Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Order [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]: 2023.01

Fourth Wing: Dragons, death, and damn those tight pants!

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Typically I write a summary in my own words about a book I’m reviewing, but I would like to start this review by sharing the publisher’s description because it plays an important role in how I initially perceived Fourth Wing (2023) by Rebecca Yarros:

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history.

Abeni’s Song: A beguiling middle grade adventure

Abeni’s Song by P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djèlí Clark’s 2023 middle-grade adventure novel, Abeni’s Song, kicks off a new series with an engaging heroine, wonderful magic and thrilling adventures. Set in an African forest during the 18th or 19th century, Abeni’s Song follows Abeni as she tries to recover her friends and family from an enemy who calls himself the Witch Priest. The Witch Priest has given the adults of Abeni’s village to the “ghost ships.” It is up to her,

Translation State: Diplomacy is dangerous

Translation State by Ann Leckie

With Translation State, which was nominated for a Best Novel of 2023 Nebula Award, Ann Leckie brings us back to the universe adjacent to the Radchaai Empire, which is still embroiled in a civil war. This book directs its attention to the Presger Translators and their mysterious origin race, the Presger Themselves.

I liked Translation State, and about halfway through, one of the characters was suddenly in such jeopardy I could not put the book down.

June 3rd, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Ann Leckie | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries: A roller-coaster of a romantic romp

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

The first book in the EMILY WILDE series is a lively, lovely romp through an alternate Europe, with faeries, magic, lost kingdoms, irascible scholars and their irritating colleagues. Though completely different in tone and subject matter, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (2023), by Heather Fawcett, reminded me a bit of Marie Brennan’s LADY TRENT series. Both series feature a woman scientist and a story transmitted via reports or journal entries. There the similarities end,

April 25th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Heather Fawcett | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Witch King: Good adventure in a lush fantasy world

Witch King by Martha Wells

2023’s Witch King, by Martha Wells, is the first book in a new fantasy series, THE RISING WORLD. In the opening pages we meet Kaiisteron, who goes by Kai, the Witch King of the title. Kai awakens in a strange place, unable to move. He can mentally contact his friend Ziedi, but their magical connection should let him know exactly where she is, and he can’t find her. He can’t find his own body, either.

From there,

March 11th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Martha Wells | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Dragons of Deepwood Fen: An enjoyable start to a new fantasy trilogy

The Dragons of Deepwood Fen by Bradley P. Beaulieu

The Dragons of Deepwood Fen is an enjoyable start to a new fantasy trilogy by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Though the novel has a few issues, Beaulieu offers up an interesting world, a complex political set-up, and a nicely original use of that old fantasy standby, the dragon.

Ancris is the chief city of a long-standing, aggressively imperialistic empire, with the “vassal state” of the Holt having held them off enough to carve out a small amount of self-rule (within the empire) under their political leader known as the Imperator.

January 3rd, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Bradley P. Beaulieu | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Undetectables: Three detectives and a ghost solve magical crime

The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth

The Undetectables, by Courtney Smyth, (2023) reads like the first book in a series and I hope this is the case, because it was fun, and I loved the magical detective characters. Set in a modern world where magic and the mundane exist in close proximity if not actually side-by-side, the story follows our three amateur sleuths as they try to uncover the identity of a magical serial killer.

The point of view character of the story, mostly, is Mallory Hawthorne.

December 11th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Courtney Smyth | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Blue Book: The story of a famous alien abduction

Blue Book (Volume One) by James Tynion IV (script), Michael Avon Oeming (art), Aditya Bidikar (letters)

Blue Book is the true-life story of Betty and Barney Hill, a couple who claimed to have had an UFO encounter in the summer of 1961. While driving late at night, the young couple encounters a space ship, and then aliens abduct them, do experiments, and return them to their car within about two hours. All of this is narrated by Tynion in his script and shown through excellent black, white, and blue art by Oeming.

September 30th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

An Inheritance of Magic: A fun opening to a new series

An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka

An Inheritance of Magic is a solid fantasy with an entirely engaging Everyman of a character who comes with an equally engaging cat. I could have done with a bit more clarity on the world the story is set in, and at times things seemed to come a little easily to the main character, but this was a generally enjoyable and interesting story, enough so that I’ll pick up the necessary sequel.

Stephen Oakwood is twenty years old and adrift in the world of London.

September 22nd, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Benedict Jacka | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

XINO #1: Technology will doom us all

XINO #1 by Various Creators for Oni Press

XINO #1, the first of three issues, includes four stories about technology. The first, “Hue,” written by Melissa Flores, illustrated by Daniel Irizarrri, and lettered by Jim Campbell is the best of the four. In it, Matteo Mendoza, a blind man, is given sight through some new implants that enable him not simply to see as we do; rather, he can see things the rest of us cannot. At first, excited by the promise of vision for the first time in his life,

September 2nd, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 3.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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