Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 4.5

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The Book of Love: A book only Kelly Link could have written

The Book of Love: A Novel by Kelly Link

The Book of Love (2024) is both a book only Kelly Link could have written and a book only Kelly Link could have written. What I mean by that is that the book has Link’s DNA all over it, all the elements and feel of a Kelly Link story, from statues coming to life and walking off their plinths to ancient temples rising alongside a sleepy seaside town to beautifully stunning transformations and transmutations. There are cats of course.


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Witch King: Good adventure in a lush fantasy world

Witch King by Martha Wells

2023’s Witch King, by Martha Wells, is the first book in a new fantasy series, THE RISING WORLD. In the opening pages we meet Kaiisteron, who goes by Kai, the Witch King of the title. Kai awakens in a strange place, unable to move. He can mentally contact his friend Ziedi, but their magical connection should let him know exactly where she is, and he can’t find her. He can’t find his own body, either.

From there,


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The Truth of the Aleke: A fantastic read

The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi

The Truth of the Aleke is Moses Ose Utomi’s sequel to his fantastic The Lies of the Ajungo, which I said in my review was “as close to perfect a modern parable as I’ve read in some time.” I’m happy to report that if the follow-up isn’t quite as “perfect,” it’s nonetheless a fantastic read, and one that makes me oh so eager to see how Utomi wraps up this loosely connected trilogy set in the Forever Desert.


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The Butcher of the Forest: Unsettling, bittersweet, and worthy

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

The Butcher of the Forest (2024) is a dark fantastical novella by Premee Mohamed that hearkens back to the original old folktales by refusing to sand off the edges of the genre to make it safe or cozy. More faerie than fairy, as much horror as fantasy, it is as unsettling and bittersweet a read as it is a worthy one.

The tale is set in an empire ruled by The Tyrant, “the man with a thousand names and a thousand cities under his bootheel … bringer of death,


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Treacle Walker: A linguistic romp of a book

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Treacle Walker (2022), by Alan Garner, is a little book, a strange book, a layered book, a mystifying book, a linguistic romp of a book, a stimulating book, a delightful book. It may also be, to employ two of the many Google-necessitating words from its pages, a hurlothrumbo or lomperhomack, a macaroni or taradiddle of a book, though I’ll leave it to your own investigations as to whether any of those fit (if those few examples of Garner’s dialect didn’t scare you off,


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A Marvelous Light: An Edwardian fantasy mystery with a Dorothy Sayers vibe

A Marvelous Light by Freya Marske

What struck me first about A Marvelous Light, (2022), Book One of Freya Marske’s THE LAST BINDING trilogy, was the style and narrative tone. Set in an alternate world in the last decade of the 19th century, A Marvelous Light could have featured Dorothy Sayers’s aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey, if Wimsey were a magician and had sex with men. The descriptions and the dialogue sparkle, and the book seems inhabited with real (if, in many cases,


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System Collapse: Just as entertaining as all the rest of the series

System Collapse by Martha Wells

The first thing to know about Martha Wells’ System Collapse is that if you can’t dredge up memories of its (chronological) predecessor, Network Effect, you’re going to want to refresh yourself either by a reread (fun enough) or skimming a few reviews, as System Collapse picks up directly afterward and really feels like it could have just been part of Network Effect (you know, had it been written at the time).


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The Master of the Macabre: A generously stuffed cornucopia of a book

The Master of the Macabre by Russell Thorndike

Ever since I was a wee lad, I’ve been a fan of the type of motion picture known as the “anthology-horror film.”  It was 1965’s Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors that first pulled me in back then, a product of the British studio Amicus, which would go on to deliver six more similar films over the next nine years. Oh … for those of you wondering what I mean by an “anthology-horror film,” simply stated, it is a type of picture with one overarching story line and numerous stand-alone side stories included.


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North Woods: Wonderfully and precisely crafted

Reposting to include Marion’s new review.

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Daniel Mason’s North Woods (2023) is a wonderfully and precisely crafted collection of related short stories that greatly impresses with its varied styles, vividly detailed descriptions, sharp sentence constructions, connecting echoes, and a few unexpected twists and turns. I would have preferred a bit more emotional depth at times, though several of the stories, particularly toward the end, offer up some more than a few moving scenes. Between those moments and Mason’s consummate craftsmanship,


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Hide: The Graphic Novel: Horror in an amusement park

Hide: The Graphic Novel by Kiersten White (original author), Scott Peterson (adaptation), Veronica Fish (artist), and Andy Fish (artist)

Hide: The Graphic Novel is an adaptation of a prose novel that I have not read, so I cannot comment on the accuracy of the translation from one art form to another. However, I think Hide: The Graphic Novel stands well on its own. I only knew that this was a horror comic going in, and that was enough to interest me. The plot is an intriguing one: Fourteen strangers are competing for a $50,000 prize.


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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