The Secret Skin by Wendy N. Wagner There are so many scary things in Wendy N. Wagner’s short 2021 novella, The Secret Skin. There is the nasty housekeeper who gives the nasty housekeeper in Rebecca a run for her money. There is the leering, unpleasant overseer of the Vogel family sawmill. There is Abigail, a […]
Read MoreOrder [book in series=yearoffirstbook.book# (eg 2014.01), stand-alone or one-author collection=3333.pubyear, multi-author anthology=5555.pubyear, SFM/MM=5000, interview=1111]: 2021
Posted by Marion Deeds | Feb 13, 2023 | SFF Reviews | 0
The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler I continued my Neon Hemlock novella-reading binge with E. Catherine Tobler’s The Necessity of Stars, published in 2021. I always approach a Tobler story preparing to be bowled over by strange and stunning language, and this story did not disappoint. I was surprised to be reading a […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Nov 2, 2022 | SFF Reviews | 0
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova 2021’s The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina was practically a perfect book for me. It’s filled with fantastical magic that baffled me and thrilled me, and it brought to mind the early books of Isabel Allende. The Montoya family were complicated and realistic, in a real-world setting that […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Oct 18, 2022 | SFF Reviews | 0
What Lives in the Woods by Lindsay Currie Ginny — or Gin — Anderson is looking forward to the summer writing workshop she’s going to attend with her best friend Erica, in their hometown of Chicago, until Dad upends the family’s plans because of a job. He’d going to restore a century-old house-turned-hotel, The Woodmoor […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Sep 6, 2022 | SFF Reviews | 0
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix The title of Grady Hendrix’s 2021 novel might make you think it’s a horror story in the slasher-movie style, and there are plenty of nods to horror here. Actually, the book is a thriller, and as a thriller it works pretty well. Hendrix intersperses the thriller with […]
Read MorePosted by Kat Hooper | May 16, 2022 | SFF Reviews | 0
The Best of Walter Jon Williams by Walter Jon Williams The Best of Walter Jon Williams (2021) is a 663-page tome containing, as its name implies, twelve of Walter Jon Williams’ best stories spanning four decades of his writing career. Fans will appreciate Subterranean Press’s beautiful hardcover edition of this collection (there’s also an audio […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Apr 21, 2022 | SFF Reviews | 0
Noor by Nnedi Okorafor Nnedi Okorafor’s 2021 Noor is a short, fast-paced science fiction novel. The futuristic energy delivery system called Noor, and the “Red Spot” dust storm are innovative, made plausible by Okorafor’s grounded writing and her fine eye for detail. Anwuli calls herself AO for Artificial Organism. Considered “wrong” even before birth, AO […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Jan 31, 2022 | SFF Reviews | 2
The Ghost Sequences by A.C. Wise A.C. Wise’s 2021 story collection The Ghost Sequences delivers a sampler of her short fiction. As the name implies, nearly all are ghostly or eerie. Wise pays homage to North American (Lovecraftian) Gothic with two stories in particular, and examines the serial-killer/slasher genre in others. Despite the disturbing subject […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Jan 11, 2022 | SFF Reviews | 1
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich “sentence (n)1. A grammatical unit comprising a word or a group of words that is separate from any other grammatical construction, and usually consists of at least one subject with its predicate and contains a finite verb or verb phrase; for example, ‘The door is open’ and ‘Go!’ are sentences.” […]
Read MorePosted by Bill Capossere | Dec 23, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
Foundation: Season One on Apple TV+ In my first review of Apple TV’s Foundation series, written after the first two shows, I said it wasn’t “great” TV (at least not yet) but ranged consistently between good and very good. Having just finished all ten episodes of season one, I’d broaden that range from “occasionally annoying […]
Read MorePosted by Bill Capossere | Dec 20, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 1
Absynthe by Brendan P. Bellecourt Absynthe (2021) is the new novel by Brendan P. Bellecourt, the pen name of Bradley Beaulieu, author of the excellent SONG OF THE SHATTERED SANDS series. Talk about a change. Beaulieu leaves the desert far behind to head for the big noisy city in a complex Jazz Age/Psi-powers tale set […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Dec 7, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 2
The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamad Whether it’s writing weird horror, fantasy, science fiction or science horror fiction — a subgenre I think I just made up — Premee Mohamad is one of the best around right now, and she does great work in the novella length. Her latest example is 2021’s The […]
