Recent Reviews

2008 In Review

reviewed by Our Reviewers

05 January 2009

We asked our reviewers to pick their SF-related highs and lows of 2008—books, films, tv, anything. This is what they said.

Queen of K'n-Yan by Asamatsu Ken, translated by Kathleen Taiji

reviewed by Kari Sperring

24 December 2008

Did I like it? I'm not sure. I admired it, and am glad that I read it. Should more works by Asamatsu be translated into English, I'd be interested to read them.

Voices From Fairyland: The Fantastical Poems of Mary Coleridge, Charlotte Mew, and Sylvia Townsend Warner, edited and wth poems by Theodora Goss

reviewed by Karen J. Weyant

23 December 2008

What is most intriguing and impressive about this anthology is the sense of range and breadth it conveys.

Other Worlds, Better Lives: A Howard Waldrop Reader—Selected Long Fiction 1989-2003

reviewed by Graham Sleight

22 December 2008

Sometimes, what everyone knows is true. Howard Waldrop's body of fantastic fiction is uniquely fascinating and rewarding, and he deserves all the plaudits he's received for it.

The Last Book by Zoran Živković

reviewed by Matt Denault

19 December 2008

This is a novel that requires detective work, and ultimately its strength lies in its very un-genre acknowledgement that there is a world beyond its covers.

Liberation by Brian Francis Slattery

reviewed by Abigail Nussbaum

17 December 2008

The publicity material for Liberation quite understandably makes much of the prescience and topicality of its premise, but in doing so seems to misrepresent the novel's goals and strengths.

Half a Crown by Jo Walton

reviewed by John Clute

15 December 2008

The truth of the matter is that the ending of Half a Crown must be an insult to any reader who thought Small Change was going to have something adult to submit about the matters it purports to address.

Shadowbridge and Lord Tophet by Gregory Frost

reviewed by Michael Levy

12 December 2008

Telling tales is what Shadowbridge the novel and its sequel, Lord Tophet, are all about.

Winterstrike by Liz Williams

reviewed by David McWilliam

10 December 2008

Winterstrike offers up a mixture of gothic fantasy and space opera that succeeds and fails to engage in roughly equal measures.

The Ant King and Other Stories by Benjamin Rosenbaum

reviewed by Dan Hartland

08 December 2008

So Rosenbaum is a writer not without promise, who from time to time manages to spin all his plates simultaneously. More often, one or other flings itself to the ground, and the audience might understandably drift away. But at least he is trying to perform the trick, which is in no small part the quality which makes a writer worth watching.

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