Next SFF Author: A.M. Stanley

Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole

Series: Stand-Alone

These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).

Race to the Sun: An exciting and educational family story

Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Nizhoni Begay wants to be a star, or at least popular. She’s hoping to make the game-winning score at her middle school basketball game but, instead, she’s humiliated when she gets distracted and gets hit in the face by the ball. The reason she was distracted was that she saw a man in the stands watching her. She could tell he was a monster. When that same man shows up at her house for dinner because he’s her dad’s new boss, Nizhoni tries to warn her father that he’s a monster but her father doesn’t believe her and seems very eager to please the monster.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires: Hilarious and horrifying

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Patricia Campbell and her neighbors are housewives in Charleston, South Carolina. Looking for friendship and something to talk about other than their husbands, children, housekeeping, and other neighbors, they form a book club. True Crime is their genre of choice.

After the ladies read Helter Skelter, Patricia laments that nothing exciting ever happens in their neighborhood:

“But don’t you wish that something exciting would happen around here?” Patricia asked. “Just once?”

Grace raised her eyebrows at Patricia.

The Ghost Tree: A well-rendered 1980s slasher that could have gone farther

The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry

After I read Christina Henry’s 2020 horror novel The Ghost Tree, I did a bit of research on the writer. It seems like she is well-known for retelling fairy tales, usually with a dark (or darker) twist than the original. The Ghost Tree is not a fairy tale, as far as I can tell, although it has some fairy-tale elements. It’s a 1980s-style slasher horror novel. By the way, that’s what I thought I was getting when I bought it,

Cemetery Boys: A heart-warming coming-of-age tale

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Yadriel’s Latinx community in East Los Angeles practices brujería. The men are brujos who escort ghosts to their final resting place and the women are brujas who have healing powers. But Yadriel’s large close family has not supported his desire to be a brujo because he is transgender. Their community has strict gender roles, they don’t see him as a boy, and they don’t think the brujo magic will work for him (though the women’s bruja magic definitely doesn’t work for Yadriel).

Yadriel is determined to prove not only that he is a boy,

The Universe Wreckers: Interplanetary House of Pancakes

The Universe Wreckers by Edmond Hamilton

I have long been amused by the nicknames that some of our finest purveyors of sci-fi, fantasy and horror have managed to acquire for themselves. For example, both Jules Verne and H. G. Wells have understandably been dubbed The Father of Science Fiction. The great H. P. Lovecraft, due to the place that he called home, is known as The Sage of Providence. E. E. Smith, due to the fact that he was also a food engineer,

The Chosen and the Beautiful: A five-star book I will read again

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

What if Jay Gatsby literally sold his soul to a demon, in order to woo and win the love of Daisy Buchanan? With that one question, Nghi Vo ushers us into a strange, familiar, wonderful and terrifying world with her first full-length novel, The Chosen and the Beautiful (2021).

In a 1920s USA where magic is common and ghosts walk side by side with people, Vo introduces us to Jordan Baker, bosom friend of Daisy Fay Buchanan.

Upright Women Wanted: Subversive roaming librarians in a near-future U.S.A.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

After being betrothed to a man she doesn’t love and watching her secret lover, Beatriz, get hanged for aberrant behavior and possession of unapproved reading materials, Esther decides to run away. So she hides herself in the wagon of the traveling Librarians, the distributors of all approved reading materials, who are passing through her town.

When the stowaway is discovered, Esther attempts to convince the librarians that she always wanted to be one of them but, in reality, she is hoping their good morals and upright behavior will rub off on her so she will no longer feel deviant.

The Man From Tomorrow: Past shock

The Man From Tomorrow by Stanton A. Coblentz

In Robert Silverberg’s masterful 1968 novel The Masks of Time —just one of three novels that the author released that year, during one of his superhumanly productive periods — the Earth of 1998 is visited by a man name Vornan-19, who has arrived from the year 2999, and whose advent leads to all manner of upheaval and complications. But this, of course, was hardly the first time that an author had written about a visitor from the far future.

The Album of Dr. Moreau: I stayed up too late to finish it

The Album of Dr. Moreau by Daryl Gregory

It’s 2001, and Luce Delgado, homicide detective for the Las Vegas PD, has come to a casino on the strip to deal with a celebrity murder. Dead, “Dr. M,” manager of the hottest boy-band act on the planet, the WyldBoyZ. Suspects? There are plenty, but her top five are the brilliantly harmonizing human/other-mammalian hybrid band members, the Boyz themselves. The challenge? A locked room on the fifty-sixth floor of the casino hotel.

Almost equally important to Luce is her attempt to keep from breaking the heart of the WyldBoyZ’s number one fan — Luce’s nine-year-old daughter Melanie.

Riot Baby: A short, intense, emotionally draining novel

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

Tochi Onyebuchi’s Riot Baby (2020), a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, and Hugo Awards for Best Novella, is a mind-expanding story about growing up Black in America. Kevin, the titular “riot baby,” was born in South Central Los Angeles during the riots of 1992 which were sparked by the acquittal of the LAPD officers who beat Rodney King after a traffic stop turned into a high-speed chase.

Before Kevin is born, Onyebuchi sets the scene by introducing Ella,

Next SFF Author: A.M. Stanley

Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole

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Recent Discussion:

David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 5, 2025
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
Bill Capossere on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
We’re in total agreement David!
David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Marion Deeds on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.