Austen meets Glamour in 'Without a Summer'

“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”

—Jane Austen, Emma

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So You Say You Like Telepathic Dinosaurs...

So, this was a kind of a “meh” week of reading. Every voracious reader knows those stretches—in which everything you pick up is just okay, yet nothing really tickles your fancy or moves you in the way you yearn to be moved. Such is this past week. I recently finished reading Strangelets by Michelle Gagnon, which was generally speaking fine, but also deeply frustrating. Actually, infuriating—because the book had potential. I mean, miniature black holes! The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics! Teens that die at the exact same instant across the globe only to wake up in a ...

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'Guardian of the Spirit': A Superhero's Tale

“Your Highness,” she said. “I’ve already explained that no matter how much you might give me, it’s no good to me if I’m dead. Forgive my rudeness, but I must speak plainly. You have dealt me an unfair and cowardly blow.”

The queen went pale and began to tremble violently. “What do you mean?”

“I saved the prince’s life, yet you reward me by taking my life. What would you call that but unfair and cowardly?”

On the prosperous, island kingdom of Yogo, the divine king Mikado rules absolute, his veins carrying the precious blood of ...

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'Above': All Style, No Substance

It was on my second run I found Ariel. She wasn’t Above. It was on the way back we found her, huddled down in a corner that was halfway fallen in,down in the old sewers where most people don’t ever get.I wouldn’t have seen her except she was shaking just the tiniest bit, vibrating like sharks or bee’s-wing; moving because things that don’t move fall to the deepest depths and die.

In Matthew’s world, there are two places: Above, belonging to the regular people and doctors and monsters called whitecoats, and Safe ...

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Lionesses and Manjackals and Ghuls: Oh My!

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, the last real ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat, sighed as he read the lines. His own case, it seemed, was the opposite. He often felt tired of life, but he was not quite done with Dhamsawaat. After threescore and more years on God’s great earth, Adoulla found that his beloved birth city was one of the few things he was not tired of. The poetry of Ismi Shihab was another.

The Kingdoms of the Crescent Moon face a terrible threat. The rule of the almighty Khalif is cruel and corrupt, and his reign ...

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Pint-Sized Sparklings & Dangerous Beasts

Be warned, then: the collected volumes of this series will contain frozen mountains, foetid swamps, hostile foreigners, hostile fellow countrymen, the occasional hostile family member, bad decisions, misadventures in orienteering, diseases of an unromantic sort, and a plentitude of mind. You continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart–no more so than the study of dragons itself.

At the age of seven, Lady Isabella Hendemore discovers a lifelong passion for natural science. Ever since her first discovery of the pint-sized sparklings that abound in her home’s gardens, Isabella has been enamored with dragons ...

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'Extinction Point' (or, Make It Rain)

Death was coming for her. She knew and waited. It would be just a matter of seconds before she joined Nathan and the millions of victims around the world who had already succumbed to this violent, insidious, red plague. What was strange, though, was the inevitability of calmness within her mind as everything complicated in her life ceased to matter. Now her only responsibility was to wait.

In Paul Antony Jones’ Extinction Point, Emily Baxter is your typical New York career woman—she’s smart and dedicated to her job (a reporter for a major newspaper), a non-driver and a ...

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My Spooky Valentine

Thea’s Take:

In the small town of Ludlow, America, the heat is sweltering, the birds are dying, and middle school girls are being murdered. With each body, a crude valentine—an eponymous Paper Heart—is found, amongst strewn toys and childhood mementos. Tensions are on the rise, and parents refuse to let their children out of their homes for fear of the serial killer on the loose. For 16-year-old Hannah Wagnor, it’s just another drop in the bucket of misery that is her life. Just a few months ago, Hannah’s anorexic best friend, Lillian, died—but her ...

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The Book Smugglers: 'The Explorer' (Or, 'Groundhog Day: Deep Space Edition')

He speaks about things he knows nothing about, inserting the names of galaxies and nebulae and words of description that mean nothing to him, flowery language to somehow offer the punctuation of meaning, to imply knowledge that he doesn’t have. If Emmy were awake she would tell me that I was being narcissistic.

It is the future. For the first time since the era of brave adventurers like Cook and Columbus, Armstrong and Aldrin, humanity once again hungers to explore the vast unknown. A daring mission to boldly go where no one has gone before—into the heart of ...

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The 2013 Hugo Awards WANT YOU

Guess what, fellow SFF fans? The nomination period for the 2013 Hugo Awards and John W. Campbell Award is now officially open! The Hugos are among the most prestigious and coveted awards in the speculative fiction genre and are announced each year at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon).

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, The Hugos are great and all but where do I fit in? Isn’t voting only for SFF bigwigs or those people who are lucky enough to attend Worldcon?

Ahh, but therein lies the rub. Any speculative fiction fan can sign up to nominate ...

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The Book Smugglers Embrace 2013

The holidays have come and gone, and the end of 2012 approaches–and so, we Book Smugglers have started looking ahead to what 2013 holds in store for us. Here are some of the speculative fiction books we are dying to get our hands on next year:

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord: Lord’s first book Redemption in Indigo blew our minds away and upon learning she not only has a new book coming out but that it is summarized by the author as “Refugee aliens on frontier planet seek genetically compatible brides for the purpose ...

