Posts tagged with "Short Fiction"

There are relatively few authors for whom I’ll buy physical copies of novellas. By and large, they end up being too short for the money they cost. Falls into the same category as Audible books that are only 3 or 4 hours long but still cost me a full credit. Not that length, necessarily, lines up with goodness, but it absolutely lines up with potential *amount* of goodness, yeah? When it came to this one, I found myself smack dab on the top of fence. After all, it was being released at essentially the same time as the next novel in the main series, and it had been forever since the last (first) book in the main series came out. What if the novella ended up being super important to the story? What if it was a connector? Gah! I just couldn’t do it. So, I bought the thing, and here we are.
Read the rest of this review »

It seems like my social media feeds have been getting slammed lately by ads for this new anthology of science fiction stories put together by Amazon. Almost seemed to double in frequency after I got them, oddly enough. Sometimes it just boggles my mind how much money must flow through the coffers of social media ads, and I can’t help but wonder how much of it goes to absolute waste. In this case, it got me to pick them up, but everything since then? Yeah.

You’ll notice that our image doesn’t match the name of the collection. Yup. Thank you e-book collections. So, instead I just included the cover for the best story in the group. Hint hint. Wink wink. Nudge nudge.
Read the rest of this review »

First thing you should know is that KITTY’S MIX TAPE can be read without having read any of the books in the series (we’ve reviewed a few of them HERE). BUT, if you read this book before reading any of the books there will be a few spoilers. However, if you want a taste of the world of Kitty Norville and the werewolves, vampires, and witches that inhabit it without diving wholesale into the 14-book series, you wouldn’t be disappointed.
Read the rest of this review »

Lois McMaster Bujold’s delightful series of novellas featuring Penric and his demon Desdemona continues with “The Orphans of Raspay” where Penric becomes hopelessly caught up in the sad situation of two orphan girls. If you haven’t read the previous novellas, go check them out, starting with “Penric’s Demon” (EBR review), where you’ll get my opinion on the Audible reader as well as the low-down on what it means to be a sorcerer with one’s own demon.
Read the rest of this review »

I love reading speculative fiction. So much so, that I hardly ever read anything that isn’t at least somewhat speculative in nature — at least not by choice — but when I do read something that is just “fiction” I always find myself pining for that little bit of made-up tomfoolery. So this read was a bit out of the ordinary for me, because there really wasn’t anything to do with the speculative in it. However, when we got the book, I couldn’t help but jump at the chance to read it because of how much Steve enjoys this guy’s stuff. We have pretty similar reading tastes, Steve and I. And so even though this was straight-up fiction, I was surprised in the least to find that I *really* enjoyed reading it. There’s something to be said for masterful story-telling, and these stories are completely riddled with it.
Read the rest of this review »

Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series (EBR Archive) is popular for good reason. Excellent heroine. Fun storytelling. Interesting worldbuilding. And engaging characters.
Read the rest of this review »

I’ve been looking for something from Hannu Rajaniemi for some time now. At least, it feels like it’s been a long time since I read something from him. Year-and-a-half maybe? So, even though none of the stories in this anthology was by him, I was still pretty excited to read it when it got dropped into my TBR pile. It is, unfortunately, the last bit of short fiction that I’ll be getting to for a while. Nothing else on the near horizon anyhow.
Read the rest of this review »

So I’m a little behind in getting to this anthology this year. Can’t say that I really have a good excuse for that. Just sat on my shelf for way too long, and then I noticed it a few weeks ago and decided that I had better stop passing it by in favor of other reads. Regardless of my overall impression of the stories this annual anthology contains, I always find it an informative read and well worth the time I put into it. Although, I admit, I have some strictly selfish reasons for feeling that way: I’m still trying to craft a winning entry. 🙂

The anthology included 12 stories this year. No Published Finalists. There were also a couple essays and a couple stories by those associated with the contest, and then the art for each of the winners. For me though, the important part was the stories. Want to know what I thought? Figured so.
Read the rest of this review »

It’s been too long since I read me some short stories. Only one other anthology in the last year, in fact. Yeesh. You’d think I’d been avoiding them purposefully, but that would definitely be incorrect. Anyone out there have a suggestion for some good short fiction I can get my hands on? Something in anthology form and not a collection, if possible (unless it’s really good). Anthologies just give you so much variety that I can’t help but be glad I read them — despite what overall rating I give them — because there’s usually at least a few good ones that will rise to the top. And then I have some good suggestions on new authors to go chase down.

I found out about this one because of an email submission from our contact form. Like, from here on the website. Yeah. See. It does happen. Not very often I’ll grant you. AND, as it happens, I have somewhat of a geographical connection to the anthology. Oh, AND I met Joe at another convention, and he was a cool guy. So there’s that stuff too. Sorry if I got anyone’s hopes up. Anyhow. Time for some shortness. You ready?
Read the rest of this review »

Kameron Hurley owns weird.

Since her first novel, GOD’S WAR, she’s developed a motif. All writers have them. All writers hone them. And in the near decade since she crawled out from a dead man’s corpse with her first novel, she’s consistently gutted it toward nasty perfection. I’d be biased to say I don’t love her disgusting motif.

She’s New Weird with her body-hoppers, mind-wipers, and amoral assassins. Also, she had a literal bee gun that eats the flesh of its victim in last year’s APOCALYPSE NYX (EBR Review), so there’s darkly creepy done sinister. But with her latest book, MEET ME IN THE FUTURE, a short story collection, Hurley turns to a different theme.
Read the rest of this review »