I loved Rekulak’s Hidden Pictures, so when I checked to see what else he’d written and discovered he’d penned a coming-of-age story in the 80s with characters who were exactly the same age I was in the year 1987, I had to check it out. And I LOVED it. The Impossible Fortress takes us into…
Category: The Book Shelf
Star Trek: The Joy Machine (1996) – James E. Gunn
James E. Gunn takes the original story treatment for The Joy Machine by Theodore Sturgeon, who gave us the TOS episodes Shore Leave and Amok Time, and turns it into a novel that feels very much like an Original Series episode. When a couple of Federation investigators disappear on a planet, one that Captain James…
Swan Song (1987) – Robert McCammon
I remember seeing the original cover for this paperback in a variety of book racks when I was a teen, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I didn’t recognize the name of Robert McCammon at the time, though since that time Boy’s Life has become one of my favourite books. I didn’t…
Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Ultimate Visual History (2017) – Michael Klastorin
I remember the first time I watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was 1984, it was my 13th birthday, I had read the fotonovel from the school library, was fascinated by the subject matter (I still am), and though I had seen the rubber toys in grocery stores when the film came out,…
Lords of Uncreation (2023) – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Orbit Books delivers the final book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Final Architecture Trilogy, and if you dug the first two, the space opera in the third is going to let you enjoy every page as Tchaikovsky wraps things up while delivering a fast-paced, highly enjoyable tale. The Architects, strange planet-shaped beings that appear from unspace,…
How to Sell a Haunted House (2023) Grady Hendrix
I have greatly enjoyed Grady Hendrix’s books so far, there are still a couple more for me to track down, and I’m willing to say How to Sell a Haunted House is one of his best. Combining a story of loss with a puppet that seems to be the equal of the clown doll in…
Undisclosed (2017) – Steve Alten
I want to believe. I’ve said it before on this blog and in my own personal life, I’ve been fascinated by the possibilities of what and who may be out there and the idea that maybe we’ve already been in contact with. Consequently, I’m aware of Steven Greer, a former emergency room doctor who has…
The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) – John Scalzi
John Scalzi knows how to tell a great story, and he proves it with The Kaiju Preservation Society, which is a thunderously enjoyable tale that gives us a fun and unique look at the horror/science fiction subgenre that is populated with stories of kaiju. Throwing nods to classic kaiju like Godzilla and newer ones like…
An Assassin in Utopia (2023) – Susan Wels
I occasionally find a non-fiction historical book that catches my interest, I’ll devour Erik Larson and Stephen B. Ambrose works voraciously, but when I read the blurb for Susan Wels’ An Assassin in Utopia, I had to add it to the list. Following historical events of the mid to late 19th century, Wels’ work centers…
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Encounter at Farpoint (1987) – David Gerrold
It says David Gerrold, but the wily, and brilliant sci-fi author actually allowed D.C. Fontana’s original work to take the center stage here, putting his name on it to allow it to get out. Fontana had originally been tapped to write the novelization, she wrote it, and then Gerrold was tapped to write it. He…
The Mind Reels 