The Turning by Jennifer Armintrout
Fans of vampire novels should check out The Turning, the first novel in Jennifer Armintrout‘s Blood Ties series, an exciting and sexy addition to the genre.
Our heroine, Carrie, is a young doctor whose sire accidentally turns her into one of his kind during a fight in the hospital morgue. Carrie has little to leave behind in her mortal life. Her parents were cold in life and are now deceased, and she has no friends,
June 9th, 2007. Kelly Lasiter and John Hulet´s rating: 3.5 | Jennifer Armintrout | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo
Any book nowadays that has its main character be a young boy who suddenly discovers he has magical talent is, fair or not, going to be compared to the Harry Potter series. Add in a school for geniuses and those “endowed” with magical talents, a small cadre of mixed (talented and not-talented) friends to aid the main character, suspicious professors, and a missing presumed dead father and you’re almost asking for it. It might not be right, but at least so many people have read Harry Potter that it gives us all a solid baseline standard.
June 8th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | Jenny Nimmo | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Kushiel’s Chosen by Jacqueline Carey
Jacqueline Carey returns to the lush and decadent world of Terre d’Ange in Kushiel’s Chosen, sequel to the strange but beautiful Kushiel’s Dart, and produces a sequel that unfortunately doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor.
Our masochistic heroine, Phèdre, leaves behind her comfortable new life as a country countess when she begins to suspect that all is not well in Terre d’Ange. She believes that Melisande Shahrizai, from her hiding place in La Serenissima (Venice),
June 8th, 2007. Kelly Lasiter and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5, 4 | Jacqueline Carey | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
I was a fan of Brandon Sanderson’s first novel, Elantris, though the novel had some pretty clear flaws. I’m an even bigger fan of his follow-up, Mistborn, a book that has all the plusses of Elantris without the problems.
Mistborn takes places in an ashen, devastated world where the “Skaa” are a brutally downtrodden majority who do all the work for the aristocratic minority of the Great Houses,
June 7th, 2007. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5, 4, 5 | Brandon Sanderson | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Let’s not beat around the bush. Angie Sage has clearly been inspired by the world of HARRY POTTER, which makes it somehow impossible to review her work without comparing it to J.K. Rowling. Since Rowling’s phenomenal series exploded across the world of publishing, there has been an onslaught of pre-adolescent youngsters with magical powers and unusual names popping up in the children’s sections of bookstores and libraries everywhere. CHARLIE BONE. PERCY JACKSON. ARTEMIS FOWL. And now, Septimus Heap.
June 7th, 2007. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Angie Sage | Children | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
I don’t want to spoil the plot, as there are many twists lurking within this book, so I’ll just say this:
This is the best one yet.
Books 1 and 2 were occasionally intense, but mostly I liked them because they were hilarious. Book 3 was the one that really sucked me in, with its tightly woven, ever-twisting plot. Book 4 sprawled a bit too much but brought lots of romance and character development. Book 5, too, meandered far too much and lacked the comic relief that lightened earlier books,
June 6th, 2007. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | J.K. Rowling | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel’s Dart is the story of Phèdre, marked as a masochist by the angel of pain and punishment, and trained from youth as a courtesan and spy. The book follows her through her childhood and then the vicissitudes of one fateful year, in which Phèdre learns more about pain and love than she had ever dreamed possible. Tragedy strikes her comfortable life, and she is sold into slavery among the Skaldi (analogous to Vikings), and must use her talents and her wits to survive.
June 6th, 2007. Kelly Lasiter and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Jacqueline Carey | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Golden Compass (or, if you follow the British print-run, Northern Lights) is the first book of Philip Pullman‘s extraordinary, controversial, thought-provoking, fascinating, infuriating, allegorical trilogy His Dark Materials. Followed by The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, the books have a huge range of ideas and meanings; from exploring the bond between the body and soul, to denouncing modern religious practices, to retelling Milton’s Paradise Lost from a completely different point of view.
June 5th, 2007. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Philip Pullman | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Sabriel is one of the best fantasy books out there, full stop. Although not up to the deep literary analysis of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or Pullman’s His Dark Materials, it is a realistic, fantastical, intriguing and thought-provoking novel that’s right up there with the best of them. Garth Nix creates a dark, almost Gothic world that echoes with age and believability that is intoxicating to explore: the magically-imbued Old Kingdom that lies across the Wall from the more scientific-orientated Ancelstierre,
June 4th, 2007. Rebecca Fisher and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Garth Nix | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
THE SWORD OF TRUTH (books 1-10) by Terry Goodkind
Terry Goodkind’s first book, Wizard’s First Rule, was entertaining many years ago when I was a relatively new adult epic fantasy reader. Except for the actual First Rule (“People are Stupid”), which was… stupid. The story had some fascinating characters (mostly the secondary ones — I could never muster up much care for Kahlan) and Richard started out as a pretty good hero. The next couple of books of The Sword of Truth were also fun for someone who is not particularly demanding (which I wasn’t at the time).
June 3rd, 2007. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Terry Goodkind | SFF Reviews | 13 comments |
I picked my copy up last week and I can't wait to finish my current book and get started! I…
Gentlemen, I concur! (Forgive me for jumping into your convo)
The cover is amazing. I love how the graphic novel (and the review!) hewed close to the theme of "good…
I've thought about picking that one up. The artwork looks perfect.
I like the way you think, Bill. I found the second one particularly objectionable; the one with Khan. It was…