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Leigh Bardugo, best known for her GRISHA young adult magical fantasy trilogy, explores a different corner of the Grisha world in her new young adult novel, Six of Crows. In the city of Ketterdam, an analog for Amsterdam, criminal gangs control the waterfront, and the surrounding area is a den of iniquity where everything can be bought and sold, including people. One of the gangs, appropriately called the Dregs, is led by 17 year old Kaz Brekker,
September 23rd, 2020. Tadiana Jones, Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4, 4.5 | Leigh Bardugo | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Fans of Kevin Hearne’s popular IRON DRUID CHRONICLES will be thrilled to learn that Hearne has a new spin-off series: INK & SIGIL. The first novel, Ink & Sigil (2020), introduces Al MacBharrais, an older widowed gentleman who has a unique talent. He uses special inks to create sigils that hack the brain through the ocular nerve. For example, the Sigil of Porous Mind makes the target open to suggestion, the Sigil of Certain Authority makes the caster appear to have the authority to do whatever they’re doing,
September 22nd, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Kevin Hearne | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Driftwood (2020) is a charming, meditative, and often poignant collection of linked stories by Marie Brennan that mostly succeeds both in its individual tales and as a whole, though I had a few issues. But given that one of those is it was too short, it’s still an easy book to recommend.
The book’s general setting is the titular Driftwood. Think of it as a beach whose tide, instead of washing up the pebbles and the sea’s detritus, washes up instead dying worlds.
September 18th, 2020. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Marie Brennan | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
After eight novels dealing with such venerable science fiction themes as lost races, weapons of superscience, the transmutation of elements, dinosaurs, devolution, crystalline life-forms and the creation of a superman, Scottish-American author John Taine finally tackled one of the most revered sci-fi tropes of them all, namely time travel, in his ninth novel, The Time Stream. Today, this book comes freighted with a double-edged reputation, as it is said to be the author’s strangest novel of the 16 he wrote between 1924 and ’54,
September 9th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | John Taine | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Drowned Country (2020) is the second and concluding novella in Emily Tesh’s GREENHOLLOW DUOLOGY, following 2019’s Silver in the Wood. This review will contain some spoilers for Silver in the Wood.
When we last saw Tobias and Henry Silver, Tobias had become an ordinary mortal man, and had been reunited with Silver — who had been presumed dead, but instead had been saved by the Wood itself,
September 4th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Emily Tesh | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
In the 1956 sci-fi “B movie” Indestructible Man, hardened criminal Butcher Benton, played by the always wonderful Lon Chaney, Jr., is put to death by the state, but is later revivified by a mad scientist using 300,000 volts of electricity. Benton becomes not only possessed of superhuman strength but is also, as events show, impervious to bullets. But if a certain novel of 25 years earlier can be believed, this was not the first time that a human being was subjected to a massive dose of juice,
August 27th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | John Taine | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Fans of Jim Butcher’s DRESDEN FILES have been waiting for the sixteenth novel, Peace Talks (2020), for six years. It’s been so long that I actually had to go back and re-read the last few novels to get back up to speed on Harry’s life.
Was Peace Talks worth the wait? The short answer is “No.” Though it’s entertaining and shows us what Harry’s life has been like since the previous novel,
August 26th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Jim Butcher | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
On the same day a riot destroys the market in Ngwa, Nigeria, the body of Vivek Oji is left on his parents’ doorstep, naked except for a length of cloth. Gradually, through a variety of points of view, Akwaeke Emezi unfolds the story of Vivek’s life and death, and how that death affects Vivek’s loved ones — drawing some people closer together, driving faultlines between others.
Readers who’ve read Emezi’s earlier work might expect more supernatural elements than The Death of Vivek Oji (2020) actually contains.
August 25th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Akwaeke Emezi | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
G. Willow Wilson’s 2019 YA Novel The Bird King is a wonderful read: an exciting adventure with a complicated female protagonist, set in a time and place that may be unfamiliar to many of us. Magic is woven throughout the book, as young Fatima wrestles with the concepts of faith, freedom and leadership.
Fatima is the Sultan’s concubine in the last Islamic kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula. She holds a precarious place in the palace hierarchy.
August 20th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | G. Willow Wilson | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Heirs of Locksley by Carrie Vaughn
The adventures of Robin Hood’s three children continue in The Heirs of Locksley, the second novella in Carrie Vaughn‘s ROBIN HOOD STORIES series. It takes a unexpected four-year leap forward from The Ghosts of Sherwood. The eldest, Mary, is now twenty and still hasn’t met the young man she’s semi-betrothed to, and her feelings have shifted from fear and uncertainty to irritation that William de Ros still hasn’t bothered to come meet her;
August 18th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Carrie Vaughn | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
thanks for this really well-written review. You've definitely piqued my interest in this, particularly in how you highlight the still…
Thanks for the kind words, Ira! Much appreciated!
Fine review
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…