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9 Unforgettable SFF Standalone Novels I Read in 2020

By John Folk-Williams

Human connection in Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

I was surprised in looking over all the books I’ve read this year that the great majority of them belonged to series, but several were unforgettable SFF standalone novels. These were not all published in 2020 – in fact most are older, some quite a bit older, but they were new to me in this […]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: alien language, city, dystopia, fantastika, human emotion, oppression, transhuman, unforgettable sff standalone novels

Border City: Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station

By John Folk-Williams

SciFiMonth Diversity and Divergence in Nophek Gloss

Lavie Tidhar creates a border city, a liminal place in Central Station that captures in great human depth a future world of interwoven nationalities, identities, destinies and lives. The city around Central Station, a vast spaceport in what was once called Israel or Palestine between the Arab and Jewish areas is one of many blended […]

Filed Under: Reviews, SciFiMonth Tagged With: augmented reality, borders, city, consciousness, love, relationships, spaceport, uploaded minds

City in Time: Tade Thompson’s Rosewater Redemption

By John Folk-Williams

SciFiMonth Diversity and Divergence in Nophek Gloss

Tade Thompson begins Rosewater Redemption, the concluding volume of his Wormwood trilogy, with a kind of fugue, an almost musical prelude in which the major characters re-enter the story, each changed by what has gone before. We see Rosewater in all its multiplicity, through the eyes of each character, as a city in time, experienced […]

Filed Under: Reviews, SciFiMonth Tagged With: alien minds, alternative selves, city, consciousness, memory, Rosewater, Tade Thompson, time

Fantasy City: The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz

By John Folk-Williams

The Street of Crociles by Bruno Schulz

Bruno Schulz’ The Street of Crocodiles (1934), translated by Celina Cieniewska for a 1989 edition, is one of those completely original works that defies categorization. I guess I would call it fantastika. It’s a linked collection of stories about a boy’s view of his Polish hometown filtered through the adult mind of an amazing writer. […]

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction in Translation Tagged With: Bruno Schulz, China Mieville, city, fantastika, fantasy, transformation

The Art of Unseeing in China Mieville’s The City & The City

By John Folk-Williams

The City & the City by China Mieville The Art of Unseeing

The City & the City by China Miéville takes the form of a murder mystery amplified by Miéville’s unique ability to find richly suggestive fantasy metaphors about our world. This one is about the art of unseeing or seeing only what you are permitted to recognize in the midst of the doppelgänger cities of Besźel […]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: China Miéville, city, invisibility, metaphor, mystery, seeing and unseeing, The City & The City

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany: Poet in Dystopia

By John Folk-Williams

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany seems to have many detractors as a work of science fiction but I find it a powerful portrait of a fractured mind, of a poet in dystopia, of a city broken the way its main narrator feels he might be breaking. Known mostly as the Kid, because he has forgotten […]

Filed Under: Reviews, Vintage Science Fiction Tagged With: city, Dhalgren, dystopia, language, memory, mental health, poet, reality, Samuel R. Delany, sex

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Something is struggling to be born in this damaged and inspiring world, and I believe science fiction and its speculative cousins are helping us figure out what it is. It’s pushing the imaginations of fiction writers to bend and twist familiar forms to try to capture the forces that are hurling us into a barely conceivable future. This blog is my small way of exploring the half-perceived … Read More about About

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Reading "Word of Sankofa’s ability spreads throughout Ghana and soon she is known as the adopted child of the Angel of Death." REMOTE CONTROL by Nnedi Okorafor - Review https://booksbonesbuffy.com/2021/01/14/remote-control-by-nnedi-okorafor-review/ via @tammy_sparks

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3 of 5 stars to The Shape Of Things To Come by H.G. Wells https://goodreads.com/review/show/3759466595

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"The Stochastic Man the kind of science fiction that absolutely forces readers to think a mile a minute, and will leave them thinking about it long after reading the book." Vintage Sci-Fi: "The Stochastic Man" by Robert Silverberg https://eclectictheist.wordpress.com/2021/01/12/vintage-sci-fi-the-stochastic-man-by-robert-silverberg/ via @jwwartick

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