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Stan Lee: A Life (Centennial Edition) by Bob Batchelor
Bob Batchelor’s biography of Stan Lee, titled unsurprisingly Stan Lee, is a solid if somewhat stylistically flat look at the life of a man who has had a huge cultural impact. People who pay attention to this sort of thing won’t find a lot new here, and may even find the book’s gloss over things a bit frustrating, but for casual fans of Marvel movies who have a first-time interest in where this behemoth began, the book suffices.
September 29th, 2022. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Ecolitan Operation by L.E. Modesitt Jr
Major Jimjoy Wright is the Empire’s most successful secret agent. That’s because he’s strong, brave, clever, deceptive, ruthless, and totally goal-oriented. Once he accepts a mission from his government, nothing gets in his way. He always gets the job done.
Though JimJoy thinks he’s highly ethical, most people would find his consequentialism to be psychopathic. For example, JimJoy is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people. This doesn’t bother him because if he hadn’t destroyed them, millions of other innocent people probably would have died (it’s like an extreme version of the Trolley Problem).
July 29th, 2022. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | L.E. Modesitt_Jr | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Deep and Shining Dark by Juliet Kemp
The opening of a new series, The Deep and Shining Dark is a debut novel by Juliet Kemp, that for the most part avoids many if not all of the common issues of first books, making for a smoothly enjoyable read that falls just a bit short of a richly realized story.
The city of Marek is ostensibly part of the larger nation of Teren. It for some time now has operated as an independent city-state thanks to several factors: being a port city,
July 21st, 2022. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Juliet Kemp | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The People that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The People that Time Forgot (1918) is the second novel in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ CASPAK trilogy. In the first installment, The Land that Time Forgot, Bowen Tyler gets stranded on Caspak, a lost world where prehistoric animals and subhuman people exist. The story picks up in The People that Time Forgot as Bowen’s friend Tom Billings decides to go looking for him. When Tom lands on Caspak, he doesn’t have much time to search for his friend because it takes all his effort just to survive.
June 3rd, 2022. Kat Hooper and Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Edgar Rice Burroughs | Audio | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
Off to be the Wizard by Scott Meyer
After being on a bit of a horror and dark fantasy diet, I decided I needed something lighter, a palate cleanser if you will. Off to Be the Wizard (2014) by Scott Meyer kept showing up in my recommendations for a light and humorous fantasy. As it turned out, Off to be the Wizard was exactly what I was looking for.
The story follows Martin Banks who is a data entry clerk for a large company.
May 27th, 2022. Justin Blazier´s rating: 3.5 | Scott Meyer | Audio | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman
Irene and her team face the most dangerous question of all in 2021’s The Untold Story. With this book, the overarching plotline of the INVISIBLE LIBRARY series is resolved, although Genevieve Cogman has tweeted that there may be different stories in the future.
This review may contain spoilers for earlier books in the series.
Like all the INVISIBLE LIBRARY books, this one plunges us straight into danger and action, as librarian Irene and her Great Detective friend Vale enter a secret undersea base in search of a letter.
May 23rd, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Genevieve Cogman | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron
My teenage daughter (Tali) and I enjoyed listening together to the audiobook editions of Rachel Aaron’s HEARTSTRIKERS series, so we were pleased to learn that Aaron wrote (and self-published) a spin-off series also set in the Detroit Free Zone (DFZ), which takes place a couple of decades after the end of Last Dragon Standing.
But you don’t need to read the HEARTSTRIKERS books first, so feel free to jump in right here with Minimum Wage Magic (2018).
May 18th, 2022. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Rachel Aaron | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Cave of a Thousand Columns by T.E. Grattan-Smith
I have never been to the continent of Australia before, and after watching a number of videos, both online and on television, concerning the fauna and flora there, I am really in no great rush to go. Perhaps you’re familiar with some of the videos I mean? Australia, it would seem, is home to the inland taipan snake (the world’s most venomous snake), kamikaze magpies, the freshwater bull shark, the Australian honeybee (one of the world’s most poisonous insects), raining spiders,
May 10th, 2022. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | T.E. Grattan-Smith | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman
Fans of THE INVISIBLE LIBRARY series will enjoy 2020’s The Dark Archive. Cogman’s intrepid librarian Irene bounds from one adventure to another, armed with her wits, magical knowledge and the power of the Library’s Language. This story adds important information to the conspiracy that is bubbling in the background, while serving up a comfortable, familiar set of adventures for Irene and her team. Along the way, we get to know some secondary characters a bit better.
When Irene’s detective friend Peregrine Vale takes Irene through a suboceanic tunnel to retrieve a vitally important letter,
April 27th, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Genevieve Cogman | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
Nnedi Okorafor’s 2021 Noor is a short, fast-paced science fiction novel. The futuristic energy delivery system called Noor, and the “Red Spot” dust storm are innovative, made plausible by Okorafor’s grounded writing and her fine eye for detail.
Anwuli calls herself AO for Artificial Organism. Considered “wrong” even before birth, AO was seriously injured in a car accident when she was a young adult. An experimental process gave her prosthetic limbs and cerebral implants. She is an outsider, tolerated,
April 21st, 2022. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Nnedi Okorafor | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
COMMENT Book #3 of this trilogy is very much a heist story, and I quite enjoyed it!
Pirate stories and heist stories... Do we ever get enough of them?
Very interesting, Ulrich! Thanks for clueing me in!
So happy to hear that you enjoyed this article, Spacewaves! It was something of a labor of love for me,…
I absolutely loved this exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! Her unique blend of charm and thriller…