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A Restless Truth by Freya Marske
2022’s A Restless Truth is the second book in Freya Marske’s queer magical alternate history series THE LAST BINDING. Book One, A Marvelous Light, had the sparkling prose and deep characterization of a Dorothy Sayers novel. This one is marginally more madcap, as if Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were characters in a comedy on a transatlantic ocean liner—if they were both women and there was magic and there wasn’t a lot of dancing.
January 2nd, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Freya Marske | SFF Reviews | no comments |
2023’s Memory Reborn is the third book in David Walton’s LIVING MEMORY series, which started with Living Memory and introduced us to individuals from an advanced society living during the Cretaceous Period, and who happened to be dinosaurs (maniraptors to be precise). Reading Memory Reborn, we were both eager to see how Walton resolved the many, increasingly complex problems the modern-day characters, both human and dinosaur, faced. Neither of us expected the love story to be the plot line that grabbed us the hardest.
December 22nd, 2023. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | David Walton | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Spark of Destiny by Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin
Steampunk as a fiction genre has nearly disappeared. It’s become much more of a fashion or costume statement; or subsumed completely into alternate history. I understand the reasons; and expect the various sub-genres to ebb and flow like everything else. It was still a nice treat to read 2023’s Spark of Destiny by Gail Z. Martin and Larry N. Martin, a genuine steampunk adventure.
Here’s an incomplete list of what I expect in steampunk:
December 21st, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Gail Z. Martin | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
2023’s Bookshops & Bonedust, by Travis Baldree, is not a sequel to last year’s Legends & Lattes, but a prequel, introducing us to a much younger version of the orc mercenary Viv. Pursing the necromancer Varine the Pale with her band of hired soldiers, Viv is seriously wounded. The gang leaves her to recuperate in the tiny coastal town of Murk. They promise to pick her up on their return home, but Viv chafes at the thought of them fighting without her.
December 14th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Travis Baldree | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth
The Undetectables, by Courtney Smyth, (2023) reads like the first book in a series and I hope this is the case, because it was fun, and I loved the magical detective characters. Set in a modern world where magic and the mundane exist in close proximity if not actually side-by-side, the story follows our three amateur sleuths as they try to uncover the identity of a magical serial killer.
The point of view character of the story, mostly, is Mallory Hawthorne.
December 11th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Courtney Smyth | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Pale House Devil by Richard Kadrey
The demon who inhabits Pale House in Richard Kadrey’s 2023 novella The Pale House Devil is the star of the show for me. Part of this short, fairly fast-paced story is centered in its point of view, and it is one fascinating, confounding creature. It also has a habit of eating people, so… that’s bad.
In this short outing, Kadrey introduces us to Ford and Neuland, paranormal mercenaries. Ford seems to be a more or less regular human with skills in magic,
November 14th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Richard Kadrey | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Heaven’s River by Dennis E. Taylor
Heaven’s River (2021) is the fourth book in Dennis E. Taylor’s amusing and intelligent BOBIVERSE series. You’ll first want to read the previous three books, We Are Legion (We Are Bob), For We Are Many, and All These Worlds, or you’ll be lost. This review will contain mild spoilers for the previous books.
By this point in the Bobiverse timeline,
November 13th, 2023. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Dennis E. Taylor | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Psychic Killer directed by Ray Danton
We’ve all heard the expression “if looks could kill,” but how about thoughts? What if it were possible to kill somebody, no matter the distance, using the power of the mind to manipulate objects? Well, that is precisely the setup of Ray Danton’s 1975 horror outing Psychic Killer, an undeniably shlocky yet undeniably fun exercise in out-of-body homicide. In the film, we meet a 33-year-old mental patient named Arnold Masters (Jim Hutton, father of Timothy, 42 here in his final film), who repeatedly declares his innocence of the charge of murdering his dying mother’s doctor (his mother had had no health insurance,
October 27th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Renegat by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The Renegat (2019) is a long, slow-moving, complicated novel in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s DIVING series. As usual, the story jumps around in time, following multiple plots and perspectives. The characters are new to us, so readers who are unfamiliar with the DIVING universe could start here if they want to, though it’d probably be best to read the series in either publication order, or the order we’ve presented on our author page.
October 12th, 2023. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Kristine Kathryn Rusch | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Maniac directed by Michael Carreras
Up until recently, I had been aware of only two films with the title Maniac: the 1934 camp classic directed by Dwain Esper and the repugnant 1980 picture with Joe Spinell as a deranged mannequin lover. The existence of the British The Maniac, a 1963 product from the great Hammer Studios, thus came as a nice surprise for me.
Part of the Hammer “Icons of Suspense” six-film box set, the picture shares a DVD with the studio’s 1958 film The Snorkel,
October 5th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…
It's hardly a private conversation, Becky. You're welcome to add your 2 cents anytime!
If the state of the arts puzzles you, and you wonder why so many novels are "retellings" and formulaic rework,…
I picked my copy up last week and I can't wait to finish my current book and get started! I…