Dec 23, 2024 | Babel, Best Books, Best Of 2024, book review, Book Reviews, Brandy Schillace, Discworld, fantasy, Feet of Clay, fine press, Horror, Kurt Vonnegut, limited edition, Max Allan Collins, Michael Crichton, Mickey7, mystery, Phantasia Press, Quarry, R.F. Kuang, sci-fi, science fiction, Signed Limited, small press, speculative fiction, Spoiler-Free, Terry Pratchett, THE FRAMED WOMEN OF ARDEMORE HOUSE, walter mosley
Best Books of 2024 TFF To-Read Festivus Guide comes to you just in time to place some last-minute literature at the feet of your metal pole, recently taken from out of the crawl space.
Here at TFF, we are especially focused on the fiction that transforms us all, this Solstice.
So Happy Yule, Happy Holly King, Welcome Father Christmas, or whichever legends you may observe ere the New Year of 2025* comes!
*At TFF we review newly released books and also books that have been released any year, so our ‘best of list’ contains what we found and loved this year, not necessarily what was published in 2024.
Feast your eyes, Eager Readers, The Best of 2024:
The Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot’s Mustache Equals Best Mystery Award goes to the THE FRAMED WOMEN OF ARDEMORE HOUSE by Brandy Schillace.
Few can intertwine classic golden age mystery tropes with modern fiction themes, both with myriad intriguing facets, like Dr. Schillace writes in this classic.
An excerpt from our review: The witty, charming, and intelligent [protagonist] Jo is thirsty for answers . . . And despite her difficulty overcoming a not-too-distant divorce with a husband that continually reminded her of her autism and her behavioral faux pas . . . she collects herself time and again and proves to be insightful, well-read, and courageous as she presses on. [ReadTFF.com]
The Ray Bradbury Award Winner For Best Speculative Fiction Likely To Blow The Doors Off Your Mind Palace goes to…R.F. Kuang for the novel BABEL.
This book is the one that moved me the most in the entire year of 2024.
I knew as soon as I read BABEL, it would make an indelible dent in my brain.
An excerpt from our review: If you are a fan of language or translation or history or great characters being challenged beyond your wildest prescient thoughts, then you must read this . . . As with many great stories – especially in the SFF-speculative fiction realm – the character’s path needs to resonate deeply, and Kuang’s protagonist Robin Swift does this while being utterly captivating. [ReadTFF.com]
The 1984: You Made Me Cry…Twice Award goes to Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass – it hurt so damn much.
If you want to buy any of the award-winning books, check them out here in my Bookshop.org List – I get a commission if you buy from there and monies are donated to local bookstores with each purchase:
The Red Death Award For A Work Most Likely To Keep You Too Terrified To Sleep Award goes to…THE CLUB DUMAS by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Sonia Soto (Translator).
I love bibliomysteries, but this one combines a historic evil, played out in brutal fashion, against the backdrop of New York City, Spain, Portugal, and the many twists of a previously unknown The Three Musketeers manuscript pages.
THE CLUB DUMAS is utterly unique, but be careful you do not lose yourself as you strive to unravel the book’s many strands.
The Michael Crichton You Better Check Your Technology At The Door Sci-fi Award goes to…TOUCHED by Walter Mosley.
The language from one of the world’s best authors is as sharp as it comes!
The Da Vinci Ornithopter Award For Best Small Press Publication goes to…both Hard Case Crime for THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins and Phantasia Press for Mickey7 by Edward Ashton.
Quarry is the villain we love to root for, and, hell, make him an ‘antihero’ he does not give a damn as to your labels. In this book, there is an outstanding display of character growth for the would-be-retired assassin.
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton was the first in a historic Phantasia Press relaunch, as the first fine press dedicated entirely to Sci-Fi-Fantasy returns in the 21st Century with a resounding BOOM and a gorgeous limited edition.
The Kurt Vonnegut Satiric Stylin’ Society Needs Kilgore Trout To Give It An Enema Award goes to…TIMEQUAKE by Kurt Vonnegut.
You will never read anything remotely like this novel – TIMEQUAKE is genius, but I know of no sane way to describe it to you.
