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A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
First, a warning: If you are alone while you are reading this book, do not read it after it gets dark. I don’t care how good your motion-sensor lights, your security system and your Ring doorbell are; just don’t do it to yourself. Trust me.
2023’s A Haunting on the Hill, by master writer Elizabeth Hand, is an indirect sequel to another master writer’s classic work, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.
October 13th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Elizabeth Hand | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
If you participate in Bluesky or X (formerly Twitter), you may follow the account called The Midnight Society. If you’ve run across their delightful posts, which imagine conversations among various horror writers throughout history, you might have seen a recent one which featured imaginary J.K. Rowling and Stephen King trading barbs over relative book-length. It had resonance for me because I’d just finished 2023’s Holly, and I have to admit, I was relieved when I bought it and found out it was less than 500 pages in length.
October 10th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Stephen King | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
He Arrived at Dusk by R.C. Ashby
Not for the first time, a novel resurrected by the fine folks at Valancourt Books has turned out to be one of my favorite reads of the year. Back in 2020, J. B. Priestley’s Benighted (1927), reissued by Valancourt in 2013, was one of my favorites, and just last month, Ernest G. Henham’s Tenebrae (1898), brought back to life by Valancourt in 2012, became one of my top picks for 2023.
September 19th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | R.C. Ashby | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim (writer and artist) and Janet Hong (translator)
Trigger Warning: This review discusses harsh content, including descriptions of murder, rape, and suicidal thoughts, that are a part of Okseon Lee’s true biography.
Grass, by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim and translated by Janet Hong, is a powerful story about World War Two, and the Korean women who were taken from their homes, often as little girls, and sold into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers. This biographical work is about Okseon Lee, who was interviewed extensively as an older woman by the author.
September 16th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson
With Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Library of Broken Worlds, I found my first Hugo nomination for next year. Mind you, this is a year where I’ve read many good-to-great books. The Library of Broken Worlds is not only a brilliant story beautifully written, it is truly original in its conception and execution, by a writer who is a master of words.
Set a few hundred years in the future, the story is told by our narrator and main character,
September 6th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Alaya Dawn Johnson | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
Against a global backdrop that seethes with cyberpunk-style action, Ray Nayler’s 2022 Locus Award winning debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, gives us a philosophical and deeply thoughtful story about science, specifically first contact.
Sometime in the 22nd century, global corporations run huge AI-managed fishing boats that are scraping the last bits of protein from the planet’s oceans. At the same time, the world is exploring in-system planetary colonization, and the advancement of android tech. Governments have changed and much of the world answers to the UN Directorate Governance.
August 8th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Ray Nayler | Locus Award | SFF Reviews | 5 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 |
Night Fever: We are our own worst enemies
Brubaker and Phillips have done it again in their latest offering: They have given us another noir comic that is as stunning visually as it is engaging narratively. In Night Fever, Jonathan Webb, a businessman in Europe, cannot sleep, and his insomnia leads him to venture out into the night. This journey into the darkness is both literal and figurative, of course, and his drug- and alcohol-fueled adventures take a dangerous turn as he starts finding out that not everyone he meets after the sun goes down has his best interests in mind.
July 22nd, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Ed Brubaker | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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,
July 5th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Daniel Abraham | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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 |
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