Read MorePosted by Bill Capossere | Dec 6, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 1
A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth by Henry Gee A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters (2021), by Henry Gee is a, stay with me here, concisely told history of life on Earth. Really, it’s all in the title there. So you pretty much know […]
Read MorePosted by Bill Capossere | Dec 2, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime Let’s face it, this is a Big One for sci-fi/fantasy fans. The first three episodes of The Wheel of Time dropped on Amazon Prime, and I promptly watched all three. In the spirit of full transparency, let me say that while I quite enjoyed Robert Jordan’s first three […]
Read MorePosted by Jana Nyman | Nov 19, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente Sophia’s life is perfect. She adores her husband, her company is much sought-after in the luxurious gated community she and her various neighbors share, she has endless tasks and joys to fill the long days while she waits for her husband to return from his various freelancing […]
Read MorePosted by Bill Capossere | Nov 12, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 1
12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson In 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next (2021), Jeanette Winterson offers up a dozen essays on Artificial Intelligence divided into four sections: “How we got here” (a dip into the history of computing), “What’s Your Superpower” […]
Read MorePosted by Bill Capossere | Nov 10, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
Foundation created by David S. Goyer & Josh Friedman What you need to know first about Apple TV’s Foundation is that it is stunningly gorgeous to look at. Seriously. Gorgeous. Do not watch it on your phone. Do not, if you can avoid it, watch it on your laptop. This deserves, no, it cries out […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Nov 8, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis The Lights of Prague (2021) is Nicole Jarvis’s first novel. It’s set in 1868 Prague, filled with pijavica* — vampires — and other magical creatures. Fighting the pijavica are the lamplighters, whose cover job is to go around lighting the new gas streetlamps in the city. Domek Myska […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Nov 4, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune When I got to the scene in Under the Whispering Door (2021) featuring an opportunistic “medium” being messed with by two ghosts, I started laughing so hard I fell over sideways on the loveseat. My husband kept saying, “What? What?” and I could only gasp, “You’ll… have to […]
Read MorePosted by Bill Capossere | Nov 3, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 3
Dune directed by Denis Villeneuve It’s been many a year since I’ve read Frank Herbert’s Dune, so I can’t say with any authority where in the book Denis Villeneuve ends his film version, but I do feel comfortable saying it was too far. Because even at roughly 2 ½ hours, Dune the movie is too […]
Read MorePosted by Ray McKenzie | Oct 28, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
Medusa by Jessie Burton If I told you that I’d killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? This question opens Jessie Burton‘s latest novel, Medusa (2021), a feminist retelling of the famous Greek myth. Told through the eyes of the snake-headed Medusa herself, the story reframes her tale as […]
Read MorePosted by Brad Hawley | Oct 23, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 2
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V (writer) and Filipe Andrade (art) I really like this comic book by Ram V and Filipe Andrade: It tells the story of a man who has to meet with the former Goddess of Death once every decade or so. When a baby, prophesized to one day […]
Read MorePosted by Ray McKenzie | Oct 21, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead One thing we can be sure to expect from Colson Whitehead is the unexpected. The double Pulitzer Prize winner shot to fame with the alternate history (and FanLit favourite) The Underground Railroad. He debuted with speculative fiction, later wrote a zombie novel, and his work now takes another twist: a […]
Read MorePosted by Bill Capossere | Oct 14, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 1
Reposting to include Ray’s new review. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr What do a pair of young kids on the opposite sides of the fall of Constantinople, the protagonist of an ancient Greek tale, an eco-terrorist, a Korean war vet and former prisoner-of-war, and a young girl on a generation ship have in common? […]
Read MorePosted by Marion Deeds | Oct 13, 2021 | SFF Reviews | 0
And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed Premee Mohamed’s novella And What Can We Offer You Tonight (2021) is set in a drowning city where human life is not cheap — it’s worthless. If starvation, violence or disease doesn’t kill you, probably one of the routine government “culls” will, unless you are […]
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