Previous SFF Author: Matthew Hughes
This is a bad land for Gods… The old gods are ignored. The new gods are as quickly taken up as they are abandoned, cast aside for the next big thing. Either you’ve been forgotten, or you’re scared you’re going to be rendered obsolete, or maybe you’re just getting tired of existing on the whims of people.
Shadow, just out of prison and with nothing to go home to, is hired to be Mr. Wednesday’s bodyguard as he travels around America to warn all the other incarnations of gods,
June 11th, 2018. Kat Hooper, Rebecca Fisher and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3, 4.5 | Neil Gaiman | Audio, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold
This is Marion’s review of The Vor Game, Brothers in Arms, and Mirror Dance. Kat’s comments about Mirror Dance are at the bottom.
Miles Vorkosigan is nearly a dwarf, with bones as brittle as fine porcelain, and he is a Vor, one of the elite, the son of the Imperial Regent. The Vor, and everyone on Barrayar for that matter, are terrified of mutation because of their history, and Miles looks like a mutation even though he isn’t one.
April 23rd, 2018. Marion Deeds, Kat Hooper and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4.5 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold (contains the novellas “The Mountains of Mourning,” “Labyrinth,” “The Borders of Infinity”)
Borders of Infinity has a different structure than the earlier VORKOSIGAN books. It’s actually three previously published novellas with a frame story. Simon Illyan, head of Imperial Security, is visiting Miles while he’s recuperating in the hospital after a surgery for bone replacements. Knowing that the government will start asking questions, Simon needs Miles to justify three large vague items in his expense reports. When Miles protests,
April 16th, 2018. Kat Hooper and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Hugo Award, Nebula Award | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
This is Marion’s review of The Vor Game, Brothers in Arms, and Mirror Dance. Kat’s comments about The Vor Game are at the bottom.
Miles Vorkosigan is nearly a dwarf, with bones as brittle as fine porcelain, and he is a Vor, one of the elite, the son of the Imperial Regent. The Vor, and everyone on Barrayar for that matter, are terrified of mutation because of their history, and Miles looks like a mutation even though he isn’t one.
March 5th, 2018. Marion Deeds, Kat Hooper and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3.5 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Audio, Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
Editor’s note: This is Marion’s review of Shards of Honor, Barrayar, and The Warrior’s Apprentice. Kat’s comments about Barrayar and Stuart’s review are at the bottom.
Do you like fancy military uniforms? Shiny spaceships that blow things up? Brooding aristocrats with hulking stone castles and dark secrets? Snappy comebacks and one-liners? Voluptuous women warriors? Swords and secret passages? Surprising twists on standard military tactics of engagement?
If you answered “Yes” to three or more,
February 12th, 2018. Marion Deeds, Kat Hooper and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Audio, Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Best of For our New Year’s Day SHORTS column, we’re listing (in alphabetical order) our favorite short fiction works, both old and new, that we reviewed in our 2017 SHORTS columns and rated 4.5 or 5 stars. The title links are to the original, full SHORTS review.
“Alexandria” by Monica Byrne (2017, Fantasy & Science Fiction Jan/Feb 2017 issue): Byrne’s details paint a full, three-dimensional picture of a marriage; a husband who is not physically demonstrative in public, in-laws who never set aside their suspicions of him, and the love Keiji and Beth feel for each other.
January 1st, 2018. Tadiana Jones | Audio, Horror, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Short Fiction, Theodore Sturgeon Award, World Fantasy Award | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
Tor recently re-released the Hugo winner The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin in a lovely paperback edition, so I thought it finally was time to check out this famous short novel, originally published in the seventies.
The novel is part of Le Guin’s famous HAINISH CYCLE (see also, among others, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed) but can be read completely separately,
November 24th, 2017. Stefan Raets, Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Ursula K. Le-Guin | Hugo Award | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about.
“The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer (Sept. 2017, free at Clarkesworld). 2018 Hugo award winner (novelette).
Fans of WALL-E will particularly appreciate this whimsically poignant tale about an outdated robot with a can-do attitude. Robot #9 is reactivated by its spaceship after a lengthy time in storage, and is assigned the task of ridding the Ship of a particularly destructive “biological infestation” (the bots begin to call it the “ratbug,” though Bot 9 privately questions the accuracy of that moniker) that is chewing apart bots and other parts of the Ship.
October 2nd, 2017. Tadiana Jones and Skye Walker | Sarah Gailey, Suzanne Palmer | Hugo Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The WorldCon75 Committee announced that, when the Hugo voting closed, they had received 3319 ballots, the third highest turnout in the history of the award.
This year, in addition to the familiar categories, the Hugos added a Best Series category. I’m interested to see who wins, and what people even think of the category as a concept.
Best Novel finalists are: (click the links for our reviews)
July 27th, 2017. Marion Deeds | Hugo Award | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 20 comments |
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
In 2131, humans are minding their own business when a large object thought to be an asteroid is detected at the edge of our solar system. As it gets closer to Earth it is photographed and found to be unnatural — obviously an alien spaceship. A team of scientists is sent to meet the ship dubbed “Rama” and to make our first contact with an alien species. When they get there, they find Rama uninhabited and they set out to discover all they can about the aliens who must have launched it.
May 19th, 2017. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Arthur C. Clarke | BSFA Award, Hugo Award, Locus Award, Nebula Award | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Matthew Hughes
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.