Last, but not least, is the Inklings Award For Best Fantasy In Fiction is…FEET OF CLAY by Terry Pratchett.
The Discworld Series continues to daunt my dreams and haunt my, well for lack of a better word, daydreams, and, well, the point is these books are so bloody good, you want to keep reading more and more about Commander Vimes of the Night’s Watch and all of the plethora of fantastically, wonderful characters that contribute to the sludge that clings to the edge of the Disc.
FEET OF CLAY is an impactful classic on multiple fronts in the fantasy genre.
Here dear readers is the list of TFF Best Books of 2024:
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The Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot’s Mustache Equals Best Mystery Award
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The Ray Bradbury Award Winner For Best Speculative Fiction Likely To Blow The Doors Off Your Mind Palace
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The 1984: You Made Me Cry…Twice Award
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The Red Death Award For A Work Most Likely To Keep You Too Terrified To Sleep Award
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The Michael Crichton You Better Check Your Technology At The Door Sci-fi Award
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The Da Vinci Ornithopter Award For Best Small Press Publication x2
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Hard Case Crime for THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins
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Phantasia Press signed limited edition of Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
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The Kurt Vonnegut Satiric Stylin’ Society Needs Kilgore Trout To Give It An Enema Award
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Inklings Award For Best Fantasy In Fiction
Buy books here:
Happy New Year, Fictioneers!
Aug 12, 2024 | book review, Book Reviews, fine press, Mickey7, Phantasia Press, sci-fi, science fiction, SFF, Signed Limited, small press, Spoiler-Free
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton: historic Phantasia Press relaunch, as the first fine press dedicated entirely to Sci-Fi-Fantasy returns in the 21st Century with a resounding BOOM and a limited edition classic.
Science-fiction is often fun, but it is rarely so fun as to keep you laughing and clenching your stomach muscles as Mickey7 tries not to die.
Mickey is the only Expendable, a disposable employee that uses a synthetic copy of his body, on the entire human colonization mission to terraform the ice world Niflheim – and yes, there are giant bug-like alien neighbors that have not been thoroughly researched just yet.
Ashton brings a stark amount of humanity – wit and wry humor – to the character Mickey.
And that sense of the human quality is vital, because Mickey7 learns that his seven-time downloaded memories can inhabit not just one Expendable body at a time, but two.
Does he have two souls now? Or no soul? Or is he just a carbon copy of a soul, loosely downloaded and distributed on a barren rock of a planet?
I am reminded of two great authors when reading this novel: Robert Heinlein, especially Starship Troopers, and Joe Haldeman.
“Apparently three hours of training lectures aren’t enough to overcome a billion years of ingrained instinct for self-preservation.” ― Edward Ashton, Mickey7
If you like your sci-fi cooked well done with marbled laughs and a side of action and suspense, then Mickey7 will be very appetizing on the plate atop your tbr.
And if you want to hold the very embodiment of science fiction in your hands, then look no further than the Phantasia Press signed and numbered limited edition.
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, illustrated by Barclay Shaw from Phantasia Press.
Deep space colonization, interstellar ships, and then . . . shimmering on the never-before-seen distant horizon of an alien world is . . . a bright silvery-white, preternatural book.
From out of the legends of the twentieth century and the epic limited editions featuring the likes of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Stephen King, Phantasia Press stands tall as a jet black monolith and returns to us, readers, of the 21st Century earth!
The numbered limited edition of Mickey7 glitters and glints in light as the hot foil stamping and Metallium paper look and feel astounding in the hand.
Pictures do not do this book justice.
Every facet of the Phantasia Press Mickey7 highlights an extraordinary attention to detail that truly captures the soul of the story.
From the scintillating binding and slipcase, to the hexagon textured end-sheets, the previous iterations of Mickey6 and Mickey5 on the cover, and the great illustrations of Barclay Shaw, this book is an epic offering from the one and only Phantasia Press.
And there are a few copies left for sale at, of course, $177.77 USD here.
“Mickey7 by Edward Ashton: Historic Phantasia Press Relaunch” Was Written By R.J. Huneke.
