Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 4

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The Wizards and the Warriors: I would normally have steered clear of this book

The Wizards and the Warriors by Hugh Cook

With a title like The Wizards and the Warriors, I would normally have steered clear of this book for the foreseeable future. I don’t think I’m overly snobbish, but it just brings to mind so many B-movies of the fantasy genre from the late 70’s and early 80’s starring has-beens or never-will-bes that I wouldn’t have expected much of it, and would certainly not have desired to plow through 500+ pages of what I would have at most expected to be mildly entertaining,

March 29th, 2012. Terry Lago´s rating: 4 | Hugh Cook | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

Stations of the Tide: Nebula award winner now on audio

Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick

It’s the Jubilee Year on the planet Miranda. Every 200 years the planet floods and humans must leave until Miranda’s continents are reborn. Miranda used to be the home of an indigenous species of shapeshifters who, during Jubilee, would return to their aquatic forms until the waters receded, but it seems that humans have killed them off.

Gregorian, who lives on Miranda but was educated off-planet by a rich and distant father, now styles himself a magician and is telling the citizens of Miranda that he can transform them into sea creatures so they can stay on the planet.

To Marry Medusa: A beautiful but frightening speculation

To Marry Medusa by Theodore Sturgeon

Note: Here is Sandy’s review of the related The Cosmic Rape.

Dan Gurlick is a pathetic human being, which is undoubtedly why nobody likes him. He has no identifiable positive personality traits, his motivations and desires are base, and he lacks the skills and knowledge to appropriately acquire the things he wants. Life suddenly changes for Gurlick when he accidentally ingests the spore of an alien hivemind named Medusa. Medusa has been all over the universe enfolding the collective minds of the species it finds.

Inside Job: Hugo Award-winning novella

Inside Job by Connie Willis

I have a goal of eventually reading all of the major SFF award winners, including novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories, so that’s why I picked up Connie Willis’s Inside Job when I saw that it was available on audio. Inside Job won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 2006. Just a couple of months ago, by the way, Connie Willis received the SFWA Grand Master Award (January 2012).

Inside Job is a story about Rob,

The Worm Ouroboros: Larger than life adventure in exquisite prose

The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison

The Worm Ouroboros is a love-it-or-hate-it book. Mannered in its language, weird in so many ways, and chock-full of larger than life characters acting in ways that most people just don’t get. If you have a problem with something written in an archaic style, then you probably won’t get much out of The Worm Ouroboros, but if you like that kind of thing I think the book repays reading and is definitely worth it.

First off a caveat: it took me two reads of The Worm Ouroboros to appreciate it and a third to decide that I thought it was genius.

Master of the House of Darts: Just as good as the first two

Master of the House of Darts by Aliette de Bodard

Master of the House of Darts is the third novel in Aliette de Bodard‘s OBSIDIAN AND BLOOD series. The first novel, Servant of the Underworld, was one of my favourite reads of 2010 and its sequel Harbinger of the Storm was, if possible, even better. In between writing these novels, de Bodard has also made an impression with her short fiction. Her novelette The Jaguar House,

March 19th, 2012. Rob Weber´s rating: 4 | Aliette De_Bodard | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Mastermind Plot: Twisty YA mystery

The Mastermind Plot by Angie Frazier

Zanna Snow is excited when her grandmother invites her to visit Boston. She barely knows her grandmother, but this gives her a chance to spend more time with her uncle Bruce, the famous detective, and with her cousin Will. It’s not long before Zanna catches wind of another mystery and sets out to solve it. Meanwhile, Grandmother has enrolled her in a prestigious academy for young ladies, where one of her classmates seems determined to make her life miserable. On top of all that, Zanna is being followed around town by a mysterious old man.

Secondhand Spirits: A cozy mystery with a magical twist

Secondhand Spirits by Juliet Blackwell

Secondhand Spirits (2009) is the first in the WITCHCRAFT MYSTERIES series by Juliet Blackwell. The series centers on Lily Ivory, a natural witch who has traveled the world looking for a place to belong, and finds it in the eccentric Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco. She owns a vintage clothing shop, and her magical abilities help her in her business by allowing her to sense something of the history of a garment and thereby match it with the right customer.

Wide Open: Impressive debut

Wide Open by Deborah Coates

Hallie Michaels, a soldier in Afghanistan, is sent home to Prairie City, South Dakota, for ten days of compassionate leave when her sister Dell dies in a car accident. Rumor has it Dell committed suicide, but Hallie doesn’t buy it. And since her own recent brush with death in the war, Hallie can see ghosts, including Dell’s. Hallie is determined to find out why Dell really died and enable her sister to find peace — and she’s only got ten days to do it.

Hallie is a fantastic protagonist: sympathetic yet flawed,

March 13th, 2012. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Deborah Coates | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Neverness: Crazy-awesome ideas

Neverness by David Zindell

Nevernessis a really enjoyable “big idea” science fiction novel that takes place millennia in our future on the planet Icefall, also called Neverness. It’s kind of Frank Herbert’s Dune meets Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur with high-level mathematics, posthumanism, and trippy metaphysics thrown in.

The story follows the life of Mallory Ringess, a trainee enrolled at “the Academy,” which was founded by a pseudo-monastic order of truth-seekers called “the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame,” hoping to become a pilot.

March 12th, 2012. Terry Lago´s rating: 4 | David Zindell | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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Recent Discussion:

David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
Bill Capossere on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
We’re in total agreement David!
David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.