Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
These are stand alone novels (not part of a series).
The Devil’s Mistress by J.W. Brodie-Innes
A little while back, I shared some thoughts here regarding two books – Elliott O’Donnell’s The Sorcery Club (1912) and G. Firth Scott’s Possessed (also from 1912) – that were released by the London-based publisher William Rider & Son, whose specialty was occult literature. Now, I would like to pull off a hat trick of sorts by discussing still another supernatural book from this enterprising house;
June 16th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | J.W. Brodie-Innes | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
Charlotte Perkins Gilman is well-known in literary feminist circles for her novel The Yellow Wallpaper, and for her periodical, which she published in the early decades of the 20th century. I didn’t know about Herland, a feminist utopian novel, until a few years ago. She wrote two sequels; With her in Ourland and Moving the Mountain. Herland is worth reading for historical context, and also for a lot of laughs—because in addition to being a genuine feminist utopian,
June 14th, 2023. Marion Deeds | Charlotte Perkins Gilman | Stand-Alone | Giveaway!, SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
Possessed by G. Firth Scott
In my recent review of Elliott O’Donnell’s 1912 novel of the supernatural, The Sorcery Club, I mentioned that the book had been initially released by the British publisher William Rider & Son, which, after taking over the occult publisher Phillip Wellby in 1908, proceeded to come out with some two dozen outre works from 1910 – 1924. In 1911, the firm would release Bram Stoker’s classic (and, for me, borderline unreadable) The Lair of the White Worm,
June 12th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | G. Firth Scott | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Sorcery Club by Elliott O’Donnell
1912 was something of a banner year in the field of fantastic literature. Here in the U.S., Edgar Rice Burroughs jump-started his writing career with the releases of Tarzan of the Apes and A Princess of Mars, while Jack London came out with one of his finest fantasy creations, The Scarlet Plague. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond,
June 6th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Elliott O’Donnell | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Corpus Earthling by Louis Charbonneau
As revealed in David J. Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen’s essential reference book The Outer Limits: The Official Companion (1986), that TV series’ producer and co-creator, Joseph Stefano, was laboring with some pretty serious concerns before the airing of Season 1’s ninth episode, “Corpus Earthling.” To quote from the book: “’When “Corpus Earthling” was finished and the music added, I sat there wishing I could say don’t air this,’ said Joseph Stefano. ‘I had never thought it could be that scary,
May 12th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4.5 | Louis Charbonneau | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
Justin Cronin burst onto the big scene with his apocalyptic vampire doorstopper The Passage (first of a trilogy), a fantastically harrowing blockbuster of a novel that still maintained amidst its action/thriller/horror aspects the quietly intimate elements of his earlier literary novels. His newest, The Ferryman, while not quite as strong and despite having a few more noticeable issues, shares some of the same strengths that made The Passage so successful, as I imagine this one will be.
The story takes place on an archipelago isolated from the rest of the world by something known as The Veil,
May 11th, 2023. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Justin Cronin | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
G.O.G. 666 by John Taine
When famed Scottish mathematician Eric Temple Bell released his first novel, 1924’s The Purple Sapphire, no one could have foreseen that his literary career would extend 30 more years and encompass 15 books of very high-quality science fiction. Looking back on the eight books by Bell that I have read so far – all of them written under his pen name, John Taine – the thing that strikes me first is how very different each one is from the others.
May 8th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | John Taine | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Mars Is My Destination by Frank Belknap Long
Five years back, I shared some thoughts here regarding Frank Belknap Long’s famed horror anthology The Hounds of Tindalos (1946), which in later years was broken into two volumes, The Hounds of Tindalos and The Black Druid. It was a perfect introduction to this wonderful writer for me, and I’ve been, uh, longing to read some more Long ever since.
May 2nd, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | Frank Belknap Long | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Between by Tananarive Due
The Between, first published in 1995, is Tananarive Due’s classic horror novel, about a man who must risk his life to save his family from malignant forces, both supernatural and all too human. In the mid-1990s, Hilton James suddenly starts experiencing the dreadful dreams he had before, early in his marriage. Time with a therapist and a hypnosis session seemed to help then, but now the episodes are worse, and he begins to have waking dreams, until sometimes he can’t tell when and where he is.
April 27th, 2023. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Tananarive Due | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Crashing Suns by Edmond Hamilton
In his serialized novel of 1930 entitled The Universe Wreckers, which originally appeared in the pages of Amazing Stories magazine, Ohio-born author Edmond Hamilton gave his readers a tale concerning the pancake-shaped residents of Neptune who were trying to increase the spin rate of our sun for their own nefarious purposes. But this was hardly the first time that Hamilton had presented his audience with a gaggle of bizarrely shaped aliens who were weaponizing the celestial bodies;
April 25th, 2023. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 3.5 | Edmond Hamilton | Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Michael A. Stackpole
Just saw you like Jack Vance. Me too. Surely he offends you somewhere though?
Words fail. I can't imagine what else might offend you. Great series, bizarre and ridiculous review. Especially the 'Nazi sympathizer'…
"Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Kage Harper" Freudian slip there. ;)
[…] (Fantasy Literature): In 1957, Hammer Studios in England came out with the first of their full-color horror creations, […]
I'm going to have to find these and read them.