Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
Amongst the flood of Greek myth retellings over the past number few years, three authors have stood out to me. Two are Madeline Miller and Claire North, the first for her fantastic Circe (not to mention the brilliant The Song of Achilles from a decade earlier) and the second for her excellent and just-concluded SONGS OF PENELOPE trilogy. The third is Pat Barker and her WOMEN OF TROY series,
January 20th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Pat Barker | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Mother of Rome by Lauren J.A. Bear
Lauren J.A. Bear’s first novel, Medusa’s Sisters, was a sharp feminist retelling of the well-known Greek tale. For her second book, Bear has left the Greeks behind and moved on to the Romans, giving us in Mother of Rome a sort of prequel to the Romulus and Remus Found Rome story. Though I found Mother of Rome to be more uneven than Medusa’s Sisters,
January 17th, 2025. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Lauren J.A. Bear | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Spite House by Johnny Compton
Spite houses are real and I went down a shallow rabbit hole preparing for this review. With his 2023 novel, The Spite House, Johnny Compton takes on the concept of a house built solely to irritate and harass nearby landowners, and morphs it into something original and scary.
Eric Ross and his two daughters, Dessa and Stacy, are making their way through Texas, trying to keep under the radar. They have the normal concerns a black family in Texas would have,
January 13th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Johnny Compton | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Militia House by John Milas
2023’s The Militia House is the debut novel of John Milas. Set in Afghanistan in 2010, it follows a team assigned to a Landing Zone as they are drawn into an abandoned Russian-invasion-era “militia” house close to their base. The sense of dread grows as the story continues, veering into a surreal world, but as in real life, the greatest horror may simply be war.
Our first-person narrator is Corporal Loyette, and his team consists of Johnson, Blount and Vargas.
January 7th, 2025. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | John Milas | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Great White Space by Basil Copper
For those of you who have read everything written by the great H. P. Lovecraft but are still hankering for another solid dose of cosmic horror and tentacled monstrosities, hoo boy, have I got a doozy for you! Although written four decades after the so-called “Sage of Providence” dominated the field of weird fiction in the 1930s, this book – Basil Copper’s The Great White Space – is such a convincing pastiche that all fans of the genre should be left happily grinning nevertheless.
December 20th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Basil Copper | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
In the aftermath of the pandemic, fantasy caught the midtown bus and moved into the suburbs of women’s fiction. There, it’s set up shop and seems to be doing quite well, if paperbacks like The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods, are any indication. This pleasant story, following three characters and an elusive, magical bookshop, is enjoyable even if it didn’t fully satisfy this fantasy reader.
Set in modern day Dublin, the story follows Martha, a woman fleeing an abusive relationship,
December 16th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Evie Woods | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Bury Him Darkly by John Blackburn
Although it’s been almost 18 years since I last read English author John Blackburn’s first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay (1958), I still vividly recall several segments of the book, mainly due to the forcefulness of the writing therein. And really, with its plot conflating a female ex-Nazi scientist, deserted Russian villages, and a fungoid mutation that is slowly spreading across Europe, the book is inherently hard to forget.
December 10th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | John Blackburn | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Pippin’s Journal by Rohan O’Grady
“A spellbinding Gothic page-tuner,” the folks at Valancourt Books tell us on the back cover of their new edition of Rohan O’Grady’s novel entitled Pippin’s Journal, and happily, this blurb tells it just the way it is. The book was one that I had never even heard of up until a few months ago, and yet it has suddenly and surprisingly become one of my favorite reads of this year. Simply stated, I just loved this one!
December 6th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Rohan O'Grady | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
Cahokia Jazz is a detective novel, set in 1922 in the city and state of Cahokia, USA. Police detective Joe Barrow and his partner Phineas Drummond are called up onto the roof of the Cahokia Land Building in the middle of the night, where they find the mutilated corpse of a takata—a European-American–posed like an Aztec sacrifice, its heart removed. In most cities, this would simply be bizarre, but in Cahokia, this makes the murder a flashpoint for unrest in a city and state governed largely by the takouma,
November 26th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Francis Spufford | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine
2024’s Your Shadow Half Remains provides a seductive and disturbing journey of psychological horror, as we visit the mind of an isolated young woman in a post-apocalyptic world, where one look into another human’s eyes can kill both of you.
Your Shadow Half Remains is plainly inspired by Josh Malerman’s Bird Box, only in Moriane’s work, the thing you must not look at is a human face.
November 22nd, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Sunny Moraine | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
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