The Best of Richard Matheson by Richard Matheson
Almost precisely two years ago, I had some words to say about a then-new anthology that had been released by Penguin Classics: Perchance to Dream, a 300+-page collection of short stories by the author Charles Beaumont. Flash forward two years, and I am now here to tell you of a 2017 Penguin release that almost serves as a companion volume to that earlier book: The Best of Richard Matheson,
January 5th, 2018. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Richard Matheson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The Year of the Geek by James Clarke
The Year of the Geek is a fact-a-day (sometimes more) calendar book filled with all types of sci-fi related information, frequently enhanced by or presented via a host of illustrations, charts, pictograms, and other sorts of infographics. What sort of facts? Birthdays (authors, directors, actors, fictional characters), death dates, release dates (films, books, TV shows), landmark moments, such as when The Doctor first met himself, and more. Many of the facts lead off into brief moments of exploration, either textually or graphically: which Spider-Man characters are heroes,
January 3rd, 2018. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Sometimes, you pick up a book expecting to know what’s in it, and expecting that you’ll like it, and your expectations are met and everyone goes home happy. This scenario is at least good, often excellent, sometimes superlative, and by this time in my book-reading life that’s usually what I get.
But there’s a peculiar kind of pleasure in picking up a book which you have no expectations for, good or bad, putting it down after the first chapter, and saying, “I don’t know what’s going on here,
December 27th, 2017. Nathan Okerlund´s rating: 4.5 | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Spoonbenders (2017) by Daryl Gregory, is multi-generational family saga. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s a psychic adventure story and a weird conspiracy tale for lovers of shadowy CIA projects like MKULTRA. It’s a gangster story. There’s a heist. There is a long con, and a madcap comedy along the lines of classic Marx Brothers routines. There are a couple of romances, a direct-distribution scheme, a medallion, a cow and a puppy. If we’re talking genre, I don’t know what Spoonbenders is.
December 18th, 2017. Marion Deeds, Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 5 | Daryl Gregory | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
2017’s Autonomous is Annalee Newitz’s first novel. Autonomous questions what life would be like in a world with AI, a world where everything is property, whether it’s physical, molecular or intellectual.
Pirate Jack (Judith) Chen is a biologist who started off fighting the restrictive patent system that keeps vital medicines away from people who need them, guaranteeing instead corporate profits. Disillusioned, she has become a pharma-pirate. To her horror, a productivity drug she reverse-engineered is causing deaths.
December 12th, 2017. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Annalee Newitz | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Mandelbrot the Magnificent by Liz Ziemska
Prior to reading this novella, what I knew about the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot would have fit into an embarrassingly small thimble (with plenty of room to spare). I identified fractal shapes simply as “tessellations on steroids” and my only reference point for a “mandelbrot” was a delicious cookie.
But thanks to Liz Ziemska, I have a much greater appreciation for Mandelbrot’s work in his field, as well as the passion and determination that sustained him through his years in Nazi-occupied France.
December 8th, 2017. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Liz Ziemska | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Stranger Magics by Ash Fitzsimmons
Colin Leffee (aka Lord Coileán le fae) is an immortal half-human, half-fae being, who’s exiled himself from his mother Titania’s court in Faerie for her various misdeeds. For approximately the last eight hundred years he’s been whiling away his time on Earth, protecting humans from the terrors and mischiefs of less conscientious faeries, running an antique bookstore, and drinking far too much ― easy to do when you’re magical and can make booze, money or anything else appear with a thought.
But one day his past comes back to haunt him: Colin finds a teenage changeling that Titania has tossed out of Faerie,
December 7th, 2017. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Ash Fitzsimmons | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen
Under the big top of The Emerald Circus (2017) is a fantastical assemblage of sixteen short stories and novelettes by Jane Yolen. Historical figures like Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Disraeli, Hans Christian Andersen and Edgar Allen Poe enter the three rings and shed their normal identities, dancing across the high wires and peering into tigers’ mouths. In this circus’ House of Mirrors we also see unexpectedly twisted reflections of fictional characters like Alice in Wonderland (who makes an appearance here in two very different Yolen tales),
December 4th, 2017. Tadiana Jones and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Jane Yolen | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Life in Artemis, the only human city on the moon, is rough for Jasmine Bashara, a 26 year old delivery person, smuggler, and would-be tourist guide. She fails her EVA (extravehicular activity) Guild exam in, literally, breathtaking fashion; she’s somewhat estranged from her welder father, to whom she owes a huge personal debt; she’s living alone in a tiny, claustrophobia-inducing capsule room; she barely gets by on her payments as a porter (supplemented by some judicious smuggling activity). But Jazz wouldn’t want to live any other place ― certainly not on Earth ― and she’s determined to make a success of her life,
November 28th, 2017. Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Andy Weir | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Telescope in the Ice: Inventing a New Astronomy at the South Pole by Mark Bowen
The Telescope in the Ice (2017) by Mark Bowen doesn’t quite delve as much into the science as I was hoping, but it is still a solidly informative and highly engaging work that tells the story of how the Icecube Neutrino Observatory (set at the South Pole) was conceived and built and how it was immediately successful. The strong personalities (often outlandish ones) make for interesting reading, but it’s the incredibly difficult conditions and engineering problems that create a compelling story.
November 27th, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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.