Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
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 |
The Scarlet Boy by Arthur Calder-Marshall
In the mood for an offbeat haunted-house novel to keep you company during this fall season … or during any season; a beautifully written tale of supernatural horror that you have most likely never heard of before? Well, then, I have a doozy of a suggestion for you … namely The Scarlet Boy, by the British author Arthur Calder-Marshall! The book has been unfortunately neglected for over six decades now, and a quick look at its sporadic publishing history will help explain why it might be an unknown quantity for you and the general reading public today,
November 21st, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Arthur Calder-Marshall | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven
The British film Bloodsuckers, from 1970, was easily one of the worst cinematic experiences I’ve sat through in recent memory; a confused and confusing mess of a movie, made even more disappointing for me by dint of the fact that the two lead actors whose participation induced me to watch the film in the first place – namely, Peter Cushing and Patrick Macnee – don’t even appear on screen together once! And yet, I thought, the central premise of the film,
November 11th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Simon Raven | Film / TV, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Susan Price is a gifted author, though like Anne Pilling, I suspect her work is just a tad too dark and uncanny to draw in a devoted child fanbase. Truly, she pulls no punches with what she writes for her young audience – here for example, the protagonist is killed when she’s deliberately impaled with a large stake. Though she finds a way to reanimate her body, it’s not before hungry wolves chew off one of her arms. You know,
November 5th, 2024. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Susan Price | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Facial Justice by L.P. Hartley
It was Anthony Burgess, writing in his 1984 overview volume 99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939, who first made me aware of L.P. Hartley’s truly remarkable creation Facial Justice. In his essay in that volume, Burgess tells us that Hartley’s novel is “a brilliant projection of tendencies already apparent in the post-war British welfare state.” It is one of the very few sci-fi novels that the Clockwork Orange author chose to spotlight in his book,
September 26th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | L.P. Hartley | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Feast of Bacchus by Ernest G. Henham
Tenebrae (1898), by the London-born writer Ernest G. Henham, had turned out to be one of my favorite reading experiences of 2023, and I had been wanting to read another book from this same author ever since. A Gothically inflected tale dealing with fratricide, madness, and a 20-foot-long spider monstrosity, Tenebrae was a deliciously morbid treat; one that had been rescued from over a century’s worth of oblivion by the fine folks at Valancourt Books.
September 23rd, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Ernest G. Henham | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott
2023’s Thistlefoot, by GennaRose Nethercott, is one of my favorite reads of 2024. This literary fantasy draws from Jewish and Eastern European folktales, with a concretely modern setting, a gloss of mythic American West (hobos and tumbleweeds), and sentences that sing with poetry.
Isaac Yaga is a street performer and a con artist. He can impersonate almost anyone, and he is always on the run, either from the people whose pockets he’s picked, or from his own guilty memories, accompanied only by a small black cat named Hubcap.
September 13th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | GennaRose Nethercott | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Glorious Pool by Thorne Smith
In Ron Howard’s 1985 film Cocoon, a group of seniors becomes rejuvenated as a result of taking a dip in a swimming pool whose waters had been infused with “life force” by some extraterrestrial visitors. But as it turns out, this was not the first time that some aged adults had discovered a Fountain of Youth of sorts in such a place. Thus, over half a century earlier, we find a similar setup – although with a completely different explanation – in Thorne Smith’s remarkably madcap fantasy The Glorious Pool.
September 6th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Thorne Smith | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Darkwater Hall by Catherine Fisher
I must have read this book for the first time over twenty years ago, and though I had forgotten the title, author and much of the story, a few little details stuck with me: the evocative atmosphere it conjured, the central premise that concerned a young girl striking a deal with the devil, and something about a stairwell that ran up and down time.
Then, one day while perusing the library catalogue in search of another book entirely, the cover art for Darkwater Hall (2011) stirred something in my memory.
September 3rd, 2024. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Catherine Fisher | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Weyward, by Emilia Hart, (2023), is women’s fiction with magic. The stories of three different women in three different eras wrestling not only with their connection to nature, but with the restrictions and exploitations of society, are captivating, and it’s all delivered with beautiful descriptions and flowing language.
I’m going to go down a rabbit hole here. I recently had to make a long drive (2 ½ hours each way) and used most of that time to chew over why I categorize this as “women’s fiction with magic” rather than “fantasy.” Here’s what I’ve decided;
August 26th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Emilia Hart | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
I really enjoyed this book. The lack of melodrama (as "plot") was a feature, not a bug, I think. Parts…
good points Mariion-. I actually had meant to talk about the ham radio but the review was getting long (I…
You got your review up before I could even write one. I loved this book--one of my favorite reads of…
Games are interesting. I love different games, but now I give preference to gambling ones. I found interesting reviews on…
hey