Recent Posts

Amazing Adventures: Marvel Super Stories #2

Amazing Adventures (Marvel Super Stories Book #2)

Last November, Abrams Fanfare published their second volume of middle-grade comics stories, based on some slightly less-exposed Marvel heroes. Some, like Spider Man, are immediately recognizable, and some have had their own series recently and we know them from that. Each story is no longer than six pages, and various award-winning comic book artists and writers were invited to the anthology. The result, Amazing Adventures (Marvel Super Stories Book #2), is a pleasant sampler, and maybe an introduction to some new and interesting cape-and-mask heroes.

March 13th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Children, Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Into the West: Watching the formation of Valdemar

Into the West by Mercedes Lackey

Into the West (2022) is the second book in Mercedes Lackey’s THE FOUNDING OF VALDEMAR trilogy. Readers can absolutely start with this trilogy before diving into any other VALDEMAR books, but you’ll want to read Beyond, the first (and most exciting) book in this trilogy, before picking up this one. Only mild spoilers for Beyond are in this review.

The journey continues with Duke Kordas Valdemar and his people as they seek a new home.

The Tomb of Dragons

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison

2025’s The Tomb of Dragons is the fourth book in Kate Addison’s CHRONICLES OF OSRETH. The Goblin Emperor has retroactively been designated Book One. The Tomb of Dragons, like the two books before it, features Thera Celehar, a Witness for the Dead, as he tries to bring justice to his world in large and small ways.

In The Goblin Emperor,

March 10th, 2025. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4, 5 | Katherine Addison | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Weapon From Beyond: Chane gang

The Weapon From Beyond by Edmond Hamilton

It would seem that I owe a very sincere apology to all my FanLit readers here. In my June 2017 review of Edmond Hamilton’s 1966 novel Doomstar, I mentioned that this was the final work given to us by the Golden Age sci-fi master, and as it turns out, that statement was far from being correct. One of the folks who saw that review, Dennis Burdette, was good enough to point out, 10 months later in that review’s Comments section,

March 7th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Edmond Hamilton | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Carnivale of Curiosities: A complex carnival story with an antihero protagonist

The Carnivale of Curiosities by Amiee Gibbs

This carnival book completely satisfied. 2023’s The Carnivale of Curiosities, by Amiee Gibbs, is set in 1880’s London. It’s a slow-burn, late-Victorian-styled literary novel, filled with magic, lies, secrets, and revenge plots, all centered around Ashe and Pretorius’s Carnivale of Curiosities, and its leader, Aurelius Ashe, who can grant anyone nearly any wish… for a price.

Unlike other circuses and carnivals of the day, Ashe uses real magic and many of his “freaks” have magical powers. Some are simply unusual-looking people,

WWWednesday: March 5, 2025

Since the CDC cannot release information about the avian flu and other contagious diseases, the American Medical Association is providing updates. Here is their Youtube channel.

Reactor is offering new fiction by Elizabeth Bear.

Nerds of a Feather reviews Gareth Powell’s latest.

Here’s an interesting article about one of the things NOAA does.

The U.K. Guardian shares fantastical sketches by Victor Hugo.

File770 provides the Australian Romance Award short list.

March 5th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

Beyond: A good place to start with VALDEMAR

Beyond by Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes Lackey’s Beyond (2021) is the first book in her THE FOUNDING OF VALDEMAR trilogy which is set in her wider VALDEMAR universe. As the name of the trilogy suggests, it’s a prequel, so Beyond is a fine entry point in the VALDEMAR series and, in fact, I’d recommend it as a great starting point because it’s well-written and entertaining all the way through. Lackey’s books are often hit or miss for me and Beyond,

The First Bright Thing: I wish I liked this book more

The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson

Published in 2023, J.R. Dawson’s The First Bright Thing is a solid entry in the subgenre of magical carnivals, joining The Night Circus, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Bacchanal, and Mechanique, among others. Once again, good versus evil plays out in the center ring, against the backdrop of big tops and midways. Dawson adds one new ingredient to the mix,

Rogue Star: “Have you ever met that funny reefer man?”

Rogue Star by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson

Have you ever read a science-fiction book that was so bizarre, so way-out, that you said to yourself “How did the author ever think of this? What was he smoking? Did she possibly eat a Fluffernutter and headcheese sandwich, go to bed, and dream the whole thing up?” It’s happened to me any number of times, with such novels as Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore’s The Well of the Worlds (1952),

February 28th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

Days of Shattered Faith: The best in the series so far

Days of Shattered Faith by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Days of Shattered Faith is the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s TYRANT PHILOSOPHERS series, continuing that series’ strong run of quality. While each book is meant to stand alone, and this one certainly can, reading the others will allow for a richer experience given the reappearance of multiple characters.

As with the other two books, Tchaikovsky shifts to a new setting in this universe and introduces a new group of characters (with some old ones as noted),

February 27th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: February 26, 2025

Uncanny Magazine launches issue 63 on March 4, 2025.

The Bram Stoker final ballot has been released. I thought I’d been reading a lot of horror lately but I recognize almost none of these.

The NAACP Image awards were announced last weekend, with several of genre interest, including Wicked.

File 770 shared a New York Times link on faux books. Neat photos! (The link bypasses the paywall.)

“You already have three strikes against you,” Raye Montague’s mother told her.

