Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Reviews

I should warn you about these link-lists: Mondays tend to be longer than usual (since there’s a lot of content that goes up on the weekend, or early on Monday), and the beginning of the month tends to be longer than usual. Since we’re just past both of those things, this is going to be a really long one…

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist reviews Dragons of the Highlord Skies by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

A.N. Wilson reviews Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go in the Telegraph.

SF Crowsnest reviews a whole bunch of things this week:

• first, here’s a review for Paranormal Borderlands of Science, edited by Kendrick Frazier – a collection of essays by scientists about the plausibility of and evidence for various paranormal claims.
• and there’s a review of Cory Doctorow’s new short story collection, Overclocked
• another review covers Kay Kenyon’s new science fantasy novel Bright of the Sky
• a review of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl
• a review of Eliot Fintushel’s Breakfast With the Ones You Love
• a review of Kage Baker’s new “Company” short story collection, Gods and Pawns
• a review of David Deveraux’s Hunter’s Moon
• a review of a new art book – James Bama: American Realist – about the cover artist best known for his ‘70s Doc Savage series
• a review of Charles de Lint’s Memory & Dream
• a review of Chris Moriarty’s Spin Control
• a review  of David Anthony Durham’s first fantasy novel, the epic Acacia
• and several other reviews, too, but my fingers are getting tired.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reviews the recent Library of America omnibus of classic Philip K. Dick novels, Four Novels of the 1960s.

Elizabeth Hand, in the Washington Post, reviews Rick Moody’s Right Livelihoods, a collection of three novellas with fantastic elements. (Hand says that “The Albertine Notes,” the third story, “blows away recent post-apocalypse fiction such as Cormac McCarthy’s fine but overrated The Road.”)

The Contra Costa Times reviews a number of books, beginning with a longer look at Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind and giving capsule reviews to books by John Scalzi, Harry Turtledove, and one writer whom the reviewer didn’t even bother to name.

Fantasy Book Critic looks at the thriller The Judas Strain by James Rollins (who also writes fantasy as James Clemens, and maintains a civilian ID as veterinarian Jim Czajkowski).

OF Blog of the Fallen reviews Sarah Monette’s The Virtu.

SciFi Weekly reviews Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss’s new novel, HARM, in which a near-future political prisoner imagines himself on a far-future planet…or possibly vice versa.

SF Reviews.net looks at Elizabeth Bear’s Scardown.

New at SF Site this month:

• a review of Diana Wynne Jones’s The Game
• a review of Tim Lebbon’s Dawn
• a review of Karen Marie Moning’s Darkfever
• a review of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl
• a review of Stephen Baxter’s Emperor
• a review of Lucius Shepard’s classic Life During Wartime
• a review of The Company They Keep, by Diana Pavlac Glyer, a history of the Inklings
• a review of John Picacio’s Cover Story, a collection of his cover paintings for various SF/F books
• and a review of the first issues of three new magazines.

Strange Horizons reviews The Solitudes, the first book of John Crowley’s AEgypt quartet.

The San Francisco Chronicle reviews Austin Grossman’s first novel, the superhero story Soon I Will Be Invincible.

Blogcritics reviews The SFWA European Hall of Fame, edited by James and Kathryn Morrow.

Book Fetish reviews Tad Williams’s Shadowplay.

Bookgasm reviews Chet Williamson’s new novella-as-a-book The Story of Noichi the Blind.

Monsters and Critics reviews Tim Lott’s new dystopian Young Adult novel Fearless.

Kate Nepveu reviews an anthology entitled The Queen in Winter, and then reviews Michael Flynn’s Hugo-nominated novel Eifelheim.

Velcro City Tourist Board reviews Marianne de Pierres’s new space opera, Dark Space.

Eve’s Alexandria has just read George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

New reviews at Fantasy Book Spot this week:

• this one for Laurell K. Hamilton’s The Harlequin
• this one for Diana L. Paxson’s Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Raven of Avalon
• this one for Margaret Wander Bonanno’s Star Trek: Burning Dreams
• this one for Ted Naifeh’s Courtney Crumin and the Night Things
• this one for David Marusek’s Getting to Know You
• and this one for Carol Berg’s Flesh and Spirit.

Peter Heck’s “On Books” column from the August issue of Asimov’s covers D.M. Cornish’s Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 1: The Foundling, and several other books (by Nalo Hopkinson, Robert J. Sawyer, Alastair Reynolds, and Paul Davies) with substantially shorter titles.

At Black Gate, Ryan Harvey reviews both versions of Poul Anderson’s classic fantasy novel The Broken Sword, and tells us which one is better.

Don D’Amassa’s Science Fiction reviews page has been updated to include new reviews of Richard Morgan’s Black Man, Justina Robson’s Selling Out, and more.

D’Amassa’s Fantasy page has also been updated; new reviews there include Michael A. Stackpole’s The New World, Interfictions edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss, and Patricia Bray’s The Sea Change.

And let’s not forget D’Amassa’s Horror page, where he has more new reviews, including coverage of the classics Out of the Storm and Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, both by William Hope Hodgson.

New at Green Man Review:

• a review of Fleet of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner
• a review of Charles de Lint’s Little (Grrl) Lost
• a review of Elizabeth Bear’s Whiskey & Water
• and plenty of other things, too.

New at SF Revu:

• a review of Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection
• a review of The New Space Opera, edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan
• a review of Greg Cox’s novelization of 52 (the just-completed weekly comics series)
• a review of Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s 9Tail Fox
• a review of InterWorld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
• a review  of Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora
• a review of Elizabeth Bear’s Undertow
• and many more, including a number of manga volumes and graphic novels.

This week, Tangent Online posted:

• a review of the August 2007 issue of Realms of Fantasy magazine
• a review of Phyllis Eisenstein’s Walker Between the Worlds
• a review of the June issue of Lone Star Stories
• a review of GrendelSong #2
• a review of Prime Codex, edited by Lawrence M. Schoen and Michael Livingston
• a review of the June issue of Analog magazine
• a review of the August issue of Asimov’s magazine.