Mar 21, 2024 | book review, Book Reviews, Centipede Press, DR. FUTURITY, fine press, Philip K. Dick, PKD, small press, Spoiler-ful, Spoilers
DR. FUTURITY by Philip K. Dick is an oft overlooked gem that delves deep into the history, psyche, religion, and realities tied to humanity.
This is one of PKD’s earliest novels and publications, and while many relegate this to atypical 1950s science-fiction, albeit with more style, Dick’s DR. FUTURITY not only unleashes a compelling narrative full of page-turning urgency, but there is vast profundity here.
Make no mistake, there are powerful metaphors – thinly veiled or blatantly announced on the page – that deeply questions the history and methodology of society.
For a sub-250-page sci-fi thriller, I was astounded by DR. FUTURITY.
As the title implies, time travel is the method for which this story moves.
Philip K. Dick wields time travel like a scalpel, it cuts efficiently and effectively.
The science is plausible and neither detracts from the plot, nor adds any superfluousness.
But what quickly becomes apparent is the startling depth to which Dr. Jim Parsons witnesses, questions, and philosophizes about the future of humankind.
The follow book review of DR. FUTURITY by Philip K. Dick contains SPOILERS**
Time travel in this context is a fun means to explore the many faults of patriarchal society that has so damaged and imprinted humanity that civilization is warped and struggling to atone for and recover from the wrongful subjugation of people for centuries upon centuries.
The hundreds of years of racism, colonialism, and enslavement that occurs to target women and anyone that is not white creates ripples throughout time that prove extremely difficult to undo.
To counter the periods of racist, patriarchal years, Parsons finds himself in a future matriarchal system that so values the future inhabitants of the world that there is a systemic ban on free will to procreate, or even to age.
They revere death, not unlike the Ancient Egyptians, and each of the young’s demise may lead to their seeds growing better future generations, literally.
As Parsons realizes the extent of the societal sickness, Dick writes: “And, underneath it all, the ethos of death. A system devoted to the extinction of the individual, for the sake of the future.”
Here is a brilliant critique of the patriarchal religions of Abraham and their emphasis on sacrificing individuality and even one’s own life to revel in the promise of a bright future for the next generation.
As Parsons tries and fails to save the people’s cryogenically frozen leader, it occurs to him that the leader’s own zealotry is his downfall.
“How close the idealist, with his fanatical passion, was to the mentally disturbed,” Parsons thinks, as Dick sends home the message.
The ravings of the zealots that wish to subjugate others, whether in active slavery, or in passive societal constraints on the individual, lead to dangerously warped futures, even ones where incest is a possible downfall.
In a clear and coherent time travel tale, Dick offers up a world-building of future realities that have the grit under the fingernails, the acrid smells that jar the characters on their journey.
And right at the top matching all of the critiques, is a blatant call to arms for all people to allow women the right to choose what they do with their bodies – and men as well, as they are sterilized without choice in this far future – and Dick praises the doctors and medical professionals that Dr. Jim Parsons represents.
So much so, that Parsons inspires his own children, born unbeknown to him in the future, to form an effective illegal group hellbent on giving the right to choose to everyone and it will prevail in future elections.
“The group distributed inflammatory propaganda, demanding the end of euthanors and a resumption of natural birth – and at the very least, the freedom of women to conceive and give birth, or to turn their zygote over . . . if they preferred. The element of choice.” [Philip K. Dick, DR. FUTURITY]
There is a flawed protagonist, in Parsons, in DR. FUTURITY, and there is a love story here involving him, as he was eons away from his wife.
And though the plot is not wholly unexpected in this book, the depth with which the main characters sheers modern society’s actions – in the past and in the future – is truly fresh, surprising, and impactful.
A note on the Centipede Press numbered edition of DR. FUTURITY:
As I previously reviewed The Cosmic Puppets by Philip K. Dick and its signed limited edition, it was one of the three books included in the CP boxed set, the second being DR. FUTURITY.
This book has a brilliant introduction by Michael Swanwick who candidly goes through Dick’s early life that led up to the writing of this book.
