Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
I chose Blake Crouch’s 2022 novel Upgrade out of curiosity because I’d never read anything of his. He is a popular author whose books are everywhere, and he writes thrillers, usually with a speculative-fiction flavor. I’d heard of him years ago when Fox TV made a show based on his WAYWARD trilogy, and the one or two episodes I saw (Season 1) had a nifty, paranoid, who-can-you-trust vibe. Upgrade shares that vibe.
My plot synopsis may contain mild spoilers.
June 18th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Blake Crouch | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Victor LaValle’s Lone Women (2023) is brilliant. It’s about connections, family, secrets, guilt and love. Yes, there is a monster in it. Yes, it is suspenseful, and yes, it is gory, and those are both horror trademarks, but Lone Women is filled with hidden history and restored triumphs. Is it horror? That depends on your definition of “monster.”
In 1915, Adelaide Henry flees her family farm in Lucerne Valley, California. She leaves behind a burning farmhouse and her two dead parents;
May 27th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Victor Lavalle | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Ghost Station, by S.A. Barnes (2024), is a mix of haunted-house and The-killer-is-among- us horror, with a generous ladling of body horror to round it out. The standout of this space-horror novel is the setting, a deserted habitat on a dead and snowy planet, where psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray is supposed to be observing the Reclamation and Exploration Team who had a team member die mysteriously on an earlier assignment. Bray’s specialty is Eckhart-Reisner Syndrome (ERS),
May 14th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | S.A. Barnes | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Giants In The Dust by Chad Oliver
At this late date, the authors who have penned works in the fields of science fiction and fantasy must number well into the multiple thousands, but the ones with an actual background in science, who have used their education and scientific training to both inform and add veracity to their stories … ah, they are indeed amongst a much more limited crew. Let’s see … Isaac Asimov was, of course, an associate professor of biochemistry. Hal Clement had degrees in both chemistry and astronomy,
April 29th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Chad Oliver | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
Relationships are hard. They may be even harder when one person’s definition of love is implanting their eggs in the beloved, so that the hatchlings eat their way out of their parent. For Shesheshen, the protagonist of John Wiswell’s Someone You Can Build a Nest In (2024), this is how her species defines it. Now that she’s fallen in love with Homily, a human woman, the egg-implantation issue isn’t the only obstacle on their road to happiness.
Shesheshen is a protoplasmic creature,
April 19th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | John Wiswell | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Flying Eyes by J. Hunter Holly
It sports one of the most famous covers in sci-fi paperback history; a piece of art so iconic that I have seen it reproduced in the form of refrigerator magnets! I am referring here to the first edition of J. Hunter Holly’s The Flying Eyes, the cover of which depicts a man and a woman fleeing in abject terror from the onslaught of several dozen – you guessed it – self-propelled, levitating eyeballs!
April 18th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | J. Hunter Holly | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Tordotcom Books has reissued Martha Wells’s 1995 fantasy novel City of Bones, updated and expanded. In an interview, Wells explained that she took a few opportunities to make the writing better but didn’t change the book substantially for this edition.
I knew who Martha Wells was, but until the MURDERBOT series I hadn’t read anything by her. This is the second fantasy novel of hers I have read. City of Bones is a pleasing read,
April 15th, 2024. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Martha Wells | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Morningside by Téa Obreht is set in a post-climate change near-future in a partial drowned city called Island City (maybe Manhattan?) that is accepting refugees to repopulate the city with promises of newly constructed/renovated homes for those who come to work. The novel is a mostly successful mix of genres, a sort of magical realist/cli-fi Harriet the Spy if Harriet were also a refugee.
Our main character is eleven-year-old Sylvia, who has arrived with her mother in the titular rundown high-rise where Sylvia’s Aunt Ena works as the super (there is a frame and the tale is told as a flashback from adult Sylvia’s perspective,
April 9th, 2024. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Téa Obreht | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Haunted Stars by Edmond Hamilton
At the tail end of my review of Edmond Hamilton’s The Star of Life (1947), I mentioned that this was the finest novel that I’d read by the Ohio-born author so far, and added that I now looked forward to reading Hamilton’s The Haunted Stars, which seems to enjoy an even greater reputation. Take, for example, these two sources that I have always trusted: The Science Fiction Encyclopedia,
March 29th, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Edmond Hamilton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Star of Life by Edmond Hamilton
Anyone who has delved into the writings of Radium Age/Golden Age sci-fi author Edmond Hamilton will be able to tell you that there is a huge difference in both tone and quality between his earliest work and his efforts of some 20 years later. Those early stories and novels were, generally speaking, crudely written fare that yet won the reader over by dint of their great sweep, gusto, imagination, color, and epic scale. But a funny thing happened to the quality of Hamilton’s writing starting in the mid-1940s,
March 22nd, 2024. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Edmond Hamilton | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…
It's hardly a private conversation, Becky. You're welcome to add your 2 cents anytime!
If the state of the arts puzzles you, and you wonder why so many novels are "retellings" and formulaic rework,…
I picked my copy up last week and I can't wait to finish my current book and get started! I…