Click on stars to FIND REVIEWS BY RATING:
Recommended: 
Not Recommended: 
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,
February 21st, 2025. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Wen Spencer | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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 |
Daughters of Chaos by Jen Fawkes
Daughters of Chaos, by Jen Fawkes, came out in 2024. This literary feminist novel plays with layers, offers interesting characters and exquisite descriptions. The germ of the story is a fascinating real-life situation during the American Civil War. The city of Nashville, Tennessee, was occupied by Union troops. The military governor of the occupation grew concerned for the strength of his army and the security of the occupied city when Union soldiers began to get sick from syphilis.
February 10th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Jen Fawkes | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves & China Miéville
You, he thought as it drew back its right left fist, its agglomerated fistmass, on a farrago of an arm, on a stitchwork welter of a shoulder.
2024’s collaboration between acting icon Keanu Reeves and prose icon China Miéville delivers lots of thrills. The Book of Elsewhere, which follows the adventures of a nearly-unkillable warrior, is based on a character created by Reeves in his comic book, BRZRKR.
February 7th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | China Mieville | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Mother of Rome by Lauren J.A. Bear
Lauren J.A. Bear’s first novel, Medusa’s Sisters, was a sharp feminist retelling of the well-known Greek tale. For her second book, Bear has left the Greeks behind and moved on to the Romans, giving us in Mother of Rome a sort of prequel to the Romulus and Remus Found Rome story. Though I found Mother of Rome to be more uneven than Medusa’s Sisters,
January 17th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Lauren J.A. Bear | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Militia House by John Milas
2023’s The Militia House is the debut novel of John Milas. Set in Afghanistan in 2010, it follows a team assigned to a Landing Zone as they are drawn into an abandoned Russian-invasion-era “militia” house close to their base. The sense of dread grows as the story continues, veering into a surreal world, but as in real life, the greatest horror may simply be war.
Our first-person narrator is Corporal Loyette, and his team consists of Johnson, Blount and Vargas.
January 7th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | John Milas | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig
2023’s Two Twisted Crowns completes Rachel Gillig’s romantasy duology, THE SHEPHERD KING. Along the way, lovers are parted, bonds are broken, justice is meted out and centuries-old secrets are revealed.
This review may contain spoilers for One Dark Window, the first book of the series.
At the end of the first book, Elspeth revealed that Nightmare, the magical entity she hosts, knew the location of the final Providence card,
November 7th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Rachel Gillig | SFF Reviews | no comments |
One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig
If I’d checked Amazon, probably I would have learned everything I needed to know about Rachel Gillig’s 2022 fantasy novel One Dark Window. It was a BookTok sensation. I can probably stop there.
One Dark Window is the first of a Duology, the SHEPHERD KING series, a second-world fantasy, or romantasy, actually, since much of our protagonist Elspeth’s time is spent wondering if Ravyn, the grouchy nephew of the king, really likes her,
October 17th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Rachel Gillig | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
I really wish I hadn’t seen all the hype around Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures — the Waterstones Prize, the comparisons to C.S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, Rowling, and Tolkien, the sales numbers off the charts. That way I could have come to the book clean of expectations, even though I (as one should) took all such comparisons with heaping bucketfuls of salt, if not entire mines’ worth. Unfortunately, I did see all those comparisons, and so despite all that salt, I couldn’t help but be disappointed by what in the end turned out to be a perfectly serviceable MG fantasy,
September 9th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Katherine Rundell | Children | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Glorious Pool by Thorne Smith
In Ron Howard’s 1985 film Cocoon, a group of seniors becomes rejuvenated as a result of taking a dip in a swimming pool whose waters had been infused with “life force” by some extraterrestrial visitors. But as it turns out, this was not the first time that some aged adults had discovered a Fountain of Youth of sorts in such a place. Thus, over half a century earlier, we find a similar setup – although with a completely different explanation – in Thorne Smith’s remarkably madcap fantasy The Glorious Pool.
September 6th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Thorne Smith | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
I was reading along with no trouble suspending disbelief until I got to "internet influencers!" And then I thought, "Well,…
I recently stumbled upon the topic of hard science fiction novels, by reading a comment somewhere referring to Greg Egan's…
This story, possibly altered who I would become and showed me that my imagination wasn't a burden. I think i…
I have been bombarded by ads for this lately, just in the last week. Now I feel like I've seen…
Hi Grace, I'm the director of the behavioral neuroscience program at the University of North Florida, so I teach and…