Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 3.5

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Joe Golem: Occult Detective by Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden

Joe Golem: Occult Detective by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden blends the private eye genre with the golem legend and takes place in a future world in which part of New York is under water and people get around by boats, makeshift bridges, and unstable-looking planks. This first Joe Golem trade includes two stories — one three issues long and the other two issues. However, they are connected as Joe meets a young woman in the first story (Lori Noonan), and we see her again in the second, and Joe’s character develops from one tale to the next.

Strange Alchemy: Working out the kinks

Strange Alchemy by Gwenda Bond

Strange Alchemy (2017) has the unusual distinction of being Gwenda Bond’s first and latest published novel — originally released in 2012 as Blackwood by Strange Chemistry, indie publisher Angry Robot’s YA imprint, this novel is one of many to find new life elsewhere after Strange Chemistry’s brief tenure. For readers who, like myself, are reading Strange Alchemy after already becoming familiar with Bond’s style, this novel is an interesting look at where her career started,

Dinosaur Empire: Earth Before Us Volume 1: Dinosaur evolution for kids

Dinosaur Empire: Earth Before Us Volume 1 by Abby Howard

Dinosaur Empire is a dense, fact-filled graphic exploration of the rise and fall of dinosaurs that conveys a lot of information for readers in the MG and YA range, though it could use a bit more spark in its storytelling.

Ronnie has just failed her test on dinosaurs horribly, though she has a chance to retake it the next day. Resigned to failing it yet again, and wondering “Who needs to learn about dinosaurs anyway,” she tosses her test into a nearby recycling bin.

August 1st, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Bannerless: A thoughtful detective story in a post-apocalyptic world

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn

In Bannerless (2017), Carrie Vaughn ― perhaps best known for her KITTY NORVILLE urban fantasy series inhabited by werewolves and vampires ― has created a reflective, deliberately paced post-apocalyptic tale with some detective fiction mixed in. It’s about a hundred years in our world’s future and after an event simply called the Fall, when civilization collapsed worldwide. The cities are now ruins, abandoned by all but the most desperate people. Climate change has resulted in, among other things,

Amatka: Defies conventions, with mixed results

Amatka by Karin Tidbeck

Karin Tidbeck’s Amatka (2017) almost reads as a callback to the experimental and dystopian science fiction of the 1970s: a slim novel, packed with examination of the self as an individual unit within a larger social machine and the cost-benefit analysis thereof, with strange imagery and twisting narrative threads, and no easy answers to be found.

Once, generations back, a group of people mysteriously found themselves in a new place, and were unable to make their way back home.

Killing is My Business: An improvement on the first book

Killing is My Business by Adam Christopher

I thought that the flaws in Adam Christopher’s first Chandler-esque robot PI novel, Made to Kill, outweighed the positives, and thus gave it a rating of only 2 ½ stars. The tougher-than-steel detective/hitman Raymond Electromatic is back in the sequel, Killing Is My Business (2017), and while it improves upon its predecessor in many ways, it never really breaks out of the gate, leading to an improved but middling 3-star rating this time around.

July 25th, 2017. Bill Capossere and Jana Nyman´s rating: 3, 3.5 | Adam Christopher | Giveaway!, SFF Reviews | 8 comments |

Graveyard Shift: Unusual protagonist brings new life to urban fantasy/horror tropes

Graveyard Shift by Michael F. Haspil

With Graveyard Shift (2017), Michael F. Haspil’s debut novel, readers who enjoy a fair amount of horror and blood mixed into their urban fantasy are in for a rare treat: the primary protagonist is a reanimated mummy, though he’s certainly no bandage-wrapped, shambling thing. Rather, he’s a sophisticated and smooth-talking detective in the sun-drenched Miami-Dade metro area, and he takes protecting his city very seriously.

As Menkaure, he once strode along the banks of the mighty Nile, bending the backs of others to his will as easily as one bends a reed,

A Ghostly Light: Changes are coming

A Ghostly Light by Juliet Blackwell

A Ghostly Light is seventh book in Juliet Blackwell’s HAUNTED HOME RENOVATION MYSTERIES series. Like her WITCHCRAFT MYSTERIES series, each of these novels is a solid cozy paranormal mystery featuring pleasant characters and an enjoyable San Francisco setting. Fans of either series who don’t care that the books follow a formula should be pleased with A Ghostly Light.

This time Mel is renovating a lighthouse on an Island in San Francisco Bay,

The Witchwood Crown: A much-anticipated return to a classic world

The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams

Tad Williams’ long-awaited return to Osten Ard began with the tasty appetizer that was The Heart of What Was Lost, a bridge novella between the old series and the new. Now the first course of the main feast is here — The Witchwood Crown (2017) — and to be honest, I sort of want to order more appetizer.

Before I get into my reasons for being underwhelmed by The Witchwood Crown,

A Kiss Before Doomsday: Crystals, demonic cars, the undead and 70s Disco-wear; this one’s got it all

A Kiss Before Doomsday by Laurence MacNaughton

Laurence MacNaughton is back with the second installment of his urban fantasy DRU JASPER series. This one, A Kiss Before Doomsday (2017), takes place shortly after the first book ended. Dru, a crystal witch working in Denver, Colorado, believes the love of her life, the demonically possessed Grayson, died helping her escape from the netherworld, but we know Grayson is alive and at risk. He’s been abducted by the undead, and faces a terrible fate, as does the world,

June 26th, 2017. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Laurence MacNaughton | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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