Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 4.5

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The Half-Drowned King: A fascinating tale of revenge and freedom

The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker

The Half-Drowned King (2017), Linnea Hartsuyker’s debut novel, is a fascinating glimpse into a long-ago time, when Scandinavian warriors took their dragon-boats as far south as Constantinople or west to Ireland, trading with and terrorizing the locals, depending on regional treaties and individual temperaments. By necessity, this accounting of events leading up to the coronation of King Harald Fairhair is largely fictionalized, but as most sagas and poems about his life were compiled a few centuries after his death — rather like King Arthur of Britain — their own historical accuracy should be taken with a pinch of salt and enjoyed for their entertainment value.

August 2nd, 2017. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Linnea Hartsuyker | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Witch Who Came in from the Cold: Spy vs. Spy in the city of a hundred spires

The Witch Who Came in from the Cold by Lindsay Smith, Max Gladstone, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Ian Tregillis & Michael Swanwick

The Witch Who Came in from the Cold (2017) is a study in contradictions. It’s a collaborative novel that feels seamless despite the five contributing authors: Lindsay Smith, Max Gladstone, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Ian Tregillis, and Michael Swanwick. It was originally published in serialized form by Serial Box — Season One comprising the contents of The Witch Who Came in from the Cold,

July 21st, 2017. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Cassandra Rose Clarke, Ian Tregillis, Max Gladstone, Michael Swanwick | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Gauntlet: A celebration of family and culture

The Gauntlet by Karuna Riazi

Karuna Riazi has already made a name for herself on social media; if you’ve seen or used the widely popular Twitter hashtag #yesallwomen, you have Riazi to thank for it, along with her many other meaningful contributions to conversations about diversity, inclusivity, and representation in media. This year, her debut middle-grade novel The Gauntlet (2017) was published, and it is every bit as positive, well-crafted, and insightful as her non-fiction.

Birthdays ought to be a big deal for any child,

Heroine Worship: Bridezilla: San Francisco S.O.S.

Heroine Worship by Sarah Kuhn

Just three months have passed between the events of Sarah Kuhn’s Heroine Complex and Heroine Worship (2017), which is just about enough time for Aveda Jupiter (aka Annie Chang), San Francisco’s beloved superheroine, to go out of her mind with boredom. She’s not quite at climbing-the-walls or intentionally-setting-fires levels of stir crazy, but she seems pretty close. (Daily multi-hour breakfasts leading to afternoons filled with absolutely nothing would do that to anyone.) Demon activity has been nonexistent since the big battle at the end of Heroine Complex,

July 11th, 2017. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Kuhn | SFF Reviews | no comments |

End of the World Blues: Grimwood is a superb stylist

End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Roger Zelazny, on top of writing a number of immensely popular books and stories, was one of the genre’s great stylists, with noir minimalism utilized in nearly all his works. He was likewise predictable for his main characters, often world-weary men with personal issues who find themselves facing situations they would rather avoid. I have come to think of Jon Courtenay Grimwood, who bases his fiction on these two same elements, as a successor to Zelazny, but significantly upgraded for the (post-) modern world.

Pebble In The Sky: Asimov’s first novel

Pebble In The Sky by Isaac Asimov

In a now-famous interview, sci-fi legend Isaac Asimov once revealed how he avoided getting stuck with writer’s block. The hugely prodigious author would often be working at four or five books at the same time, with five typewriters arrayed side by side, and when he would get inextricably bogged down with one book, he’d simply move to the neighboring typewriter, and recommence work on that one! Thus, one can almost understand how it was possible for Asimov — who claimed, in his later years,

June 29th, 2017. Sandy Ferber, Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Isaac Asimov | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

Barsk: A wonderfully thoughtful, imaginative work of science fiction

Barsk: The Elephant’s Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen

When I put in my ARC request for Lawrence M. Schoen’s new novel Barsk, all I knew about it was that the setting involved a group of worlds inhabited by a variety of anthropomorphic space-faring animal species, with the main focus on elephants (thus its subtitle: The Elephant’s Graveyard). C’mon. El-e-phants in Spaaaaaccce! How could I resist? But Barsk is much more than a funny-but-cool premise;

Wytches by Scott Snyder

Wytches by Scott Snyder (writer) and Jock (artist)

Wytches by Scott Snyder is the horror book I never thought I would enjoy. I just do not like being frightened by the literature I read, and yet, I enjoyed every page of this tense story. In Wytches, a single-volume put out by Image, Snyder creates his own unusual tradition of Witches in a small town in New Hampshire. I read the entire volume cover to cover without any awareness of time passing.

June 17th, 2017. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Firebrand: Evil has many faces

Firebrand by A.J. Hartley

Firebrand (2017) is the second of A.J. Hartley’s STEEPLEJACK series, following shortly after 2016’s Steeplejack and continuing the story of Anglet Sutonga, a young woman with a very strong sense of justice and a knack for finding herself in trouble. Firebrand builds on the events of Steeplejack, and as a result, this review will contain very mild spoilers for Steeplejack.

Steeplejack: A good detective story blended with biting social commentary

Steeplejack by A.J. Hartley

I knew Steeplejack (2016) was a YA thriller/mystery before picking up my review copy, but I wasn’t expecting it to be as solidly-written and entertaining as I ultimately found it to be. A.J. Hartley has not only created a compelling heroine and a richly imaginative world, but also multiple schemes driving the plot which depend on (and drive) social unrest that strikes extremely close to home in places.

Our story begins in the glorious city of Bar-Selehm, a metropolis which is geographically and culturally reminiscent of Johannesburg,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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