Stonewiser: The Heart of the Stone nominated for the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best First Book
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SFFMedia congratulates Dora Machado on the nomination of her debut novel, Stonewiser: The Heart of the Stone, for a Benjamin Franklin Award. Dora is one of three finalists in the Franklin's Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book (Fiction) category. The novel is also a finalist in ForeWord's Book of the Year Award, in the SFF category. Winners of the Benjamin Franklin Award will be announced on 28 May, and we wish Dora all the best.
The Summoner, by Gail Z. Martin
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It was with a small amount of trepidation that I picked up The Summoner after being asked to write my first review for SFFMedia.com. I was pleasantly surprised however by this first instalment in Gail Z. Martin's Chronicles of the Necromancer. The Summoner had me hooked early on with its lovable characters and fast-paced action.
Through the generosity of Mermaid Press and Dora Machado we have four signed copies of Stonewiser: The Call of the Stone to give away. Due for release in June, this is the second volume in the Stonewiser trilogy, a gripping fantasy that is building toward what promises to be a thrilling conclusion.
Genesis, by Bernard Beckett
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More successfully than any other novel I've read recently, Bernard Beckett's Genesis epitomises the investigative ideal of science fiction. By any standards it's a short novel and at 150 pages is perhaps more truly a novella, but in a genre given to overinflated, ponderous tomes screaming out for an editor wielding a samurai sword, there's a refreshing efficiency to Beckett’s writing. Nothing is superfluous, nothing wasted.
J.G. Ballard, most famous for the novels Crash and Empire of the Sun, has died aged 78 after a long illness. According to the BBC, his agent Margaret Hanbury said the author had been ill "for several years" and died on Sunday morning.
Stonewiser: The Call of the Stone is the second volume in Dora Machado's gripping fantasy, the Stonewiser trilogy. With barely a pause for breath, it takes up the story of its troubled heroine, Sariah, in exile for betraying her masters in the Guild and revealing a truth that no one wants to hear. In a world in which nothing is permanent and everything is threatened by the destructive power of the rot, stones are the one certainty, nigh imperishable objects that can be imprinted with truth.
On balance it’s difficult not to recommend Nick Harkaway’s debut novel, The Gone-Away World, as its one significant flaw is outweighed by its many virtues. Here is a novel bursting with originality and deserving of praise for its ambitious scope. Harkaway writes with an obvious delight in the English language and the courage and mastery to bend the written word to his will. Unafraid to take risks, the risks pay off more often than not.
Gothic horror, a shot of comedy, and a blue-rinse Sherlock Holmes: Paul Magrs' Brenda series
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Earlier this year, Paul (don’t pronounce the G) Magrs published Conjugal Rites , the third in a series of novels featuring Brenda, an elderly and very capable lady who runs a Bed and Breakfast in the English seaside town of Whitby. No ordinary town, Whitby is dogged by the mysterious, the horrific and the downright weird, and although Brenda had looked forward to a peaceful retirement, she can't help but get involved.
If pressed to pick one reason why Neil Gaiman stands out from the crowd, it would be this I think: he is one of a select few authors able through their fiction to speak with ease and conviction to adults and children alike. It’s a rare gift to have a voice for all ages.
We never learn the name of the narrator of The Gargoyle, but as he says, perhaps there are some things you leave behind when you choose a new life. By the time he concludes his story we understand why he might choose to omit a name that belongs to a former life as a hedonistic pornographer, an existence that is brought to a brutal close when his car drives off the road and into an inferno. High on coke and drunk on bourbon he is distracted by what appears to be a volley of burning arrows swarming out of the woods toward his car.