Month: December 2007

Fire and Hemlock: DWJ’s most complex and subtle novel

Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones

Fire and Hemlock is possibly Diana Wynne Jones’ most complex and subtle novel, and it’s certainly not for the younger readers who’ve enjoyed her most famous work, the Chrestomanci novels. It is most basically described as a retelling of the Tam Lin/Thomas the Rhymer ballads, set in 1980’s England over a nine-year period. Needless to say, it is dense and complicated, filled with hidden meaning, metaphor and symbolism where two threads of life are wound together to make an intricate whole.

The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2007

The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2007

In many ways, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2007 anthology is a difficult book to review. For one thing, to me and a lot of my reading/writing circle, this is easily the definitive bible when it comes to short stories of the genre. For another, many of the stories that are included in this collection have been featured in other anthologies as well, so there’s an overlap in terms of stories featured. But I’ll try and talk about what makes this anthology unique from other similar anthologies.

December 30th, 2007. Charles Tan (GUEST)´s rating: 4 | Catherynne M. Valente, Daniel Abraham, Delia Sherman, Elizabeth Hand, Ellen Datlow, Garth Nix, Jeffrey Ford, Kelly Link, Kij Johnson, Lisa Tuttle, Ted Chiang | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Centre of Magic: Floramonde is a real treasure

The Centre of Magic by Pamela Freeman

The Centre of Magic is the final in the three Floramonde books, beginning with The Willow Tree’s Daughter which told of the love between King Max of Floramonde and Salixia, the dryad of the willow tree, their child Princess Betony and her romance with the gardener’s boy Basil. In Windrider we learnt of the chance Betony was offered by the dragon Windrider to “put down roots” and become a dryad herself,

The Sword-Edged Blonde: Bledsoe is a natural storyteller

The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bledsoe

A foaming tankard for public libraries. If mine hadn’t featured Alex Bledsoe‘s engrossing debut novel, The Sword-Edged Blonde, I doubt I’d have ever discovered it.

Granted, I only discovered it because of the quasi-garish cover and title (neither of which has much to do with the actual story), picking it up just to shake my head at one more piece of fantasy trash. But then I read the cover blurbs from Charles de Lint and Orson Scott Card,

December 30th, 2007. Rob Rhodes, Kat Hooper and Greg Hersom´s rating: 4 | Alex Bledsoe | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |

Wicked Lovely: Superior to Twilight

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

This is just the sort of faery novel I’ve been missing. Who knew I needed to be looking in the young-adult section?

Wicked Lovely is adapted from one of my favorite off-the-beaten-path fairy tales, a Scottish tale of the turning seasons. In it, the Winter Queen attempts to prolong the cold season by keeping the Summer King and his bride from marrying and coming into their full power. Melissa Marr‘s version features a Winter Queen who has diminished the Summer King’s power permanently,

The Last Battle: “Further Up and Further In!”

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

Say what you will about the correct reading order of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, one thing is certain — The Last Battle needs to be read last. It is not simply because it was written and published last in the series, that it clears up all loose ends in the previous installments and leaves no possible room for any sequels, but because it will change your entire understanding and perception of the last six books. Do what you like with the other books’ reading order,

Clan Daughter: Weak follow-up

Clan Daughter by Morgan Howell

After reading King’s Property, the first book in the Orc series, I could see a lot of room for improvement.

The main character, Dar, was really hard to enjoy reading about and she was just a little too lucky a little too often for my taste.

Book two… Wow, can you say “more of the same”? And 80% of the book is a boring journey which sets the stage for interspecies love and actions on the part of the Orc mothers that totally contradicts everything we have been told about them.

December 28th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 2.5 | Morgan Howell | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Divine by Mistake: Flunked the Finish-able Book Test

Divine by Mistake by P.C. Cast

I was not able to finish Divine by Mistake. It flunked the Finish-able Book Test, which means that if I put it down for a couple of days and find no desire to pick it back up, I don’t bother wasting my time.

Shannon, a schoolteacher from Oklahoma, gets zapped by magic into the mythical world of Partholon, where she ends up worshipped as a priestess, married to an attractive shapeshifter, and embroiled in a war with the truly nasty and evil Fomorians.

December 26th, 2007. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 0.1 | P.C. Cast | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Song of Albion: A Pleasant Surprise!

THE SONG OF ALBION by Stephen Lawhead

My husband bought me the The Song of Albion trilogy because Lawhead is a Christian and he thought I should try some “Christian” fantasy. I’m a Christian, but I was reluctant. I tend to avoid Christian fantasy and, until recently, Christian music. If Christians are going to contribute to the arts (or science, or anything else), we need to make sure that our contributions are excellent. We can’t sacrifice the quality of the work just to promote a message. Christian music used to be just awful,

December 21st, 2007. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Stephen Lawhead | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Nightbirds on Nantucket: A rich and exciting read

Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken

When we last saw Dido Twite at the end of Black Hearts in Battersea she was going down with the Dark Dew ship, swept away from her friends Simon and Justin in the middle of the ocean. Whilst the two boys were forced to go on without her (eventually preventing an assassination attempt on the Duke of Battersea), Dido’s fate remained a mystery, that Joan Aiken now resolves for expectant readers in the third book in her Wolves Saga.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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