Category Archives: Small Press Book Reviews

Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl (Stars and Sabers Publishing) P.A. Cornell This book was a nice mix of 40’s true crime novel and retrofuturism. All of the characters are referred to by their function, not just the protagonists. It’s a … Continue reading →

Kill Zone-Battle Drills (Raconteur Press) by Shane Gries Ah, Space Marines. And space mercenaries. If you like battle-ready novels, this one is for you. There’s plenty of action and a really good plot. Terran Marine Dave Hernandez starts out in … Continue reading →

A Kiss for Damocles : Tales From the Long Night Book 1 (Raconteur Press) by J. Kenton Pierce When I heard that J. Kenton Pierce has done a novel starring his character from an A&A short story we’d published, I … Continue reading →

Bioids (Galactic Mindseas A Collection of Short Fiction) Edited by Bonnie Brunish (Review by Wendy S.Delmater) You don’t have to be familiar with the Mindseas series to enjoy this themed anthology by several authors. Bioids are a type of artificial … Continue reading →

A Future for Ferals: (A Charity Anthology Book 1) (eSpec Books) edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail These are all science fiction and fantasy short stories, interspersed with short essays or anecdotes on the topic of feral cat rescues and placements. And … Continue reading →

  His Selachian Majesty Requests (Book View Café) by Brenda W. Clough To read this book is to step into a time machine headed toward the 1980s. It’s a fun story, starring an American one-hit-wonder-alcoholic rock star, Cam, who reluctantly … Continue reading →

The Serpents of Eden (Running Wild Press) by R.W. Goldsmith Artist Clay Middleton lives in a very tiny town in the Southwest USA. After years of living as an eccentric recluse he’s suddenly caring for his grandson, Dylan. Dylan’s dad … Continue reading →

Nine Levels (Mirror World Publishing) by Elana Gomel Cleo wakes up, groggy and salt-encrusted, on a Mediterranean beach in Greece after a midnight party. She’s a British-Greek tourist, but slowly realizes she’s not actually in Greece any longer. Or at … Continue reading →

Unicorn Visions  by Jo Boone Unicorn Visions, a collection by Jo Boone, tells me that Boone is one of those authors who can write in both the short and long form—short stories as well as novels—with equal ease. Each of … Continue reading →

Nordic Visions: The Best of Nordic Speculative Fiction (Solaris/Rebellion Publishing) Edited by Margrét Helgadóttir Bear in mind that very few stories and even fewer anthologies get translated from these languages. Nordic tongues have limited words, so any translation into English–that … Continue reading →