The Stacks
All book reviews
412 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.
Showing 169-192 of 412
A Hell Of A Dog
by Carol Lea Benjamin
A Hell Of A Dog by Carol Lea Benjamin review. The 3rd Rachel Alexander mystery. A dog-training conference, a possible murder, and the most insider dog material in any PI series.
Dragon Season
by Michael Cassutt
Dragon Season by Michael Cassutt review. A 1991 contemporary fantasy with a Hollywood TV writer hero, a portal to another world, and the most underread urban-fantasy debut of its decade.
My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding
by Charlaine Harris
A Charlaine Harris-edited paranormal-wedding anthology with strong contributions from Sherrilyn Kenyon, Esther Friesner, and others.
The Book of End Times
by John Clute
A John Clute essay collection on the millennial moment in genre fiction. The encyclopedia editor in long-form critical mode. Difficult and rewarding.
Small Town
by Lawrence Block
A Lawrence Block 2003 ensemble novel set in post-9/11 New York. Multiple protagonists, a serial killer, and the city itself as the through-line.
Murder Among Friends
by Lawrence Block
A Lawrence Block-edited Mystery Writers of America anthology. Original short fiction from the form's working professionals.
Undercurrents
by Frances Fyfield
A Frances Fyfield 1999 standalone. A young woman returns to the English coastal town of her summer-camp childhood. An old murder is back.
Let's Dance
by Frances Fyfield
A Frances Fyfield standalone. A young woman returning to her dementia-affected mother's seaside house and the secrets neither of them can quite name.
Tree Girl
by T. A. Barron
T. A. Barron's YA fantasy about a girl raised in a forest and the mystery of her origin. Slight, beautifully written, deeply Barron.
A World Called Solitude
by Stephen Goldin
Stephen Goldin's 1981 SF novel. A man alone on an abandoned colony world and the AI that has been his only companion. Quiet, moving, ahead of its time.
Bone and Jewel Creatures
by Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear's 2010 fantasy novella. An aging Wizard, a feral child, and one of the most evocative North African-inspired settings in recent SFF.
Behind Closed Doors
by Elizabeth Haynes
Elizabeth Haynes's fourth novel. A Detective Lou Smith procedural about a years-old missing-person case opening back up. Slower than Human Remains, just as careful.
The Fame Thief
by Timothy Hallinan
The Fame Thief by Timothy Hallinan review. The 3rd Junior Bender LA comic-crime novel. A 1950s Hollywood blacklist mystery, an ensemble of nonagenarian Mafia, the series at its absolute peak.
The Cat's Pajamas
by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury's 2004 short story collection. Late Bradbury at his most elegiac and his most accessible. A small good book.
Bite
by Charlaine Harris
A Charlaine Harris paranormal romance anthology with Laurell K. Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight. Anchor authors for the subgenre at full strength.
Staring at the Light
by Frances Fyfield
A Frances Fyfield Helen West novel. A dental practice, a contested inheritance, and Fyfield writing the kind of carefully observed institutional novel the procedural form rarely allows.
The Ancient One
by T. A. Barron
T. A. Barron's YA fantasy about an Oregon old-growth forest and a girl who travels back in time to defend it. Eco-fantasy that takes its environmental stakes seriously.
Karen Memory
by Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear's 2015 steampunk Western. A Pacific Northwest brothel, a young woman protagonist with the strongest first-person voice in recent SF, and one of the most enjoyable SF novels of its decade.
Sunborn
by Jeffrey A. Carver
The fourth Chaos Chronicles novel from Jeffrey A. Carver. SF that takes its actual science seriously while keeping its emotional center intact.
Red Moon
by Michael Cassutt
Michael Cassutt's 2008 Soviet space-race alternate history. The kind of careful counterfactual that only a space-history insider can write.
Missing Man
by Michael Cassutt
Missing Man by Michael Cassutt review. The first Joshua Brock astronaut mystery. A NASA mishap investigator looks into a colleague's disappearance. SF procedural by an actual space-program insider.
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
by John Clute
John Clute and John Grant's 1997 reference work. The canonical fantasy encyclopedia. Still the right starting point for serious genre study.
Appleseed
by John Clute
John Clute's 2001 space opera novel. The SF Encyclopedia editor finally writing his own novel. Dense, formally daring, genuinely strange.
Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth
by Camille Bacon-Smith
Camille Bacon-Smith's 1992 ethnographic study of media fandom. Foundational academic work on fan communities and serious nonfiction worth reading on its own terms.