Science Fiction & Fantasy Archives | Page 52 of 66 | BookPage

In the summer of 1976, 19-year-old David Barwise takes a job at a holiday resort in the seaside town of Skegness, England, hoping to avoid spending the summer with his mother and stepfather. But there is something more sinister underlying David’s reasoning: The beach resort is where his biological father died 15 years earlier, and David feels strangely drawn to the area, despite the tension it causes within his family.

The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit is a startlingly clear tale of a blistering English holiday season, the hottest in English history. The seasonal staff, made up of eccentrics and show people, accepts David into the fold—even hulking, ill-tempered resort employee Colin, with whom David develops an interesting relationship. His days are filled with organizing treasure hunts, setting up talent shows and judging sandcastle contests, and his nights are spent restlessly attempting sleep as he grapples with the odd feelings that being at Skegness brings. As David attempts to navigate the social structure of the resort staff, he becomes entangled in political movements and love triangles, both forbidden and dangerous. Meanwhile, swarms of ladybugs plague the town, and his attempts at building a life in Skegness are haunted by sinister and troubling visions of a man in a blue suit who wanders the beach, grasping a rope and an unidentifiable young child.

Graham Joyce’s fiction has earned him the O. Henry Award, the British Fantasy Award and the World Fantasy Award, and praise from horror and fantasy-genre greats like Peter Straub and Stephen King. In The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit, Joyce weaves a bizarre, colorful story, full of nostalgia, indecision, emotion and tension, and this genre-spanning novel is sure to be a favorite of fantasy, suspense and thriller fans.

This article was originally published in the August 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Suspense

Science Fiction & Fantasy Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense Fantasy

A serial killer hunting for centuries

Review by Lizzie Davis

by Lizzie Davis

In his first novel, The String Diaries, British author Stephen Lloyd Jones has created both an innovative storyline and a new creature to fear. The secret to overcoming this monster lies within one family’s weathered, string-tied diaries, which contain meticulously compiled stories, research and theories. But what is it that hunts this family, and why?

Jones imagines a fantastical subset of humans, inspired by Hungarian folklore: the hosszú életek, the “long-lived” ones, who are able to take on the appearance of any individual they please. For three centuries, Hannah Wilde’s ancestors have been sought by Jakab, a degenerate hosszú életek, whose twisted passion quickly led to an abject obsession with the women in Hannah’s family. Now he is fixated on her. Hannah must face this ancient evil or risk losing the love of her life and their daughter. She must use her family’s diaries as a survival guide, learning to trust no one, to verify everyone and, if ever compromised, to run. But with Jakab’s ability to take on the appearance and mannerisms of those she loves, will she have the resilience to make the correct decision?

The String Diaries is a phenomenal read, offering readers a refreshing villain and a thrilling narrative laced with the Gothic: a woman being chased by a tyrannical male of supernatural ability in uninhabited places. Jones dazzles in his ability to make his characters' raw nerves so palpable, the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The mounting tension throughout the novel is methodically woven through the centuries and the generations, bound together until the final pages. This book will have readers engrossed from start to finish, and hungry for more of Jones’ work.

Debut Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction

Fiction Fantasy Debut Fiction

An ambitious fantasy debut

Review by Michael Burgin

by Michael Burgin

Erika Johansen’s new novel, The Queen of the Tearling, uses a familiar fantasy premise: a special child—a chosen one, if you will—is born, and then hidden from those with murderous intent. As the book opens, it is 19 years later, and the time has come for Kelsea Glynn, the rightful queen of a benighted land, to leave hiding and assume her throne.

Plenty of people still wish her dead, especially the near-immortal Red Queen of neighboring Mortmesne. Kelsea’s not completely without allies, though. Besides the two loyal guardians who have raised her and prepared her for this moment, a troop of queen’s guards has arrived to deliver her into the heart of the wasp’s nest that is her birthright. There’s also a rakish lord of thieves.

