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The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick
As a reader, it’s rare for me to find a book that has nearly every trope I love. The Mask of Mirrors (2021), Book One of M.A. Carrick’s ROOK AND ROSE series, manages just that. Reading the Advance Reader Copy of this book was like nibbling my way through a box of gourmet chocolates curated just for Reader Me. A large box of gourmet chocolates.
And what are those favorite tropes? Well,
December 16th, 2020. Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | M.A. Carrick | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
I was going to start this review of Piranesi (2020) by Susanna Clarke by stating that I was of two minds on the novel and then noting that this was both appropriate and also strong praise. Appropriate because the book is in many ways of the mind, and is as well of two worlds. Strong praise because my two minds were “I loved it” followed by “I liked it.” But then I thought more about it, and I decided my minds were really “I loved it,” “I liked it,” then “I loved it” again.
December 10th, 2020. Bill Capossere, Tadiana Jones and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Susanna Clarke | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |
Abe Sapien (Vol. 1): The Drowning by Mike Mignola (writer), Jason Shawn Alexander (artist), Dave Stewart (colors), and Clem Robins (letters)
The Abe Sapien series is nine volumes long, and it is an essential part of the Hellboy canon. The series is as good as the Hellboy series and should not be missed by any fans of Mignola’s Hellboy universe. Abe Sapien: The Drowning starts off mysteriously in 1884 as a man boards a ship from a Victorian steampunk-like blimp and begins shooting men with writing on their chests.
November 28th, 2020. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
If your view of a Neanderthal is a sloped-head, grunting, not-so-bright guy hunched against blowing snow while he tracks a mammoth, unaware of his impending extinction and eventual supplantation by his far-smarter and much smugger cousins (that would be us), it’s time to update that image. And archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes has just the method of doing so: her fascinating, detailed, and vivid recreation of our ancestor: Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art (2020).
For the longest time Neanderthals were seen as a failed species: brutish,
November 20th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
… and we watched the willow branches bow outward from the passing, and it was invisible except that invisible was not the right word, because its not-there-ness hung in the air like an afterimage.
The Hollow Places (2020), by T. Kingfisher, reminded me a lot of the other folk-horror novel of hers I read recently, The Twisted Ones. Both take place in or close to small southern towns,
November 10th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | T. Kingfisher | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Trouble With Peace by Joe Abercrombie
To my surprise and delight, Joe Abercrombie’s A Little Hatred, the first book in his THE AGE OF MADNESS series, was one of the best books I read last year. As I said in my review, “it’s got everything I’m looking for in a fantasy novel,” including a large cast of interesting and multi-faceted characters, a fascinating setting (a world on the brink of an industrial revolution), and an exciting,
October 30th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Joe Abercrombie | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Ever read a book and immediately wish that you’d been able to read it in school, rather than [insert inaccessible book of choice]? For me, Nancy Kress’s 2020 novella Sea Change, with its gutsy-yet-conflicted heroine and all-too-real near-future global catastrophes, is exactly the kind of book I wish I’d been handed way back when.
Renata Black is a lawyer, handling cases for citizens of the Quinault Nation in the Pacific Northwest. She’s cultivated friendships among them,
October 22nd, 2020. Jana Nyman´s rating: 5 | Nancy Kress | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
There are two ways this review could go: either the controversy surrounding Troubled Blood (2020) and the internet backlash against J.K. Rowling for casting one of the main suspects as a cross-dresser could be ignored, or the entire review could be hinged upon it. It would be disingenuous to do the former and reductive to do the latter, so let’s leave it at this: if readers want the down-low on the dispute, Google it (and there’s plenty of content out there).
October 20th, 2020. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 5 | J.K. Rowling | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Meteorite: How Stones from Outer Space Made Our World by Tim Gregory
Meteorite: The Stones from Outer Space That Made Our World (2020), by Tim Gregory, does what the best popular science books do — uses a vibrant, engaging and distinctive voice to both broadly and deeply inform the lay reader without dumbing down the science down too much while placing it in historical context. Check, check, and check. I already can’t wait for what Gregory turns to in his next non-fiction work.
The title tells you all you need to know about the subject matter.
October 16th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
When I was a kid growing up in Montana, hunting was a steadfast part of my family’s life. Elk, deer (mulies and white-tails), antelope, pheasant — if you wanted to eat it, you had to go out into the snow-covered woods before the break of dawn and hope that you would find something early enough that you wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the day dragging the cleaned carcass back to your truck. There were rules, of course: respect nature to the point of veneration;
October 15th, 2020. Jana Nyman and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Stephen Graham Jones | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.