Jupiter’s Legacy Volume 1 by Mark Millar (author), Frank Quitely (artist), & Peter Doherty (colorer)
Jupiter’s Legacy Volume 1 collects the first five books in Image Comics storyline co-created by Mark Millar (writer) and Frank Quitely (art), and colored by Peter Doherty. The basic storyline and themes will be familiar to anyone who has read comics in the past decade or so, or has seen some of the more deconstructive movies such as Watchmen, Kick–
May 2nd, 2015. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Mark Millar | Comics | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond
Lois Lane: Fallout is the latest YA novel from Gwenda Bond and follows the adventures of Lois Lane, a sixteen-year-old army brat with a chip on her shoulder and a nose for trouble. She’s convinced that East Metropolis High will be a fresh start, unlike all those other schools she’s been to, where her efforts to help people in need always seem to end up adding black marks to her permanent record. Straighten up and fly right is her brand-new mantra,
May 1st, 2015. Jana Nyman´s rating: 5 | Gwenda Bond | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Low Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope by Rick Remender (author) & Greg Tocchini (artist)
Low Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope, written by Rick Remender and drawn by Greg Tocchini has an intriguing concept whereby in our far, far future (it’s actually the deep past relative to the characters in the story) humanity has fled our burgeoning sun by setting up cities in the depths of the oceans, where they await the news from space probes sent out to seek inhabitable planets.
April 25th, 2015. Bill Capossere´s rating: 1.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
I am a sucker for interstitial characters: those literary beings who work the borderlands and thresholds, guiding other characters and the reader from one state of being to another. In Vermilion, her first novel, Molly Tanzer introduces us to Lou Merriwether. Lou is half Chinese and half English; she is a female who dresses as a male and she is a psychopomp, a magical artisan whose skill is to guide spirits of the dead across the threshold into the afterlife — even if they don’t want to go.
April 14th, 2015. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Molly Tanzer | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu, is a book that took a good deal warming up to for me, so much so that I considered giving it up multiple times through the first few hundred pages. Seriously considered giving it up. The episodic structure, which I’m generally not a fan of just as a matter of personal taste, was off-putting and distant, while both the characters and the plot felt more than a little flat. So the idea of continuing on for another 500 and then 400 pages in the same vein was not all that enticing.
April 14th, 2015. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Ken Liu | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Devil’s Detective by Simon Kurt Unsworth
Thomas Fool is an Information Man in Hell. As an Information Man, he investigates cases of violence and death; and there are many. Thomas thinks he’s been in Hell about six years. Before that, his soul floated in the sea of Limbo that surrounds Hell, until it was pulled out by a demon and embodied in the human form he wears now. Fool, as he calls himself, does not know why he is in Hell or what he must atone for, because no human who is fished from Limbo and sent here remembers any part of their human lives.
April 6th, 2015. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Simon Kurt Unsworth | Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Prudence is the first book in Gail Carriger’s new CUSTARD PROTOCOL series. It’s a spin-off of THE PARASOL PROTECTORATE, her five-book series which is about genteel vampires and werewolves in Victorian London. You don’t need to read PARASOL PROTECTORATE before starting Prudence, but you’ll understand the characters and world a little better if you do.
Those who are familiar with PARASOL PROTECTORATE will know who Prudence is. She’s the daughter of Lady Alexia Tarabotti,
April 3rd, 2015. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Gail Carriger | Audio | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |
David Walton’s new book Superposition is billed by the publisher as a “quantum physics murder mystery.” Clearly, Walton loves quantum physics and can explain its concepts in an understandable way. Choosing alternating first-person narrators was a stroke of brilliance, upping the suspense, at least in the beginning as the story unfolds.
Jacob Kelly is a physicist who resigned from the New Jersey Super-Collider (Yes! New Jersey has the biggest super-collider in the world in this book!). Now he teaches at Swarthmore College.
March 27th, 2015. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | David Walton | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis
I’m a sucker for early natural philosophers, so I admit the pre-publication description of The Mechanical, Ian Tregillis’ new novel, pretty much had me at, “Soon after the Dutch scientist and clockmaker Christiaan Huygens…” The rest of the blurb, about a “mechanical army” of “Clakkers” allowing the Netherlands to become the world’s sole superpower, the French trying to make a last stand in North America, and an “audacious Clakker, Jax” making “a bid for freedom”? Icing on the cake.
March 12th, 2015. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Ian Tregillis | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Unbreakable is the debut novel from W.C. Bauers and the first book in THE CHRONICLES OF PROMISE PAEN, billed as a blend of hard military sci-fi (in the vein of Starship Troopers) and the Wild West-like sensibilities of the television series Firefly. While the novel does contain those elements, focusing on them alone does a disservice to Bauer’s incorporation of real and imagined military history and his skillful portrayal of the marines who serve the interests of the Republic of Aligned Worlds.
March 9th, 2015. Jana Nyman´s rating: 3 | W.C. Bauers | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one
These weird westerns are always interesting and have been popping up more in recent times (it seemed like there was…
Looking forward to reading the review.
Always my pleasure, Marion! I'm almost finished with Book #3 now, and hope to be reporting on it very shortly....