Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent: Liberals will hate it

The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent by Larry Correia

The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent is a fun, silly, sometimes clever, sometimes hilarious, sometimes stupid story with lots of geeky SFF in-jokes. Some readers will absolutely adore it while others will absolutely loathe it.

As the story begins, one of the Earths in the multiverse is being overrun by Purple People Eaters who are (of course) eating people. Fortunately, this particular Earth has a policy with Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent. He’ll take care of it quickly and easily because if there’s one thing that Tom Stranger is serious about,

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty: A vaguely diverting waste of time

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty directed by Pearry Teo

Is this a good movie? No. Is it a fairly entertaining way of filling in a rainy afternoon? Sure.

There are actually a lot of things about The Curse of Sleeping Beauty I enjoyed: it has a unique visual style that’s a sort of fantasy/steampunk mash-up, and a story that’s half-horror, half-fairy tale (with a dash of ghost story thrown in for good measure). The acting ain’t bad, and though the twist is pretty obvious, I felt satisfied at having correctly guessed what it would be.

July 5th, 2017. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 2 | Film / TV | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Lost Stars: Lost interest

Lost Stars by Claudia Gray

Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Lost Stars (2015) is not in want of a good premise. The story takes place over the course of events in A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. It chronicles the rise and fall of the Galactic Empire and the struggles of two star-crossed individuals as they try to find their place within the changing political environment of the galaxy. The aristocratic Thane Kyrell and lowly labourer Ciena Ree both reside on the Outer Rim of planet Jelucan.

The Space Between the Stars: A tale of two halves

The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett

The Space Between the Stars, by Anne Corlett, started out promisingly enough. The story is set in a universe where humanity has colonized the stars, which sounds great, but unfortunately a devastating plague has rampaged through the planets, wiping out over 99% of our species. We learn this via our main character, Jamie, who is one of the very few to survive the virus, a literal handful on the planet Soltaire where she has been working on as a veterinarian.

Bios: A rare miss from RCW

Bios: A Novel of Planetary Exploration by Robert Charles Wilson

Isis is not the M class planet we have been looking for, and upon landing the humans discover that it’s extraordinarily toxic to them. It’s not cheap traveling through space to distant planets, so the scientists will just have to do their best. This is the premise of Robert Charles Wilson’s Bios: A Novel of Planetary Exploration. The scientists initially try to solve this problem with nifty machines and suits, but eventually one of them tries to change people at a genetic level to make them fit the planet,

A Second Chance: Are there no rules?

A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor

I was disappointed in A Symphony of Echoes, the second book in Jodi Taylor’s CHRONICLES OF ST. MARY’S, but I had already purchased most of the rest of the series at Audible, so I read the third book, A Second Chance (2014). Unfortunately, it has all of the problems of the previous book and I don’t see things getting any better in the future.

In this volume we again get a series of loosely connected time-travel adventures: Max witnesses the fall of Troy,

Never Let Me Go: A quiet exploration of the human condition

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is about clones, but don’t get your hopes up. This is an unconventional clone story.

That’s right. There aren’t any mad scientists, nor are there any daring escapes.

Another Castle: Grimoire by Andrew Wheeler

Another Castle: Grimoire Written by Andrew Wheeler, Illustrated by Paulina Ganucheau, Lettered by Jenny Vy Tran

Another Castle: Grimoire is a solid enough graphic story, better suited for younger readers than older ones due to its relatively simple story and characterization, though even aimed at that audience I would have liked to have seen a bit more depth and writing craft.

The story follows the adventures of Princess Misty, daughter to the king of Beldora and, like many a princess in the old stories,

March 11th, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Infernal Parade: Only for the most passionate Barker fans

Infernal Parade by Clive Barker

This is an unfortunately disappointing collection of microstories from Clive Barker, an author who helped define my reading experience in mid-1980’s junior and high school. The six very loosely connected stories that make up the 88 pages of Infernal Parade (2017) were originally provided as exclusive companions to collectables made by McFarlane Toys in 2004. I believe these are part of a larger macroverse of characters published in Barker’s 2014 novella, Tortured Souls: The Legend of Primordial.

The Time Museum by Matthew Loux

The Time Museum, by Matthew Loux, is a graphic story with a nice premise, but neither the text nor the graphics fully exploited that premise, leaving me more than a little cold toward the final result.

The premise is relatively simple. Sometime in the far future, the Earth Time Museum was founded as “the most complete collection of the planet Earth’s geology, biology, art, culture, and history all under one big roof . . . To chronicle and preserve all the important things about this great planet.” That’s in the words of the museum’s founder and creator Lyndon Beckenbauer,

January 21st, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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