Click on stars to FIND REVIEWS BY RATING:
Recommended: 
Not Recommended: 
As you might have noticed, thanks to the publishing company known as Armchair Fiction, I have lately been on something of a reading binge when it comes to lost-race fare. Just recently, I wrote here of three books in Armchair’s ongoing Lost World – Lost Race Classics series, which currently stands at a most impressive 58 titles. Those novels were James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder (1888),
August 8th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Ganpat | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe sequential art and visual literacy are essential parts of education at any level (see my Manifesto!). I post the best of my students’ reviews in this column. Today, I am proud to present a review by Joseph Dominguez.
Joseph Dominguez is a first-year student at Oxford College and is considering majoring in Finance and QSS.
July 27th, 2024. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life by Ferris Jabr
Ferris Jabr’s Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life is an excellent work of science journalism that takes a pretty common topic in popular science — the history of our planet — but explores it through a relatively unique prism: how living creatures have been “a formidable geological force,” both shaped by and shaping the planet as we currently know it. Jabr’s clear description of Earth’s transformation over eons would have been enough to make this book worth reading,
July 5th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen
Johanna Van Veen’s My Darling, Dreadful Thing (2024) is a gothic horror love story set in the 1950’s Netherlands. Lush descriptions and an original, creepy take on spirit companions made this story a seductive, engaging read.
Roos Beckman has had a spiritual companion named Ruth since she was a little girl, when she was first pressed into service by the woman she calls Mama to help fake seances. Crouched in a cubby under the floorboards, Roos pulled ropes and pushed levers to create the effects of spiritual visitation.
July 1st, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Johanna Van_Vleen | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe sequential art and visual literacy are essential parts of education at any level (see my Manifesto!). I post the best of my students’ reviews in this column. Today, I am proud to present a review by Javier Davis.
Javier Davis is a first-year student at Oxford College and is considering majoring in Business.
June 29th, 2024. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
So Bright The Vision by Clifford D. Simak
I have been on something of a kick this past year as regards Clifford D. Simak and his shorter fiction of the 1950s. All the Traps of Earth (1962), The Worlds of Clifford Simak (1961) and Other Worlds of Clifford Simak (1962) had all proved to be truly wonderful – or perhaps I should say “wonder-filled” – collections,
June 20th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Clifford D. Simak | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler
I’ll admit I got Wexler’s 2024 fantasy novel, first in the DARK LORD DAVI series, mostly because of the title, How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying. I couldn’t help noticing that blurbs and reviews both take delight in describing this book as funny and raunchy. I don’t see “raunchy” as a description that much anymore—in this case it is accurate. Davi, our first-person narrator,
June 17th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Django Wexler | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe sequential art and visual literacy are essential parts of education at any level (see my Manifesto!). I post the best of my students’ reviews in this column. Today, I am proud to present a review by Adra Curington.
Adra Curington is a first-year student at Emory Oxford College majoring in philosophy.
May 25th, 2024. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Other Worlds of Clifford Simak by Clifford D. Simak
Other Worlds of Clifford Simak is the companion volume to the 1961 Avon paperback The Worlds of Clifford Simak, a collection that had recently impressed me very favorably. As I mentioned in my review of that earlier volume, The Worlds of Clifford Simak was originally released as a Simon & Schuster hardcover in 1960; a rather generous-sized, 378-page affair containing a dozen of the future Grand Master’s stories.
May 20th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Clifford D. Simak | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Worlds of Clifford Simak by Clifford D. Simak
A recent perusal of Clifford D. Simak’s wonderful collection All the Traps of Earth (from 1962) served to remind this reader of how very excellent the beloved Wisconsin-born novelist could be with the shorter form, and I resolved to read more of his stories in the near future. Thus, when I spotted a rather beat-up copy of his collection The Worlds of Clifford Simak (no middle initial here,
May 13th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Clifford D. Simak | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
[…] (Fantasy Literature): Horror authority Jack Sullivan, writing in the Jones & Newman book, tells us, regarding […]
What a dunderhead, not like the Horseclans series? I just like stories that are pure entertainment like these or Stirling's…
No, Paul, sorry, I don't believe I've read any books by Aickman; perhaps the odd story. I'm generally not a…
I like the ambiguities when the story leading up to them has inserted various dreadful possibilities in the back of…
COMMENT Marion, I expect that my half-hearted praise here (at best) will not exactly endear me to all of Ramsey…