Click on stars to FIND REVIEWS BY RATING:
Recommended: 
Not Recommended: 
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 |
How to Survive in Ancient Greece by Robert Garland
How to Survive in Ancient Greece (2020), by Robert Garland, is a lightly casual tour of the day to day existence in Classical Athens, specifically in the year 420 B.C. in the midst of what most consider the Golden Age of Classical Greece, a time when Athens and Sparta are at relative peace, Sophocles and Euripides are competing for the dramatic competitions, and Socrates is stirring up trouble. Were it not for the threat of plague, cholera, typhus; the constant odor of human waste,
August 7th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Radio Planet by Ralph Milne Farley
THE RADIO MAN trilogy, by Massachusetts-born author Ralph Milne Farley, was a series that I discovered quite by accident. I had heard of neither the three novels nor their author before finding the first book, The Radio Man (1924), in a highly collectible 1950 Avon paperback edition, at the Greenwich Village Antiquarian Book Fair a few years back. This first novel introduced readers to radio engineer Myles Cabot, who had accidentally transported himself to the planet Venus and helped the winged and antenna-sporting Cupian humanoids there to overthrow their antlike Formian oppressors.
August 6th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Ralph Milne Farley | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Winter Lord by Jean Brooks-Janowiak
Winter Lord (1983) was an impulse Alibris buy for me. Under a different name, Jean Brooks-Janowiak wrote a Tudor romance that’s been one of my comfort reads since I first read it in high school. That book had an eerie little vein of the supernatural running through it, so when I learned that Brooks-Janowiak had also written a fantasy novel, I decided to check it out. What with it being an earlier book, in a different genre, and sporting a rather uninformative cover,
July 31st, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Jean Brooks-Janowiak | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia & Gabriel Picolo
This recent line of graphic novels showcasing some of DC’s younger heroines seem designed to draw more girls into the world of comic books (not that there weren’t plenty before) with more emphasis not only on female characters, but their experiences as teenagers. Other additions to this series have focused on Mera, Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn, though each one is a standalone story.
As such, the writers assume that readers have no foreknowledge of DC comic books, and each one treats the characters as a “clean slate”,
July 28th, 2020. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3.5 | Kami Garcia | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Court of the Midnight King by Freda Warrington
The Court of the Midnight King (2003), by Freda Warrington, is an alternate history of England’s King Richard III with some supernatural elements. I’m kind of bummed that I didn’t discover it in 2003, because I’d probably have liked it even more. I was going through a big Plantagenet and Tudor phase, and if you could find a way to work Goddess religion into the plot, so much the better. As it is,
July 23rd, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Freda Warrington | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey
In publication order, By the Sword (1991) is the ninth novel in Mercedes Lackey’s VALDEMAR saga, but if you haven’t read any VALDEMAR novels before, don’t let that stop you. By the Sword can stand alone and it’s a fine place to enter Lackey’s universe. There are several beloved VALDEMAR characters in the novel, but it doesn’t matter if you meet them now or later. In general, the VALDEMAR saga is divided into several different trilogies and a few stand-alones and anthologies.
July 14th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Mercedes Lackey | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Noemí Taboada is a 22-year-old flighty socialite living in Mexico City. She loves to dress up in beautiful gowns and high heels and go to parties with handsome young men. One evening she’s called home from a party early. Her wealthy father has received a strange letter from Catalina, Noemí’s recently married cousin. Catalina thinks she’s in danger from her new husband’s family and is begging for help. Is Catalina really imperiled, or is she suffering a mental breakdown?
Noemí’s father asks her to visit her cousin at High Place,
July 14th, 2020. Kat Hooper, Marion Deeds and Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5, 4.5 | Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Across a Billion Years by Robert Silverberg
In Across a Billion Years (1969), Robert Silverberg introduces us to Tom Rice, a young archaeologist in training, who is writing to his twin sister on their 22nd birthday in 2375. While Tom feels some guilt that he is on the most exciting field trip in the history of Earth while his paralyzed sister is confined to a hospital bed, he is still eager to tell her about his work and he knows that she is just as eager to hear about it.
July 13th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Robert Silverberg | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Hella is a harsh planet that was colonized by a few dozen humans about 100 years ago. The gravity of Hella is lower than Earth’s, so all of the plants and animals are enormous. The tilt of the planet makes its climate harsh in the summer and the winter, so the human colony migrates every season. As they migrate, they try not to contaminate the environment (who knows what effect humans will have on it?) and they must be careful of the huge carnivores that also migrate.
Kyle,
July 9th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | David Gerrold | Audio | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.