Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water by Vylar Kaftan
Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water is a 2019 novella by Vylar Kaftan. The story opens with two characters, Bee, our narrator, and Chela, in jeopardy in a very unusual setting, and takes us places we did not expect.
Bee is trapped in a unique and horrifying prison: a cave complex on a planet far from Earth. She has one companion, Chela, and they have banded together to brave the dangers of the caves: the risk of drowning,
January 9th, 2020. Marion Deeds and Terry Weyna´s rating: 2.5, 3 | Vylar Kaftan | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone
Max Gladstone’s Empress of Forever (2019) is definitely space opera. In a far distant future, tech genius, entrepreneur and loner Vivian Liao travels from planet to planet and system to system trying to find an advantage in a losing war against an all-powerful space empress. Viv, who is plucked by that same empress out of her our-present-day life (and planned rebellion), draws to herself the usual strange pack of uneasy allies in this battle. The book is complicated,
January 8th, 2020. Marion Deeds and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3, 4.5 | Max Gladstone | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Cory Doctorow’s Radicalized (2019) is a collection of four near-future novellas that cast a critical eye on current societal trends. As is nearly always the case with collections, the story quality/impact varies, but the floor here is relatively high.
In the first, “Unauthorized Bread,” Doctorow takes on digital rights/permissions, mergers and monopolies, and the growing movement away from creating tech the average person (or non-average for that matter) can easily modify/repair themselves. The protagonist is Salima, faced one day with a broken Boulangism toaster-oven which only accepts the company’s proprietary bread — “unauthorized bread had consequences ranging from kitchen fires to suboptimal toast.” Not having the money to buy a new one,
January 2nd, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Cory Doctorow | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Jo Walton writes truly thoughtful books, as anyone who has read her THESSALY TRILOGY (The Just City, The Philosopher Kings, Necessity) knows. She’s also, those fans also know, a big fan of Renaissance Italy, particularly Florence. So it comes as no surprise to find this the setting for her newest novel, Lent (2019), which wrestles in the same thought-provoking manner major issues,
December 30th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Jo Walton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Labyrinth’s Archivist by Day Al-Mohamed
Before I review The Labyrinth’s Archivist (2019), some disclosure. The author, Day Al-Mohamed, and I share a small press publisher, Falstaff Books, and we shared an editor. The Labyrinth’s Archivist shares a general theme with my novella and both are part of the press’s BROKEN CITIES line. I haven’t met Al-Mohamed and I get no compensation for reviewing the book. I bought the book on my own. If I hadn’t enjoyed it,
December 20th, 2019. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Day Al-Mohamed | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
I recently enjoyed Sarah Gailey’s short story “STET,” on Tadiana’s recommendation, and decided I needed to check out more of Gailey’s work. When I saw their latest novel, Magic for Liars (2019), gleaming bright red at me from the library shelf, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Magic school meets detective thriller? Right up my alley, as I like both of those things. It was like asking me if I wanted vanilla and chocolate ice cream.
December 19th, 2019. Kelly Lasiter and Skye Walker´s rating: 3 | Sarah Gailey | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Chaos, death by the magical Ash Blood plague and by monstrous beasts have consumed the country of Ystara, killing all who remain within its borders. The last survivors, holed up in a cathedral, speculate that this disaster must have been caused by a “ferociously single-minded” young mage, Liliath, whose unprecedented power to call on angels, particularly the archangel Palleniel, has somehow led to things going catastrophically awry.
One hundred thirty-seven years later, Liliath awakes from her magical sleep in the temple of Saint Marguerite, in the neighboring country of Sarance.
December 17th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Garth Nix | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Gates of Never by Deborah L. Davitt
The first thing I (unfortunately) have to note is that the formatting was off in the version of The Gates of Never I read, which clearly detracts from reading, let along critiquing, poetry. Issues of line breaks and spacing popped up, and if I looked at versions in Kindle or in Bluefire or in PDF the line breaks were different in all three, making it impossible to tell which is the author’s intended.
Setting that aside, as is often the case for me and poetry collections (or any anthology to be honest),
December 13th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Gabriella White, a brilliant neurologist and scientist who’s searching for a cure to Alzheimer’s, is at the very end of the funding for her research project. In her frustration, she recklessly pushes the power for her lab equipment, a neural stimulation system, to the maximum … and accidentally finds herself in her husband Paul’s body in their nearby house, holding their beloved 11-month-old daughter, who they call Kat or Kitten. Shocked, Gabby drops Kat back into her crib and runs back to the lab, where she finds her own body in a comatose state.
December 6th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Charles Soule | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Waste Tide (2019) by Chen Quifan (tr. Ken Liu) is a book that I wanted to like thanks to its compassionate exploration of its topical subject. And it’s certainly not a bad book by any stretch. But it also wasn’t a compelling book, and I found myself putting it down way more than is usual for me and being at least a little resistant to picking it up again each time.
The novel is set on the modern hell (a comparison made explicit — perhaps too much so — by a Dante reference) that is Silicon Isle,
November 27th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Chen Quifan | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no 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…