There are fantastic photos of the author himself, as well as the plethora of great book cover art that backed the title throughout the years.
The binding is full cloth with a foil stamped PKD signature on the front board, and the paper as well as the print quality is of the highest order.
“DR. FUTURITY By Philip K. Dick Is An Oft Overlooked Gem” Was Written By R.J. Huneke.
Dec 30, 2023 | Best Books, Best Books of 2023, book review, Book Reviews, fine press, small press, Spoiler-Free
Best Books of 2023: the TFF To-Read Guide kicks off an inaugural tradition of Winter Solstice book review wonderment and reading highlights to recap some of the incredibly fun works of fiction we have reviewed this year, and also to mention many bright authors we found this year, in 2023, whose light has further emblazoned fiction, even if we have not yet written a review of their books.
Who does not love a ‘Best Of’ list, especially for books?
TFF To-Read Guide Winter Solstice 2023! All Hail the Holly King!
The following will lean on The Forgotten Fiction’s many deserved book reviews from the past year, and are entirely subjective, being put forward by TFF’s managing editor, namely me.
This will be as unconventional and engaging a series of lists as can be arranged.
At TFF we review newly released books and also books that have been released in years prior to 2023, so our ‘best of list’ contains what we found and loved this year, not necessarily what was published this year.
To be honored by the fiction gods in any year is a reason to rejoice!
So place your heads on the Green Knight’s proverbial chopping block, if you will, and prepare to sacrifice a drop of blood – Ow* that hurt! – to his neck-nicking axe in celebration of fictitious truth, as Sir Gaiwan did.
First, I want no feelings hurt if your books do not make a list here: if you write or read fiction, you are awesome and are to be commended, thank you, beautiful people, because your promotion of the art helps makes the world a bit brighter.
Without further ado, here are the year’s best-of lists from TFF:
Author Ray Bradbury and his wife Maggie at their home in Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles
The Ray Bradbury Award Winner For Best Speculative Fiction Likely To Blow The Doors Off Your Mind Palace goes to…Alix E. Harrow for the novel The Ten Thousand Doors of January.
This book is extraordinary in every sense of the word.
The prose is vivid, the story poignant and oh so moving, and the characters invoke tears of joy and loss that leaves you reeling.
Bradbury said, you must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you, and this writing by Alix E. Harrow truly invokes that kind of reality-proof power!
Coincidentally, The Ten Thousand Doors of January also wins the 1984: You Made Me Cry…Twice Award, and that does not often happen to me (Orwell always gets me though, which is why I do not reread 1984 every year).
The Red Death Award For A Work Most Likely To Keep You Too Terrified To Sleep Award goes to…Philip Fracassi for his novel Boys In The Valley.
The blast of the winter storm in this book will chill your bones!
But do not fret, because the amount of blood spilled in the turn-of-the-century Catholic orphanage is more than enough to warm your hands.
The writing is top-notch, the story is one for the ages, and the events that unfold within the tale bring up just enough flashbacks to The Exorcist that you will hide under your covers shaking.
The Michael Crichton You Better Check Your Technology At The Door Sci-fi Award goes to…Blake Crouch for Upgrade.
This is phenomenal science fiction, and the evolution of DNA manipulation and self-imposed bio-hacking makes for new frontiers in this one.
The pace is furiously fast, thrilling, and thrash-metal-like in its loud challenges to many aspects of society and civilization in a fun new way that builds on Huxley’s Brave New World.
The Da Vinci Ornithopter Award For Best Small Press Publication goes to…Earthling Publications for their incredible signed limited edition of INSPECTION by Josh Malerman.
This is a book that is so awe-inspiring you fear to open it, because it may melt off your face a la the Ark of the Covenant.
There is no title on the cover, no author name, no letters of any kind.
The sleek, stark red leather sets a mood and the eye is drawn in to where a line of children stand, black silhouettes stamped into the cover, awaiting their inspections.
This coming-of-age genre bender from Malerman is a powerful and moving work that examines humanity at its core.