In addition to the host of immediate threats, Johansen sets up a few mysteries that will be resolved over the course of her planned series. Most are common fantasy tropes—who is Kelsea’s father? What exactly is the story of the evil queen?—but Johansen’s world also contains a bigger mystery of setting: When and where, exactly, is the present action taking place? While it feels relatively medieval, there are numerous references to a Crossing, and everything Pre-Crossing sounds like the real world (our world). This suggests the kingdoms of Tear and Mortmesne may have more of a science fiction/post-apocalyptic tinge than is immediately apparent.

With so many nutritional staples of genre in play, it would be easy for Johansen’s novel to come across either as overly bland, or as a confusingly crowded mish-mash. Yet The Queen of the Tearling avoids this fate by keeping the action and the characters engaging. Kelsea, the Red Queen, Mace (the captain of Kelsea’s guards) and the rest of the characters are made interesting thanks to the actions they take and the world they inhabit.

Ultimately, The Queen of the Tearling is a notable debut and a reminder that a dish need not have exotic ingredients or fancy presentation to prove filling and tasty to the fantasy palate.

Fantasy, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Fantasy

The heart of a kingdom

Review by Jennifer Bruer Kitchel

by Jennifer Bruer Kitchel

BookPage Teen Top Pick, July 2014

There are all kinds of lies and prevarications in the aptly titled The Kiss of Deception, the new book from award-winning author Mary E. Pearson. Princess Arabella Celestine Idris Jezelia (or Lia, as she prefers to be called), First Daughter of the House of Morrighan, does not want to marry the unseen prince from a neighboring country. Lia—accompanied by her lady’s companion, Pauline—forsakes her parents’ wishes and runs away on her wedding day.

These two young women are clever and resourceful, capable of obscuring their tracks and making a life in a small village many miles from the court intrigue they left behind. But, of course, it is not to last. The prince, miffed and insulted by her rejection, comes looking for her, and a political schemer sends an assassin to kill her. The handsome young men find her at the same time, but neither does anything at first. Lia thinks they are traveling workmen in town for a festival, and they let her think so. Even the reader is not sure which one of the men is the assassin and which is the prince, and the reveal makes for an exciting moment in the story.

The book’s slow build takes off when Lia realizes that what she wants is not as important as her power to help thousands of people. Pearson’s writing is beautiful, and her ability to twist a plot into knots keeps the reader wanting more. It’s going to be frustrating to wait for the sequel!

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

There are all kinds of lies and prevarications in the aptly titled The Kiss of Deception, the new book from award-winning author Mary E. Pearson. Princess Arabella Celestine Idris Jezelia (or Lia, as she prefers to be called), First Daughter of the House of Morrighan, does not want to marry the unseen prince from a neighboring country. Lia—accompanied by her lady’s companion, Pauline—forsakes her parents’ wishes and runs away on her wedding day.

Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction

Robots on the rise

Review by Cat Acree

by Cat Acree

Robotics engineer Daniel H. Wilson’s 2011 debut, Robopocalypse, blurred the line between man and machine in a world on the brink of human extermination. In the second act, the line threatens to disappear altogether.

With the help of freeborn robot Nine Oh Two, an extraordinary girl with prosthetic robot eyes and an army from the Osage Nation, the New War was won. The powerful artificial intelligence Archos R-14 was decimated, and his legions were left orphaned. But in the months following the New War’s end, a new battle takes its place—the True War. This time, the remnants of Archos may be humanity’s best hope.

Like Robopocalypse, Robogenesis is pieced together in postwar vignettes. A narrator named Arayt Shah shares stories pulled from the minds of Robopocalypse survivors to recount how he won the True War. But there’s something off about our storyteller, and as in so many post-apocalyptic thrillers, humankind has a tendency to become its own worst enemy.

