Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo
The Language of Thorns (2017) is a collection of six stories and novelettes by Leigh Bardugo, dark and lyrical folk tales set in her GRISHA universe, in the Russian-inspired country of Ravka and other nearby countries. These are stand-alone stories, unrelated to the specific characters and events in the GRISHA novels. This tales might be told on a dark night by a villager living in Ravka.
Bardugo’s stories,
March 19th, 2020. Tadiana Jones and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5, 5 | Leigh Bardugo | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Knife Children by Lois McMaster Bujold
Knife Children (2019) is a stand-alone novella set in Lois McMaster Bujold’s SHARING KNIFE world. I wasn’t a fan of that series because I didn’t like its main character, Fawn, but I’m a huge fan of all of Bujold’s other work, and I think she’s one of the best speculative fiction writers that’s ever existed, so I was happy to try this stand-alone story in which Fawn played only an insignificant role. You don’t need to be familiar with SHARING KNIFE to understand and enjoy Knife Children.
March 2nd, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson
In Nalo Hopkinson’s Skin Folk, you’ll find 15 diverse Caribbean-inspired fantasy stories that are full of vividly-drawn characters, powerful prose, masterful storytelling, and imagery that is sensuous and haunting.
Skin Folk, Hopkinson’s first story collection, deservedly won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection.
Some of Hopkinson’s stories are metaphors, many having to do with the theme of “skin” — whether it’s characters who are hiding, changing, or pretending to be something they’re not.
February 13th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Nalo Hopkinson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy by Francis Stevens
Up until recently, Minneapolis-born author Francis Stevens had been a very solid 3 for 3 with this reader. Her first novel, 1918’s The Citadel of Fear, had proved to be a mindblower, dealing as it did with the lost city of Tlapallan, nightmarish creatures, and battling Aztec gods. Her second novel, 1919’s The Heads of Cerberus,
February 12th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Francis Stevens | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Flowers of Vashnoi by Lois McMaster Bujold
This VORKOSIGAN SAGA novella is a blast from the past, accompanied by a large dose of radiation. After Lois McMaster Bujold apparently wrapped up this long-running series in 2016 with Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, she returned once again to her immensely popular series with this brief novella, backtracking in the series timeline to just a few years after Miles Vorkosigan’s marriage to Ekaterin, when their oldest children, twins Sasha and Helen,
February 4th, 2020. Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu
I was a huge fan of Ken Liu’s first collection of short stories, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, giving it a five out of five and placing on my “best of” list that year. His newest collection, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories (2020), unfortunately didn’t hit the high notes as consistently as the first, though there are still several gems in the group.
Many of the stories are set in a time leading up to or following the singularity,
January 24th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Ken Liu | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang’s stories are the very best kind of speculative fiction. They’re modern, sophisticated, intelligent, clever, thoughtful, and entertaining. Best of all, they’re full of futuristic science and explorations of the personal, sociological, and ethical considerations we may be facing as science and technology advance.
Most of the stories in Exhalation have seen print before; only two are new. Here are my thoughts on each:
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” — Originally published in 2007 by Subterranean Press,
January 14th, 2020. Kat Hooper and Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Ted Chiang | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children was an island of misfit toys, a place to put the unfinished stories and the broken wanderers who could butcher a deer and string a bow but no longer remembered what to do with indoor plumbing. It was also, more importantly, a holding pen for heroes. Whatever they might have become when they’d been cast out of their chosen homes, they’d been heroes once, each in their own ways. And they did not forget.
Come Tumbling Down (2020),
January 13th, 2020. Tadiana Jones and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Seanan McGuire | Short Fiction, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water by Vylar Kaftan
Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water is a 2019 novella by Vylar Kaftan. The story opens with two characters, Bee, our narrator, and Chela, in jeopardy in a very unusual setting, and takes us places we did not expect.
Bee is trapped in a unique and horrifying prison: a cave complex on a planet far from Earth. She has one companion, Chela, and they have banded together to brave the dangers of the caves: the risk of drowning,
January 9th, 2020. Marion Deeds and Terry Weyna´s rating: 2.5, 3 | Vylar Kaftan | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Cory Doctorow’s Radicalized (2019) is a collection of four near-future novellas that cast a critical eye on current societal trends. As is nearly always the case with collections, the story quality/impact varies, but the floor here is relatively high.
In the first, “Unauthorized Bread,” Doctorow takes on digital rights/permissions, mergers and monopolies, and the growing movement away from creating tech the average person (or non-average for that matter) can easily modify/repair themselves. The protagonist is Salima, faced one day with a broken Boulangism toaster-oven which only accepts the company’s proprietary bread — “unauthorized bread had consequences ranging from kitchen fires to suboptimal toast.” Not having the money to buy a new one,
January 2nd, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Cory Doctorow | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
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.
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…