Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
Fantasy Literature for Young Adults (over the age of 12).
“If the Ness sisters had a brain cell between them, they’d be back in Mazarile, taking needlecraft lessons from a robot.”
Sisters Adrana and Fura Ness have run away from home, joining the crew of a spaceship captained by a man named Rackamore. Their job on the ship is to use a skull to listen in on chatter that gives them clues about things going on in the universe, such as the location of other ships, gossip, and information about “baubles” that are about to open.
June 15th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Alastair Reynolds | Audio, Locus Award, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Iron Flower by Laurie Forest
When Laurie Forest’s debut YA fantasy novel The Black Witch was published in 2017, there was a massive explosion of outrage in the Twitterverse and elsewhere online. Accusations of various types of prejudice — racism (albeit based on fantasy races), homophobia, white saviorism, ableism, lookism and more — were hurled against it. In my opinion those charges were unfair and based on a superficial reading of the text, missing the fact that the main character’s prejudices were clearly being shown as unthinking bias and bigotry,
June 10th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 2.5 | Laurie Forest | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby
I loved Laura Ruby’s Bone Gap so much that I was almost afraid to read Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All (2019). How could it possibly live up to my expectations of it? After having read it, I can report that I do still think I liked Bone Gap better, but that Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All is also a good read.
June 5th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Laura Ruby | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Solstice (2020), by Lorence Alison, is subtitled “A Tropical Horror Comedy” and is a thinly fictionalized take on the disastrous Fyre Festival, with the addition of an eldritch sea monster lurking beneath the waves. I wasn’t expecting high literature from it, just the proverbial “beach read” to distract myself from the fact that there is no beach anywhere near me (and if there were, it would probably be closed anyway). But the more I think about it, the more it just doesn’t work for me.
June 4th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2 | Lorence Alison | Horror, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 5 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 |
They say that the Undersea was the dwelling place of the gods. They say many things of the Myriad, and all of them are true. The gods were as real as the coastlines and currents and as merciless as the winds and whirlpools.
No one knows who or what the gods were, the giant creatures who lived in the sea and then, mysteriously, all died. But everyone knows that a piece of a dead god can make your fortune. Hark is still a child himself,
June 1st, 2020. Terry Weyna´s rating: 3.5 | Frances Hardinge | Horror, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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 |
A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
Tavia is a siren. This fact is enough trouble to her that she’s trying to contact the spirit of her grandmother (who was also a siren) to learn whether there’s any way to rid herself of the power.
Her best friend/adopted sister Effie isn’t really a mermaid; she just plays one at the Renaissance Faire. She’s a totally normal human — or so she thinks.
A Song Below Water (2020), by Bethany C. Morrow,
May 27th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Bethany C. Morrow | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant
There’s a scene in Kester Grant’s The Court of Miracles (2020) where an entire room of nobles is hypnotized by the head of the assassin’s guild into doing something horrific, but which they are wholly oblivious to. It’s an apt scene to note, because while this first book in the COURT OF MIRACLES trilogy is far from horrific (really, far from it), Grant is such a fluid writer that she lulls you into a sort of readerly trance,
May 26th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Kester Grant | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Aurora Burning (2020), the second book in Amie Kaufman’s and Jay Kristoff’s young adult SF AURORA CYCLE series, follows the tension-filled, nonstop space adventures of the teenage crew of Squad 312, recent graduates of the Aurora Academy. In the first book, Aurora Rising, the crew visited the forbidden planet of Octavia III and discovered, to their horror, that an alien hivemind, called the Ra’haam, has taken over the planet and is bent,
May 26th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
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.