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Thornhedge: You will sink into this story

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Thornhedge (2023), by T. Kingfisher, is a bittersweet fairy tale that starts off on familiar ground and shifts, making us consider who defines the monsters and the heroes. This brief novella reads as smooth as cream, and the story seems simple, but it is not.

Toadling is a fairy, left to maintain a hedge of thorns around a tower, where an enchanted maiden sleeps. From this, you might think you know the story. Toadling is dutiful, strengthening the thorn hedge to discourage the eager knights and princes who come at first,

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon

In Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Cat Bohannon sets herself an ambitious task as evidenced by the sub-title — How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution — and I’m happy to report she’s more than up to the job, turning out out a work that impresses across the board: in information and organization, in scholarship and research, in voice and wit,

October 20th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

A Haunting on the Hill: Do not read it after dark!

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

First, a warning: If you are alone while you are reading this book, do not read it after it gets dark. I don’t care how good your motion-sensor lights, your security system and your Ring doorbell are; just don’t do it to yourself. Trust me.

2023’s A Haunting on the Hill, by master writer Elizabeth Hand, is an indirect sequel to another master writer’s classic work, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

Holly: King’s scariest villains

Holly by Stephen King

If you participate in Bluesky or X (formerly Twitter), you may follow the account called The Midnight Society. If you’ve run across their delightful posts, which imagine conversations among various horror writers throughout history, you might have seen a recent one which featured imaginary J.K. Rowling and Stephen King trading barbs over relative book-length. It had resonance for me because I’d just finished 2023’s Holly, and I have to admit, I was relieved when I bought it and found out it was less than 500 pages in length.

He Arrived at Dusk: Roman holiday

He Arrived at Dusk by R.C. Ashby

Not for the first time, a novel resurrected by the fine folks at Valancourt Books has turned out to be one of my favorite reads of the year. Back in 2020, J. B. Priestley’s Benighted (1927), reissued by Valancourt in 2013, was one of my favorites, and just last month, Ernest G. Henham’s Tenebrae (1898), brought back to life by Valancourt in 2012, became one of my top picks for 2023.

Grass: Powerful true story of Korean “comfort women” during WWII

Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim (writer and artist) and Janet Hong (translator)

Trigger Warning: This review discusses harsh content, including descriptions of murder, rape, and suicidal thoughts, that are a part of Okseon Lee’s true biography.

Grass, by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim and translated by Janet Hong, is a powerful story about World War Two, and the Korean women who were taken from their homes, often as little girls, and sold into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers. This biographical work is about Okseon Lee, who was interviewed extensively as an older woman by the author.

September 16th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Library of Broken Worlds: My first Hugo nomination of the year

The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson

With Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Library of Broken Worlds, I found my first Hugo nomination for next year. Mind you, this is a year where I’ve read many good-to-great books. The Library of Broken Worlds is not only a brilliant story beautifully written, it is truly original in its conception and execution, by a writer who is a master of words.

Set a few hundred years in the future, the story is told by our narrator and main character,

The Mountain in the Sea: Science, ethics and meaning in a meticulously developed future world

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

Against a global backdrop that seethes with cyberpunk-style action, Ray Nayler’s 2022 Locus Award winning debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, gives us a philosophical and deeply thoughtful story about science, specifically first contact.

Sometime in the 22nd century, global corporations run huge AI-managed fishing boats that are scraping the last bits of protein from the planet’s oceans. At the same time, the world is exploring in-system planetary colonization, and the advancement of android tech. Governments have changed and much of the world answers to the UN Directorate Governance.

Bridge: The multiverse but with parasites and serial killers

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

A quick glance at the jacket copy of Lauren Beukes’s 2023 weird thriller Bridge might make the reader think of the Best Picture winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once. After all, this is a mother-daughter story set in the multiverse. Beukes weaves into her story a few elements EEAAO didn’t have, like a parasite and a serial killer, or more accurately a collective of serial killers. The core of the book is a mother-daughter story, but it is filled with chills,

Night Fever: We are our own worst enemies

Night Fever: We are our own worst enemies

Brubaker and Phillips have done it again in their latest offering: They have given us another noir comic that is as stunning visually as it is engaging narratively. In Night Fever, Jonathan Webb, a businessman in Europe, cannot sleep, and his insomnia leads him to venture out into the night. This journey into the darkness is both literal and figurative, of course, and his drug- and alcohol-fueled adventures take a dangerous turn as he starts finding out that not everyone he meets after the sun goes down has his best interests in mind.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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