Previous SFF Author: Matthew Hughes
The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick
I must first off state that I am generally not an avid lover of the short story. There are a few writers that I think really excel in the genre and whose stuff I will read without hesitation (Edgar Allen Poe, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Fritz Leiber), but in general I am often underwhelmed by the format. Keep that in mind when I say that Michael Swanwick’s collection The Dog Said Bow-Wow was quite good,
October 19th, 2012. Terry Lago´s rating: 3 | Michael Swanwick | Hugo Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Lost Futures by Mike Resnick
I find many story collections to be mixed affairs and, unless it’s a “Best of” collection, I open the book with the assumption that I’m going to find a few stories I like among more that I won’t get particularly excited about. But I’ve loved the stories I’ve read by Mike Resnick, so I had high hopes when I opened The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Lost Futures, a collection recently published by Subterranean Press who are known for their lovely productions.
August 29th, 2012. Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Mike Resnick | Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
The Snow Queen, published in 1980, is Joan Vinge’s science fiction adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale of the same name. In Vinge’s version, Anderson’s love story takes place on the planet Tiamat which is located near a black hole. Tiamat is a convenient rest stop for interstellar travelers and they often go down to the planet for respite or trade, but Tiamat also has its own special commodity: the Water of Life. This youth-preserving substance is made by killing a marine species found only on Tiamat and is available to rich travelers who are willing to leave their money or their technology behind.
August 15th, 2012. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2.5 | Joan D. Vinge | Audio, Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
The Persistence of Vision by John Varley
In a post-apocalyptic near-future, a middle-aged drifter roams from commune to commune in the Southwest United States. Each of these groups has its own culture and he stays a while at each, doing whatever he needs (e.g., going nude, praying, chanting “Hare Krishna”) to fit in while he’s there. This works well for him — he stays fed and sheltered and moves on when he’s ready for a change of scenery.
But when he comes across a walled-in settlement in the middle of Native American land,
July 28th, 2012. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | John Varley | Audio, Hugo Award, Nebula Award | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi
This is the part where you run and scream a lot.
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Intrepid, a spaceship that has the reputation of killing off most of its non-essential crew. The captain and senior officers and one or two especially good-looking guys always come back from planetary “away” missions alive (though often mangled up a bit), but always, always, at least one, and often many more,
July 19th, 2012. Kat Hooper, Marion Deeds, Terry Weyna, Tadiana Jones and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3.5, 4, 4.5 | John Scalzi | Audio, Hugo Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 15 comments |
Farmer in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein
As I mentioned in my recent review of The Number of the Beast, I used to be a fan of Robert A. Heinlein’s “Juveniles” when I was a kid. I give Heinlein much of the credit for turning me into a speculative fiction lover at a young age, so I was really disappointed that The Number of the Beast was so dreadful. To cleanse my palate, and to restore my trust in a man who was such an influence on me,
July 10th, 2012. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Robert A. Heinlein | Audio, Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
…Where Angels Fear to Tread by Allen Steele
Allen Steele promised himself he’d never write a time-travel story, but nevertheless, here it is. In his introduction to this audio version, he explains that he didn’t want to write about something he thought was impossible, but one of his friends challenged him to write a story that could overcome his own doubts. And thus we have …Where Angels Fear to Tread.
There are two timelines going on in …Where Angels Fear to Tread.
July 7th, 2012. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Allen Steele | Audio, Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Winds of Marble Arch by Connie Willis
Tom and his wife are visiting London so Tom can attend an academic conference while his wife goes shopping with a friend. When Tom takes the Tube to the conference, he feels a strange wind in the Underground. It’s more than just the normal drafts created by trains coming and going; this wind smells ancient and deadly and makes him feel afraid. Skipping the conference, and forgetting to buy theater tickets, Tom spends the next couple of days riding the Tube all over (under,
July 5th, 2012. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Connie Willis | Audio, Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman
A Study in Emerald is a Hugo and Locus Award winning short story by Neil Gaiman in which he pays tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.
At first Gaiman’s story appears to be a straight Sherlock Holmes pastiche as a man who appears to be Watson relates how his new friend, a consulting detective who appears to be Holmes, is being asked by Inspector Lestrade to help solve a murder mystery.
June 16th, 2012. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Neil Gaiman | Audio, Hugo Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Death of Captain Future by Allen Steele
To get the fastest transport to a rendezvous with his new job, spacer Rohr Furland decides to take a position on The Comet. Rohr doesn’t listen to gossip, so he isn’t aware that the captain of The Comet, who styles himself Captain Future, is a nut case who can’t find a crew because nobody else will work for him. Nobody, that is, except for Jeri, a bioengineered “Superior” human who Rohr develops a crush on. Why is Jeri,
June 6th, 2012. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Allen Steele | Audio, Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Matthew Hughes
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The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one
These weird westerns are always interesting and have been popping up more in recent times (it seemed like there was…
Looking forward to reading the review.