And as Inspection is a work of art, so too is this jaw-dropping edition from Paul Miller of Earthling, and I am deeply grateful to have gotten my dragon-hoarding claws on one.
The Kurt Vonnegut Satiric Stylin’ Society Needs Kilgore Trout To Give It An Enema Award goes to…Chuck Palahniuk for his novel Not Forever, But For Now.
The joeys that survive this tale will not ever want to come out of their kangaroo mums’ pouches again.
This brilliant work of fiction pushes boundaries well beyond their breaking points.
The ability to make readers despise a main character, abhor them, and then become not only invested, but rooting for that protagonist-antagonist (who the hell knows which it is), despite the epic fallout they may bring about is truly remarkable.
This also takes home the Award For Best Use Of A Hearing Aid In A Work Invoking An Outstanding British Dialect and the Harpo Marx Laugh Until You Snot Comedy In Prose Award.
Last, but not least is the Inklings Award For Best Fantasy In Fiction …goes to Kat Howard for the novel A Sleight Of Shadows.
Kat Howard’s writing is pure magic.
A Sleight Of Shadows is the second book in Kat Howard’s The Unseen World duology, following up the Edgar-award winning An Unkindness of Magicians.
Rarely do so many characters come off the pages with such a presence.
The world is very much rooted in our own, but the magic of these magicians and the immersive imagining of New York City in the Unseen World they inhabit is so alive, so unexpected, and so much more then it lets on.
When the bone trees sprout up near Central Park’s solitary island moaning with the voices of dead magicians long gone, readers are brought over the threshold into something new and wonderful.
Here dear readers is the list of TFF Best Books of 2023:
- The Ray Bradbury Award Winner For Best Speculative Fiction Likely To Blow The Doors Off Your Mind Palace
- The Red Death Award For A Work Most Likely To Keep You Too Terrified To Sleep Award
- The Michael Crichton You Better Check Your Technology At The Door Sci-fi Award
- The Da Vinci Ornithopter Award For Best Small Press Publication
- Earthling Publications signed limited edition of INSPECTION by Josh Malerman
- The Kurt Vonnegut Satiric Stylin’ Society Needs Kilgore Trout To Give It An Enema Award
- Inklings Award For Best Fantasy In Fiction
Happy New Year, Fictioneers!
Nov 1, 2023 | book review, Book Reviews, Dark Matter, fine press, sci-fi, science fiction, small press, Spoiler-Free, Suntup Editions
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch forges great sci-fi, as a 21st century high point of transformative art continues the tradition of science miracles having a very good and very bad fallout.
Dark Matter provides a visceral thrill ride empowered by science the way Michael Crichton’s work has for decades.
I do not throw around the name of Crichton often, because no one is quite like the late author, the scientist-teacher-turned novelist.
But Crouch in his own brilliant way reminds me of him.
The Following Book Review of Dark Matter by Blake Crouch is Spoiler-Free.
“Are you happy with your life?”
Those are the last words Jason hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious, and he wakes in another world, another reality, exactly like his own except for where he made a fundamentally different life choice that drastically altered his life and those of his loved ones.
Would the science he had given up come to change the course of time?
Or times?
These are not spoilers.
This is just how you get thrown into a story that is every bit as much an intimate lovers’ voyage, as it is a spine-rattling suspense thriller.
Genres are, like rules, made to be smashed, chopped up and baked into a wholesome and delicious culinary innovation.
And so too does the vision of Crouch cook up the best parts of sci-fi, thriller, fantasy, a sprinkling of horror, and a love story into a unique and infamous warning of what tampering with alternate timelines might be like for those equipped with dark matter in the near (or far) future.
I love this book.
It evokes many of the best traits from what I consider to be the pinnacle of time travel fiction, Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity.
Most if not all of the time travel medium, in films, video games, comic books, and novels lift ideas and tropes from Asimov, but Dark Matter takes it all a lot further and also gets very specific with the fringe science theories and experiments with time and matter.
At the heart is a man who loves his wife, Daniela, has his reality and their life together taken from him, and must work with a future science he never invented to try and right the wrongs.
