Click on stars to FIND REVIEWS BY RATING:
Recommended: 
Not Recommended: 
The Flying Eyes by J. Hunter Holly
It sports one of the most famous covers in sci-fi paperback history; a piece of art so iconic that I have seen it reproduced in the form of refrigerator magnets! I am referring here to the first edition of J. Hunter Holly’s The Flying Eyes, the cover of which depicts a man and a woman fleeing in abject terror from the onslaught of several dozen – you guessed it – self-propelled, levitating eyeballs!
April 18th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | J. Hunter Holly | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Empty Smiles by Katherine Arden
What is it that makes funfairs and carnivals so scary? Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari both take place in carnivals, as do a few significant chapters of Stephen King’s It and several third season episodes of Stranger Things. I even recall that the third book of L.J. Smith’s The Forbidden Game ended in an abandoned funfair.
April 11th, 2024. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Katherine Arden | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Morningside by Téa Obreht is set in a post-climate change near-future in a partial drowned city called Island City (maybe Manhattan?) that is accepting refugees to repopulate the city with promises of newly constructed/renovated homes for those who come to work. The novel is a mostly successful mix of genres, a sort of magical realist/cli-fi Harriet the Spy if Harriet were also a refugee.
Our main character is eleven-year-old Sylvia, who has arrived with her mother in the titular rundown high-rise where Sylvia’s Aunt Ena works as the super (there is a frame and the tale is told as a flashback from adult Sylvia’s perspective,
April 9th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Téa Obreht | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Magic Order (Book 2) by Mark Millar (writer), Stuart Immonen (artist), Sunny Gho (colorist), David Curiel (colorist), and Clem Robins (letterer)
The second book of The Magic Order continues the story of the Moonstone family that was started in book one. It is equally good even with a new artist taking over the series. At the beginning of the comic Cordelia Moonstone is the head of the Moonstone family and the magic order itself. But there are members of the magical community who do not like her leadership and are plotting against her,
March 16th, 2024. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Mark Millar | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Cosmic Puppets by Philip K. Dick
By the time 1956 rolled around, future cult author Philip K. Dick had already seen 80 of his short stories published, as well as his first novel, 1955’s Solar Lottery. But 1956 would turn out to be an important year for the seemingly indefatigable writer. His second and third novels, The World Jones Made and The Man Who Japed,
March 5th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Philip K. Dick | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher
Alex Easton, protagonist of T. Kingfisher’s 2023 novella What Moves the Dead, is back with a second adventure in 2024’s What Feasts at Night. Joining Easton is loyal batman Angus and the unflappable British mycologist Miss Potter. This go-round, Easton and company face less of the science and more of the supernatural.
Alex Easton is Gallacian by nationality (a small imaginary country somewhere in central Europe). Easton is a “sworn soldier,” anatomically female but living as a man as part of the military.
March 1st, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | T. Kingfisher | Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
I was a big fan of Katherine Arden’s WINTERNIGHT TRILOGY and ended my review of that series by saying I was greatly looking forward to seeing what she did next. Well, what’s next is The Warm Hands of Ghosts (2024), a standalone historical novel set in the horrors of WWI that happily mostly maintains the high bar of quality Arden set with that earlier trilogy, though I had a few issues with some elements.
February 29th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Katherine Arden | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are by Rebecca Boyle
Our Moon (2024), by Rebecca Boyle, is an engrossing tour of our relationship with our closest celestial neighbor, full of the usual (and less familiar) facts, while delving into science, history, and culture as Boyle, as she says, explains “How the moon was made, how the Moon made us, and how we made the Moon in our image.”
Boyle starts off not on the Moon but on Earth three-quarters of a century ago with a 39-year-old marine waiting to begin the Allies’ attack on Tarawa Atoll,
February 9th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Reign of Wizardry by Jack Williamson
Perhaps because Jack Williamson was named the second science fiction Grand Master, in 1976, and managed to cop both the coveted Hugo and Nebula Awards, it is easy to forget that the Arizona Territory-born author did write in other fields than just sci-fi. For example, I have already written here of his marvelously scary novella “Wolves of Darkness” (1932), as well as his now-classic lycanthropy novel Darker Than You Think (1948) … two works that doubtless helped him win the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement,
February 6th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Jack Williamson | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Allure of the Multiverse: Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes by Paul Halpern
The Allure of the Multiverse by Paul Halpern delves into the scientific history of the theory that seems to have taken over pop culture. Admittedly difficult at time thanks to the relatively esoteric nature of some of the theories such as string theory or M-brane theory, and also perhaps a bit mistitled, it remains a mostly clear exploration of 20th and 21st century physics.
The book opens with what might come as a surprise to some readers who have steeped in the multiverse concept via film,
February 2nd, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Me, too! I think independent bookstore are enjoying a golden age, and I plan to continue to support that. One…
I read the most recent Elysian article. I tried not be bummed out, because I already knew most of it,…
Wow, I'm really impressed by the 15- and 20-year old owning and running their own bookstores! I loved books as…
There were two interesting articles about publishing that I ran across, the first via a link in the second: No…
My pleasure, Robin! And yes, it surely is some kind of an experience, to be sure....