Rating: 4.5

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Stumptown (volume one): Comic book hardboiled female private investigator

Stumptown (Volume One) by Greg Rucka (writer) and 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 […]

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Shadows in the Sun: Oliver’s Story

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 […]

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White Cat, Black Dog: Link bats nearly a thousand

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), […]

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The Atlantic Abomination: There goes Jacksonville!

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 […]

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Arch-Conspirator: Roth pretty much nails it

Arch-Conspirator by Veronica Roth Arch-Conspirator (2023), by Veronica Roth, is a tautly written reimagining of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone. While some will probably wish for a bit more world-building detail and deeper development of some themes, fans of the novella form will find a lot to like here. Set in a post-apocalyptic, far-future refuge where the land […]

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Conquerors From the Darkness: Gowyn, Gowyn, Gone

Conquerors From the Darkness by Robert Silverberg As I believe I’ve mentioned elsewhere, 1959 was the year when future sci-fi Grand Master – not to mention multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner – Robert Silverberg, chafing at the genre’s limitations, decided to retire from the field. By that point, he’d already written, since his professional […]

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The Big Jump: Another Gem From The Queen Of Space Opera

The Big Jump by Leigh Brackett Toward the end of 2015, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the so-called “Queen of Space Opera,” Leigh Brackett, I decided to read (and, in several cases, reread) 10 of this great author’s works, both novels and short-story collections. One of Brackett’s books that I did […]

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Fugitive Telemetry: Pitch-perfect narrative voice

Reposting to include new reviews by Skye and Bill. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells Martha Wells continues her popular and highly-acclaimed MURDERBOT DIARIES series with another novella, Fugitive Telemetry (2021), which actually takes place before the only novel in the series so far, Network Effect. (So you could read this one before that novel, but […]

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Conan: Blood of the Serpent: Conan is back, Baby!!!

Conan: Blood of the Serpent by S.M. Stirling To say I was thrilled to discover a new Conan novel is the understatement of my year or maybe even decade. Conan of Cimmeria, barbarian, thief, warrior, outlaw, mercenary, reaver, king, Robert E. Howard’s legendary hero, the one who made him the father of Sword and Sorcery […]

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Network Effect: Complex connections

Network Effect by Martha Wells Martha Wells’ Murderbot has been gathering enthusiastic fans (which would be certain to have Murderbot hiding behind its opaque armored faceplate), along with multiple Nebula, Hugo and other awards and nominations, as each of the first four novellas in the MURDERBOT DIARIES series has been published over the last three years. […]

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The Hourglass Throne: Rune creates his court

The Hourglass Throne by K.D. Edwards The Hourglass Throne, published in 2022, is the third book in K.D. Edwards’s THE TAROT SEQUENCE, following the adventures of Atlanteans transplanted to Nantucket Island. This review may contain spoilers for The Last Sun and The Hanged Man, the two previous books. I recommend reading both earlier books; at […]

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The October Faction: Volume 2: A Halloween Story

The October Faction: Volume 2 by Steve Niles (writer) and Damien Worm (artist) The October Faction volume two picks up right where volume one ended, and though there is a third volume in the initial run, there is good closure at the end of volume two compared to volume one, which left us wondering  what […]

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The Nectar of Nightmares: Long may Gidney write!

The Nectar of Nightmares by Craig Laurance Gidney It’s horror season for me, the time of year where I usually settle in with a cozy haunted house story, but sometimes branch out into the region of the genuinely horrifying or the truly weird. Craig Laurance Gidney’s short story collection The Nectar of Nightmares, published in […]

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The Ink Black Heart: A compelling addition to the series

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) Detective duo, Strike and Robin, are back for the sixth instalment of the CORMORAN STRIKE series, and they’ve got their work cut out for them. They’re presented with a case unlike any they’ve come across before and what ensues is a twisting mystery that might just […]

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Abe Sapien (Volume 4): The Shape of Things to Come: Abe Sapien continues his journey across the United States

Abe Sapien (volume 4): The Shape of Things to Come by Mike Mignola (writer), Scott Allie (writer), Sebastian Fiumara (art), and Max Fiumara (art), Dave Stewart (colors), and Clem Robins (letters) This volume consists of two stories: “The Shape of Things to Come” and “To the Last Man.” In the first story, we find ourselves […]

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Dark Sanctuary: Thanks, Karl!

Dark Sanctuary by H.B. Gregory A very happy day it was for me – but a very unfortunate day for my bank account – when I first discovered the website for Ramble House books. Specializing in impossibly obscure sci-fi, horror, mystery and “weird menace” titles from the first half of the 20th century, the publisher […]

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Ithaca: An engrossing story

Ithaca by Claire North Ithaca (2022), by Claire North, is another in a recent spate line of Greek myth retellings, with the source material here being The Odyssey and the House of Atreus storyline (Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Electra, Orestes). North greatly narrows the focus here in setting, time, and plot, lasering in what was happening at […]

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