Monthly Archives: August 2016

Short Review Roundup – Too Little Time Edition

Posted on August 30, 2016 by H.P.

These books all deserve more attention than I’m giving them.  I want to go on at great length about The Shattered Sigil books and The Dark Forest in particular.  But it has been too long since I read these and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Fantasy, Science Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Throwback SF Thursday: Old Venus, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Posted on August 25, 2016 by H.P.

I intentionally waited to write about Old Venus until I’d gotten a look at the real thing by reading Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Burrough’s Carson of Venus gets namedropped in the jacket copy of Old Venus, along … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Science Fiction, Throwback SF | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Review of Breath of Earth by Beth Cato

Posted on August 23, 2016 by H.P.

Beth Cato’s debut The Clockwork Dagger showed promise.  Its sequel The Clockwork Crown showed improvement.  With Breath of Earth, a steampunk epic fantasy set in a Japanese-dominated alternate 1906 San Francisco, Cato shows she can tell a story with the … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternate History, Book Reviews, Fantasy | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Hugo Awards Postmortem – 2016 Edition

Posted on August 21, 2016 by H.P.

Signs indicated that things were going to get ugly well before last night’s Hugo Awards ceremony.  The Worldcon business meeting passed resolutions moving the deadline to register and nominate from January 31 to December 31 and limiting the eligibility to … Continue reading →

Posted in Sundry | Tagged | 6 Comments

Throwback SF Thursday: Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Posted on August 18, 2016 by H.P.

One of the high-level changes that separates modern speculative fiction from the old stuff is the balkanization of science fiction among hard science fiction, social science fiction, and adventure fiction.  You know that wasn’t always so, but the brain still … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Science Fiction, Throwback SF | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Review of Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

Posted on August 16, 2016 by H.P.

I’ve seen it written of both Noir/Hardboiled and Westerns that the genre died as soon as it became self-aware.  I think we can safely say the same about Grimdark.  I almost DNF’d Nevernight.  It’s not by accident that the only … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Fantasy | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Throwback SF Thursday: Cirsova vol. 2

Posted on August 11, 2016 by H.P.

Retro SF instantly became cool when Cirsova burst onto the scene in March with issue #1.  Well, maybe not instantly.  I, for one, didn’t pick it up until a couple weeks ago, advance copy notwithstanding.  And note everyone has quite … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Throwback SF | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Short Review Roundup – Disappointment Edition

Posted on August 9, 2016 by H.P.

Ideally I would limit my short reviews to books I didn’t like, freeing up time to wax poetic about those that I did.  But I still have a backlog to get through of books I loved.  Not these books though.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Fantasy, Horror | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Throwback SF Thursday: Cirsova vol. 1

Posted on August 4, 2016 by H.P.

In my post announcing my Throwback SF Thursday series, I mentioned that there seems to be a resurgence in interest in old-style speculative fiction.  Cirsova was front-and-center in my mind when I thought of Retro SF.  But I hadn’t read … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Throwback SF | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Book Releases I’m Excited About for August, September, and October

Posted on August 2, 2016 by H.P.

The next three months are . . . not evenly distributed.  I imagine that roughly the same number of speculative fiction books are coming out each week for the next three months, but for whatever reason the books I’m most … Continue reading →

Posted in Sundry | 3 Comments