Greetings from Lake Wu by Jay Lake Greetings from Lake Wu is a collaboration between Jay Lake and Frank Wu, with the former writing the short stories and the latter illustrating them. Wu’s art can be found preceding each story (there are 13 in this collection) and his style has an old-school feel to it. […]
Read MoreCharles Tan (GUEST)´s rating: 3 | Jay Lake | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Rocket Science by Jay Lake At first glance, Rocket Science might seem like a very short read at under 200 pages, but Jay Lake makes every word count. Set in a post-World War II Kansas, the novel starts off with a mundane premise but as one progresses through the book, Lake slowly adds an additional […]
Read MoreCharles Tan (GUEST)´s rating: 3.5 | Jay Lake | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Trial of Flowers by Jay Lake Despite having read two Jay Lake novels (Rocket Science and Mainspring), they didn’t prepare me for Trial of Flowers. This is an entirely different animal; Right from the outset you’re hit with stylistic language, a complex tapestry of characters and plot, and most importantly, a flat-out weirdness and originality […]
Read MoreCharles Tan (GUEST)´s rating: 4 | Jay Lake | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Mainspring by Jay Lake Up till now, my exposure to Jay Lake has been limited to the author’s short fiction which either really worked for me or was underwhelming. Mainspring falls somewhere in the middle with the parts that I liked and disliked usually related to one another. For instance, I loved the concept of […]
Read MoreRobert Thompson (RETIRED)´s rating: 3.5 | Jay Lake | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Escapement by Jay Lake In my opinion, Jay Lake’s Mainspring was a novel full of great potential that was hindered by inconsistent writing and execution. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book and was looking forward to reading the sequel. Happily, everything that worked so well in the first book has been retained in Escapement, while most […]
Read MoreRobert Thompson (RETIRED)´s rating: 4.5 | Jay Lake | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Green by Jay Lake Green is barely a toddler when her father sells her to Federo, a man who travels around looking for young female children on behalf of a faraway Duke. Taken halfway across the world, not even able to speak the local language, Green is imprisoned in the Pomegranate Court, where she endures […]
Read MoreStefan Raets (RETIRED), Rob Rhodes, Bill Capossere and Terry Weyna | Jay Lake | SFF Reviews | | 4 comments |
Endurance by Jay Lake In Endurance, Jay Lake continues the exploration of a strange and beautiful world. We feel the smoothness of a length of silk, hear the sounds from the docks, smell the curries and the spices in the food cooked in the taverns. As Green, his main character, travels through Copper Downs, the […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5, 3 | Jay Lake | SFF Reviews | | 2 comments |
Kalimpura by Jay Lake Kalimpura is the third and supposedly concluding book in Jay Lake’s series about Green, the young girl who becomes enmeshed in both worldly and godly politics, much to her dismay. I had lots of issues with the first book, Green, fewer but still some issues with the follow-up, Endurance, and I […]
Read MoreBill Capossere´s rating: 2 | Jay Lake | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
Last Plane to Heaven: The Final Collection by Jay Lake Jay Lake died in June of 2014. It was a tragic loss but not a surprise, since Lake had made his experiences with cancer public. Last Plane to Heaven, edited by Lake himself, is a reminder of just how much the speculative fiction world lost. […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Jay Lake | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | | 3 comments |
In 2009, fans of Realms of Fantasy, a full-size slick magazine, were dismayed to learn that its publisher, Sovereign Media, was shutting it down. Just not enough subscribers, Sovereign said; we can’t afford to keep going. But a savior came along in the form of Publisher Warren Lapine of Tir Na Nog Press, who purchased […]
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Black Gate has been published irregularly (sometimes only once a year) since 2000, but I’ve only just discovered it. And what a time to do so! The Winter 2010 edition, Number 14, is 385 pages long, the size of a hefty book. The price reflects that; few magazines will run you $15.95 in the print […]
Read MoreTerry Weyna | James Enge, Jay Lake | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | | 5 comments |
Sheila Williams, the editor of Asimov’s, says that the annual October/November issue is “slightly spooky.” There are a few frights in the magazine, as well as some solid science fiction, but overall, I was generally disappointed in this double issue. Alan Smale’s novella, “The Mongolian Book of the Dead,” was not one of the disappointments; […]
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The spring issue of Subterranean is exceptionally strong, even for a publication known for its excellent fiction. The six long pieces in this issue seem to be somewhat thematically linked, most of them having taken some form of art as their theme. In “Painted Birds and Shivered Bones” by Kat Howard, an artist named Maeve […]
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The Fall 2013 issue of Subterranean Magazine is a delight to read. The stories are challenging and imaginative, full of discovery, provocation and excellent writing. The issue opens with “Doctor Helios,” a long novella by Lewis Shiner. It’s a Cold War espionage novel, reminiscent more of Ian Fleming than of John le Carré, set in […]
