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The Ascent to Godhood by JY Yang
The Ascent to Godhood (2019) is the fourth and final novella in JY Yang’s TENSORATE series. It’s a finalist for the Locus Award in the Novella category — something that doesn’t surprise me at all. This series is a rollercoaster of deeply emotional stories with a rich and varied setting.
As the final installment, The Ascent to Godhood had to somehow tie together the threads of the other stories.
June 16th, 2020. Skye Walker and Jana Nyman´s rating: 5 | JY Yang | SFF Reviews | no comments |
B.P.R.D. (Vol. 4): The Dead by Mike Mignola (writer), John Arcudi (writer), Guy Davis (artist), Dave Stewart (colors), & Clem Robins (letters)
B.P.R.D.: The Dead is the second main arc of the B.P.R.D. series since the first two volumes were collections of short stories. The Dead advances the plot started in B.P.R.D. (Vol. 2): Plague of Frogs. In this volume, we find out that the frog cults continue to spread, moving quickly and resulting in the deaths of many people.
June 13th, 2020. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In the summer of 1897, English author H. Rider Haggard took a short vacation in Holland, and just as his winter holiday to the Holy Land in 1900 would inspire him to pen no fewer than three works — the nonfiction book A Winter Pilgrimage (1901), Pearl-Maiden (1903) and The Brethren (1904) — this sojourn to the land of the Dutch would also bear literary fruit. Thus, in 1899,
June 10th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | H. Rider Haggard | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
B.P.R.D. (Vol. 3): Plague of Frogs by Mike Mignola (writer), Guy Davis (artist), Dave Stewart (colors), & Clem Robins (letters)
The B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs is the first extended B.P.R.D. volume since the first two volumes were collections of short stories. Plague of Frogs is a five-issue mini-series. The comic book opens with bloodshed: One scientist visits another to see the fast-growing fungus being watched at a facility. The visiting scientist, out of the blue, shoots the other man in the back, claiming that “the Master commands.”
June 6th, 2020. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
“There shouldn’t be any monsters left in Lucille.” The city of Lucille is a utopia. A generation ago, a resistance toppled all the monsters — monsters in this case meaning people: unjust politicians, bigots, predators. The leaders of the revolution are now called “angels” and are revered as elders. Jam is a teenage girl growing up in Lucille, and she appreciates the better world the angels built; as a black trans girl, she knows the world that came before would not have been as welcoming to her. But she still has questions that her teachers are hesitant to answer.
June 3rd, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Akwaeke Emezi | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge
Here in the UK, Frances Hardinge is everywhere. Her new book, A Skinful of Shadows (2017), was plastered all over the London underground in the run-up to its publication, thrusting Hardinge into the mainstream.
I heard Hardinge talk about A Skinful of Shadows at a local bookshop and she admitted that she’d felt some pressure when writing. I can’t help wonder if this pressure somehow seeped into the novel as she wrote.
May 28th, 2020. Katie Burton and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3, 5 | Frances Hardinge | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Once upon a time there was a small group of uber-powerful folks who truly messed up the world. Luckily that was ages, sorry, I mean, Ages, ago. But now one of those ancient badass power users is potentially going to return and hoo boy is the world in trouble if he gathers all his power yet again. Thank the gods for the plucky group of scruffy underdogs who are definitely not a fellowship and who have decided to risk their lives to prevent the Dark Power’s rise.
May 25th, 2020. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5, 5 | Robert Jackson Bennett | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
The People of the Ruins by Edward Shanks
The publisher known as HiLo Books had a wonderful thing going back in 2012 with its Radium Age Science Fiction Series, the mission of which was to bring back into print the neglected works from the period 1904 – 1933. This reader had previously enjoyed several of the titles in this series via volumes from other publishers – novels such as Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague (1912), William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land (1912),
May 12th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Edward Shanks | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
B.P.R.D.: Being Human by Mike Mignola (writer) & various other writers and artists
B.P.R.D.: Being Human is a collection of short stories about the early years of B.P.R.D.:
The first story, “The Dead Remembered,” takes place in 1976, and the Professor decides to do some rare fieldwork to investigate a haunting. He asks Hellboy to accompany him, but Hellboy, not partial to ghosts, declines, and the professor ends up taking a young Liz Sherman, who has pyrokinetic abilities. This is the first time she goes into the field for any type of investigation.
May 9th, 2020. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Stories of Your Life: And Others by Ted Chiang
In his review of Ted Chiang’s brilliant short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) in The Guardian, China Miéville mentions the “humane intelligence […] that makes us experience each story with immediacy and Chiang’s calm passion.” The oxymoron “calm passion” is an insightful and ingenious way to describe these stories because of the way it hints at their deft melding of the most solid of hard science fiction concepts with an often surprisingly gentle,
May 7th, 2020. Stefan Raets, Stuart Starosta and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3, 5 | Ted Chiang | Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
[…] Tales (Fantasy Literature): John Martin Leahy was born in Washington State in 1886 and, during his five-year career as…
so you're saying I should read it? :)
As a native New Yorker, I love the idea of the city being filled with canals and no skyscrapers! And…
How did I miss this? Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
I guess that is true, Marion. And when it comes to "You Only Live Twice," I saw the movie TWICE…