Click on stars to FIND REVIEWS BY RATING:
Recommended: 
Not Recommended: 
The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo
The Language of Thorns (2017) is a collection of six stories and novelettes by Leigh Bardugo, dark and lyrical folk tales set in her GRISHA universe, in the Russian-inspired country of Ravka and other nearby countries. These are stand-alone stories, unrelated to the specific characters and events in the GRISHA novels. This tales might be told on a dark night by a villager living in Ravka.
Bardugo’s stories,
March 19th, 2020. Tadiana Jones and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5, 5 | Leigh Bardugo | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
CLASSIFICATION: Weaving together fairy tales and history, Deathless is kind of like Pan’s Labyrinth, if it was told by Hayao Miyazaki and Neil Gaiman. Highly recommended for fans of adult fairy tales, Russian folklore, and Catherynne M. Valente.
FORMAT/INFO: Deathless is 352 pages long divided over a Prologue, 6 Parts, and 30 numbered/titled chapters. Narration is in the third-person, mostly via the protagonist, Marya Morevna.
March 10th, 2020. Robert Thompson and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4, 5 | Catherynne M. Valente | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Hellboy (Vol. 12): The Storm and The Fury by Mike Mignola (writer) and Duncan Fegredo (artist)
The Storm and The Fury takes up where The Wild Hunt (Vol. 9) left off. Hellboy: Volumes 10 and 11 are collections of short stories, so they do not advance the primary plot of Hellboy, which is what we get here. Hellboy is still in England, and knights are rising from their graves as foretold. The signs are dire, and Hellboy is on the case even though he left the B.P.R.D.
February 29th, 2020. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
In his whimsical way, Charles Yu writes about the Asian-American immigrant experience in Interior Chinatown (2020). The story is about Willis Wu, a young man whose family lives in an SRO (Single-Room Occupancy Hotel) in the Chinatown of mid-20th century San Francisco. He’s the son of immigrants who came to America looking for a better life but who have been misunderstood, alienated, marginalized, ghettoized, and further discriminated against by an American government and populace that is always putting people into boxes and insisting that they stay there.
February 26th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Charles Yu | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Hellboy (Vol. 9): The Wild Hunt by Mike Mignola (writer) & Duncan Fegredo (artist)
In The Wild Hunt, the main Hellboy plot moves forward in a significant manner. As we get into the comic, which ominously begins with Hellboy spying on a funeral of a king, we find two plot lines running throughout The Wild Hunt. First, Hellboy has been invited to gather with a group of men who hunt giants when two or more start roaming in groups to cause ruin and destruction wherever they go.
February 8th, 2020. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Mike Mignola | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany
After reading about Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter I went in search of it and found it at my university library. Reading it was quite a different experience for me, but people who aren’t prepared for the style of writing like I was might be disappointed, confused or scorning of the slow, dream-like pace, archetype characters and poetical language. This might be especially true of fans of typical fantasy genre books (authors such as David Eddings or Terry Brooks) where a fantasy universe is deemed to be good only if it has a solid backing and an exhaustive array of facts and figures to add realism to the stories.
January 23rd, 2020. Rebecca Fisher and Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Lord Dunsany | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang’s stories are the very best kind of speculative fiction. They’re modern, sophisticated, intelligent, clever, thoughtful, and entertaining. Best of all, they’re full of futuristic science and explorations of the personal, sociological, and ethical considerations we may be facing as science and technology advance.
Most of the stories in Exhalation have seen print before; only two are new. Here are my thoughts on each:
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” — Originally published in 2007 by Subterranean Press,
January 14th, 2020. Kat Hooper and Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Ted Chiang | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
MONSTRESS 3: Haven by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda
It’s always an event when the next collection of Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s MONSTRESS is released — I take a copy home, make sure I won’t get interrupted, and just sink down into the complex storytelling and truly gorgeous illustrations. Every year this ongoing graphic novel cleans up at the Eisner and Hugo Awards, and for good reason.
Maika Halfwolf is a young woman with a terrible secret: an ancient monster resides within her body,
December 11th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Marjorie M. Liu | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer has been on a hell of a roll lately. His SOUTHERN REACH trilogy is on my personal list of best series in the past quarter-century, Borne (I argued) was both an imperfect book and a great one, and now his newest, Dead Astronauts — set in the same multi-verse of Borne — is quite possibly my favorite book by him yet.
That said,
December 3rd, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Jeff VanderMeer | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Star Wars: Kanan Vol. 2: First Blood by Greg Weisman
Star Wars: Kanan Vol. 2: First Blood is the second collection of comics in an ongoing series that details the mysterious past of Kanan Jarrus, a main character of the animated television show Star Wars Rebels who — as a teenage Jedi Padawan — managed to escape the purge that wiped the rest of the Order out. Having joined the Rebellion as part of the crew of the Ghost, Kanan now finds himself increasingly haunted by his past as he and his team-mates start visiting planets he inhabited while still known as Caleb Dume.
November 15th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!