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Reposting to include Bill’s new review.
Deadly Memory by David Walton
In 2023’s Deadly Memory, by David Walton, the challenges humanity faces have never been higher. A virus so deadly it can kill nearly every species on the planet is loose, and a pheromone-based drug that allows the wearer to dominate everyone who smells it is in the hands of authoritarians from more than one global power. The source of the substance, and the possible antidote to it, is hidden away,
May 22nd, 2023. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | David Walton | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Corpus Earthling by Louis Charbonneau
As revealed in David J. Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen’s essential reference book The Outer Limits: The Official Companion (1986), that TV series’ producer and co-creator, Joseph Stefano, was laboring with some pretty serious concerns before the airing of Season 1’s ninth episode, “Corpus Earthling.” To quote from the book: “’When “Corpus Earthling” was finished and the music added, I sat there wishing I could say don’t air this,’ said Joseph Stefano. ‘I had never thought it could be that scary,
May 12th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Louis Charbonneau | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
Justin Cronin burst onto the big scene with his apocalyptic vampire doorstopper The Passage (first of a trilogy), a fantastically harrowing blockbuster of a novel that still maintained amidst its action/thriller/horror aspects the quietly intimate elements of his earlier literary novels. His newest, The Ferryman, while not quite as strong and despite having a few more noticeable issues, shares some of the same strengths that made The Passage so successful, as I imagine this one will be.
The story takes place on an archipelago isolated from the rest of the world by something known as The Veil,
May 11th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Justin Cronin | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Revival (Volume One): You’re Among Friends by Tim Seeley (writer) and Mike Norton (artist)
Revival is marketed as “rural noir,” but it is horror, too. Tim Seeley and Mike Norton have created an eight-volume story, and volume one, “You’re Among Friends,” starts off, after an introduction by Jeff Lemire, with a shocking event: Ms. Tao, a reporter given the worst columns to write, is forced to write one on unusual jobs. In the opening scene, she is making a video recording as she interviews the town’s crematorium technician at one in the morning.
April 22nd, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Joy Makers by James Gunn
Shortly before being taken over by Random House in 1988, Crown Publishers had a wonderful thing going with its Classics of Modern Science Fiction series; a nicely curated group of books in cute little hardcover volumes that the imprint released during the mid-‘80s. Previously, I had enjoyed (and, in some cases, written about here) such terrific titles in this series as Charles L. Harness’ The Paradox Men (1953), Murray Leinster’s The Forgotten Planet (1954),
April 20th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | James Gunn | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
Malka Older’s 2023 novella, The Mimicking of Known Successes, gives us a Sherlock-Holmes-like mystery-adventure set on Jupiter. The extraterrestrial locale is more than merely a setting; it’s part of the plot of this charming SF mystery romp.
When humans finally rendered Earth uninhabitable, they moved to other planets in the solar system; at least to Jupiter, which is called Giant. The surface of Giant is also uninhabitable, but engineered bands encircle the planet at the point where atmosphere and gravity allow for human life (with obvious adjustments).
April 7th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Malka Older | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Stumptown (Vol. One): Stumptown Vol. 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo by Greg Rucka (writer) & Matthew Southworth (artist)
Stumptown volume one collects the first four issues of Greg Rucka’s excellent comic book series about P.I. Dex Parios. Clearly influenced by Hammett, Chandler, MacDonald, and Parker, Rucka takes the tradition of the hardboiled P.I. and puts a female in the lead. With excellent art by Matthew Southworth, this is a series to seek out.
The comic starts out with Dex’s trying not to get shot by men who have taken her out for disposal by a lake at dusk.
April 1st, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Shadows in the Sun by Chad Oliver
Although it’s been almost seven years since I read Chad Oliver’s masterful fourth novel, Unearthly Neighbors (1960), such are the evocative atmosphere and compelling alien depictions in that book that I still manage to remember it quite well. And indeed, Unearthly Neighbors just might be the most convincingly realistic description of “first contact” on another world that a reader could ever hope to encounter.
March 31st, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Chad Oliver | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link
The vast majority of story collections by their nature vary in relative strength from piece to piece. I’m always happy when I fully enjoy more than half of the stories and thrilled if that hits three-quarters. Well, there are seven stories total in White Cat, Black Dog (2023), Kelly Link’s newest collection in which she brings her trademark style to a series of retold fairy tales, and of the seven I only disliked one, while the others ranged from really good to great.
March 28th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Kelly Link | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Atlantic Abomination by John Brunner
In his 1953 novel The Kraken Wakes, English author John Wyndham gave his readers a tale concerning aliens who land on Earth and proceed to terrorize the planet from their bases on the ocean floor. But this, of course, was not the last time that a British writer would regale his readers with a story about malevolent space visitors living beneath the seas. Thus, in John Brunner’s novel of seven years later,
March 6th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | John Brunner | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…