Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
That Worlds May Live by Nelson S. Bond
In my recent review of David V. Reed’s Empire of Jegga, I mentioned that this was a Golden Age sci-fi novel in the space-opera mold that featured an excessively recomplicated plot and a wealth of colorful detail. Reed’s novel had come out in the November 1943 issue of Amazing Stories magazine, but the Golden Age being what it was, this was hardly the first such space-opera affair to be released in the magazine that year.
November 2nd, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3 | Nelson S. Bond | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Dread Companion by Andre Norton
In the far future, a young woman named Kilda thinks it’s unfortunate that she was born as a woman because she’s expected to do what every woman on her planet does – get married and have children. Kilda wants to travel and learn, so she appeals to her teacher, a mixed-race handicapped person who also lacks opportunity on this world. Her teacher suggests that Kilda take a job as a governess for a woman who is going off planet with her two children. Kilda takes that advice and travels with her employer and the kids,
November 1st, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Andre Norton | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
If I told you that I’d killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest?
This question opens Jessie Burton‘s latest novel, Medusa (2021), a feminist retelling of the famous Greek myth. Told through the eyes of the snake-headed Medusa herself, the story reframes her tale as Burton uses myth to examine our own culture of victim-blaming, slut-shaming and toxic masculinity, provoking the question: Is Medusa truly a monster?
October 28th, 2021. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Jessie Burton | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
One thing we can be sure to expect from Colson Whitehead is the unexpected. The double Pulitzer Prize winner shot to fame with the alternate history (and FanLit favourite) The Underground Railroad. He debuted with speculative fiction, later wrote a zombie novel, and his work now takes another twist: a heist novel, in the form of his latest release, Harlem Shuffle (2021).
The book follows Ray Carney, a furniture salesman in 1950s –
October 21st, 2021. Ray McKenzie and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Colson Whitehead | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A decade-long war is finally over and the people who live on the planet of Beltane are relieved. During the war, Beltane, where many scientists lived, was recruited for the war effort and served, unwillingly, as an experimental lab. After the war, most of the scientists left the planet, creating a brain drain, and the people who remained were pacifists who looked forward to starting a new way of life without interference from the Confederation.
When a disfigured veteran named Griss Lugard is brought back home to Beltane,
October 15th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Andre Norton | Audio, Children, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
What do a pair of young kids on the opposite sides of the fall of Constantinople, the protagonist of an ancient Greek tale, an eco-terrorist, a Korean war vet and former prisoner-of-war, and a young girl on a generation ship have in common? Well, besides all being major characters in Anthony Doerr’s newest novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land (2021). To find out what else ties them all together, you’ll have to read the book, which I do recommend despite some issues.
October 14th, 2021. Bill Capossere and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Anthony Doerr | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed
Premee Mohamed’s novella And What Can We Offer You Tonight (2021) is set in a drowning city where human life is not cheap — it’s worthless. If starvation, violence or disease doesn’t kill you, probably one of the routine government “culls” will, unless you are one of the uber-wealthy, living elsewhere and treating the city like a personal playground/hunting-ground, or a person who services the very wealthy. This leads us to Jewel, our first-person narrator,
October 13th, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Premee Mohamed | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Empire of Jegga by David V. Reed
I have a feeling that most people, when they begin a book in the genre of the Golden Age space opera, go in expecting a slam-bang action affair replete with starship battles, interplanetary conflict, weapons of superscience, hissable villains and cheerable heroes. Well, I am here now to tell you of a Golden Age space-opera novel in which all those aspects are indeed most certainly present, but in very much a secondary role. The book is one that you may very well be unfamiliar with,
October 12th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | David V. Reed | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Original by Brandon Sanderson & Mary Robinette Kowal
Holly wakes up in the hospital. Her last memory is being at a party with Jonathan, her husband. The party was for a potter and she remembers being thrilled to actually be able to touch the clay – something real to feel and even deconstruct. She has no idea how she ended up in the hospital, and it takes a while to get some answers, but finally she learns that she has been cloned as a Provisional Replica because her real self (her Original) murdered her husband.
September 30th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal | Audio, Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar
Lavie Tidhar’s The Escapement (2021)is a fantastic and fantastical fever dream of a novel, a Weird Western via Lewis Carroll, Gilgamesh if had been translated and illustrated by Norton Juster and scored by Ennio Morricone, The Searchers if it had starred Buster Keaton, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had it been directed by David Lynch from a screenplay co-written by Steven King, Raymond Carver, and Italo Calvino and storyboarded by Salvador Dali.
September 24th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Lavie Tidhar | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
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.