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 it yourself.”
You’ll have to read it yourselves, too.
2021’s Under the Whispering Door is TJ Klune’s second fantasy book marketed to adults.
November 4th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | TJ Klune | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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 short to do justice to Dune the book. In fact, as that became more and more evident, I found myself thinking even more frequently that if Peter Jackson could get three movies out of The Hobbit (ignoring that he really didn’t),
November 3rd, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Frank Herbert | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
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 Burton uses myth to examine our own culture of victim-blaming, slut-shaming and toxic masculinity, provoking the question: Is Medusa truly a monster?
October 28th, 2021. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Jessie Burton | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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 create immortality, was born, Laila Starr lost her job as Goddess of Death. She is returned to earth in a mortal body of a woman who just died and seeks out the baby to kill it. But with the baby in her hands in the hospital nursery,
October 23rd, 2021. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
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 heist novel, in the form of his latest release, Harlem Shuffle (2021).
The book follows Ray Carney, a furniture salesman in 1950s –
October 21st, 2021. Ray McKenzie and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Colson Whitehead | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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? Well, besides all being major characters in Anthony Doerr’s newest novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land (2021). To find out what else ties them all together, you’ll have to read the book, which I do recommend despite some issues.
October 14th, 2021. Bill Capossere and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Anthony Doerr | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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 one of the uber-wealthy, living elsewhere and treating the city like a personal playground/hunting-ground, or a person who services the very wealthy. This leads us to Jewel, our first-person narrator,
October 13th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Premee Mohamed | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean
Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
~ Albert Einstein
Sam Kean is my favorite pop science author, ever since I read Caesar’s Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us in 2017. Kean has an engaging voice, a solid understanding of science,
October 5th, 2021. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars by Simon Morden
Simon Morden’s The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars (2021) is a detailed look at the history of Mars’ geology, and there lies both its appeal and, for some, perhaps, its lack of appeal. As fascinating as much of the book is, I confess it sometimes got a little too deep into the weeds (or the rock formations) for my own preferences, though having “too much information” is hardly a major indictment for a non-fiction work.
September 28th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Simon Morden | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar
Lavie Tidhar’s The Escapement (2021)is a fantastic and fantastical fever dream of a novel, a Weird Western via Lewis Carroll, Gilgamesh if had been translated and illustrated by Norton Juster and scored by Ennio Morricone, The Searchers if it had starred Buster Keaton, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had it been directed by David Lynch from a screenplay co-written by Steven King, Raymond Carver, and Italo Calvino and storyboarded by Salvador Dali.
September 24th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Lavie Tidhar | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
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…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…