Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
The Wand that Rocks the Cradle edited by Oren Litwin
The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Magical Stories of Family (2019) is a new anthology, edited by Oren Litwin, that’s just what it says on the tin: a collection of short stories about magic and family. As our reviewer Marion Deeds is one of the featured authors, I’m going to follow Skye, Jana, and Bill’s lead by eschewing the star rating, as they did when reviewing Marion’s Aluminum Leaves.
October 18th, 2019. Kelly Lasiter and Bill Capossere | Marion Deeds | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Queen’s Gambit by Jessie Mihalik
I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit (2017), the first novella in Jessie Mihalik’s ROGUE QUEEN series. It’s about Samara, the queen of a nation that stayed independent in a war between two powerful galactic empires. But, without allies to trade with, the people of Queen Samara’s Rogue Coalition are practically starving.
To earn some money for her country, Samara decides to attempt to rescue emperor Valentin Kos from the Quint mercenaries who are holding him captive,
October 15th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Jessie Mihalik | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
A woman steals a Maserati and takes off for a mansion north of San Francisco, on a remote stretch of Highway 1 on the coast of California. Another person, Riley, follows her into the home and up to a bathroom, where a man in the tub is dying of knife wounds. As Riley pursues the woman, the tension is offset somewhat by feeling that something about the scene is off. A smell is described as “almost right.” The woman that Riley is chasing, Maxine or “Max,” speaks in toddler-like language.
October 10th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Blake Crouch | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Nick Chen is an IT guy on a mission: when quantum computers become available to consumers, he tries to convince the managers at the Babylon Hotel and Casino where he works to shut down their keno lounge, knowing that quantum computers can quickly crack the random-number generators of the keno game system. When he fails to persuade them, he uses his override passwords to shut down the keno game, which quickly gets the attention of Edwin Rutledge, the head of the casino. Eventually convinced by Chen’s arguments, Rutledge authorizes Chen to buy the casino its own quantum computer for $300,000 (“We fight quantum with quantum”).
October 2nd, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 2.5 | Andy Weir | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
A single spaceman arrives on Earth (which he calls “Tellus,” a Latin word similar to Terra) on an important mission from a far-off planet that was colonized by a group of rich white men who left Earth centuries ago. The spaceman, as well as the collective AI that was implanted in his brain and constantly speaks to him in his mind, expected to find a world completely barren of life, decimated by climate change and toxic pollution. What they actually find is far different, and both the man and his chatty AI have huge problems adjusting to this new reality.
September 27th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | N.K. Jemisin | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
SHORTS is a column exploring some of the free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about.
“For He Can Creep” by Siobhan Carroll (2019, free at Tor.com, 99c on Kindle)
This short story, told entirely from a cat’s point of view, is a must-read for feline fans! Jeoffry the cat belongs to a mad poet who is confined to an insane asylum in 18th century Great Britain. Jeoffry regularly battles the imps and demons who torment the inmates at the asylum.
September 24th, 2019. Tadiana Jones, Kelly Lasiter and Kat Hooper | Annalee Newitz, Ilona Andrews, Jeff VanderMeer, P. Djèlí Clark | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
It’s always fascinating to read short stories written by your favourite author. Without the luxury of a longer page-count, they’re forced to hone their craft and get out of their comfort zone, and often some of their best work can be found in the short story format. Besides which, a lot can be said with just a few words. As Joanne Harris herself points out in her foreword, short stories: “provoke questions, whereas most novels tend to try and answer them.”
Harris is perhaps best known for Chocolat,
September 18th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Joanne Harris | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Aluminum Leaves by Marion Deeds
Aluminum Leaves (2019) is the debut novella by Marion Deeds, who is also part of the review team here at Fantasy Literature. Because Marion is one of our own, we are not going to give Aluminum Leaves a star rating — but we still wanted to highlight her work in the field of speculative fiction. We are very excited to see her share her work with the world.
Aluminum Leaves begins with a house fire;
September 13th, 2019. Skye Walker, Jana Nyman and Bill Capossere | Marion Deeds | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I never know what to expect from Adrian Tchaikovsky, but he’s always entertaining. Walking to Aldebaran (2019) is unlike anything I’ve read from Tchaikovsky to date, a powerful, literary SF novella with an edgy, dark sense of humor and a strain of horror that gradually intensifies until its shocking ending.
British astronaut Gary Rendell is part of an international space team sent from Earth to explore a moon-sized, alien-made object ― officially called the Artefact,
September 6th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 5 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | Horror, Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
SHORTS: In this week’s column we review several short fiction works that we’ve read recently, including three more of the current Retro Hugo nominees from 1943.
“Galatea” by Madeline Miller (2013, $3.99 on Kindle; anthologized in xo Orpheus, edited by Kate Bernheimer)
In the Roman myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, a sculptor creates a statue so beautiful that he falls in love with it. Aphrodite has mercy on him and turns the statue into a real woman,
August 7th, 2019. Kelly Lasiter, Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones | Fritz Leiber, Leigh Brackett, Madeline Miller | Audio, 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,…