Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Who hasn’t fantasised what a different version of their life might look like? What if you’d become famous? Or an Olympic athlete? What if you’d become an arctic researcher? A musician? That’s exactly what Matt Haig explores in his latest offering, The Midnight Library (2020).
Nora Seed (and note the pointed symbolism of her surname) is not having a great day. Her cat just died. She’s been fired. Her brother is ignoring her and her neighbour,
March 4th, 2021. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Matt Haig | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Trouble the Saints (2020), by Alaya Dawn Johnson, follows three people of color — Phyllis (whose friends call her Pea), Tamara and Dev — from the late 1930s into the American involvement in World War II. Not one of them is “ordinary”; Pea and Dev have “saint’s hands” that bestow a gift … or a curse. Tamara has inherited a deck of playing cards, and she’s an oracle. When the story opens, all three are trying to make a living working for the white gangster Victor in New York City.
March 2nd, 2021. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Alaya Dawn Johnson | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The People’s Republic of Everything by Nick Mamatas
I don’t know if I simply wasn’t in the right mood for Nick Mamatas’ short-story collection The People’s Republic of Everything (2018), or if I’m not the right audience for his preferred themes and overall style, but this book and I just could not mesh.
There was one story, “Tom Silex, Spirit-Smasher,” which gripped my attention and had everything I look for in short fiction. The story focuses on Rosa Martinez, whose elderly grandmother might — through quirks of legality regarding her first marriage and the question of ownership of her first husband’s pulp publications — own the rights to a series of stories revolving around psychopomp Tom Silex.
March 2nd, 2021. Jana Nyman, Marion Deeds and Skye Walker´s rating: 3 | Nick Mamatas | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline
Cherie Dimaline is a Métis writer and activist from the Georgian Bay Métis Nation in Ontario, Canada. She has received a number of awards for her novels and short stories, none of which I’ve yet had the pleasure of reading — but after reading Empire of Wild (2020), I’m definitely going to track them down. Her use of First Nations themes and folklore is fascinating, and a delightful change from the many fantasies based on European images and tales.
Dimaline has set Empire of Wild in Arcand,
February 25th, 2021. Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | Cherie Dimaline | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Year I Flew Away by Marie Arnold
The Year I Flew Away (2021), by Marie Arnold, combines the timelessness of a fairy tale with the timeliness of the immigrant experience, all while being set in the 1980s amidst Whitney Houston and Prince. It’s a charming middle-grade novel full of heart and humor.
Gabrielle is a young girl living in Haiti; though she’s poor, she’s surrounded by family and friends. One day her parents have big news: Gabrielle is going to America to live with her aunt and uncle.
February 23rd, 2021. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Marie Arnold | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Land of the Lost by Roy Norton
A little while back, I had some words to say concerning Roy Norton’s 1919 novel The Glyphs, the Kewanee, Illinois native’s fourth and final novel containing fantastic content, in a career highlighted by numerous Western novels as well. The Glyphs, as I mentioned, was a compact affair, and a pleasing one, dealing with a sextet of adventurers and their explorations of a lost Mayan city in northern Guatemala.
February 22nd, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Roy Norton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Wood Wife by Terri Windling
Our heroine, Maggie, is reeling from her divorce and drifting rather aimlessly through life — she considers herself a poet but hasn’t written a poem in years.
Then, her mentor dies mysteriously — drowned in a dry creekbed — and inexplicably leaves her his house in the Southwestern desert. She moves there, hoping to research a biography of him. At first, Maggie doesn’t like the desert; it seems sterile, forbidding, devoid of charm. Then one night a pooka cuddles up to her in bed,
February 19th, 2021. Kelly Lasiter and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Terri Windling | Mythopoeic Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Dr. Evelyn Caldwell is a geneticist specializing in cloning, at the pinnacle of her career: The Echo Wife (2021) begins with a banquet at which she is given a prestigious award. At the same time, Evelyn is at a low point in her personal life. She’s a prickly loner and a workaholic, and her husband Nathan has recently left her for another woman. What makes matters far worse is that Nathan, a far less brilliant scientist than Evelyn, has stolen Evelyn’s research to clone Evelyn herself to grow himself a new wife,
February 17th, 2021. Tadiana Jones, Jana Nyman and Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Sarah Gailey | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Beginning in the middle of the 19th century, explorations began in the ancient Mayan city complex known as Tikal, in a remote and inaccessible area of northern Guatemala. In the 1880s, a systematic clearing of the area commenced, as well as a recording of the manifold marvels that were being discovered in this centuries-old site. (And when I say “centuries,” that is perhaps an understatement, as it has since been established that Tikal’s heyday was from A.D. 200 – 900.) Perhaps stimulated by news reports of this Central American wonder,
February 12th, 2021. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Roy Norton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
Princess Thanh was a royal hostage for many years in the northern country of Ephteria before being sent back to her home country of Bình Hải. Two years after her return, she’s a disappointment to her mother, the empress, who hoped that Thanh’s time in Ephteria would give her insights into that country’s government and culture, making her more useful as a diplomat. It’s especially important now that an Ephterian delegation is arriving, certain to make demands and threats that will encroach on Bình Hải’s independence.
February 11th, 2021. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Aliette De-Bodard | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
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It's discouraging that even somewhat successful authors rarely seem to be able to keep publishing for more than about 10-12…
Fly Fishing is the Answer!
I guess I'll have to read these.
I'd IMAGINE so, never having read that other book or seen the film....
So, more in the territory of A River Runs Through It than Siddhartha? ;-)