Category: Fiction Book Reviews

April 30, 2014

A NecROMANTIC Disregard

A review of Toni Pi’s “The Marotte” from OnSpec # 95, vol 25, no 4 By Derek Newman-Stille   The world looks very different after you are dead, particularly if you wake up in the body of a Marotte, a fool’s staff. From Lord Conjuror to the toy of the court’s fool, Vod is able to gain a new experience...

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April 27, 2014

Between Coping and Addiction

A review of Brandon Crilly’s “Remembrance” from OnSpec # 95, vol 25, no 4 By Derek Newman-StilleSet in the future, Brandon Crilly’s “Remembrance” is a venture into the results of war, not on nations, but on one family. Since returning from war, Anna’s father has used an assemblage of assistive technology including a bionic prosthetic leg, but more importantly, a...

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April 23, 2014

Performing “Reality”, Living Fiction

A review of Kevin Harkness’ “Double Vision” from OnSpec # 95, vol 25, no 4. By Derek Newman-Stille Truth is painful, and seeing the truth is a huge responsibility. Kevin Harkness’ “Double Vision” peels back the layers of fiction in our society, exposing the social masks and lies we create for ourselves and others – an important part of this...

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April 19, 2014

The Religion of Blood Medicine.

A review of Rich Larson’s “Maria and the Pilgrim” in Apex Magazine Feb 4, 2014 (available online at http://www.apex-magazine.com/maria-and-the-pilgrim/ ) By Derek Newman-Stille Rich Larson’s “Maria and the Pilgrim” explores a future in which contagion has spread and a small group of people have applied religious meanings to the spread of disease. Seeing themselves as preserved by Jesucristo against a...

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April 13, 2014

YOLO Deathwish

A review of R. Crowle Gray’s “The Revenant Threat” in OnSpec #94, vol 25 no 3 By Derek Newman-Stille We all have one of those friends who defies all of the theories of Darwinian evolution by making perpetually stupid decisions and still managing to survive. R. Crowle Gray appropriately names this frat boy type of character Darwin and in “The Revenant...

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April 11, 2014

Books for Kindling

A review of Andrew Bryant’s “Last Stand at Catesby’s Books” in OnSpec #94, vol 25 no 3 By Derek Newman-Stille For those of us who love books, love the touch, smell, and experience of them, there is something that eBooks can never replicate. The experience of going into a bookstore is transcendent, a venture into a place where tales, myths,...

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April 9, 2014

Hollow Signals

A review of Geoff Gander’s “White Noise” in AEscifi: The Canadian Science Fiction Review. By Derek Newman-Stille Our world is permeated with signals – radio waves, satellite transmissions… we are surrounded by sounds that only our electronic devices can hear. Geoff Gander’s “White Noise” pushes us into an electronic blackout, a loss of communication. After three days without radio or...

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April 6, 2014

Blurring the Boundaries

A review of Greg Bechtel’s Boundary Problems (Freehand Books, 2014) By Derek Newman-Stille We tend to think of boundaries as stable, fixed, unchangeable, but boundaries are inherently permeable, and any boundary that is created is created because someone or something is able to slip trough it. Greg Bechtel writes on these borderlands whether they be of genre (realism, science fiction,...

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April 2, 2014

Interweaving Worlds of Possibility

A Review of Greg Bechtel’s “The Everett-Wheeler Hypothesis (Or, the Many-Worlds Interpretation)” from Boundary Problems (Freehand Books, 2014) By Derek Newman-Stille We all have a desire to figure out the world around us and our place in it. In Greg Bechtel’s “The Everett-Wheeler Hypothesis (Or, the Many-Worlds Interpretation)”, Matthew keeps finding himself in positions where he is near to uncovering...

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March 27, 2014

Sexy Shiftings and Stirrings

A review of Greg Bechtel’s “The Smut Story (III)” in Boundary Problems (Freehand Books, 2014) By Derek Newman-Stille We are made up of stories. We are created from sex. In “The Smut Story (III)” Greg Bechtel interweaves the sexual with notions of the construction of self through narrative. After an erotica reading series at a bookstore on Mother’s Day, the...

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