Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
If Natasha Pulley’s latest novel, The Kingdoms (2021), were a movie script, the elevator pitch might have been “Master and Commander meets The Final Countdown” (look it up, kids). Part time-travel story, part love story (several actually), part Patrick O’Brian story, it curves and recurves through beauty and brutality (more of the latter than the former), time and space, trauma, and rescue (more of the former than the latter), as it delights,
August 11th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Natasha Pulley | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Stars are Ours by Andre Norton
Tantor Media has been publishing the omnibus editions of Andre Norton’s science-fiction adventures in audiobook format. The omnibus (originally published by Baen) called Star Flight contains the novels The Stars are Ours and Star Born (the PAX/ASTRA duology). Both novels are set in the same universe (ours, actually) but they stand alone.
The prologue of The Stars are Ours,
August 10th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Andre Norton | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Even and Odd by Sarah Beth Durst
Even and Odd are pre-teen sisters living in Stony Haven, Connecticut, where their parents operate a border shop carrying “supplies for the mundane world, as well as imports from the magic world — anything a magical customer might need for their visit here.” Those imports and magically-inclined customers come from the land of Firoth, where Even and Odd were born, and which is accessible via magic portals. The sisters trade off magical abilities on alternating days, leading to their nicknames, though each girl has different opinions on their access to magic: Even,
August 9th, 2021. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Once again, I find myself indebted to the fine folks at the publisher Armchair Fiction, for alerting me about a book whose existence I probably would never have learned of without their assistance; hardly the first time that this has happened. The novel in question in this instance bears the curious title Thus Far, which was initially released in 1925 by both the British publisher Hodder & Stoughton and the American publisher D. Appleton & Co., and then sank into virtual oblivion for a full 96 years,
August 4th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | J.C. Snaith | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Dr. Jens and her alien colleagues rescue spaceships that are in trouble. After answering a distress call, they discover an old ship in which all of the human crewmembers are in cryogenic storage. Their only caretaker is an oddly sexy robot who was given instructions to build the cryogenic storage containers for the crew long ago.
When Dr. Jens and her colleagues get back to their own ship and get ready to thaw out some of the frozen humans, they discover that their own trusty shipmind,
July 29th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Elizabeth Bear | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Second Deluge by Garrett P. Serviss
It is the Indian state of Meghalaya, just north of Bangladesh, the holds the record for being “The Wettest Spot on Earth,” getting, on average, a whopping total of 467” of rain a year. (Do bring an umbrella if you’re planning a visit!) But while this 38-foot tally, 13 times what Seattle might expect annually, is certainly impressive, it pales to insignificance compared to what descends from the heavens in Garrett P. Serviss’ 1911 novel The Second Deluge,
July 27th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Garrett P. Serviss | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk
By the bottom of the second full page of text, when the protagonist of The Midnight Bargain (2020) walked into Harriman’s Bookshop, I was hooked. When Beatrice Clayborn entered the second-hand shop and I saw it through her eyes, the book claimed me, not unlike the way a spirit might claim a sorceress in Beatrice’s magical world.
It’s bargaining season, or marriage season in Beatrice’s world, and young women of the upper classes, like Beatrice, jostle and compete for the hand of a suitable husband.
July 22nd, 2021. Marion Deeds and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | C.L. Polk | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Theodore Savage by Cicely Hamilton
By the time WW1 ended in 1918, London-born Cicely Hamilton had already earned a name for herself as an advocate for both women’s rights and marriage equality. As one of Britain’s most vocal suffragettes, she’d campaigned for the right of women to vote; as a renowned playwright, she’d written socially biting works for the stage, and indeed, her suffrage dramas How the Vote Was Won (1909) and A Pageant of Great Women (1910) were both highly successful. But during the Great War,
July 1st, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Cicely Hamilton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker
Often in magical realism, a writer takes one little bit of magic and plunks it into an otherwise entirely realistic story, like adding a single drop of blue food dye into a glass of water that remains water, but water newly, wholly colored by that one tiny drop. In Sarah Pinsker’s novel, We Are Satellites (2021), we have what one might class science-fictional realism; she eschews building the usual futuristic world full of advances and instead offers up a single drop in the form of the Pilot,
June 29th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Sarah Pinsker | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
A Genie. A golem. Nineteenth-century New York City. Boy, did I want to love this book. Drawn by its come-hither characters, its promise of poetry, and by its dark side in the form of a truly nasty character, I really, really wanted to love it. And truth is, I liked The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker. But in the well-trod words of middle school, I didn’t “like like” it.
June 25th, 2021. Bill Capossere, Marion Deeds, Ray McKenzie and Jana Nyman | Helene Wecker | Edge, Mythopoeic Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
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