As the stage resets for even bigger problems, Wilson’s imagination gains new heights. His new creations recall the biomechanical designs that might be found in H.R. Giger’s garden of twisted delights, and an army of zombie human-robot hybrids rivals the ice zombies of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. In the wreckage of our former society, beauty hides among the growing horrors—a necessary foil to our gleeful fascination with the grotesque.

While lacking some of the intensity of Wilson’s blockbuster debut, Robogenesis is rife with promises we can’t wait for Wilson to keep.

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction

Witches gather, a stunning story unfolds

Review by Michael Alec Rose

by Michael Alec Rose

Our author can’t seem to make up her mind on a fairly important issue: Is she “Mary Rickert” or just plain “M. Rickert”? Under the abbreviated M., she has published a set of haunting short stories considered to be among the very best of fantasy. With The Memory Garden, her first novel, she makes her bid to enter the literary mainstream, enlarging her name and her imaginative landscape in one grand stroke. Best of all, in a brilliant alchemical turn, Rickert transforms the lead-weight problem of indecisive identities into storytelling gold in this bewitching marvel of a book.

“Bewitching.” Yes, there be witches here. Indeed, the opening line of Macbeth might well serve as an epigraph for this novel: “When shall we three meet again?” Here, the three crones are Nan, Mavis and Ruthie, brought together for the first time in 60 years, split apart all those decades ago by a deadly tragedy for which they feel (for which they were) responsible, a horror that has determined the course of their lives.

And there be ghosts aplenty, wandering Nan’s back garden, together with much herbal lore and a child left on a doorstep as in a fairy tale, born with a magic-bestowing caul over her face. Shakespeare applies once more: To be a witch, or not to be? That is the question. Bay (a powerful herb) is the name of that child abandoned on the doorstep. She becomes a young woman racked by doubts and fears about her own identity. Like all adolescent girls, Bay just wants to be “normal.” But as Nan’s charge—and on account of that uncanny veil over her newborn face—that can never be. Bay can see the ghosts in the backyard without even knowing that they’re ghosts, so natural is her supernatural gift. She must confront the burden of her elders’ knowledge, at long last conjured into wisdom.

Bay has to decide who she really is. A witch? Or not a witch? No matter. Not when you have discovered your true place in the world. In this poignant motion of the spirit, Rickert stays alongside her own fictional creation every faltering and courageous step of the way.

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, YA, YA Fiction

Science Fiction & Fantasy YA Fiction YA Fantasy

The many choices within this fantastical tale

Review by Jennifer Bruer Kitchel

by Jennifer Bruer Kitchel

With books meant for younger readers, it can be far too easy to tell where a story is going. There are certain tropes that telegraph the ending, like evil being vanquished, the protagonist struggling with a quest and so on. One of the best things about Rebecca Hahn’s A Creature of Moonlight is that the story doesn’t go where you think it might, and yet it still flows naturally.

The plot sounds like something you might expect in a fantasy: Young country girl Marni comes of age and must decide if she will challenge the evil king for her royal birthright or remain at home. Should she exact revenge on the king for killing her princess mother? Will she follow the voices into the woods and join her dragon father? Both? Neither? Marni must decide whether to find her place in the “normal” world at court or follow her heart and become a wild, magical thing—or maybe those aren’t really the choices. Maybe life is more complicated than that.

What makes Hahn’s story so satisfying is that all of her characters are truly human. Sure, some of them possess a kind of magic, but they are whole people—neither all bad nor all good—who experience internal as well as external conflicts, who make mistakes and bad choices and learn to live with them.

Hahn’s prose is slow and delicious, building to a denouement that is both thrilling and surprising. It’s also exciting to know this is her first novel. I don’t expect her to write about these particular characters again, as A Creature of Moonlight doesn’t have the sense of being part of a series, but whatever she writes will be worth the read—and hopefully will be full of more surprises.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through eighth level Catholic school.

