4 | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews

The Devil in Silver: Monsters in the maze of a poisonous mental health system

The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle had The Devil in Silver published in 2012. The book is set earlier than that; around 2010/2011. Starting with a Greek myth of Theseus in the labyrinth, LaValle layers horror after horror, and maze after maze, onto this scary, dread-inducing story that looks hard at the nature of powerlessness and the systems designed to keep people that way.

Pepper is a big man—that’s how he’s described in the early sentences of the book. He lives in Queens.

World of the Starwolves: Hamilton goes out like a pro

World of the Starwolves by Edmond Hamilton

Although Ohio-born author Edmond Hamilton had given his readers much in the way of action, spectacle, alien races, futuristic science, and cosmic wonder in the first two novels of his so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY – The Weapon From Beyond (1967) and The Closed Worlds (1968) – there was yet one element that he seemed to be holding in abeyance. In Book #1, the reader had met Morgan Chane,

March 27th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Edmond Hamilton | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe

Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe by Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer’s book Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe is an always informative, often fascinating, and at times worrying look at humanity’s long speculation and exploration of what is in the air around us and what we breathe besides the life-giving oxygen we need.

Zimmer covers a lot of ground here, going back to ancient civilizations and the idea of “miasma” or “bad air,” an explanation of sickness that held sway for centuries until being rivaled in the 14th century by the opposing idea that “diseases such as plague were caused by contagion — a poison that grew inside the sick and then spread to the healthy.” A speculative theory strengthened by the invention of the microscope in the 17th century,

March 14th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Amazing Adventures: Marvel Super Stories #2

Amazing Adventures (Marvel Super Stories Book #2)

Last November, Abrams Fanfare published their second volume of middle-grade comics stories, based on some slightly less-exposed Marvel heroes. Some, like Spider Man, are immediately recognizable, and some have had their own series recently and we know them from that. Each story is no longer than six pages, and various award-winning comic book artists and writers were invited to the anthology. The result, Amazing Adventures (Marvel Super Stories Book #2), is a pleasant sampler, and maybe an introduction to some new and interesting cape-and-mask heroes.

March 13th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Children, Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Tomb of Dragons

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison

2025’s The Tomb of Dragons is the fourth book in Kate Addison’s CHRONICLES OF OSRETH. The Goblin Emperor has retroactively been designated Book One. The Tomb of Dragons, like the two books before it, features Thera Celehar, a Witness for the Dead, as he tries to bring justice to his world in large and small ways.

In The Goblin Emperor,

March 10th, 2025. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4, 5 | Katherine Addison | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Weapon From Beyond: Chane gang

The Weapon From Beyond by Edmond Hamilton

It would seem that I owe a very sincere apology to all my FanLit readers here. In my June 2017 review of Edmond Hamilton’s 1966 novel Doomstar, I mentioned that this was the final work given to us by the Golden Age sci-fi master, and as it turns out, that statement was far from being correct. One of the folks who saw that review, Dennis Burdette, was good enough to point out, 10 months later in that review’s Comments section,

March 7th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Edmond Hamilton | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Beyond: A good place to start with VALDEMAR

Beyond by Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes Lackey’s Beyond (2021) is the first book in her THE FOUNDING OF VALDEMAR trilogy which is set in her wider VALDEMAR universe. As the name of the trilogy suggests, it’s a prequel, so Beyond is a fine entry point in the VALDEMAR series and, in fact, I’d recommend it as a great starting point because it’s well-written and entertaining all the way through. Lackey’s books are often hit or miss for me and Beyond,

Rogue Star: “Have you ever met that funny reefer man?”

Rogue Star by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson

Have you ever read a science-fiction book that was so bizarre, so way-out, that you said to yourself “How did the author ever think of this? What was he smoking? Did she possibly eat a Fluffernutter and headcheese sandwich, go to bed, and dream the whole thing up?” It’s happened to me any number of times, with such novels as Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore’s The Well of the Worlds (1952),

February 28th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

The Reefs of Space: Adam, the red-nosed spaceling

The Reefs of Space by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson

The experience of collaborating on a trilogy must have been a pleasant one for future sci-fi Grand Masters Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson, as just five years later, the pair would embark together on another series of books. THE UNDERSEA TRILOGY – Undersea Quest (1954), Undersea Fleet (1956) and Undersea City (1958) – had been targeted at a younger audience,

February 13th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |

Undersea City: There’s no place like dome

Undersea City by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson

What red-blooded youth – or adult, for that matter – could possibly read Books 1 & 2 of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson’s UNDERSEA TRILOGY and not want to immediately proceed on to Book #3? Not I, that’s for sure! In Book #1, Undersea Quest (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, a cadet at the U.S. Sub-Sea Academy, had gotten into major-league trouble with a gaggle of crooks and goons in the suboceanic domed city of Thetis,

February 6th, 2025. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Rating: 4

The Devil in Silver: Monsters in the maze of a poisonous mental health system

World of the Starwolves: Hamilton goes out like a pro

Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe

Amazing Adventures: Marvel Super Stories #2

The Tomb of Dragons

The Weapon From Beyond: Chane gang

Beyond: A good place to start with VALDEMAR

Rogue Star: “Have you ever met that funny reefer man?”

The Reefs of Space: Adam, the red-nosed spaceling

Undersea City: There’s no place like dome

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