Shigidi and The Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi
Shigidi and The Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi is a new addition to the fantasy heist genre, one that brings a sense of freshness due to its backdrop of Yoruba folktale/myth and a sense of depth thanks to its focus on character, as well as a moving close.
The narrative is set in a world of gods and spirits who have organized themselves into companies and regions and who are,
August 7th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Wole Talabi | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Medusa’s Sisters by Lauren J.A. Bear
Every now and then my reads fall into a pattern, the most recent being a trio of reimaginings of Greek tales. Medusa’s Sisters, by Lauren J.A. Bear falls in between the other two in terms of the reading experience, with engaging characters, good narrative voices, a moving close, and a nice refocusing of the ancient story of Medusa and Perseus (rather than of Perseus and Medusa).
Bear begins, well, at the beginning (after an excellent opening that gives us right away the classic Perseus-Kills-Medusa moment,
August 2nd, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Lauren J.A. Bear | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Bridge by Lauren Beukes
A quick glance at the jacket copy of Lauren Beukes’s 2023 weird thriller Bridge might make the reader think of the Best Picture winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once. After all, this is a mother-daughter story set in the multiverse. Beukes weaves into her story a few elements EEAAO didn’t have, like a parasite and a serial killer, or more accurately a collective of serial killers. The core of the book is a mother-daughter story, but it is filled with chills,
July 31st, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Lauren Beukes | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Night Fever: We are our own worst enemies
Brubaker and Phillips have done it again in their latest offering: They have given us another noir comic that is as stunning visually as it is engaging narratively. In Night Fever, Jonathan Webb, a businessman in Europe, cannot sleep, and his insomnia leads him to venture out into the night. This journey into the darkness is both literal and figurative, of course, and his drug- and alcohol-fueled adventures take a dangerous turn as he starts finding out that not everyone he meets after the sun goes down has his best interests in mind.
July 22nd, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Ed Brubaker | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us by Keggie Carew
In Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us, Keggie Carew takes us on an always passionate, sometimes meandering, often fascinating, sometimes disorienting, often depressing, occasionally encouraging tour of humanity’s lengthy and often abusive relationship with the animals we share this world with. Like many such works, it makes for some difficult reading, but it’s often the things we find difficult that are the most important to face.
The book is divided into ten sections,
July 19th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
“There was a vulture on the mailbox of my grandmother’s house.”
A couple of weeks ago there was a big discussion on Twitter about “cozy horror.” I followed it, but never really understood what “cozy” was supposed to be. I feel confident saying that T. Kingfisher is the queen of Cozy Horror, though —if “cozy” means there’s a house (haunted or not) and the ending has some bit of optimism. With 2023’s A House With Good Bones,
June 30th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | T. Kingfisher | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
The Saint of Bright Doors, a debut novel by Vajra Chandrasekera, opens with an absolutely killer beginning (literally, as the very young main character is being trained as an assassin) that had me sure I was going to love this novel. But while I did love parts of it, and was in the end happy I’d read it, I can’t say it lived up fully to the promise of that beginning.
But oh,
June 19th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Vajra Chandrasekera | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet by Matthew Shindell
Mars has long fascinated us Earthlings, whether we were gazing up at it with eyes or telescopes, gazing down at it via orbital probes, or vicariously rolling across/flying over it via a slew of lander expeditions, several of which are still up there tooling around. That long obsession with the planet has prompted a huge number of books, fiction and non-fiction, centered on our red neighbor and now Matthew Shindell has added another — For the Love of Mars — which rather than focusing on Mars itself looks at our long-enduring but changing relationship.
June 15th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II by Peter S. Beagle
It’s a good time to be a Peter S. Beagle fan. In short order this mid-year, we’ve been gifted The Way Home — two novellas set in the world of the beloved classic The Last Unicorn — and two collections of Beagle’s short stories: The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II. And true gifts they are. You can see my review of the novellas here,
June 2nd, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Peter S. Beagle | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
Justin Cronin burst onto the big scene with his apocalyptic vampire doorstopper The Passage (first of a trilogy), a fantastically harrowing blockbuster of a novel that still maintained amidst its action/thriller/horror aspects the quietly intimate elements of his earlier literary novels. His newest, The Ferryman, while not quite as strong and despite having a few more noticeable issues, shares some of the same strengths that made The Passage so successful, as I imagine this one will be.
The story takes place on an archipelago isolated from the rest of the world by something known as The Veil,
May 11th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Justin Cronin | 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…