Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Bill Capossere


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Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us

Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us by Keggie Carew

In Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us, Keggie Carew takes us on an always passionate, sometimes meandering, often fascinating, sometimes disorienting, often depressing, occasionally encouraging tour of humanity’s lengthy and often abusive relationship with the animals we share this world with. Like many such works, it makes for some difficult reading, but it’s often the things we find difficult that are the most important to face.

The book is divided into ten sections,


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Nightborn: I hope Friedman isn’t done revisiting this world

Nightborn by C.S. Friedman

It’s been nearly 30 years since C.S.Friedman concluded her COLDFIRE trilogy, one of my favorite fantasy series with a brilliant character at its core. Now Friedman is back with a prequel, Nightborn, which thanks to the unique setting of the series is actually more science fiction than fantasy. Though not as immersive and compelling as the original trilogy, it’s a fast-moving and often tense book that if anything is too short. It also includes a novella (or sort of includes, it’s complicated) that jumps forward a few centuries and bridges us to the original series.


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The Deep Sky: A promising debut

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

Yume Kitasei’s debut novel, The Deep Sky, is half a sci-fi mystery aboard a troubled spaceship and half a boarding school story set some years beforehand during the training/selection period for the crew. The sci-fi section moves along at a fast pace while the school segments slow down to delve more into character and also provide backstory so as to better understand motivations and actions in the present. The premise and structure are good ideas, but unfortunately issues with execution, pace,


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Blade of Dream: Explores choices and consequences

Blade of Dream by Daniel Abraham

Blade of Dream is Daniel Abraham’s second book in his KITHAMAR trilogy, though to call it a “sequel” is a bit of a misnomer as rather than directly following the events of Age of Ash, this new story parallels that first book’s events in time, actually intersecting with a few scenes here and there but mostly, or at least somewhat, acting as a stand-alone novel. That said, while one can read this without having read its predecessor,


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The Saint of Bright Doors: The good parts are so good

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera 

The Saint of Bright Doors, a debut novel by Vajra Chandrasekera, opens with an absolutely killer beginning (literally, as the very young main character is being trained as an assassin) that had me sure I was going to love this novel. But while I did love parts of it, and was in the end happy I’d read it, I can’t say it lived up fully to the promise of that beginning.

But oh,


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For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet

For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet by Matthew Shindell

Mars has long fascinated us Earthlings, whether we were gazing up at it with eyes or telescopes, gazing down at it via orbital probes, or vicariously rolling across/flying over it via a slew of lander expeditions, several of which are still up there tooling around. That long obsession with the planet has prompted a huge number of books, fiction and non-fiction, centered on our red neighbor and now Matthew Shindell has added another — For the Love of Mars — which rather than focusing on Mars itself looks at our long-enduring but changing relationship.


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Val Hall: The Odd Years: Enjoyable and often moving

Val Hall: The Odd Years by Alma Alexander

Val Hall: The Odd Years, by Alma Alexander, is the second collection of linked stories set in what is basically a retirement home for superheroes (or possibly villains as one story asks). Particularly “Third-class superheroes”, those who have a singular, lesser power that might only have been used once or a handful of times. As with just about every collection, the stories vary in effectiveness/impact, but overall, as with Val Hall: The Even Years,


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The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II

The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II by Peter S. Beagle

It’s a good time to be a Peter S. Beagle fan. In short order this mid-year, we’ve been gifted The Way Home — two novellas set in the world of the beloved classic The Last Unicornand two collections of Beagle’s short stories: The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II. And true gifts they are. You can see my review of the novellas here,


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The Way Home: Beagle remains one of our most elegant of fantasists

The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle

This is a glorious month for Peter S. Beagle fans, with The Way Home (2023) offering up two novellas set in the same world as The Last Unicorn, and not one but two retrospective collections of stories: The Essential Peter S. Beagle: Volumes I and II. Even better, one of those two novellas is brand new and serves to show that Beagle remains one of our most elegant of fantasists.


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The Malevolent Seven: Bitterness needs nuance

The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castell

Sebastien de Castell’s 2023 antihero novel The Malevolent Seven has good magical action and lots of sarcastic banter. It has an emotionally tortured male main character in a world that is filled with suffering, death, betrayal and a sense of hopelessness that swamps every action. Generally, I enjoy de Castell’s work, but while this book had enough to keep me reading, ultimately, it doesn’t rank among my favorite works of his.

I say, “enough to keep me reading,” because I very nearly put this book down during the first 50 pages.


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

We have reviewed 8279 fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and films.

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    How can cats not have an official Patron Saint? I call foul! This must be fixed at once.

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    "Renegade Nell" looks interesting! Reminds me a bit of both Queen of Swords and The Nevers.

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    Thank you for the giveaway opportunity! Still not getting notifications despite being signed up, though.

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