Category Archives: Books

Octavia E. Butler’s Lilith’s Brood (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)

Octavia E. Butler, at the time of her emergence as a major voice in science fiction, was a rarity because she was a woman and she was African-American. In neither area was she unique, but the combination was. Lilith’s Brood, … Continue reading

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Octavia E. Butler’s The Parable of the Sower; The Parable of the Talents

The late Octavia E. Butler is one of those science fiction writers whose work can — and does — stand easily in the company of the very best “mainstream” literature being produced today. She is, I regret to say, another … Continue reading

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War for The Oaks trailer

“Eddi McCandry, the Seelie Court goes to war, and needs the presence of mortal blood to bring death to its enemies.” — War For The Oaks as The Phouka sums up why they need Eddi McCandry, unemployed musician-at-large. In 1987, Emma Bull’s now-classic tale … Continue reading

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Patricia A. McKillip’s The Sorceress and the Cygnet & The Cygnet and the Firebird

Sara Sutterfield Winn penned this review. The Cygnet series is a pair of books worthy of McKillip’s reputation for the numinous and lovely. Both are full of magic, though they are as different as two sides of the same golden coin. … Continue reading

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John Myers Myers’s Silverlock

Eric Eller penned this review. Journeys of self-discovery appearin every genre, teaching us about the main character as well as ourselves. The journey takes many forms: Gilgamesh searching for immortality; Dante’s trips to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory; and Wyatt and … Continue reading

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Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version

Peter S. Beagle actually began the first draft of his classic The Last Unicorn in a holiday cabin in Maine, in 1962, so long ago, it might as well have been another world. He and his best friend Phil Sigunick … Continue reading

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Roger Zelazny’s Damnation Alley

It’s a truism at this point that if you don’t know the work of Roger Zelazny, you are not equipped to deal with contemporary science fiction. Zelazny is often given major credit for reshaping the genre as one of the … Continue reading

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Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness

Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness is one of the more bizarre science fiction novels in the canon. I should point out that before the advent of the New Wave writers in the 1960s, science fiction reserved its adventurousness … Continue reading

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Necessary Stories

Necessary Stories was written by Terri Windling, author of The Wood Wife.. Some years ago I had a conversation with a man who thought that writing and editing fantasy books was a rather frivolous job for a grown woman like … Continue reading

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Carl Fleischauer & Neil V. Rosenberg’s Bluegrass Odyssey / Tom Ewing’s The Bill Monroe Reader / Wayne Erbsen’s Log Cabin Pioneers

I hear a voice out in the darkness It mourns and whispers through the pines I know it’s my sweetheart a-calling I hear her through the walls of time. Bill Monroe (quoted in Bluegrass Odyssey) I’m writing this in the … Continue reading

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