Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: September 2008

The Thief’s Gamble: Unpolished potential

The Thief’s Gamble by Juliet McKenna

The Thief’s Gamble is a difficult book to review. The difficulty arises primarily from the same thing that my lukewarm 3-star rating does: the uneven, jam-packed narrative and the periodic confusion that it caused. The narrative is really three-fold: (1) the main story, as seen through the eyes of Livak, a tough, lucky female thief who stumbles into a quest for artifacts that may somehow be linked to a lost race and new kind of magic; (2) near-simultaneous events occurring elsewhere, told from a third-person viewpoint but focusing on an irritating,

September 30th, 2008. Rob Rhodes´s rating: 3 | Juliet McKenna | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Way of Shadows: Still in the rough draft stage

The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks

In the back-alley slums of Cenaria, a guild rat named Azoth hopes to survive by becoming the apprentice of Durzo Blint, who is the best of the wetboys — the most elite of assassins. To do this he must unquestioningly follow Durzo’s every command, accept that life — anyone’s life — is worthless, and forget everyone he knew in his old life. He must become Kylar Stern: gentleman by day, stone-cold killer by night. Though Azoth doesn’t know it, as Kylar he is destined for much bigger things.

September 30th, 2008. Greg Hersom and John Hulet´s rating: 2.5 | Brent Weeks | SFF Reviews | no comments |

A Giant Problem: Characters have improved

A Giant Problem by Holly Black

In A Giant Problem, the second book of the sequel/spin-off to the original The Spiderwick Chronicles, we meet up again with our two protagonists: stepsiblings Nick (surly and portly) and Laurie (dreamy and cunning), who are getting along reasonably well in the wake of their discoveries in the previous book The Nixie’s Song.

Having allied themselves with the half-blind and near-senile Noseeum Jack (this book’s version of wise-but-dotty Aunt Lucinda) the two are learning all they can about the awakening giants that are threatening their parents’

Matters of the Blood: Urban fantasy without the “urban”

Matters of the Blood by Maria Lima

Maria Lima rings some refreshing changes on the urban-fantasy formula in Matters of the Blood. The two most striking departures from cliché, to my mind, are the heroine’s age (37, rather than early twenties), and the story’s vividly-drawn rural-Texas setting. I loved the locale. Lima does a great job of making the lonely town of Rio Seco real to the reader.

Our heroine, Keira Kelly, comes from a long supernatural line; there’s a brief passage that suggests she’s one of the Sidhe.

September 29th, 2008. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Maria Lima | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Kelly Chats with Justin Gustainis

Recently I spoke with Justin Gustainis, author of Quincey Morris Supernatural Investigation: Black Magic Woman. Mr Gustainis’s second QUINCEY MORRIS novel, Evil Ways, will be released on Dec 30, 2008. Don’t miss my review of Black Magic Woman.

Kelly: Why Quincey Morris? That is, how did you come up with the idea of making your hero a descendant of Stoker’s character, and why that particular Stoker character?

Justin Gustainis: I’ve always thought that Quincey Morris got pretty short shrift in Stoker’s original novel.

September 26th, 2008. Kelly Lasiter | Justin Gustainis | Author Interviews | no comments |

Nights of Sin: A trip through the darker avenues of magic

Nights of Sin by Matthew Cook

First, a confession: I haven’t actually read Blood Magic, the novel that precedes Nights of Sin. However, kudos to Matthew Cook for never letting me get lost. Everything I needed to know was provided to me, and in a way that flowed naturally with the story rather than feeling infodumpy.

Nights of Sin begins with a harrowing description of Kirin, the heroine, attempting to shepherd her lover, Lia,

September 23rd, 2008. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Matthew Cook | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Midnight Never Come: Glittering courts

Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan

Midnight Never Comeis the story of two courts, and of two courtiers who must uncover a deadly secret that threatens both mortal and faerie England. Lune is a disgraced lady of the faerie court, trying to win her way back into the good graces of the cruel Queen Invidiana. Michael Deven is a young gentleman of Elizabeth I’s retinue, working with Elizabeth’s spymaster Walsingham to sniff out a “hidden player” in English politics. Neither is quite prepared for what they discover.

Marie Brennan has a lovely,

September 21st, 2008. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4.5 | Marie Brennan | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Chalice: Beauty and the Beast for young adults

Chalice by Robin McKinley

A beautiful fairytale for the YA reader, Chalice is a very loose reinterpretation of a Beauty and the Beast story. Mirasol is a beekeeper who is forced to become the Chalice for her demesne after the previous Chalice and Master are killed in an accident. Her role is to bind her abused land back together and to the new Master, a Priest of Fire, a being who isn’t quite human and can burn both the land and human flesh with the barest touch.

Midnight Over Sanctaphrax: Better than first, not as good as second

Midnight Over Sanctaphrax by Paul Stewart

Midnight Over Sanctaphrax falls into the middle of the first three books of the series. While Twig’s character is enlarged upon and other interesting ones added, the book falls too easily into the same episodic nature of the first book, where one peril follows closely upon another with none of them ever explored in enough depth so that they truly feel dangerous or suspenseful.

The nature of the basic plot, Twig searching for his lost crew after his skyship explodes and hurls them in different directions,

The Tale of Krispos: Fairly enjoyable alternate history

THE TALE OF KRISPOS by Harry Turtledove

The opening chapter of The Tale of Krispos really sucked me in. There is realism, which I’m always a fan of, and there are hardly any wasted words. At least that’s how it is at first — but more on that later. Harry Turtledove does a great job of describing what is going on by working the information you need into the narrative in natural ways rather than just straight-out telling you certain facts.

The three books that make up The Tale of Krispos — Krispos Rising,

September 12th, 2008. Guest´s rating: 3.5 | Harry Turtledove | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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