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In the Nigerian town of Rosewater, Kaaro, the main character of Tade Thompson’s Rosewater (2016), works for Section 45, a sinister government agency. Rosewater is built next to an alien dome, Utopicity, and the arrival of the aliens ten years earlier seems to have unleashed a host of unusual occurrences and abilities within the human population of Rosewater.
Kaaro is one of these people — for his job at Section 45, he prevents crime, can read the minds of prisoners,
January 4th, 2017. Kate Lechler and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Tade Thompson | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
I am not, historically, a fan of zombie narratives — neither in books nor in movies. The allegories are too obvious: consumerism, racism, opposing political party members, generalized xenophobia, etc. There’s hardly ever a satisfying answer as to why any of this is happening. Characters rarely do anything more interesting than board up windows, shriek at each other, get chewed on, and then do a little chewing of their own before dying gruesomely. Imagine my grateful surprise, then, when I opened up a copy of Mira Grant’s Feedback (2016),
January 3rd, 2017. Jana Nyman and Kate Lechler´s rating: 4.5 | Mira Grant | Horror | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
When Arden Arrowood was a little girl, her younger twin sisters vanished without a trace. The last Arden saw of them was a flash of blonde hair, speeding away in the back of a gold car. A local man with a car fitting the description was questioned; nothing could ever be pinned on him, but the whole town thought he was guilty anyway.
The girls were never found, and their loss became a wound that destroyed the Arrowood family and continues to haunt Arden, now in her twenties.
December 29th, 2016. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4.5 | Laura McHugh | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
One Fell Sweep by Ilona Andrews
Note: This review contains some spoilers for the two earlier books in the INNKEEPER CHRONICLES series.
As One Fell Sweep (2016) begins, Dina DeMille, the Innkeeper of the Gertrude Hunt Inn, a secret way-stop on Earth for galactic visitors, is recuperating from the life-and-death peace summit that her inn hosted in Sweep in Peace. She’s also just beginning to pick up her relationship with Sean, the werewolf warrior, when a reptilian visitor brings her a message: Dina’s widowed sister Maud is stuck on the planet Karhari and needs rescuing.
December 22nd, 2016. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Ilona Andrews | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
Ficciones is a classic collection of seventeen short stories by acclaimed Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, originally published in the 1940s in Spanish, and winner of the 1961 International Publishers Prize. These stories and mock essays are a challenging mixture of philosophy, magical realism, fantasy, ruminations on the nature of life, perception and more. There are layers of meaning and frequent allusions to historic figures, other literary works, and philosophical ideas, not readily discernable at first read. Reading Ficciones,
December 22nd, 2016. Tadiana Jones and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4.5 | Jorge Luis Borges | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
The Liberation by Ian Tregillis
The Liberation (2016)is the concluding novel to Ian Tregillis’ fantastic ALCHEMY WARS trilogy, and he wraps it all up with a book as strong in action and deep in thought as its predecessors, making this series one of my favorites of recent years and one I highly recommend. If you haven’t read the first two (and you absolutely should fix that error), you’ll probably want to stop here as there will be a few unavoidable spoilers for both The Mechanical and The Rising.
December 19th, 2016. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Ian Tregillis | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel
Dava Sobel has long done great work in giving major events and people in science a compelling and engaging narrative, whether it be Nicolaus Copernicus in A More Perfect Heaven, Galileo and his daughter Suor Maria Celeste in Galileo’s Daughter, or John Harrison in Longitude. In her newest work, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars,
December 15th, 2016. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
I admired Nisi Shawl’s alternate history fantasy Everfair (2016) more than I loved it, and I admired it a lot. Shawl creates an African country at the turn of the 20th century, a country that could have existed, and gives it challenges, troubles, and magic.
Everfair starts in 1889. In Europe, the Fabians negotiate with the king of Belgium, Leopold II, to purchase land in Africa adjacent to Leopold’s personal colony, the so-called Congo Free State.
December 14th, 2016. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Nisi Shawl | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson’s Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection (2016) is a collection of stories that, save for one, have all been published elsewhere, and are here rebundled in one easy-to-find collection. Adding value beyond convenience, the collection adds illustrations and mini-prologues (written by a familiar character) offering up details for each of the planetary system settings in Sanderson’s fictional universe, and each story is followed by a short essay by Sanderson explaining the story’s provenance. Usually with collections,
December 12th, 2016. Bill Capossere and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Brandon Sanderson | Hugo Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
This seems to be a thing these days. Breezy, snarky SF stories by first-time authors that promote their own work, capture a lot of positive word-of-mouth and become very popular without major publisher help initially. I’m thinking of Andy Weir’s The Martian, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, and John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War.
December 12th, 2016. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Dennis E. Taylor | Audio | SFF Reviews | 5 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.