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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 |
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
Shannon Chakraborty, author of the recommended THE DAEVAVAD TRILOGY, is back with the start of a new series, and if the first book, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, is any measure, it’s sure to be as fun and magic filled as the first (sharp-eyed readers will at one point note it’s actually set in the same universe as the first as well, albeit much earlier).
Some years ago Amina Al-Sirafi was a famed smuggler and pirate before going into retirement to care for her daughter,
March 3rd, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | S.A. Chakraborty | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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 outside the story’s locale is uninhabitable, it’s a world whose population rests on a knife’s edge of survival and so has chosen to lessen the chance of extinction by mandating births (“It didn’t matter if a person wanted a child or not … If they were viable … they were required to carry a child,
February 21st, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Veronica Roth | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
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 debut in 1954, some 250 (!) sci-fi short stories as well as 16 novels, and was surely entitled to some kind of a retirement! Ha! Some retirement! From 1960 till 1967, when Galaxy editor Frederik Pohl induced Silverberg to return to the field,
February 10th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Robert Silverberg | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 11 comments |
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 not read at the time, for the simple reason that a reader’s copy was not then in my possession, was her fourth novel out of an eventual 10, an oversight that I was happy to rectify just this week.
January 31st, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Leigh Brackett | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
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 you do need to read books 1-4 first.) At this point in time Murderbot, the introverted and snarky cyborg who is the narrator and the heart of this series, is a fairly new resident on Preservation,
January 24th, 2023. Tadiana Jones, Jana Nyman, Skye Walker and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Martha Wells | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Giant Anthology of Science Fiction edited by Oscar J. Friend & Leo Margulies
For the past five years, all the books that I have read, be they novels or short-story collections, and whether in the field of sci-fi, fantasy or horror, have had one thing in common: The were all written during the period 1900 – 1950; a little self-imposed reading assignment that I have often referred to as Project Pulp. But all good things must come to an end, and to bring this lengthy series of early 20th century genre lit to a close,
January 18th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | A.E. Van-Vogt, Edmond Hamilton, Henry Kuttner, Jack Williamson, Leigh Brackett, Manly Wade Wellman, Murray Leinster, Ray Cummings, Robert A. Heinlein | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
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 has returned. Conan is back, Baby!
Conan, and REH, not to mention ERB’s Tarzan, are not only what made me into a bookworm, but transformed me into the total fantasy geek I am today.
January 11th, 2023. Greg Hersom´s rating: 4.5 | S.M. Stirling | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
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Fly Fishing is the Answer!
I guess I'll have to read these.
I'd IMAGINE so, never having read that other book or seen the film....
So, more in the territory of A River Runs Through It than Siddhartha? ;-)
No Buddha mentioned in the book, but he DOES seem to suggest that fly fishing = true happiness....