February 26th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance

When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance by Riley Black

Riley Black’s The Last Days of the Dinosaurs made my top ten books of the years when it came out (if you haven’t read it, you absolutely should), so I was excited to read her follow-up When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance. I’m happy to report that like its predecessor, it’s an impressive work of popular science marked by wonderful prose and an engaging voice.

February 25th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

A Conventional Boy: A fun welcome-back to the LAUNDRY FILES

A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross

I haven’t read a LAUNDRY FILES story in at least a couple of years. Charles Stross’s latest, 2025’s A Conventional Boy, is a fun novella and a nice welcome back to the series. The book is filled out by two short stories, “Overtime” and “Down on the Farm,” featuring Bob Howard. It was great to spend time with Bob again, but Derek Reilly, the protagonist of A Conventional Boy, was the real star.

The charge of Britain’s “Laundry,” a part of their intelligence and security services,

February 24th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Charles Stross | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Wood Sprites: Takes a surprising and welcome turn

Wood Sprites by Wen Spencer

Wood Sprites (2014) is the fourth installment in Wen Spencer’s ELFHOME series. You’ll want to read the previous books (Tinker, Wolf Who Rules, and Elfhome) first.

Wood Sprites takes a surprising turn—one that, frankly, the series needed. Instead of following Tinker’s storyline, we return to Earth and meet two precocious nine-year-old twins,

Starchild: Boysie Gann and the plan of man

Starchild by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson

By the end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson’s 1963 novel The Reefs of Space, all of the reader’s many questions had been answered, and all of the loose ends tied up in a neat bow … at least, so we would have thought. The book could very easily have stood on its own, so perhaps it came as something of a surprise when the authors came out with a sequel two years later.

February 20th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | no comments |

WWWednesday: February 19, 2025

Nationally, scientists are gathering to determine how to publish the comprehensive Nature Assessment report, which was ready for publication earlier this month before the current administration stalled it.

The U.K. Guardian reports that Julianne Moore’s kids’ book Freckleface Strawberry, has been included in a wave of books censored due to an executive order signed by the president. The order bans certain books banned during a “compliance review” in schools that serve children of military families. The book is about a little girl who hates her freckles,

February 19th, 2025. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | no comments |

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales: Emily and Wendell fight to save a faerie kingdom

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett

When the third book in Heather Fawcett’s EMILY WILDE series opens, the irascible scholar Emily and her lover, the faerie prince and erstwhile scholar Wendell Bambleby have entered his realm and intend to reclaim the throne, after Emily deposed his usurper stepmother in the second book. Emily is far from optimistic about this plan, since the court is filled with traitors and those still loyal to the usurper queen. When Wendell bests his uncle Taran in a contest,

February 18th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Heather Fawcett | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Gorge: A perfectly serviceable movie

The Gorge directed by Scott Derrickson

The good news about Apple’s new movie The Gorge is that it’s a perfectly serviceable streaming movie, the actors do an excellent job, the visuals are fantastic, and you also are basically getting two movies for the price of one. The bad news is one of those movies is vastly more original and engaging than the other, the plot of that second film is overly familiar and predictable, and while the visuals are stunning, they’re also something we’ve seen before.

The premise of the film is that post-WWII,

February 17th, 2025. Bill Capossere | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden (An Oxford College Student Review!)

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe sequential art and visual literacy are essential parts of education at any level (see my Manifesto!). I post the best of my students’ reviews in this column. Today,

February 15th, 2025. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Calling: An enjoyable but predictable conclusion

Calling by Molly Harper

Calling (2022), the final installment in Molly Harper‘s SORCERY AND SOCIETY trilogy, brings Sarah Smith’s journey to a close. You’ll want to read Changeling and Fledgling first (expect spoilers for those installments in this review).

This story continues with Sarah, Alicia, and Ivy hiding out in the English countryside with the changeling children they’ve rescued. They’re trying to protect them from the looming threat of Miss Morton’s zombie army.

We have reviewed 8444 fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and films.

Subscribe to all posts:

Get notified about Giveaways:

Support FanLit

Want to help us defray the cost of domains, hosting, software, and postage for giveaways? Donate here:

You can support FanLit (for free) by using these links when you shop at Amazon:

US UK CANADA

Or, in the US, simply click the book covers we show. We receive referral fees for all purchases (not just books). This has no impact on the price and we can't see what you buy. This is how we pay for hosting and postage for our GIVEAWAYS. Thank you for your support!

SFF Deals

Recent Discussion:

Sandy Ferber on The Weapon From Beyond: Chane gangMarch 8, 2025
COMMENT Book #3 of this trilogy is very much a heist story, and I quite enjoyed it!
Marion Deeds on The Weapon From Beyond: Chane gangMarch 8, 2025
Pirate stories and heist stories... Do we ever get enough of them?
Sandy Ferber on Rogue Star: “Have you ever met that funny reefer man?”March 4, 2025
Very interesting, Ulrich! Thanks for clueing me in!
Sandy Ferber on The Giallo Films of Edwige FenechMarch 4, 2025
So happy to hear that you enjoyed this article, Spacewaves! It was something of a labor of love for me,…
SPACEWAVES on The Giallo Films of Edwige FenechMarch 4, 2025
I absolutely loved this exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! Her unique blend of charm and thriller…