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, YA, YA Fiction

Science Fiction & Fantasy YA Fiction YA Fantasy

Under the Mediterranean Sea, a new series begins

Review by Jill Ratzan

by Jill Ratzan

Mermaid princess Serafina is nervous. Today’s the day she’ll prove herself a true descendant of her famous ancestor Merrow in the royal family’s traditional Dokimí ceremony. She’ll demonstrate her worthiness to rule through “songcasting” a complex musical spell, and the day will end with her formal betrothal to the handsome but rebellious crown prince Mahdi.

But when a surprise attack interrupts the ceremony, Serafina and her friend Neela must flee the kingdom of Miromara and swim for their lives into unknown waters. Using both magic and their wits to escape their pursuers, they encounter a variety of fantastical sea creatures—some allies and some enemies. They also learn of political plots and secret alliances, and most importantly, they discover that they, along with four other teenage mer, are destined to find a series of hidden talismans to save the world’s oceans from an ancient monster.

Like many tales set in imaginary landscapes, Deep Blue is full of invented words. Author Jennifer Donnelly’s twist is to openly acknowledge the various languages from which these terms derive, especially Latin and Greek (for example, a velo spell confers speed, and a canta magus is a powerful singer). Puns and ocean-based details abound: Teens sneak out at night to go shoaling, and trade initiatives involve the exchange of “currensea.” The action is well paced, and many chapters end with cliffhangers that draw readers further into the story.

The first book in a planned quartet, Deep Blue combines fantasy adventure, court intrigue and even a touch of teenage sarcasm in an accessible, fast-moving narrative that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next installment of the Waterfire Saga.

Jill Ratzan reviews for School Library Journal and works as a school librarian at a small independent school in New Jersey. She learned most of what she knows about YA literature from her terrific graduate students.

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction

It’s a whole new world—just don’t try to leave

Review by Michael Burgin

by Michael Burgin

On a cold, sunless planet named Eden, about 500 descendants of two stranded travelers live beneath light and heat-giving “trees,” converting the slowly decaying knowledge of their own beginnings into a tribal mythology. Among them, John Redlantern chafes at the slavish, innovation-quenching traditions the Family upholds as it huddles in its small valley and refuses to even question what lies beyond the “Snowy Dark” that surrounds it. Soon, John makes a series of decisions that threaten to disrupt the peace—and ignorance—his tribe holds dear.

Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden does many things well—including the kinds of things that, frankly, are pretty unsexy (or at least hyperbole-resistant), and thus often passed over by reviewers in favor of those qualities that allow the use of words like “haunting,” “lyrical” or “riveting.” Make no mistake, the novel (winner of the 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year) certainly deserves such accolades, but it’s also full of simpler pleasures.

There’s the joy of an immediately immersive alien environment. The planet of Eden is a wondrous mix of familiar nomenclature applied to completely alien flora, fauna and topography. The leopards, monkeys and bats, the Alps and Rockies—readers ingest such terms easily, moving through the text without distraction even as a clearer understanding of what the terms actually refer to slowly seeps in.

Meanwhile, the human drama of Dark Eden unfolds, delivered exclusively through the first-person narratives of John, Tina Spiketree and, occasionally, a few other characters. Too often, authors deliver a robustly imagined, unique environment only to falter in the building and presentation of equally unique characters. Not so with Becket, who exhibits a real flair for psychological differentiation—every narrator in Dark Eden exhibits a distinct attitude and perspective (with not a whiff of authorial puppeteering).

With nothing really getting between the reader and the tale . . . well, this is where the more traditional superlatives come into play. Dark Eden is, indeed, riveting, and the world-building is robust—a keenly imagined vision of the interaction between human nature and a truly alien world. What’s more, Beckett’s tale is psychologically convincing. Eden may be a hostile environment, and the Family’s foothold there precarious, but Dark Eden suggests that the interplay of personal psychology and society mores can be as dangerous (and transformative) as even the most inimical of settings.

