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

No One Will Come Back For Us: A sampling of one of the best writers around

No One Will Come Back For Us by Premee Mohamed

Premee Mohamed is one of the best writers around, and her first short story collection, 2023’s No One Will Come Back For Us is a great way to get to know her work. Seventeen stories give a good overview of her style—I should say styles, because she’s versatile—and her themes. If you like Lovecraftian elder gods, alternate history, dark science fiction or gothic tales set in elegant, decadent worlds of decay and corruption, check this one out.

Here’s the Table of Contents:

“Below the Kirk,

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon

In Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Cat Bohannon sets herself an ambitious task as evidenced by the sub-title — How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution — and I’m happy to report she’s more than up to the job, turning out out a work that impresses across the board: in information and organization, in scholarship and research, in voice and wit,

October 20th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

A Haunting on the Hill: Do not read it after dark!

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

First, a warning: If you are alone while you are reading this book, do not read it after it gets dark. I don’t care how good your motion-sensor lights, your security system and your Ring doorbell are; just don’t do it to yourself. Trust me.

2023’s A Haunting on the Hill, by master writer Elizabeth Hand, is an indirect sequel to another master writer’s classic work, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

Holly: King’s scariest villains

Holly by Stephen King

If you participate in Bluesky or X (formerly Twitter), you may follow the account called The Midnight Society. If you’ve run across their delightful posts, which imagine conversations among various horror writers throughout history, you might have seen a recent one which featured imaginary J.K. Rowling and Stephen King trading barbs over relative book-length. It had resonance for me because I’d just finished 2023’s Holly, and I have to admit, I was relieved when I bought it and found out it was less than 500 pages in length.

MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios: Even-handed, highly readable, always interesting, sometimes fascinating

MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, Gavin Edwards

MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, Gavin Edwards is an even-handed, highly readable, always interesting, sometimes fascinating history of Marvel movie-making, starting from their early days of licensing characters to formation of their own studio, to reclaiming some of their most popular characters, to merging their TV and films under one roof to their purchase by Disney up to their most recently released films and TV shows in 2022.

September 29th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Film / TV, Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Normal Rules Don’t Apply: Stories about alternate possibilities

Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson

In a number of her novels, Kate Atkinson explores the idea of alternate possibilities, playing with “what if” scenarios for various characters. Showing she doesn’t need a full novel to explore the heady concept, Atkinson returns to that theme in Normal Rules Don’t Apply, a collection of eleven loosely linked short stories.

The first, “The Void”, is a masterclass in chilling mundanity as out in the countryside an old man and his equally old dog find their daily walk shockingly interrupted by a horrific sight.

The Secrets of Insects: A retrospective of Kadrey short fiction

The Secrets of Insects by Richard Kadrey

Before he published the SANDMAN SLIM series, Richard Kadrey published short fiction in various markets. Several of those stories have been collected in his latest book, 2023’s The Secret of Insects. The earliest story in here, “Horse Latitudes,” appeared in Omni in 1992. The most recent story, “Candy Among the Jades,” is original to this collection. The Secrets of Insects is a retrospective of Kadrey’s short fiction.

I’ll provide the Table of Contents,

Where Peace is Lost: Enjoyable, with missed opportunities

Where Peace is Lost by Valerie Valdes

Where Peace is Lost by Valerie Valdes moves along smoothly and quickly, is peopled by engaging characters, and nods toward some serious themes of ethics, violence, and colonialism. I mostly enjoyed this fast read, though found myself wishing its themes were delved into more deeply.

The novel is set in a universe where the Pale Empire has been conquering/colonizing other planets or planetary systems/alliances. Some years back, one of their stiffest foes, whose military and altruistic institutions were known as “Orders”,

The Library of Broken Worlds: My first Hugo nomination of the year

The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson

With Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Library of Broken Worlds, I found my first Hugo nomination for next year. Mind you, this is a year where I’ve read many good-to-great books. The Library of Broken Worlds is not only a brilliant story beautifully written, it is truly original in its conception and execution, by a writer who is a master of words.

Set a few hundred years in the future, the story is told by our narrator and main character,

Circumference of the World: I like it

Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar

Once upon a time in the ancient era when childhood was about to bleed into pre-adolescence, we used to question if someone “liked” another person or “liked liked” them, our eyes wide in anticipation of the stressed or unstressed response. For the past half-dozen or so novels I’ve read by Lavie Tidhar, the reply each time was a no-brainer: a breathy, intense, “I like like.” With his newest, Circumference of the World,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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