Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
Skin and Bones by Thorne Smith
Up until recent years, I could have counted on the fingers of one hand the books that have made this reader laugh out loud … and I still would have had a couple of fingers left over. Those three books – all of which make me chuckle today, just thinking about them – are, chronologically, Harry Harrison’s undeniably funny Bill, The Galactic Hero (1955), Eric Frank Russell’s hilarious sci-fi adventure The Great Explosion (1962),
August 10th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Thorne Smith | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Promise of Air by Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood’s novels The Human Chord (1910) and The Centaur (1911) constituted two of my finest reading experiences of 2022, so it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to my next experience courtesy of the author popularly known as “The Ghost Man.” But that nickname, it seems to me, has done Blackwood something of a disservice, because scares and shudders were far from being the writer’s only concern.
August 4th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Algernon Blackwood | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Medusa’s Sisters by Lauren J.A. Bear
Every now and then my reads fall into a pattern, the most recent being a trio of reimaginings of Greek tales. Medusa’s Sisters, by Lauren J.A. Bear falls in between the other two in terms of the reading experience, with engaging characters, good narrative voices, a moving close, and a nice refocusing of the ancient story of Medusa and Perseus (rather than of Perseus and Medusa).
Bear begins, well, at the beginning (after an excellent opening that gives us right away the classic Perseus-Kills-Medusa moment,
August 2nd, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Lauren J.A. Bear | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Bridge by Lauren Beukes
A quick glance at the jacket copy of Lauren Beukes’s 2023 weird thriller Bridge might make the reader think of the Best Picture winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once. After all, this is a mother-daughter story set in the multiverse. Beukes weaves into her story a few elements EEAAO didn’t have, like a parasite and a serial killer, or more accurately a collective of serial killers. The core of the book is a mother-daughter story, but it is filled with chills,
July 31st, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Lauren Beukes | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes
The Children of Jocasta (2018), by Natalie Haynes, does a nice job of shifting our view of some of the characters in the classic Oedipus tale, but was by the end a solid but somewhat disappointing read that felt its length and also felt too hemmed in by the tale as we all know it.
Haynes makes two good decisions early on. One is the structural choice to weave back and forth between two time periods.
July 28th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Natalie Haynes | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Whistling Ancestors by Richard E. Goddard
And so, I have just come to the end of another lot of books from the remarkable publisher known as Ramble House. And what an octet of books they were! In chronological order: Elliott O’Donnell’s The Sorcery Club (1912), which tells of ancient Atlantean magic being used by a trio of men in modern-day London; G. Firth Scott’s Possessed (1912), in which a deceased business magnate takes over the body of one of his former employees;
July 24th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Richard E. Goddard | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Mad-Doctor Merciful by Collin Brooks
On three separate occasions over the past few months, I have been asked the question “Where do you find all those strange books that you read?” The answer from me has been the same for the past few years now: Armchair Fiction, Ramble House and, most recently, Valancourt Books, three publishers that specialize in reviving obscure, unusual and out-of-print sci-fi, horror, fantasy and mystery works for a new generation to appreciate. I have been on something of a tear with Ramble House lately, and would like to tell you now of the seventh book in a row that I have experienced from this remarkable firm.
July 12th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Collin Brooks | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Beast Or Man? by Sean M’Guire
A little while back, I shared some thoughts here on FanLit regarding American author David V. Reed’s unforgettable 1943 novel Return of the Whispering Gorilla. In this truly sui generis creation, an army of gorillas is brought together by Plumbutter – a 400-pound member of their own species with the surgically implanted brain of a human male – and fights a regiment of Nazis in equatorial Africa. But, as it turns out, 13 years earlier, on the other side of the pond,
July 7th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Sean M’Guire | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
“There was a vulture on the mailbox of my grandmother’s house.”
A couple of weeks ago there was a big discussion on Twitter about “cozy horror.” I followed it, but never really understood what “cozy” was supposed to be. I feel confident saying that T. Kingfisher is the queen of Cozy Horror, though —if “cozy” means there’s a house (haunted or not) and the ending has some bit of optimism. With 2023’s A House With Good Bones,
June 30th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | T. Kingfisher | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Devil of Pei-Ling by Herbert Asbury
In 2002, Martin Scorsese brought to the big screen his 18th film as a director, Gangs of New York. The picture was based on a nonfiction book by one Herbert Asbury, namely The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld, but the screenwriters played so loosely with the facts in Asbury’s book that the film was famously Oscar nominated for a Best Original Screenplay award,
June 28th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Herbert Asbury | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
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