Previous SFF Author: Alyson Noel
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 |
MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, Gavin Edwards
MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, Gavin Edwards is an even-handed, highly readable, always interesting, sometimes fascinating history of Marvel movie-making, starting from their early days of licensing characters to formation of their own studio, to reclaiming some of their most popular characters, to merging their TV and films under one roof to their purchase by Disney up to their most recently released films and TV shows in 2022.
September 29th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Film / TV, Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us by Keggie Carew
In Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us, Keggie Carew takes us on an always passionate, sometimes meandering, often fascinating, sometimes disorienting, often depressing, occasionally encouraging tour of humanity’s lengthy and often abusive relationship with the animals we share this world with. Like many such works, it makes for some difficult reading, but it’s often the things we find difficult that are the most important to face.
The book is divided into ten sections,
July 19th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet by Matthew Shindell
Mars has long fascinated us Earthlings, whether we were gazing up at it with eyes or telescopes, gazing down at it via orbital probes, or vicariously rolling across/flying over it via a slew of lander expeditions, several of which are still up there tooling around. That long obsession with the planet has prompted a huge number of books, fiction and non-fiction, centered on our red neighbor and now Matthew Shindell has added another — For the Love of Mars — which rather than focusing on Mars itself looks at our long-enduring but changing relationship.
June 15th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos by Jaime Green
In The Possibility of Life, journalist Jaime Green takes us on an expansive and open-minded exploration of whether or not life may have formed elsewhere in the universe and if so, what that life might be like. If this were only that book, it would be well worth reading. But Green makes two choices that elevate her work beyond a good exobiology book easily recommended and into a fantastic medley of science,
May 5th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Magick of Physics: Uncovering the Fantastical Phenomena in Everyday Life by Felix Flicker
Felix Flicker’s relatively unique take on popular science is right there in the title: The Magick of Physics: Uncovering the Fantastical Phenomena in Everyday Life. Taking Arthur C. Clarke’s old adage that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” Flicker presents his layperson’s explanations of modern-day physics as a wizard’s manual of sorts, as in one scene where a wizard illuminates her path with a crystal spelled into glowing and then cuts through a bolt with a “stream of light.” In reality though (at least our reality),
April 14th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Tenacious Beasts by Christopher J. Preston
Tenacious Beasts (2023) by Christopher J. Preston, is a rarity among environmental/ecological books nowadays — an uplifting work that highlights positivity, resilience, and hope for the future. As such, it’s a highly rewarding book and a breath of fresh air amongst all the depressing numbers out there having to do with our world and the creatures we share it with.
That isn’t to say Preston turns a blind eye to those depressing numbers. Far from it. In fact, he begins by listing some of those very numbers:
Wildlife populations have declined 20 percent over the last century.
March 16th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms that Sustain Life by Johan Eklöf (translated by Elizabeth DeNoma)
The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms that Sustain Life by Johan Eklöf (translated by Elizabeth DeNoma) is a solidly informative book that raises some serious questions and challenges us to think differently about how we might live our lives, though it suffers somewhat from its structure.
Eklöf is an ecologist who specializes in bats, so one can see where he might get his fondness for the darkness of night.
February 17th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Stan Lee: A Life (Centennial Edition) by Bob Batchelor
Bob Batchelor’s biography of Stan Lee, titled unsurprisingly Stan Lee, is a solid if somewhat stylistically flat look at the life of a man who has had a huge cultural impact. People who pay attention to this sort of thing won’t find a lot new here, and may even find the book’s gloss over things a bit frustrating, but for casual fans of Marvel movies who have a first-time interest in where this behemoth began, the book suffices.
September 29th, 2022. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Fandom, The Next Generation edited by Bridget Kies & Megan Connor
Fandom, The Next Generation, edited by Bridget Kies and Megan Connor is a collection of essays exploring, unsurprisingly, fandom, but with a particular focus on transgenerational sources and fan communities. I.e., those fandoms centered around “rebooted or perpetually rebroadcast media texts” whose long-lived and/or resurrected nature maintains and creates several generations of fans — those who came to the text in its original form, those who discovered the text in later years, and those who came to the text as an adaptation or reboot.
September 2nd, 2022. Bill Capossere´s rating: 1.5 | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Alyson Noel
The geography is confusing me--how does one get to a village in Tibet by ship? And even the northernmost part…
Oh, this sounds interesting!
Locus reports that John Marsden died early today. Marsden authored the 7 book series that started off with the novel…
Mmmmm!
I *do* have pear trees... hmmm.