Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
Clash by Night by C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner
Clash by Night (1943) , by the wife-husband team of C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner, is an odd bit of a bird, feeling less like a smoothie that blends together different story types and writerly styles and more like a salad where you can easily spot the tomatoes, greens, peppers, etc. Uneven overall, but it does have its good points.
The opening gives us the setting quite directly, with an unknown narrator of the future telling us,
June 25th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull
The Lesson (2019), by Cadwell Turnbull, is a solid first-contact sort of novel that feels fresh due to its unique setting in the Virgin Islands and has some serious depth to it in the way it uses the encounter between aliens and the islanders as a vehicle for exploring colonialism/race relations, though it left me wanting a little bit more in terms of character and craft.
The novel opens pre-landing with an introduction to the various major characters, including:
June 21st, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Cadwell Turnbull | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Tide of Stone by Kaaron Warren
As usual with DNFs (Did Not Finish), this will be a quite brief review as I have too much respect for the achievement of finishing a novel to belabor its bad points. Or, in this case, bad point really, for what caused me to give up on Kaaron Warren’s Tide of Stone, twice actually, was voice.
In Tempuston, Australia, the town has taken to punishing its worst criminals in two ways. The first is relatively mundane — they imprison them in the Time Ball Tower set across a small stretch of water.
June 20th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 1 | Kaaron Warren | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Silver God of the Orang Hutan by David Douglas
As many of you here at FanLit may have already discerned, this reader is a huge fan of English author H. Rider Haggard, and at this point I have read 45 of the man’s 58 novels. Haggard, for good reason, has been called “The Father of the Lost Race Novel,” and his influence on that genre has been enormous, casting a very long shadow across the decades since he came out with the triple whammy of King Solomon’s Mines,
June 20th, 2019. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | David Douglas | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Listener by Robert McCammon
Robert McCammon’s The Listener (2018), a finalist for this year’s Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, takes us to New Orleans during the Great Depression. There we meet:
June 19th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Robert McCammon | Audio, Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Raven Tower (2019) begins, as so many fantasy tales do, with a young man returning home to claim the powerful title and honor which are his birthright. Upon his arrival, he discovers that his father has gone missing and is presumed dead, while his uncle has taken the seat of power for himself with the promise that it will be given over to the young man when the time is deemed to be right (with the implicit understanding that the uncle will never do so).
June 18th, 2019. Jana Nyman and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Ann Leckie | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 13 comments |
Recursion (2019) begins with a dual timeline in alternating chapters, a familiar literary approach, but then splinters into razor-sharp time shards as the characters deal with the explosive consequences of a new technology relating to personal memory.
In November 2018, detective Barry Sutton attempts to prevent a woman from jumping from the 41st floor of a New York City tower. The woman, Ann, tells him she has False Memory Syndrome (FMS), a new affliction in which a person remembers an entirely different past for themselves,
June 17th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Blake Crouch | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
Eight-year-old Wen and her dads, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing in a remote cabin in the woods in New Hampshire. Eric and Andrew are lounging on the back deck, overlooking a lake, trying hard to give Wen some space to play on her own. That almost immediately appears to be the wrong decision, as a large man named Leonard unexpectedly arrives while Wen is catching grasshoppers in the front yard. Wen knows she’s not supposed to talk to strangers, but Leonard is disarmingly nice,
June 14th, 2019. Terry Weyna and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Paul Tremblay | Audio, Horror, Locus Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Dreadful Sanctuary by Eric Frank Russell
As I have mentioned elsewhere, there are several writers who never seem to let me down, and in that elite group, English author Eric Frank Russell must surely be included. The Best of Eric Frank Russell (1978) was my initial exposure to this Golden Age great (reputedly, legendary editor John W. Campbell’s favorite contributor), and it was, for me, among the best of the 21 Best of… titles in the justly celebrated Ballantine series.
June 14th, 2019. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Eric Frank Russell | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim
A bitter, ongoing quarrel with her mother about her career plans to be a chef led Natalie Tan to leave her San Francisco home in anger. Seven years of stubborn silence and globe-wandering later, Natalie is called home by a neighbor at her mother’s passing. She still deeply desires to be a chef and to have her own authentic Chinese restaurant, like her grandmother Qiao had done many years earlier, and now she’ll have the chance: Natalie has inherited her laolao’s (maternal grandmother’s) long-abandoned restaurant below their apartment.
June 13th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Roselle Lim | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
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…
When I first saw the headline I assumed North Dakota, but this one is Texas, and they were actively breeding…
There is a herd in North Dakota that produces a whilte calf from time to time. I've seen it!