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The Testament (and Many Shades of Gray) of Jessie Lamb

I want you to know my story - our story, your beginning. So you understand everything I’ve thought and felt, and so no one can tell you I was a silly brainwashed girl, or a puppet of Iain’s. I don’t want anyone trying to claim you for a movement or an idea. You’re free, and whatever you want to do with your life, the thought of it makes me glad. Above all I want you to know that I’m glad. I’m glad this is happening.

In the not-so-distant future, an unimaginable act of biological terrorism ...

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'Falling Kingdoms': High Fantasy, Lukewarm Appeal

All these men saw when they looked at her was a little girl who’d run away on a whim to search for magic seeds. Who caused trouble. Who was utterly useless in every way except looking pretty. Maybe she was. And if that was true, then being here was only causing more problems for her father. Finally Cleo nodded and turned away.

Such is the characterization of Falling Kingdoms’ primary heroine, Princess Cleiona (Cleo) Bellos, youngest princess to the kingdom of Auranos - she kinda has an idea of what she wants to do, but then gives up quickly (luckily ...

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Police Procedural Meets Historical Fantasy in 'Daughter of the Sword'

The sword in Fuchida Shuzo's bed was the oldest known of her kind, and he loved listening to her song.

Mariko Oshiro is the only female detective in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD), and also the only woman working the highly competitive narcotics division. Being the only woman in the job – and a senior Sergeant Detective, at that – comes with its healthy dose of crap, as Mariko finds herself embroiled in a two-bit sting on a minor pusher. The operation proves unexpectedly fruitful, however, when Mariko is able to strongarm the dealer into becoming a Confidential Informant – and ...

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The Book Smugglers’ 10 Recommended Halloween Reads

It’s that time of the year. Monster movie marathons are on TV, costume shops are filled to capacity, and tempting fun-sized goodies are materializing out of thin air. This can only mean that Halloween's just around the corner. What better way to celebrate than curling up with a terrifying novel or two? To get you through All Hallows’ Eve, here's our list of 10 lesser-known, but undeniably blood-curdling books.

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

Danielewski’s unconventional debut novel—complete with nested footnotes, superimposed text and a terrifying section of secret code (note to readers: make ...

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'Only Superhuman': Hypersexualized Ridiculousness

In the year 2107, humanity has banned any human genetics modifications—other than the basic mods needed for human survival on Earth and the immediately adjacent colonies, that is. But while Earth and her immediate neighbors are genetic conservatives, human settlements in the Asteroid belt and the outskirts of the solar system are far more radical minded. Here, human genomes are spliced with animal and machine, resulting in people with super-human abilities, like Emerald Blaze. While some, like Emry and her fellow Troubleshooters, use their abilities for good, many others take Earth’s anti-modification discrimination personally. When a group of ...

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Before Honor, There Was Stephanie: 'A Beautiful Friendship'

Stephanie watched the intruder vanish with a sense of wonder which only grew as the creature disappeared. It was small, she thought—no more than sixty or seventy centimeters long, though its tail would probably double its body length... The celery snatcher might look like a teeny-tiny hexapuma, yet that net was proof the survey crews had missed the most important single facet of Sphinx. But that was all right. In fact, that was just fine. Their omission had abruptly transformed this world from a place of exile to the most marvelous, exciting place Stephanie Harrington could possibly have been ...

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Robin Maxwell's 'Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan'

The year is 1905, the place Cambridge University. Jane Porter, a headstrong and passionate young woman, is the first female student to be admitted to the university’s sole anatomy laboratory. While she cannot graduate with a degree, Jane’s ambition to become a recognized paleoanthropologist is high—after all, she has the unwavering support of Professor Archie Porter, a renowned scientist and Jane’s much beloved father. When the dashing American Ral Conrad proposes a paleoanthropological mission to West Africa to prove the theories of Charles Darwin and substantiate the findings of Eugene Dubois, Professor Porter and Jane are ...

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Crime Thriller Meets Time Travel in 'The Man From Primrose Lane'

"Wouldn’t that be impossible?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be a paradox?”

Tesla laughed. “You watch too many old movies,” he said. “No paradoxes, Mr. Neff. The universe will not end if you decide to go back in time to kill your grandfather before you were ever born. You’d just have a dead grandfather.”

The man who lives at that house at the end of Primrose Lane has always been an odd sort. He always wears mittens (regardless of time of year or temperature) and is a true recluse, keeping completely to himself (save for the occasional interaction ...

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Reefsong: Severance's Childhood Classic Stands the Test of Time

When Ana and I sat down to figure out what old-school, non-white/European science fiction novel to review next, one childhood favorite immediately jumped to mind: Reefsong by Carol Severance. I couldn’t recall much of the novel, other than that the protagonist had crazy biologically engineered tentacles for hands and the book was set on a distant planet inspired by Polynesian cultures. And, oh yeah, I remember that I really loved the book. Thanks to the power of ebooks, Reefsong has been saved from out-of-print purgatory and is the subject of today’s review.

See what Science Fiction and ...

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