Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 5

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The Last Light of the Sun: Another lovely historical fantasy by GGK

The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

The Last Light of the Sun is another of Guy Gavriel Kay’s lovely historical fantasies. This one blends Norse, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon histories with a bit of faerie mythos. We follow a few main characters from each of these societies as they interact with each other to shape their land and destinies. As usual in a Guy Gavriel Kay novel, we see the struggles from each perspective, so there’s no single “hero” or “villain.” We understand what motivates each of the characters and their culture and we can admire their strengths and recognize their weaknesses.

Hellboy (Vol. 5): Conqueror Worm: Hellboy shows its pulp roots

Hellboy (vol. 5): Conqueror Worm by Mike Mignola (writer/artist) & Dave Stewart (colorist)

The comic opens in 1939 with Lobster Johnson, Mignola’s pulp fiction-like hero, invading a Nazi stronghold in a castle just as they launch a manned ship into space. Johnson and the United States soldiers are too late to stop it as it launches just as they invade the castle. The castle explodes at the moment of launch, making that day rumored to be Lobster Johnson’s final mission (Mignola also has a series of books about Lobster Johnson’s adventures). Sixty-one years later,

Shadowhouse Fall: Still magical, still powerful, still wonderful

Shadowhouse Fall by Daniel José Older

Daniel José Older’s Shadowshaper was one of the best books of 2015 — not “best YA books” but best books of all categories. It featured an engaging, authentic female hero, an original magical system, mundane issues as well as magical ones, and a distinctive voice and sensibility. 2017’s sequel, Shadowhouse Fall, shows no second-book slump in this series.

Sierra Santiago is mastering her skill as a shadowshaper, an ability that melds spirit contact with art,

State Tectonics: A surprising and triumphant ending

State Tectonics by Malka Older

State Tectonics (2018) is the third book in Malka Older’s CENTENAL CYCLE trilogy. The series is a Hugo finalist in the Best Series category. It did not end the way I expected it to!

(This review may contain spoilers for the previous books.)

At the end of Null States, the second book, the handful of main characters had uncovered a plot, not just against the micro-democracies,

August 12th, 2019. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Malka Older | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Violent Century: A thoughtful exploration of heroes and history

The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar

Thanks to his two most recent novels, Central Station and Unholy Land, Lavie Tidhar has quickly become one of my favorite contemporary novelists, and so when I was given the opportunity to read a re-release of his earlier book, The Violent Century (2013), I leapt right on it. Clearly, the last two books were not evidence of some sudden leap upward in achievement,

Shadowshaper: Five-star characters with five-star prose

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

I’ve commented before that I give very few five-star reviews. Usually, I expect a book to somehow change my thinking, or how I see the world, in order to rate it a five-star book. As I sat down to write this review I was going to say something like, “While that didn’t happen with Shadowshaper, by Daniel José Older, I still…” and then I thought more about it, and decided that Shadowshaper (2015) has changed how I think about the world,

Hellboy (Vol. 4): The Right Hand of Doom: Continues to build the Hellboy mythos

Hellboy (vol. 4): The Right Hand of Doom by Mike Mignola (writer and artist) and Dave Stewart (colorist)

Hellboy (vol. 4): The Right Hand of Doomis an excellent collection of stories grouped into three sections. While not all the tales here tie into the larger plotline of Hellboy’s grand storyline, they are all worth reading.

Part one of the book starts with a short two-page story, followed by two other stories from the early years. In “Pancakes,” Hellboy is a young boy and in the two following stories,

The Little Prince: A thoughtful and timeless classic

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Nominated this year for a Best Novella within the 1944 Retrospective Hugo Awards category, The Little Prince is a slight, yet powerfully thought-provoking work. Originally published by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in 1943, who filled each page of his story with charming watercolor illustrations, it tells the story of a pilot who has crash-landed in the Sahara Desert with “only enough drinking water for eight days” and who, upon his very first night, is visited by an extraordinary child who asks for a drawing of a sheep.

The Brightest Fell: “Magic can be reversed. Trauma isn’t that simple.”

The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire

After two “monster of the week” episodes, The Brightest Fell (2017) brings us back to the secrets that were revealed in The Winter Long, surrounding Amandine, Simon, Eira Rosynhwyr — and Toby’s long-lost sister, August. But first, Seanan McGuire draws us in, as she did in Once Broken Faith, with a heartwarming scene of comic relief. This time, it’s Toby’s bachelorette party. The. Luideag.

July 19th, 2019. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Seanan McGuire | SFF Reviews | no comments |

SAGA Volume 9: A shattering volume

Saga (Vol. 9) by Brian K. Vaughan (writer) & Fiona Staples (artist)

It’s been nine months since I read Vol 8 of Saga, which is something special. It’s the only comic series that I follow, and the characters are as vivid, complicated, lovable, despicable, cruel, and conflicted as any I know. This is a space opera that tackles the most difficult and relevant topics of our own society, doesn’t hesitate to shock readers, flip the script, and most frightening of all, doesn’t hold back from killing off major characters that we are deeply invested in.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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