Friday, May 27th, 2011
Fledgling, by Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler–described by Vibe as “do[ing] for people of color” what William Gibson did for “young, disaffected white” speculative fiction fans–unfortunately passed away in 2006. But before she did that, she wrote a dozen or so novels and a couple collections of short stories, primarily science fiction. She described herself as primarily a novelist at [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,science fiction by Stephanie
Monday, September 21st, 2009
The In-Between, by R. A. MacAvoy
About the only thing I know about R. A. MacAvoy is that she’s female. Apparently she was born in my (former) neck of the woods in 1949, and attended Case Western Reserve University. This, apparently, allows her to make Cleveland jokes. (It’s okay. The Browns are enough of a joke for most of us.) She [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,fantasy by Stephanie
Friday, June 5th, 2009
Bound, by Donna Jo Napoli
Donna Jo Napoli is a linguistics professor at Swarthmore College and an author of children’s books. She used to have a cat named Taxi, for the sheer joy of calling the cat and watching the neighbors make faces. She takes modern dance and yoga classes for fun, and bakes bread. She has also coauthored a [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,children's lit,fantasy,historical fiction by Stephanie
Friday, May 29th, 2009
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, by Mario Acevedo
Mario Acevedo apparently, when he was four years old, told one of his aunts that he wanted a machine gun for Christmas. A stint in the army — where he also flew helicopters — apparently cured him of that, and provided him with fodder and knowledge for a series of books about a vet — [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,fantasy,horror by Stephanie
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
Lust, Loathing, and a Little Lip Gloss (Sophie Katz, book 4), by Kyra Davis
Kyra Davis is half Jewish (Eastern European) and half African-American; she married early and repented at leisure, getting divorced within a relatively short period of time. Despite a career in the fashion industry, she found herself writing novels as a sort of therapy, given the events of her life. Unlike most people’s therapy journals, though, [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,contemporary by Stephanie
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
Incantation, by Alice Hoffman
Alice Hoffman has written a number of books for both adults and young adults; three of said novels (Practical Magic, Aquamarine, and The River King) have been made into movies, starring some rather impressive actors. Born in New York, she attended Adelphi College and later Stanford, getting degrees in creative writing, and in 1983 she [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,children's lit,historical fiction by Stephanie
Friday, May 1st, 2009
The Lone Star Stories Reader, edited by Eric T. Marin
I like free books. So when I was alerted to the presence of a free PDF copy of this brand-new anthology, also available in print form, I was excited. I don’t get around to reading e-zines as often as I should, and there are some amazing stories one can read for free out there. This [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,fantasy,science fiction by Stephanie
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
This Earth of Mankind (Buru Quartet, book 1), by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who died in 2006, was an Indonesian author and political prisoner. He protested first against the treatment of the native Indonesians by their Dutch colonizers, then the World War II occupation of Indonesia by the Japanese, and then against the authoritarian regimes that replaced them. His political beliefs — which tended towards [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in book reviews,historical fiction by Stephanie
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women, edited by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah
Meri Nana-Ama Danquah was born in Ghana, and emigrated with her family at the age of six, in the mid-1970s. Her full-length memoir, Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey through Depression, was published in 1998 and immediately hailed as groundbreaking, being that it was the first work published by an African-American person dealing [...]
No Comments » - Posted in bio/autobio,book reviews,contemporary by Stephanie
Monday, April 6th, 2009
The uncollected stories of Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard is up for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Author, as part of the Hugo Awards; this is her second year of eligibility. She’s an author that most of us probably haven’t heard of, especially book reviewers like me, being that she writes short stories. As much as I love [...]