The Unholy Goddess and Other Stories by Wyatt Blassingame
It would be hard to imagine anyone who experiences the first two Ramble House collections dedicated to the Alabama-born author Wyatt Blassingame – namely, The Tongueless Horror and Other Stories: The Weird Tales of Wyatt Blassingame, Volume One and Lady of the Yellow Death and Other Stories: The Weird Tales of Wyatt Blassingame, Volume Two – not being hugely impressed and wanting to read more.
December 22nd, 2022. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Wyatt Blassingame | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Empire of Jegga by David V. Reed
I have a feeling that most people, when they begin a book in the genre of the Golden Age space opera, go in expecting a slam-bang action affair replete with starship battles, interplanetary conflict, weapons of superscience, hissable villains and cheerable heroes. Well, I am here now to tell you of a Golden Age space-opera novel in which all those aspects are indeed most certainly present, but in very much a secondary role. The book is one that you may very well be unfamiliar with,
October 12th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | David V. Reed | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Moonlight and Ashes by Sophie Masson
This is one of three fairy tale retellings by Sophie Masson that are only tangentially based on a traditional tale, the others being The Crystal Heart (Rapunzel) and Scarlet in the Snow (Beauty and the Beast). Moonlight and Ashes (2012) tackles Cinderella, and is quite possibly the best of the three. Incorporating elements of the story that are usually forgotten in retellings (such as the magical hazel tree) and Masson’s own imagination,
November 29th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Sophie Masson | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Scattered Among Strange Worlds by Aliette de Bodard
Scattered Among Strange Worlds (2012) contains two short stories and a sample chapter of Aliette de Bodard‘s debut novel Servant of the Underworld. The first story is “Scattered Along the Rivers of Heaven,” first published in the January 2012 issue of Clarkesworld, where it can still be read and listened to for free. It is a far-future science fiction story that incorporates some lines of classic Chinese poetry.
July 11th, 2018. Rob Weber´s rating: 5 | Aliette De_Bodard | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Angelmaker (2012) is Nick Harkaway’s second book, after his exuberant, clever, digressive and exhausting debut The Gone-Away World. It shares the same qualities with that wild and free-wheeling tale, with relentlessly clever dialogue, quirky and in-depth characters, an intricate but playful doomsday plot, more flashbacks than most readers can handle, and chock-a-block with clever and ironic observations of the weirdly-unique world he has created, and by extension our own less colorful one.
June 15th, 2018. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3 | Nick Harkaway | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Secret Service: Kingsman by Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons, Matthew Vaughn
The Secret Service: Kingsman, by Mark Millar, is about a young man, Eggsy, being rescued from rough, poor neighborhoods by his uncle, who takes him under his wing and trains him in a new profession. The twist is that his uncle, Jack London, is not in computer work like Eggsy thinks; actually, his uncle’s job is as a spy for his country. Our young man is sent to a spy school and, given that the rest of the spies-in-training are from upper-class families,
June 2nd, 2018. Brad Hawley´s rating: 3.5 | Mark Millar | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Dark Melodies of Madness: The Supernatural Novellas of Cornell Woolrich by Cornell Woolrich
Because New York City-born author Cornell Woolrich so excelled at tales of suspense, crime, murder and noirish mayhem, there might be some who find it hard to believe that he could also excel in the arena of horror. But those who have read Woolrich’s truly frightening novel of 1945, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, which combines the occult, clairvoyance, death and predestination into one tasty chiller, already know how capable he could be in that field.
December 6th, 2017. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Cornell Woolrich | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
English author Susan Hill had recently been an impressive 2 for 2 with this reader. Last year, I was happy to discover that her 1983 ghost novel, The Woman in Black, is one of the scariest books that I’d read in quite some time, and just a few weeks back, her 2010 ghost novel, The Small Hand, had proved highly satisfying for me, if not quite as chilling as the earlier book.
November 1st, 2017. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Susan Hill | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
This River Awakens by Steven Erikson
Pretty much all you have to do is say Steven Erikson and I’m there. This River Awakens (2012) is far different from anything most people will think of when they hear the author’s name. It’s not set in a secondary world. It’s not epic fantasy. There isn’t a huge war or expanding empire in the core of the book. From what I understand, This River Awakens was Erikson’s first book and it’s more fiction and urban fantasy than anything else.
March 17th, 2017. Sarah Chorn | Steven Erikson | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross
The Rapture of the Nerds (2012) is an odd duck, and that’s probably the reason I’m struggling so much to write this review. On the one hand, there are some deeper themes that are absolutely fascinating. On the other, the book feels like a mashup of as many clever curses as the authors can possibly think of, with some odd situations thrown in. Is this good or bad? I can’t even seem to decide. There is a place for fun and funny books,
February 18th, 2017. Sarah Chorn´s rating: 4 | Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
COMMENT Book #3 of this trilogy is very much a heist story, and I quite enjoyed it!
Pirate stories and heist stories... Do we ever get enough of them?
Very interesting, Ulrich! Thanks for clueing me in!
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