“Last night, I set out to answer a simple question: Where is Daniela . . . This is not my world. Even as those five words cross my mind, I’m not exactly certain what they mean, or how to begin to consider their full weight.” [DARK MATTER, pg. 118, B. Crouch]
Dark Matter continues to blow my mind after each read.
To give this extraordinary book the treatment it deserves, Suntup Editions strove to encompass this classic with a gorgeous signed-numbered limited edition.
The spine is goatskin and feels so soft and smooth.
And since the story deals with alternate realities, what better way to show that than to have three different bradel-bound numbered versions, purple, green, and blue, and then randomly send them to the 350 owners upon release.
They are all great to hold, with a brilliant sheen to the thick cloth covers and the minimalism evokes less is more.
I wanted and was thrilled to get the purple cover.
Unique to the edition is an introduction by another favorite author and one of the most innovative voices of 21st century sci-fi Andy Weir, and he, crouch, and artist Clarcq each signed the book.
All of these Suntup editions are so well made and fit Dark Matter’s story so well!
Suntup made a limited artist edition and a lettered edition as well, and the art that Hilary Clarcq brought makes this tale come alive in an exciting way.
“Dark Matter by Blake Crouch Forges Great Sci-Fi” Was Written By R.J. Huneke.
May 25, 2023 | book review, Book Reviews, Earthling Publications, fine press, Horror, INSPECTION, Josh Malerman, small press, Spoiler-Free
INSPECTION by Josh Malerman is an unremitting classic, as is the signed limited edition of the novel by Earthling Publications.
The thing about INSPECTION that is so unnerving is that it is entirely plausible.
The main character J is one of twenty-six twenty-four Alphabet Boys growing up in a school where their adopted father, D.A.D., and his Inspectors and staff have withheld the very existence of the female gender from the boys their entire lives so that they are “undistracted” in pursuit of academic and artistic greatness.
This book is a new favorite of mine! INSPECTION is visceral, poignant, moving, and frightening, and, man oh man, that ending packs a wallop!
The world-building, the characters, the prose could not be woven together better, like a song, or be more impactful.
“Oh, J knew the inspections were for his own good.” [INSPECTION, Josh Malerman, p.86]
That very line sends a shiver up my spine.
If a boy fails a daily inspection to the point where they are dubbed “rotten”, then they will be sent to The Corner, an infamous, hidden place from which two of their brothers have gone but never returned.
That threat is nearly as ingrained as some of the specifics it is wrapped in by D.A.D. – the diseases that disobeying can bring – and therein, the need for Inspections, for every day of their twelve-year-old lives.
The boys are even fed books crafted to them to teach specific lessons and to be devoid of any female terminology.
In a world where so many struggle and generations of youth have to learn history in schools where books are banned and/or censored into incoherence, the brilliant and twisted premise of Malerman’s INSPECTION borders on prescience.
And you will not be able to put this book down.
Earthling Publications’ signed limited edition of INSPECTION by Josh Malerman is an innovative marvel that captures the soul of the book, art reflecting art.
I imagine Josh Malerman must have felt a thrill jolt through him as he first held the Earthling S/L in his hands.
There is no dust jacket. No word on the book’s cover. And it is all the more stunning because of that.
The Earthling INSPECTION has every minute facet of the tale highlighted perfectly.
The cover is a “D.A.D. red leather jacket” Skyvertex covering, and there from front to spine to back are the black silhouettes of the Alphabet Boys waiting in line for their inspection.
It such a dramatic display.
The endpapers are the actual notebook pages that Warren Bratt printed with his hand-written story where “the woman” enters.
I mean, wow!
This is powerful, as are the brilliant illustrations of Patrick Arrasmith, the fantastic foreword by Jonathan Maberry, and both of them sign alongside Josh Malerman in this numbered edition of 235 (there was a lettered edition of 15).
The paper is bright, smells delicious, and boldly displays the text on 80# Finch interior papers that are held in a Smyth sewn binding.
Earthling is top-notch, even raising the bar they have set for themselves with INSPECTION.
“INSPECTION By Josh Malerman Is An Unremitting Classic” Was Written By R.J. Huneke.
