Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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Anaconda: Hard to swallow

Anaconda directed by Luis Llosa

The unvarnished facts regarding the anaconda, the world’s largest and heaviest snake, are disconcerting enough … particularly the one species of the four known as the giant, or green, anaconda, aka Eunectes murinus. These monsters can grow to a length of nearly 30 feet and weigh in excess of over a quarter of a ton. They live for around 10 – 12 years in the wild, mainly in the watery regions near the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers in South America, and subsist on a diet of fish,

October 6th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

The Amityville Horror: An ubercreepy mixed bag

It’s Shocktober! As is our custom, Sandy will be providing a horror review every weekday morning.

The Amityville Horror directed by Stuart Rosenberg

I pass through it every time I take the Long Island Railroad to visit friends in Lindenhurst … the town of Amityville, which lies between the stops for Massapequa Park and Copiague, 66 minutes from Manhattan’s Penn Station. It is a charming little suburban town of some 10,000 people, with beautiful private homes and much greenery. But ever since 1974, the word “Amityville” has also been synonymous with one thing: horror.

October 1st, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Starless Sea: Visually spectacular

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Given the success of her debut, it would be impossible to write about Erin Morgenstern‘s eagerly awaited follow-up without alluding to The Night Circus (2011). The bestseller accrued a mass following of ‘Rêveurs’ – the self-styled fanbase, named after the followers of the circus in the book. It inspired a formidable amount of tattoos and artwork on Pinterest, as well as being translated into thirty-seven languages, no less. It was always going to be a hard act to follow,

Space Station Down: Would make a great movie

Space Station Down by Ben Bova & Doug Beason

Kimberly Hasid-Robinson, a physicist, is overseeing her projects on the International Space Station as a Kazakhstani astronaut and a wealthy Russian tourist arrive. As they are boarding, she can’t leave her experiment, which is why she doesn’t get murdered by the Kazakhstani astronaut, who turns out to be a terrorist. Now Kimberly will spend the rest of her time on the ISS trying to neutralize the terrorist and prevent him from crashing the ISS into Manhattan while spilling plutonium across the country on its way down.

Castle in the Stars: A Frenchman on Mars: Read it for the art

Castle in the Stars: A Frenchman on Mars by Alex Alice

Castle in the Stars: A Frenchman on Mars (2020) is the fourth book in the graphic novel series by Alex Alice that follows a steampunk journey first to the moon and then to Mars. Like the others, it’s a bit of a mixed bag in its art-text balance. I’ll let you read the reviews of the first two here and here rather than recapitulate the plot, focusing here instead on the artwork and the words.

September 10th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Children, Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Hereafter Bytes: A funny book, a fun read

The Hereafter Bytes by Vincent Scott

I believe that humorous science fiction is hard to write. I’m not talking about humorous banter or moments within a book — many writers excel at that — but books that are conceived as comical stories from the start. Humor requires the balance of many elements and crucial timing. Even if those things are present, a sense of humor is hard to quantify, and a technically funny book may fail to entertain for some ephemeral reason.

Vincent Scott, however, is unafraid,

Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars: Space, Exploration, and Life on Earth

Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars: Space, Exploration, and Life on Earth by Kate Greene

In 2013, science journalist Kate Greene, along with five others, spent four months on Mars. Well, OK, it was four months on the side of Mauna Loa in Hawaii as part of NASA’s Hi-SEAS, a Mars simulation designed to test various aspects of an actual Mars mission: the effects of long-term isolation on a small group, how interpersonal relations can be maintained, the role of food on morale, sleep habits, etc. In Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars: Space,

August 21st, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Harrow the Ninth: The haunted palace is Harrow’s mind

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Last year’s Gideon the Ninth was a delightfully over-the-top space fantasy that ended with a gut punch that had readers shouting “Damn you, Tamsyn Muir!” and clamoring for the sequel. The sequel, Harrow the Ninth (2020) is here, and I enjoyed it a lot, though there are a few things you’ll want to know going in.

One is that there is a lot going on, much of it cryptic,

August 18th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter, Tadiana Jones, Jana Nyman, Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 1.5, 3.5, 4.5 | Tamsyn Muir | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |

The Year of the Witching: A creepy religious dystopia

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

The Year of the Witching (2020) is the story of a young woman, Immanuelle, growing up in the religious dystopia of Bethel. (It’s never stated, but I interpreted the setting as a post-apocalyptic America.) The dominant religion, the faith of the Father, contains some elements of Christianity, but in a twisted form; for example, a real lamb is slaughtered during services. The threat of burning at the stake is used to keep people in line. Bethel is patriarchal in the extreme;

The Rightful Queen: An improvement over the first book

The Rightful Queen by Isabelle Steiger

The Rightful Queen (2020) is the sequel to 2017’s The Empire’s Ghost and the second in Isabelle Steiger’s PATHS OF LANTISTYNE series. It continues the story of the many aristocrats and commoners who oppose Imperator Elgar, who is trying to reunite the old Elesthene empire under his own rule.

The Empire’s Ghost was solid, smoothly written, and intriguing, but the characters were a bit thin and I didn’t feel compelled to devour the book quickly.

August 12th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Isabelle Steiger | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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