On a cold, sunless planet named Eden, 500 or so descendants of two stranded travelers live beneath light and heat-giving “trees,” converting the slowly decaying knowledge of their own beginnings into a tribal mythology. Among them, John Redlantern chafes at the slavish, innovation-quenching traditions the Family upholds as it huddles in its small valley and refuses to even question what lies beyond the “Snowy Dark” that surrounds it. Soon, John makes a series of decisions that threaten to disrupt the peace—and ignorance—his tribe holds dear.

Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction

A waking nightmare

Review by Michael Burgin

by Michael Burgin

As a literary thought experiment, Kenneth Calhoun’s Black Moon has an exceedingly elegant trigger for the end of it all. No aliens, mutating viruses or celestial cataclysms are needed. All it takes is the removal of one basic yet profound capacity every single human has: the ability to sleep. It turns out prolonged insomnia is an insidious, horrific fate for anyone. Calhoun’s narrative focuses on four protagonists, each caught in a separate pocket of the rapidly disintegrating society. (The four only briefly intersect.) Biggs and Lila still have the ability to sleep. While Biggs tries to find his missing wife, Lila, a teenager, lacks any such mission, instead floating amongst the hordes of increasingly erratic, dangerous insomniacs. Chase is not so fortunate, and as Black Moon progresses, his altered perceptions provide readers a potent window through which to view the blossoming horrors of the sleepless mind. Finally, Felicia, an intern cloistered at a sleep studies institute, represents the closest we come to a solution narrative, as scientists strive to circumvent the enveloping plague.

It turns out prolonged insomnia is an insidious, horrific fate for anyone.

In many ways, the tone and story progression of Black Moon mirrors that of the traditional zombie narrative. (Have zombie stories now been around long enough to use the word “traditional”?) With each passing moment, the protagonists are more isolated, their straits more dire—a moment’s inattention can prove fatal. Yet, befitting its subject, Black Moon may be the most dreamlike apocalypse ever presented. Even as Calhoun recounts the struggles of a few to survive a truly horrific fate for the human race, he spends most of his time in the memories and reflections of his protagonists. The result is a thought-provoking meditation on the importance of human interaction and our reliance on the sleep-fed, rational mind.

At a time in pop culture when the zombie trope remains ascendant, Calhoun’s story seems less a calculated attempt to cash in on a fad than a concurrently generated work, with its own unique themes and authorial preoccupations, that just happens to be a nice addition to the genre. And frankly, if wouldn’t matter if it were a calculated trend-hopper. Either way, Black Moon flows through and over all those shambling, decaying genre expectations. Its themes may well haunt your dreams long after the book is laid down, but count yourself lucky—you can still dream.

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Suspense

Science Fiction & Fantasy Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense Science Fiction

A thriller with a sci-fi edge

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

There’s nothing more peaceful than a 3 A.M. jog on an ocean boardwalk with waves lapping in the distance and no one around—or is there? In Runner, the debut novel in Patrick Lee’s new thriller series, retired special forces op Sam Dryden finds he’s not jogging alone but running for his life, along with a young stranger—an 11-year-old girl who’s fleeing from some smart, devious pursuers equipped with heavy-duty hardware including thermal imaging equipment, hovering helicopters and satellite access. Who are these guys? And what’s with the extensive dragnet? And why are they after an innocent child?

These are the question that readers find answers to, page by page, as Dryden employs all his former tactical knowledge to elude the forces arrayed against him and his small charge. How coincidental that he has all that special training—or is it?

It turns out that young Rachel poses a lot more danger than most 11-year-olds, and Dryden has to scramble to keep up with all the revelations about her special past and her amazing, wide-reaching capabilities. Right now Rachel can’t remember much more than her own name, but her memory is slowly returning, and with it her potential to affect others’ lives. Not only can Rachel read minds, but she has the ability to influence them. There are big players, corporate and governmental, involved in the race to get their hands on the power she possesses.

