Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
The Court of the Midnight King by Freda Warrington
The Court of the Midnight King (2003), by Freda Warrington, is an alternate history of England’s King Richard III with some supernatural elements. I’m kind of bummed that I didn’t discover it in 2003, because I’d probably have liked it even more. I was going through a big Plantagenet and Tudor phase, and if you could find a way to work Goddess religion into the plot, so much the better. As it is,
July 23rd, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Freda Warrington | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Shadow Over Mars by Leigh Brackett
Shadow Over Mars (1944), also sometimes reprinted as The Nemesis from Terra, was the first full-length novel by space opera author Leigh Brackett. (“Full-length” is relative here, though, as Shadow Over Mars is quite short, only 145 pages in the edition I read.) It is currently in the running for a 2020 Retro Hugo for Best Novel.
The book begins with the hero, Rick, running through a Martian city,
July 17th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Leigh Brackett | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Conjure Women (2020) by Afia Atakora is a first novel that I can hardly believe is a first novel. It’s a beautifully written, hard-hitting story of an African American healer just before and just after the end of slavery in the US. It’s not a fantasy novel, but I’m reviewing it here at FanLit because it has a few magical realist elements, and because it’s in part about magic, and people’s belief in magic, even when none is actually taking place.
July 16th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Afia Atakora | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey
In publication order, By the Sword (1991) is the ninth novel in Mercedes Lackey’s VALDEMAR saga, but if you haven’t read any VALDEMAR novels before, don’t let that stop you. By the Sword can stand alone and it’s a fine place to enter Lackey’s universe. There are several beloved VALDEMAR characters in the novel, but it doesn’t matter if you meet them now or later. In general, the VALDEMAR saga is divided into several different trilogies and a few stand-alones and anthologies.
July 14th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Mercedes Lackey | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Noemí Taboada is a 22-year-old flighty socialite living in Mexico City. She loves to dress up in beautiful gowns and high heels and go to parties with handsome young men. One evening she’s called home from a party early. Her wealthy father has received a strange letter from Catalina, Noemí’s recently married cousin. Catalina thinks she’s in danger from her new husband’s family and is begging for help. Is Catalina really imperiled, or is she suffering a mental breakdown?
Noemí’s father asks her to visit her cousin at High Place,
July 14th, 2020. Kat Hooper, Marion Deeds and Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5, 4.5 | Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Across a Billion Years by Robert Silverberg
In Across a Billion Years (1969), Robert Silverberg introduces us to Tom Rice, a young archaeologist in training, who is writing to his twin sister on their 22nd birthday in 2375. While Tom feels some guilt that he is on the most exciting field trip in the history of Earth while his paralyzed sister is confined to a hospital bed, he is still eager to tell her about his work and he knows that she is just as eager to hear about it.
July 13th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Robert Silverberg | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
For all those folks out there who hold conversations with their pet dog and know for certain that Fido/Fifi understands every word; for those who have gotten a tad “verklempt” at the conclusion of such novels as The Call of the Wild and Old Yeller; for people who believe that canines just cannot get any smarter than Lassie, Rin Tin Tin or Benji, all of whom starred in innumerable motion pictures; and, well, really, for anybody with a soft spot in his or her heart for man’s best friend,
July 13th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Olaf Stapledon | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Golden Fleece by Robert Graves
The Golden Fleece (1944), also sometimes known as Hercules, My Shipmate, was Robert Graves’s attempt to create a unified, mostly realistic version of the legend of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the titular fleece. He incorporated a variety of ancient sources, some of them contradictory, some of them fragmentary, keeping the elements he thought made the most sense and assembling them into a single narrative. The result is this novel, which has been nominated for a Retro Hugo in 2020.
July 8th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Robert Graves | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Away and Beyond by A.E. van Vogt
As I believe I have mentioned elsewhere, it was one of my high school English teachers, Mr. Miller, who first got me interested in literary sci-fi. This was back in the late ‘60s, when my high school was hip enough to actually offer a course in science fiction, taught by Mr. Miller; a very popular course, need I even mention? One of the earliest books that Miller required us to read, as I recall, was A.E. (Alfred Elton) van Vogt’s 1946 novel Slan,
July 7th, 2020. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | A.E. Van-Vogt | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Or What You Will (2020), by Jo Walton, is an at times charming, at times frustrating work of metafiction that reads, even distanced by the novelist’s artifice, as a warmly personal, almost intimate love letter to Florence, the Renaissance, art, reading, the classics, and creativity. I’m guessing it will receive a mixed, varied response from Walton’s readers.
Sylvia Harrison is a mid-range author of a good number of novels, including several set in the quasi-fantastical Illyria — imagine Renaissance Florence with magic where people do not die save by willful intent (their own giving up of life,
July 6th, 2020. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Jo Walton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
Convergence Problems by Wole Talabi A brilliant and varied collection of mostly-SF stories, many of which focus on the interactions…
Childhood's End- Arthur C. Clarke
The only genre book I read last month was The Ghost Book, a 1926 anthology compiled by Lady Cynthia Asquith,…
Best fiction I read in April was Ian C. Esslemont's new Malazan book, Forge of the High Mage. Best non-fiction…
I read the first four books in the "Children Of the Lamp" series by P.B. Kerr. The name of the…