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Paper & Blood is the second novel in Kevin Hearne’s INK & SIGIL series which is a spin-off of his very popular IRON DRUID CHRONICLES. In the first INK & SIGIL novel, Ink & Sigil, which you’ll want to read first (though Hearne thankfully gives us a “The Story So Far” summary – thank you!), we met Al MacBharrais, a sigil agent who uses ink and paper to create magic spells.
October 11th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Kevin Hearne | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Monster of Piedras Blancas directed by Irvin Berwick
It is truly remarkable how a cinematic image can make a lasting imprint on a young and impressionable mind. Take, for example, the 3-year-old me, who witnessed, in a movie theatre, the image of a man falling on a dynamite plunger and causing a bridge to blow up, resulting in a devastating train wreck. It is an image that I have never forgotten, despite all these intervening decades; one of the final scenes, of course, from the great David Lean film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957),
October 4th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
The Original by Brandon Sanderson & Mary Robinette Kowal
Holly wakes up in the hospital. Her last memory is being at a party with Jonathan, her husband. The party was for a potter and she remembers being thrilled to actually be able to touch the clay – something real to feel and even deconstruct. She has no idea how she ended up in the hospital, and it takes a while to get some answers, but finally she learns that she has been cloned as a Provisional Replica because her real self (her Original) murdered her husband.
September 30th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal | Audio, Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Beast Under the Wizard’s Bridge by John Bellairs & Brad Strickland
The Beast Under the Wizard’s Bridge (2000) is the eighth novel in the LEWIS BARNAVELT series for middle graders which was started by John Bellairs in 1973 and finished up by Brad Strickland after Bellairs’ death in 1991. I’m listening, with my daughter, to the excellent audio editions by Recorded Books which are narrated by George Guidall.
Remember that scary car chase scene, I think it was in the first book The House with a Clock in its Walls,
September 27th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Brad Strickland, John Bellairs | Audio, Children, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Green Man of Graypec by Festus Pragnell
In his famous short story of 1858 entitled “The Diamond Lens,” Irish-American author Fitz-James O’Brien gave his readers a tale of a scientist who invents a new type of microscope and with it discovers a woman living in a droplet of water. This fascinating premise of humanoid life existing in a microscopic realm was later amplified by NYC-born author Ray Cummings, whose 1919 novella “The Girl in the Golden Atom” told of a chemist who’d discovered a beautiful female living in the subatomic world of his mother’s wedding ring (!),
September 23rd, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Festus Pragnell | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Among Thieves (2021), by M.J. Kuhn, is a sort of two-tier book for me. On the one hand, it’s a fast-paced heist novel that speeds along amiably, easily, and with some humor. On the other hand, it’s somewhat of a paint-by-number heist novel that doesn’t really add anything new to the genre and skimps a bit on characterization and world-building. If it’s your first experience with this type of story, or you’re a younger reader, and/or someone who prefers plot-driven rather than character-driven stories,
September 17th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | M.J. Kuhn | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
There is so much to like in Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart is a Chainsaw (2021): a can’t-help-but-root-for-her main character, a prom-worthy bucketload of slasher-film references, a wry and sometimes bitingly funny narrative voice, so many red herrings the reader’s gonna need a bigger boat, deftly handled themes exploring race, gentrification, class, parenting (familial and communal), and trauma, and a climax that contains more blood than you can hold in a bank of elevators.
September 8th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Stephen Graham Jones | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring by John Bellairs
The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring (1976) is the third novel in John Bellairs’ LEWIS BARNAVELT series for kids. Each is a stand-alone horror mystery. It’s not necessary to read them in order but it’d be ideal, if you can, to start with the first book, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, because that’s the one in which we watch Lewis,
September 6th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Brad Strickland, John Bellairs | Audio, Children, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Desert Prince by Peter V. Brett
The Desert Prince is the newest installment in Peter V. Brett’s fantasy universe where humans have been battling demons for ages. The prior series (THE DEMON CYCLE) ended mostly in seeming victory for the good guys (the humans), but as is often the case in these sorts of stories, victory only lasts until the next trilogy. This new series picks up about fifteen years later, and while some characters return from the prior series,
September 3rd, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Peter V. Brett | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Fury of a Demon by Brian Naslund
I admitted back when I reviewed Brian Naslund’s Blood of an Exile that I had resisted the book sitting on my shelf and picked it up somewhat grudgingly, expecting yet “another fantasy about a roguish-yet-likable gritty swordsman and his band of gritty companions battling the odds to save their gritty world.” Which, as I noted then, wasn’t so far off in terms of plot, but which in more important ways didn’t come near being accurate,
September 1st, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Brian Naslund | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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…
Gentlemen, I concur! (Forgive me for jumping into your convo)