Runner is packed with scary, fast-moving action scenes, and it moves at breakneck pace as Dryden and Rachel parachute from high-rise buildings, hole up under a seaside boardwalk, play dodge-’em on a freeway and race across Utah’s high country to a deserted lake bed—deserted, that is, except for an odd, steel-framed cell tower rising from the emptiness.

All the repetitive action shots, shoot-outs, treachery, about-faces and devious characters threaten to turn Runner into just another run-of-the-mill thriller. It has “screenplay” written all over it, and as action shot turns into action shot, the story loses some of its punch as we wait for the next predictable take.

The good news, however, lies in the author’s skill in weaving this high-tech thriller. Runner pushes at the edges of science fiction and makes an outlandish and frightening scenario seem plausible—even probable—given the advancements in genetic knowledge and manipulation that are right on our human horizon.

Children's & YA, Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, YA, YA Fiction

Science Fiction & Fantasy Children's & YA YA Fiction YA Fantasy

Powers of good and evil

Review by Kimberly Giarratano

by Kimberly Giarratano

If Lily Potter and Voldemort had a love child, he would be Nathan Byrn. Born out of an illicit love affair between a White Witch and a Black Witch, Nathan is an abomination, a Half Code. His father, Marcus, is the vilest Black Witch in all of Great Britain. His White Witch mother committed suicide in shame.

Two years before Nathan’s 17th birthday—when he will receive his inherent magical powers—the Council of White Witches imposes harsh regulations on him: He’s not allowed to leave his home without permission; he can’t be in the same room with White Witches; and he can’t be with the girl he loves without the threat of death. The Council kidnaps him and takes him to Scotland, where he is caged, studied and trained as a weapon to kill his father. But Nathan is not a killer—yet.

The first in a trilogy, Half Bad is a fast-paced, compelling story about the many shades of good and evil. The White Witches are considered to be the good guys, but the Council spends much of its resources seeking out Black Witches for torture and death. Nefarious characters and a cliffhanger ending will entice readers and leave them wanting more.

Kimberly Giarratano is the author of Grunge Gods and Graveyards, a young adult paranormal mystery.

Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction

Last man on Mars

Review by Emily Bartlett Hines

by Emily Bartlett Hines

If NASA ever launches a manned mission to Mars, space-watchers worldwide will scan the skies anxiously, imagining all the things that could go wrong for travelers more than 30 million miles from home. But no one is likely to imagine it as vividly as Andy Weir has in his debut novel, an interplanetary adventure story about an astronaut facing the ultimate worst-case scenario. When a freak dust storm forces the crew of USA’s third Ares mission to evacuate, Mark Watney is knocked unconscious in the chaos and presumed dead. When he wakes up, he’s alone.

Andy Weir's debut is the perfect blend of science and adventure.

Luckily, Watney is an engineer and botanist, two unglamorous skills that offer him a slim chance of survival—if he can make his meager rations last until a years-distant possible rescue. Watney sets to work solving a series of dilemmas: how to grow potatoes on a planet with no air or soil; how to turn rocket fuel into water without blowing himself up; and how to stay sane with nothing except his former crewmate’s abandoned cache of disco and bad sitcoms for company. And he devises a risky plan to make contact with Earth.

The solutions Watney finds may be fictional, but they’re grounded in scientific fact (Weir is a software engineer and astrophysics buff). And this 21st-century Robinson Crusoe is appealingly pragmatic and funny. Commenting on his sometimes tedious Martian daily schedule, he quips, “my life has become a desperate struggle for survival . . . with occasional titration.” In Weir's hands, even the driest scientific topics take on a taut urgency because the stakes are so high.

The book builds to an edge-of-your-seat finale (Hollywood has already bought the film rights). But what makes it memorable is its insistence that a 90 million-square-mile barren wasteland is no match for a roll of duct tape and some ingenuity.