The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen
THE BRIGHT SESSIONS is a trilogy of spinoff novels set in the world of the podcast of the same name, both media written by Lauren Shippen. I am generally a fiction podcast fan, so when the third book in the trilogy – Some Faraway Place – hit my radar, something about it sounded familiar. Turns out, on a long road trip a few years ago, I had listened to several episodes of the podcast. I remembered liking it so I wanted to give the books a try.
December 2nd, 2022. Skye Walker´s rating: 3 | Lauren Shippen | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Cunning Man by D.J. Butler & Aaron Michael Ritchey
Hiram Woolley, 44 years old, is a slightly melancholy widower who farms beets in Utah during the Great Depression. He and his adopted son, Michael, spend their free time taking food and supplies to people who are suffering more than they are. This includes the citizens, mostly immigrants, of a mining town where the mine has been closed due to a squabble between the members of the Kimball family who own it. The miners aren’t getting paid and they’re starving. They can’t get out of the situation because they rent their homes from the mining company.
April 5th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Aaron Michael Ritchey, Dave (D.J.) Butler | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
There’s a vogue lately for fantasy inspired by cultures other than medieval western Europe or modern America, and to that I give a hearty cheer. To be clear, you’ll hardly find a bigger lover of medieval Europe in particular than I am — I spent the last couple of weeks before Christmas grading papers on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for example — but even I will admit that the neverending conga line of plucky yeomen rising up to shake wartorn kingdoms can sometimes get old.
January 5th, 2021. Tim Scheidler´s rating: 4 | Evan Winter | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer
In this worthy Nebula (Andre Norton Award) finalist by Naomi Kritzer we meet Steph, a girl who has spent most of her life on the run with her mother. According to her mom, Steph’s abusive father is extremely dangerous and, after spending a couple of years in jail for arson, he’s stalking them. Steph and her mom keep fleeing to small towns, trying to get lost, but eventually her mom gets nervous again and wants to move on. This means that Steph keeps starting at new schools and never has time to settle in and make friends.
January 5th, 2021. Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Naomi Kritzer | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Galaxy “Alex” Stern (the name courtesy of her hippie mother) seems an obvious misfit at prestigious Yale University. Wealth, athletic talent and academic stardom are nowhere to be found in Alex’s life. Instead she’s a high school dropout with a history of dead-end jobs and drug use, and the survivor of a traumatic multiple homicide. But she has a rare talent that to date has brought her nothing but grief: Alex sees the ghosts of dead people.
As it turns out, that talent is highly useful to Yale’s eight elite secret societies,
December 29th, 2020. Tadiana Jones and Marion Deeds´s rating: 0.1, 4 | Leigh Bardugo | Horror | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
One commenter with a USA mailing address will get a trade paperback edition of Lovecraft Country.
I watched Season One of HBO’s adaptation of Lovecraft Country before I read Matt Ruff’s original novel-in-stories. I liked each of them, for different reasons. I will be comparing and contrasting here.
Ruff’s book came out in 2016. It embraces and honors the pulp era of speculative fiction, especially short fiction, especially the weird (the title is a clue). Ruff wanted one important difference from the weird fiction and comic books of the 1950s—he wanted Black main characters.
December 23rd, 2020. Marion Deeds | Matt Ruff | Film / TV | Giveaway!, SFF Reviews | 15 comments |
Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
With just a month before her bat mitzvah, Anya’s life is mostly preoccupied with keeping her family’s goats out of the garden, her worries over being unable to see the hidden threads of magic connecting everything in the world, and staying out of trouble both at home and in the neighboring village of Zmeyreka, since the local magistrate is actively working to throw Anya’s family out of their home. If only her beloved papa would come home from the Tsar’s faraway war against Sultan Suleiman!
December 4th, 2020. Jana Nyman´s rating: 3.5 | Sofiya Pasternack | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White
At this point, I think the teen heartthrob version of King Arthur might be displacing the venerable monarch version. Between that BBC Merlin series, Avalon High, and the seemingly never-ending Mordred in Leather Pants novels that just keep coming and coming like my own personal karmic retribution, people just seem to have a lot of interest in Young Arthur lately. It’s probably a symptom of our youth-obsessed culture or something. I tell you, back in the good old days,
November 20th, 2020. Tim Scheidler´s rating: 3.5 | Kiersten White | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
King of Scars (2019), the first book in Leigh Bardugo’s NIKOLAI DUOLOGY and part of the ongoing saga in her GRISHA universe, begins not long after the events in Crooked Kingdom. Readers should ideally have read both the original SHADOW AND BONE trilogy and the SIX OF CROWS duology before picking up this book; there are a lot of references to prior events and previously introduced characters.
October 13th, 2020. Tadiana Jones and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Leigh Bardugo | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Joron Twiner, an ineffective drunkard with low self-esteem, is the shipwife (captain, basically) of Tide Child, a bone ship made of the bones of a supposedly extinct species of sea dragons. When we meet Joron, he’s in port, sleeping off the booze, when a fierce woman named Lucky Meas attacks and easily subjugates him. As the new shipwife of Tide Child, with Joron as her second-in-command, she plans to whip the pathetic crew into shape and to redeem the reputations of both Tide Child and herself.
August 19th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | R.J. Barker | Audio | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…