The Girl In The Red Coat by Kate Hamer
Any mother’s worst nightmare is losing her child. We’ve all heard it before. It’s a phrase used often, almost casually, yet it doesn’t even begin to cover what it must actually feel like to lose a child. This is precisely what happens in Kate Hamer’s dazzling debut. Told from the perspectives of a bereft mother and her abducted daughter, The Girl in the Red Coat has two of the most hauntingly distinctive voices in fiction so far this year.
February 25th, 2015. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Kate Hamer | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons
I was about as close to a Did Not Finish with Kristen Simmons’ The Glass Arrow as I can get without putting a book down, so you can tell already where this review is going to end up. As usual in these situations, preferring not to belabor the point with regard to what I consider a bad book, I’ll keep this review relatively brief.
Simmons sets her story in a world where women are treated as breeding cattle,
February 23rd, 2015. Bill Capossere´s rating: 1.5 | Kristen Simmons | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Kelly Link throws a mean sucker punch. Her latest short story collection, Get in Trouble, is calculated to get you — to draw you in under one premise, and then take you somewhere else entirely. It explores modern America through her special blend of genre-busting surrealism. Exploring various landscapes such as rural North Carolina, Florida swamps, and Southern California, Link exposes the inherent weirdness of our everyday lives. She spins out alternate realities based on the already-established facts of our existence,
February 19th, 2015. Kate Lechler´s rating: 5 | Kelly Link | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
Once upon a time, in a town called Fairfold, Holly Black set her story for her stand-alone novel The Darkest Part of the Forest. The dark faerie-tale fuses the fantastical with the mundane, as humans and Fae folk exist alongside one another, the faeries even being a huge source of tourism for the little town. That is an original and intriguing premise if there ever was one, with promises of dark twists and turns. But somewhere along the lines the plot failed in its execution,
February 19th, 2015. Ray McKenzie, Kate Lechler and Jana Nyman | Holly Black | Audio, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |
The Very Best of Kate Elliott by Kate Elliott
Kate Elliott is a prolific writer, producing over twenty fantasy and science fiction novels and several highly-acclaimed short stories in the last three decades. This year alone will see the publication of not only The Very Best of Kate Elliott, a collection of twelve short stories and four essays, but also two new novels: Court of Fives and The Black Wolves, and Elliott shows no signs of slowing her output in the future.
February 16th, 2015. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Kate Elliott | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
In his newest work, The Sculptor, Scott McCloud explores a bevy of philosophical and pragmatic questions with regard to art, a partial listing of which might include:
February 7th, 2015. Bill Capossere and Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Scott McCloud | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter
[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]
The World Before Us, by Aislinn Hunter, has at its core two roughly similar mysteries. One occurred almost 20 years ago when the main character, Jane Standen, was only fifteen and acting as a nanny for William Eliot and his five-year old daughter Lily.
February 6th, 2015. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Aislinn Hunter | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Distrubances by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman’s latest collection of short fiction and poetry, Trigger Warning, begins, like his other collections, with a long, explanatory introduction. While the reader certainly doesn’t have to read this chapter, here entitled “Making a Chair,” I really enjoy this practice of Gaiman’s. These introductions not only forecast what the stories are about (you know, just in case I’d want to skip anything) but they also provide a window into Gaiman’s writerly process. I’ve always appreciated this about Gaiman in general;
February 5th, 2015. Kate Lechler and Jana Nyman | Neil Gaiman | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.