The Stacks
All book reviews
613 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.
Showing 97-120 of 613
The Hidden Queen
by Alma Alexander
The Hidden Queen by Alma Alexander 2004 review. A Croatian-Australian fantasy debut that opens a duology about a princess in hiding learning to use magic she should not have.
No Way Back
by Andrew Gross
No Way Back by Andrew Gross 2013 review. A New York mother witnesses a murder in a Manhattan hotel and the killer comes for her family.
The Watchers Out Of Time
by August Derleth
The Watchers Out of Time by August Derleth review. A 1974 collection of additional Derleth-Lovecraft 'posthumous collaborations' that round out the Mythos extension project.
The Lurker At The Threshold
by August Derleth
The Lurker at the Threshold by August Derleth 1945 review. The first Derleth posthumous 'collaboration' with H. P. Lovecraft, building a Mythos novel from unfinished Lovecraft fragments.
Masterpieces of Mystery and the Unknown
by Agatha Christie
Masterpieces of Mystery and the Unknown by Agatha Christie review. A 1969 short-story collection drawing from across Christie's six decades of supernatural and crime shorter fiction.
Passenger to Frankfurt
by Agatha Christie
Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie 1970 review. Late-Christie Cold War thriller that swaps Poirot and Marple for a globe-trotting diplomat and a conspiracy thread that loses the plot in the last act.
Essential Blogging
by Cory Doctorow
Essential Blogging by Cory Doctorow and others 2002 review. The O'Reilly essential reference on platform-era blogging, a snapshot of a specific Movable Type / Blogger moment.
Merlin Effect
by T. A. Barron
The Merlin Effect by T. A. Barron 1994 review. A standalone young-adult fantasy that became the conceptual seed for the later five-book Lost Years of Merlin saga.
A Romance of the Equator: The Best Fantasy Stories of Brian W. Aldiss
by Brian W. Aldiss
A Romance of the Equator by Brian W. Aldiss 1989 review. The Gollancz best-of fantasy collection from one of the most underrated short-fiction careers in British SF.
The Priestly Sins
by Andrew M. Greeley
The Priestly Sins by Andrew M. Greeley 2004 review. A Chicago Catholic priest discovers his bishop is covering up sexual abuse, and the novel that resulted predated most of the news cycle that followed.
The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein
by Robert A. Heinlein
The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein 1999 review. The Tor career-retrospective of Heinlein's fantasy short fiction, including 'They' and 'Magic, Inc.'
Requiem and a Tribute to the Grand Master
by Robert A. Heinlein
Requiem and Tributes to the Grand Master edited by Yoji Kondo 1992 review. The memorial collection assembled after Heinlein's 1988 death, featuring Asimov, Pournelle, Clarke, and the Heinlein essay 'Where To?'.
I Live by the Invisible: New & Selected Poems
by Ray Bradbury
I Live by the Invisible: New and Selected Poems by Ray Bradbury 2002 review. A two-hundred-poem retrospective from Bradbury's six decades of verse-writing.
The Best Of The Ray Bradbury Chronicles : The Graphic Novel
by Ray Bradbury
The Best of the Ray Bradbury Chronicles: The Graphic Novel review. The 2003 NBM Comics collection adapting nine of Bradbury's short stories with artists including P. Craig Russell and Mike Mignola.
50 in 50
by Harry Harrison
50 in 50 by Harry Harrison 2001 review. A career-spanning fifty-story Harrison collection, one story per year, that doubles as the best single overview of his short fiction.
The Chains That You Refuse
by Elizabeth Bear
The Chains That You Refuse by Elizabeth Bear 2006 review. The first collection of short fiction from a Hugo-and-Campbell-winning writer at her most generous.
Steles of the Sky
by Elizabeth Bear
Steles of the Sky by Elizabeth Bear 2014 review. The final book of the Eternal Sky trilogy lands its Mongol-empire-inspired epic fantasy with rare grace.
Classic Rose
by Stephen Dobyns
Classic Rose by Stephen Dobyns 1986 review. A literary novel about an aging Italian opera singer giving one final tour and discovering she has been less famous than she remembered.
Stonemouth
by Iain M. Banks
Stonemouth by Iain Banks 2012 review. A Scottish prodigal son comes home five years after the wedding that ruined his future, and discovers nobody has forgotten anything.
The Church of the Dead Girls
by Stephen Dobyns
The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns 1997 review. Three teenage girls disappear from an upstate New York town and the community begins to suspect everyone, including itself.
Make Room Make Room
by Harry Harrison
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison 1966 review. The 1966 Hugo-nominated overpopulation novel that became the 1973 film Soylent Green, and is meaningfully better than the film remembers.
Flash Point
by Paul Adam
Flash Point by Paul Adam 2006 review. A Glasgow journalist investigates the death of a young African violinist competing in the Tchaikovsky Competition and stumbles into a missing-instrument scandal.
Kiss of the Blue Dragon
by Julie Beard
Kiss of the Blue Dragon by Julie Beard 2003 review. A futuristic Chicago-set romance about a half-Chinese parking-meter cop turned freelance detective and the Hong Kong syndicate she rolls.
The Rock
by Robert Doherty
The Rock by Robert Doherty 1996 review. A military-SF thriller about a Special Forces team sent into Antarctica to investigate an alien artifact buried in the ice and very much active.