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B.P.R.D. (Vol. 11): The Black Goddess by Mike Mignola (writer), John Arcudi (writer), Guy Davis (art), Dave Stewart (colors), and Clem Robins (letters)
The Black Goddess is the second volume of the Scorched Earth Trilogy, and it continues the events started in Volume 10: The Warning. But it also is a story that is far into the Hellboy universe, and thus this is not a good place to start reading. Begin with Hellboy volume one and read that series before reading the B.P.R.D.
February 13th, 2021. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time by Emma Chapman
In First Light (2021), Emma Chapman covers the earliest eras of the universe’s existence, particularly focusing on what astronomers, due to their lack of information, call the “Dark Ages,” from about 380,000 years to one billion years after the Big Bang occurred. Even more specifically, her interest lies with the creation of the first stars and the current attempt to find out more about them.
Despite the focus, Chapman manages to bring in a host of other astronomical discoveries/investigations: the Cosmic Microwave background,
January 22nd, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
B.P.R.D. (Vol. 10): The Warning by Mike Mignola (writer), John Arcudi (writer), Guy Davis (art), Dave Stewart (colors), and Clem Robins (letters)
B.P.R.D. (Vol. 10): The Warning, along with B.P.R.D. (Vol. 11): The Black Goddess and B.P.R.D. (Vol. 14): King of Fear, make up the Scorched Earth Trilogy. In The Warning, Lobster Johnson becomes an important figure, so reading the Lobster Johnson series at this point might make sense for some readers,
January 16th, 2021. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker
One chilly autumn night, seven fox kits beg their mother for a scary story, “[s]o scary our eyes fall out of our heads.” Don’t go to the Bog Cavern, she tells them, because the old storyteller lives there, and the tale she would tell them would be so scary it would put white in their tails. So naturally the seven kits scamper off through the woods to the Bog Cavern as soon as their mother is asleep, and beg the spooky-looking storyteller for a scary story.
January 15th, 2021. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Christian McKay Heidicker | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
Remote Control (2021) is the newest novella from Nnedi Okorafor, a quiet, interior-focused and episodic work that is at times a haunting, tragic coming of age tale of magic and mystery, at other times a concisely and sharply effective observer of modern trends, and, depending on the reader, at other times a frustratingly vague story full of unanswered questions. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit, finding it to be the sort of story that lingers in the head.
Six-year-old Fatima lives a happy family life in a near-future Ghana despite her frequent bouts with malaria.
January 12th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Nnedi Okorafor | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
In the Strugatsky brothers’ Monday Starts on Saturday (1965), Sasha, a young Russian man, is about to start his vacation when he picks up a couple of hitchhikers. They are excited to discover that Sasha is a computer programmer because the organization they work for is looking for someone just like him. Curious about these likeable fellows and the work they do, Sasha accompanies them to Solovets to find out what’s happening at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy (NITWIT).
December 14th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Boris and Arkady Strugatsky | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
Stuart Turton’s debut novel, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, was one of my favorite reads of 2018, a compulsively readable and wildly original murder mystery, an homage to Agatha Christie, with a science fictional wrapper. Turton’s second novel, The Devil and the Dark Water (2020), is a highly twisty and eerie Sherlockian mystery, set in the seventeenth century on a large ship traveling from Batavia (now Jakarta,
December 11th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Stuart Turton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Magic: A History: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden
Chris Gosden takes on a lot in Magic: A History: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present (2020) — a history of magic through time and space, skipping across millennia and the continents. Though “history” might be a tad misleading, in that Gosden includes our current age in his survey and then makes a call for magic to, if not “return” (he would argue it never left),
December 8th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson
Sometimes when I’m pondering a review of Brandon Sanderson, I feel like I’m back in one of those classic middle school conversations:
Me: I heard you like Brandon.
Also Me: Maybe I do
Me: Do you like like him?
Also Me: I said I liked him.
Me: Yeah, but like, like like?
Also Me: I don’t know. What’s that like, like like?
Me: It’s like, you stay up all night thinking about how much you like him.
November 19th, 2020. Bill Capossere and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Brandon Sanderson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
While growing up in the 1960s, I used to love whenever one of the local TV channels would show one of British director James Whale’s Big 3 horror movies, all from Universal Studios: Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933) and, perhaps best of all, the eternal glory that is Bride of Frankenstein (1935). What I was unaware of back then was the fact that there was a fourth Universal horror film directed by Whale, and that bit of youthful ignorance was not entirely my fault.
November 17th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | J.B. Priestley | Film / TV, Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 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.