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To the dismay of all lovers of great speculative short fiction, the Summer issue of Subterranean Magazine is its last. This magazine was notable not just for the quality of its fiction, but for its willingness to publish short fiction at the novelette and novella lengths. The Summer issue ably demonstrates just what we’re going […]
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Uncanny Magazine is a new bimonthly internet publication edited by Lynn M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas. The editors have explained their mission this way: We chose the name Uncanny because we wanted a publication that has the feel of a contemporary magazine with a history — one that evolved from a fantastic pulp. Uncanny […]
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Paper Cities by Ekaterina Sedia Bring up urban fantasy nowadays and most readers will probably assume that you’re talking about such authors as Laurell K. Hamilton, Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, Sherrilyn Kenyon and so on, but in this new anthology from Senses Five Press, which is edited by Ekaterina Sedia, […]
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The Solaris Book of New Fantasy by George Mann (ed.) I’m pretty much a novice when it comes to short fiction. Because of my lack of experience in this area, I hope that you will bear with me as I try to provide a thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, […]
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Spicy Slipstream Stories edited by Nick Namatas & Jay Lake Slipstream, for me, is a type of fiction that is bizarre and confusing and defies expectations. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, but to quote a passage from the introduction of the book, “You don’t write slipstream, you read it.” And so it was […]
Read MoreCharles Tan (GUEST)´s rating: 3 | Carrie Vaughn, Ekaterina Sedia, Jay Lake, Lisa Mantchev, Nick Mamatas | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Steampunk edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer Steampunk is an anthology of, well, steampunk stories, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. If you hurry, you can still get to this first anthology before the second one, Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded, appears in mid November. Based on the quality of the stories in this collection, I […]
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METAtropolis edited by John Scalzi It’s not a utopia. It’s just maybe something that sucks a little less. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it turns out that all those eco-freaks were right all along. We humans destroyed the planet and now we’ve got to live with the mess we’ve […]
Read MoreKat Hooper and Stefan Raets (RETIRED)´s rating: 3, 3.5 | Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder, Tobias Buckell | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
The New Space Opera 2: All-New Tales of Science Fiction Adventure edited by Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan The New Space Opera 2: All-New Tales of Science Fiction Adventure is, as its name implies, the second of Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan’s themed anthologies attempting to put a modern spin on space opera, a subgenre […]
Read MoreKat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Bill Willingham, Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Moon, Gardner Dozois, Garth Nix, Jay Lake, John Kessel, John Meaney, John Scalzi, Jonathan Strahan, Justina Robson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mike Resnick, Robert Charles Wilson, Sean Williams, Tad Williams | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
The Book of Dreams edited by Nick Gevers The Book of Dreams is a small but satisfying collection of short stories that are thematically, albeit loosely, connected by the theme of “dreams.” The book features original stories by Robert Silverberg, Lucius Shepard, Jay Lake, Kage Baker and Jeffrey Ford, and was edited by Nick Gevers […]
Read MoreStefan Raets (RETIRED)´s rating: 3.5 | Jay Lake, Jeffrey Ford, Kage Baker, Lucius Shepard, Robert Silverberg | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Sympathy for the Devil edited by Tim Pratt Please allow me to introduce Sympathy for the Devil, a fine new anthology filled entirely with short stories about the devil… who is, as we all know, a man of style and taste. However, you won’t just find the smooth-talking stealer of souls here. In addition to […]
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Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2 edited by William Schafer EDITOR INFORMATION: William K. Schafer is the head editor at Subterranean Press, which was founded in 1995. Schafer’s bibliography includes Embrace the Mutation: Fiction Inspired by the Art of J.K. Potter and the first Tales of Dark Fantasy anthology. ABOUT SUBTERRANEAN: TALES OF DARK FANTASY […]
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The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk edited by Sean Wallace The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk lives up to its name, with 21 works of fiction ranging from short stories to novellas. “Dieselpunk” is the term the coined for concepts that grew out of steampunk but have left the Victorian era behind and are now, for the […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | A.C. Wise, Carrie Vaughn, E. Catherine Tobler, Genevieve Valentine, Jay Lake, Nick Mamatas | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | | 4 comments |
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