdays. Will Celia find out what’s going on before her own birthday rolls around?

Point of Impact by Jay Faerber

Point of Impact by Jay Faerber (writer) & Koray Kuranel (artist)

Jay Faerber’s Point of Impact, though not destined to become a great comic in the canon of graphic storytelling, is a perfect short story told in four issues, which is exactly what he tries to do. Sometimes one is in the mood for a large, sprawling epic, and other times, one just wants to read a poem or short story. You don’t need any background information about superheroes, supervillains, or mutants. All you need to do is start reading,

March 1st, 2013. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Earth Girl: The ambitious concept doesn’t quite succeed

Earth Girl by Janet Edwards

Earth Girl is the first book of Janet Edwards’s planned EARTH GIRL trilogy. On her website, Edwards reports that both Amazon.uk and Kobobooks have rated the e-book version of Earth Girl as among the Best YA of 2012. I can see why people would like this book, but it was a miss for me.

Edwards has a great concept here. Five hundred years into our future, most humans have left Earth to colonize various sectors of space.

Aurorarama: This glittering Tesla-punk 19th century novel pastiche actually works

Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat

Other reviewers on Fanlit will probably be surprised by the number of stars I’ve given this book, because they’ve had to read my kvetching about it for several Status Updates. I finally finished it, and to my surprise, I think in Aurorarama, Valtat succeeded in his Tesla-punk 19th century adventure novel pastiche.

It is early in the 20th century, and New Venice is a city in the Arctic, powered by Tesla-like machines, filled with art, music, entertainment, drugs, censorship, science and magic.

February 20th, 2013. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Jean-Christophe Valtat | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

The Wretched of Muirwood: Pleasant but not special

The Wretched of Muirwood by Jeff Wheeler

The Wretched of Muirwood is a book that I wouldn’t normally have picked up. It’s the opening installment of a trilogy that was first self-published by Jeff Wheeler through Createspace (an Amazon company) after being rejected by the traditional publishing houses Wheeler pitched it to. The book was later picked up by 47North, Amazon’s speculative fiction imprint. I’ve been skeptical of 47North titles because Amazon imprints don’t go through the normal publishing process, and because I was not pleased with the last couple of 47North novels I read.

Breathe: Failed across the board

Breathe by Sarah Crossan

Breathe, by Sarah Crossan, is an unremarkable new entry in the teen dystopia field. Its premise is relatively simple: in the far future, the world’s oxygen level has dropped so far that people are relegated to living in oxygenated “pods,” where “Premiums” get all the oxygen they want and the commoners have to get by with far less. One result of this disparity is that the average person has to carefully moderate their physical activity (there are “speeding” laws with regard to walking) while the Premiums can go for a nice little job with their personal oxygen tanks.

The Ramal Extraction: Reads like most modern military special operations novels

The Ramal Extraction by Steve Perry

Steve Perry’s new series CUTTER’S WARS is about a high tech mercenary team in a relatively near future, the 24th Century. In The Ramal Extraction, Perry begins the series by sending the team on a special operation to save a princess from abduction and save a world from war. They’ll have to use all of their combined wits and varied skills to succeed.

The mercenary team Captained by Colonel “Rags” Cutter, a retired Officer of the Galactic Union Army,

December 21st, 2012. John Hulet´s rating: 2.5 | Steve Perry | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Well of Tears: Taking the history out of historical fantasy

The Well of Tears by Roberta Trahan

From the back cover description of The Well of Tears by Roberta Trahan:

More than five centuries after Camelot, a new king heralded by prophecy has appeared. As one of the last sorceresses of a dying order sworn to protect the new ruler at all costs, Alwen must answer a summons she thought she might never receive. Bound by oath, Alwen returns to Fane Gramarye, the ancient bastion of magic standing against the rise of evil.

Fair Coin: A quirky vision of a fun science fiction trope

Fair Coin by E.C. Myers

Fair Coin by E.C. Myers is the first book in a YA science fiction series. The hero, Ephraim Scott, lives in Summerside, New York. One day he comes home from school to discover that his alcoholic mother has overdosed on pills. She did this because she was told Ephraim was killed in an accident. This is not a hoax or a mistake; when Ephraim takes his mother to the hospital he finds out that the boy in the morgue has ID and a library card in Ephraim’s name.

Into the Black: Doesn’t stand out in any way

Into the Black by Evan Currie

Because he was such a spectacular fighter pilot during WWIII, Captain Eric Weston has been given command of the new spaceship Odyssey which is making her maiden voyage beyond the galaxy, to boldly go where no man has gone before. What Weston and his crew find out there is quite a surprise: a small spacecraft emitting a distress signal and containing a nearly dead human woman named Mia.

When they take Mia back to their ship, revive her and learn her language,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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