Click on stars to FIND REVIEWS BY RATING:
Recommended: 
Not Recommended: 
Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
Wild Seed (1980) was written last in Octavia Butler’s 5-book PATTERNIST series, but comes first in chronology. The next books, by internal chronology, are Mind of My Mind (1977), Clay’s Ark (1984), and Patternmaster (1976). Butler was later unsatisfied with Survivor (1978) and elected to not have it reprinted, so I will focus on the main four volumes. Wild Seed is an origin story set well before later books and can stand on its own.
January 8th, 2019. Stuart Starosta, Marion Deeds and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5, 5 | Octavia Butler | Audio, Edge | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Deliver Me From Eva by Paul Bailey
Once again, I am indebted to Stephen Jones and Kim Newman’s excellent overview volume Horror: 100 Best Books for alerting me to the existence of a great read that I probably would never have run across without their assistance. In this case, the novel in question is Paul Bailey’s Deliver Me From Eva, which was chosen for inclusion in that volume by no less a figure than Forrest J.
December 13th, 2018. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Paul Bailey | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Fire & Heist by Sarah Beth Durst
I’d only previously read Sarah Beth Durst’s QUEENS OF RENTHIA series, so I was excited to have the chance to read Fire & Heist (2018), her latest YA novel. I never know whether an author whose adult work is enjoyable will write well for a young adult audience — or vice versa — but I’m pleased to be able to report that Durst is clearly adept at writing for any age group, and particularly so for nerdy readers.
December 11th, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
SAGA Volume 3, Issues 13-18 by Brian K. Vaughan (author) & Fiona Staples (illustrator)
This highly original space opera romance is incredibly popular, and for good reason. Anyone who has read Saga Vols 1 & 2 will undoubtedly be fans of star-crossed lovers Alana & Marko, who come from opposing sides of a galactic war, Marko’s sharp-tongued mother Klara, freelancer assassin The Will and his lie-detecting cat, and Marko’s ex-fiance Gwendolyn. Not to mention the difficult-to-hate Prince Robot IV and all the other bizarre creations of Vaughan and Staples.
December 7th, 2018. Stuart Starosta and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Brian K. Vaughan | Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland
Marion: We never know the name of our first-person narrator in Alexandra Rowland’s 2018 novel A Conspiracy of Truths. People call him Chant, but that is his vocation, not a name (he abandoned his name when he became a Chant). Chants gather stories and retell them. They go from place to place pursuing their craft, and in the isolated and insular country of Nuryevet, Chants offends the wrong people, and is put on trial for witchcraft.
December 3rd, 2018. Marion Deeds and Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | Alexandra Rowland | SFF Reviews | no comments |
How to Love the Universe: A Scientist’s Odes to the Hidden Beauty Behind the Visible World by Stefan Klein
In How to Love the Universe: A Scientist’s Odes to the Hidden Beauty Behind the Visible World (2018), Stefan Klein concisely introduces nearly a dozen major physics concepts in brief, engaging chapters that clearly inform even as they often entertain. Due to their brevity, the explanations are relatively simplified, but thanks to Klein’s economy of language and knack for analogy/metaphor, not overly so. Which makes the collection of essays a good primer to modern physics and an excellent stepping stone into longer,
November 27th, 2018. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink
Alice Isn’t Dead (2018) is a stand-alone novel, adapted from the three-season podcast of the same name, both of which were created by Joseph Fink. Where I would have given the podcast 3.5 stars, the novel is much more cohesive and much more successful at telling this story. Lines like “Earl’s eyes were empty pools of water” and “The subtext of America wasn’t just text here, it was in letters five feet tall” are less awkward, more natural,
November 27th, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Joseph Fink | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
I always find it a little nerve-wracking when an author returns to a successful series after a long time away. There’s always the fear, for me at least, that one of two things is going to happen: either the author will be nostalgic about the original work to the extent that s/he makes the new book into a fawning tribute without substance, or the author will have changed enough in the time between installments that the magic is just gone. I’m happy to say, though, that Philip Pullman‘s new novel dispels both of those fears.
November 7th, 2018. Tim Scheidler, Ray McKenzie, Katie Burton and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3, 4.5 | Philip Pullman | Children | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
No Sleep Till Doomsday by Laurence MacNaughton
No Sleep Till Doomsday (2018), the third installment in Laurence MacNaughton’s DRU JASPER series, delivers all the excitement, action, romance and humor I expect from these books — plus, it brings in a new muscle-car who is an ancient rival of the speed-demon Hellbringer, and I’ve come to love Hellbringer.
Dru is a crystal sorceress in Denver, Colorado, who together with a group of allies is trying to stop the breaking of the seals on the Apocalypse Scroll and the resulting Doomsday.
October 24th, 2018. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Laurence MacNaughton | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Magic Triumphs by Ilona Andrews
Kate Daniels, after nine novels’ worth of fighting magical villains, romancing Curran the Beast Lord, developing her own über-magical powers and preternatural sword-fighting abilities, and magically claiming all of Atlanta as her territory (and that’s only a start), gets an ending to her story in Magic Triumphs (2018), the tenth and final book in Ilona Andrews’ popular KATE DANIELS series. Well, kind of.
Kate is married to Curran now, who’s passed his title as Beast Lord on to Jim.
October 17th, 2018. Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Ilona Andrews | Audio | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.