It's the first Thursday of the month. You know what that means. Time to report!

What is the best book you read in February 2014 and why did you love it? It doesn't have to be a newly published book, or even SFF. We just want to share some great reading material. Feel free to post a full review of the book here, or a link to the review on your blog, or just write a few sentences about why you thought it was awesome.

(And don't forget that we always have plenty more reading recommendations on our Fanlit Faves page and our 5-Star SFF page. And we've also got a constantly updating list of new and forthcoming releases.)

As always, one commenter will choose a book from Read More

The Prince of Lies by Anne Lyle

Warning: This review may contain spoilers of the previous books.

The Prince of Lies, by Anne Lyle, finishes up the NIGHT'S MASQUE trilogy with plenty of magic, adventure and suspense. I wish it had more skraylings in it. I should be more specific. I wish it had more skraylings in their native form. Instead Mal Catlyn, his wife Coby and twin brother Sandy  must uncover and defeat the skraylings known as “guisers;” humans who are possessed by skrayling souls that entered their bodies instead of a skrayling infant’s, the normal process for their race. This particular group of guisers, who have been in Europe longer than most people realized, have plans to rule England.

Lyle tweaked the historical line of succession in the first book, The Alchemist of Souls, by creating a seventeenth century England where Queen... Read More

Sargasso of Space by Andre Norton

Sargasso of Space is the opening novel in Andre Norton's so-called DANE THORSON (SOLAR QUEEN) series, and is a fine introduction to the books that follow. In this first volume we meet Dane Thorson, a young cargo-apprentice who is assigned (by mechanical Psycho selection) to the trader ship Solar Queen. The crew of the Queen pools its earnings and wins an entire planet, sight unseen, at auction. (Perhaps Ebay will be conducting auctions such as this in 50 or so years!) The crew then explores this strange planet, called Limbo, and discovers the remnants of a lost civilization, as well as globular natives, space pirates, mysterious artifacts and so on.

Ostensibly written for juveniles and "young adults," this novel has a strong appeal for "grown-ups" as well. Not for nothing has Ms. Norton become one of the most popular of all SFF writers, selling kajillions of books and endear... Read More

Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers

Having recently seen Saving Mr. Banks, a film that purports to examine the strained relationship between author P.L. Travers and film-maker Walt Disney when it came to adapting Mary Poppins for the big screen, it was only natural that I finally got around to my long overdue reading of the classic children's story Mary Poppins.

Having grown up with the Disney film, it's quite shocking to realize how little one resembles the other. Of course, I knew there would be significant differences — the film is filled with animation and musical numbers, for a start. But I... Read More

The Heaven Makers by Frank Herbert

The Chem are a race of aliens unknown to humankind. Because they’re immortal, they’re bored. So, for entertainment, they broadcast drama TV from Earth. Fraffin is one of the most successful producers of human drama. Authorities from his home planet suspect he may be manipulating events on Earth, which is forbidden, so they send Investigator Kelexel to find out what’s going on. But Fraffin has a way of dealing with snoopy investigators. All he has to do is trap them by tempting them with Earth’s secret pleasures.

In actuality, Fraffin is indeed interfering with humans and creating his own dramas to boost his ratings. For his current project, which he’s been setting up for decades, he incites a well-respected man to brutally butcher his wife. Before being taken to jail, the man asks psychologist Androcles Thurlow to look after his daughter, Ruth, who is Thurlow’s ex-fiance. When Thurlow gets involv... Read More

Killers of the Dawn by Darren Shan

Killers of the Dawn, the ninth of Darren Shan’s CIRQUE DU FREAK books, continues right where Allies of the Night left off. The vampaneze have taken Debbie hostage in the tunnels under the city, but they’ve let Darren, Mr. Crepsley, and Vancha go. After escaping, Darren and company decide (not too smartly) to go back to the apartment they’ve been staying in where they have a run-in with the police. The rest of the plot involves captures, escapes, rescues, hiding, poor decisions, battles, death, and a couple of big surprises. At the end of Killers of the Dawn, life has changed for Darren and there’s a huge twist. Many readers will have seen this coming, but it’s still a major turning point in the story.

These CIRQUE DU FREAK books are very short (around 4 to 5 hours on audio). The twelve books could have easily been combined into half as many. A... Read More

Fiddlehead by Cherie Priest

In the North America of 1879, the American Civil War is still going on. A deadly drug from the Pacific Northwest is killing people, then converting them into undead monsters. While technological advances burgeoned during the war, both sides are depleted of soldiers, revenue and hope. This conflict can’t continue, especially with the drug disease making its way to the highly populated north-and-southeast. President U.S. Grant, finishing up his second term and preparing a run for his third, has an opportunity to end it once and for all, by unleashing a devastating weapon that will shock the Confederacy into surrender before any more people die. At least, that’s how it’s been described to him. 

At the beginning of THE CLOCKWORK CENTURY series, Cherie Priest said that she would end the war by the end of the series. She didn’t say it would be pretty. In Fid... Read More

Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft  H.P. Lovecraft

In the mood for some Eldritch horror? Feel like steeping yourself in Lovecraft’s frightening nihilistic dream worlds? Want to be read to by some of the world’s best story readers? Then give Blackstone Audio’s version of Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft a try. It collects Lovecraft’s entire Dream Cycle in 20 hours of high-quality audio narrated by some of my favorite readers including Robertson Dean, Simon Vance, Sean Runnette, Elijah Alexander, Stefan Rudnicki, Bronson Pinchot, Simon Prebble, Tom Weiner, Malcolm Hillgartner, and Patrick Cullen.

Here are the stories. (I’ve linked them to the excellent Lovecraft Archive where you can read them for free since they’re in the public domain, but please consider this audio version, because it’s really excellent):
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Alix: This week has been reading-light again, and has involved much whining to boyfriend about how I don’t want to write a unit on colonial America or fix the kitchen faucet which recently exploded. In between complaining, I’ve been working on Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoonand Helene Wecker’s Nebula-nominated The Golem and the Jinni, and taking a few guilty sips of Valente’s The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There. Oh, and I watched 12 Years a Slave and curled into a fetal position out of sheer historical admiration and visceral horror. So that was fun.

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Allies of the Night by Darren Shan

In Allies of the Night, the eighth book in Darren Shan’s CIRQUE DU FREAK series, Darren, Mr. Crepsley and Harkat return to Mr. Crepsley’s hometown to investigate the vampaneze activity there. This is the city we visited many years ago in the third book, Tunnels of Blood, where Darren met his first and only girlfriend, Debbie. Darren still has the body of a young teenager so when he gets to the city, he is discovered by the authorities and forced to go to school (Very Unlikely Event #1). He agrees to go (Very Unlikely Event #2). His English teacher is Debbie (VUE #3). As much as this made me roll my eyes, I was really happy that Debbie corrected Darren’s bad grammar.

Romance between Darren and Debbie is a little difficult right now because 1. The teacher-student relationshi... Read More